Man in our imange. More then one God? (Jerusalem, gospel, bible)
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Then God said, "Let Us make man in OUR image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Genesis 1:27
I've often wondered abou this verse. In this context God is stating that he AND someone else maybe more created man. I've always believed that anything is possible even that the Christian God is real. This verse is impling that God had help or took part in it with someone else. Maybe God is just one of many who wants humans to worship ONLY him. So he sepratede himself from the rest of the Gods & crowned himself the one & only true God.
Good question, one I've often pondered myself. But, I think God was talking to the spritual Jesus and the Holy Ghost.
Of course, when you read the Ten Commandments, God says, "you shall have no other Gods before me" { implying more than one }
Quote:
Originally Posted by reed067
Those are all aspects of God not individials.
Thats up for debate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
One more proof that Jesus is God.
I've had this argument with my Christian familymembers several times, and if you read the Bible, it is clear that jesus is not God. Was Jesus praying to himself when he prayed? Not to mention the droves of versus where Jesus refers to the Father, or His Father.
It can easily be interpreted that God and Jesus are "as one" but they are not one in the same.
John's mystical references to Jesus as helping in Creation are based on traditional views of Wisdom, personified as a feminine being that is desirable to possess. Her story can be found in places like Proverbs, which pictures her as Lady Wisdom crying out to passersby to come lodge with her, rather than with Dame Folly. Contrary to some HORRIBLE translations, the pronouns used are feminine. It should be obvious why some translators removed such pronouns.
Look, Wisdom calles out,
and Discernment lifts her voice.
At the top of the heights, on the way,
at the crossroads, she takes her stand,
by the gates, at the city's entrance,
at the approach to the portals, she shouts:
To you, men, I call you,
and my voice, to humankind.
(Proverbs 8:1-4, Alter)
Christians take the following imagery and apply it to Jesus (probably because of John's mystical writing), but Jesus is not the one who was with God at Creation.
The LORD [Yahweh] created me at the outset of His way,
the very first of His works of old.
In remote eons I was shaped,
at the start of the first things of earth.
When there were no deeps I was spawned,
when there were no wellsprings, water-sources.
Before mountains were anchored downl
before hills I was spawned.
He had not yet made the earth and open land,
and the world's first clods of soil.
When He founded the heavens, I was there,
when He traced a circle on the face of the deep,
when He propped up the skies above,
when He powered the spings of the deep,
when He set to the sea its limit,
that the waters not flout His command,
when He strengthened the earth's foundations,
And I was by Him, an intimatem
I was His delight day after day,
playing before Him at all times,
playing in the world, His earth,
and my delight with humankind....
Happy the man who listens to me,
to wait at my doors day after day,
to watch the posts of my portals.
For who finds me has found life,
and will be favored by the LORD.
And who offends me lays waste his life,
all who hate me love death.
(Proverbs 8:22-31, 34-36)
This is only one of many references to Lady Wisdom in the books of the Bible. It is decidedly feminine. It is easy to see how the idea of a feminine being alongside God during Creation could be twisted to apply to Jesus. It's obviously not Jesus, but there are plenty of people who willfully ignore the many references to a personified female Wisdom and cleave instead to John's Hymn - the latter having confused many Christians for thousands of years now.
You can add this to the insights of the Original Poster, and hopefully this thread can reach the interesting heights that it has the possibility of doing.
Now, if you'll excuse me - I have to grab my mandolin and go woo a certain Lady.
Looking back before christ I believe there was some kind of God war. It reads that way. For some reason a lot of people don't go back before christ, if they did I think they'd have a different view of the history of God, Gods. History helps with perspective, IMO.
Good post!
Quote:
Originally Posted by QuixoticHobbit
Nope, it's actually very simple...
It says WE and OUR because the creation myth in Genesis was plagiarized off of the earlier creation tale recorded in the Enuma Elish, an earlier Mesopotamian myth which involved a team of individual Gods rather just one. The Hebrews were originally polytheists and borrowed heavily from those earlier religious texts and Gods, including the myth of the global flood, etc. However when the Hebrews' monotheistic cult of Yahweh later gained power they had to rewrite their holy book to reflect the new monotheistic mythology and its "one true god". They slipped up on a few of the details...
Good post, as well - though I wouldn't call it "plagiarism". You are correct that out of their polytheism, monotheism eventually sprouted. The Genesis 1 account that resembles Enuma Elish, however, has definite anti-Enuma Elish themes. The writer actively attempts to demythologize the story - the sun and moon are not named to avoid associating them as gods, there is no titanic struggle in the beginning, etc. The differences are what makes it polemical. The writer, in trying to rewrite the past (as you noted) attempts to remove much of the Israelite's mythology, which is still found in much of it's poetry.
Besides that, there seems to have been a common West-Semitic story of a Creator God vs a Sea Dragon - so it would have been a common tradition, not just a direct ripoff of Enuma Elish.
Just some FYI but quoting scriptures in the bible isn't helping your cause.
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