Was Abraham a Unitarian?

2KnowHim

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To me the image of Course is Himself, it is His Word/Logos, He is The Spirit of Truth, in His Word is His Identity.
And this Image is In Us, and we are to bare Witness of this....

Joh 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
Joh 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
Joh 15:27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

The reason being, so that His Word/Truth/Identity should have Preeminence in The Earth through us His vessels.

Identity

The distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity
The individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known
An operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates
Exact sameness

All of this leads into the soul/life of one laying down for another or Covenant Relationship.
Soul for Soul, Life for Life.

Mat 16:25 For whosoever will save his life/soul shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life/soul for my sake shall find it.
Mat 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul/life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul/life?

 
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1213

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In Genesis 20:13 our translations have Abraham saying to Abimelech,

"God caused me to wander."

But the Hebrew literally says,

"The Gods caused me to wander."


The word "elohim" is always governed by the verb. If the verb is singular the word elohim is singular. But if the verb is plural the word elohim is plural. The verb is plural in Genesis 20:13. So the word elohim is plural. Abraham said, "The Gods caused me to wander."...

Actually Bible speaks about many gods. Maybe Elohim means them?

God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.
Psalms 82:1

I said, "You are gods, All of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you shall die like men, And fall like one of the rulers."
Psalms 82:6-7

Now it happened on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.
Job 1:6

It happened, when men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, that God's sons saw that men's daughters were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of all that they chose.
Genesis 6:1-2

I believe Elohim means the only one true God. And I don’t think Abraham meant that gods caused him to wander.
 
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Hoshiyya

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You guys keep translating Elohim as "gods", when even the English word "god" has a wide expanse of meaning, from small tree-gods, with little to no cult and little to no power, to humanoid gods with large cult followings and who occasionally even approximate omnipotence. The word itself does not tell us whether an entity is popularly worshipped or at all powerful, it simply tells us the entity is considered in some sense supernatural, or even a personified natural force / phenomenon.

As for Elohim, stop being philosophical about it, and start getting philological about it. An objective study will show it basically can mean any supernatural entity (at least from the level of an angel, and up).


The Elohim (as plural) can thus mean the assembly of the angels, in whose image we are made. God does not have a form, so if we are made in the form of anyone, it would be the angels.

An Elohim (singular) is also a perfectly grammatical construction, referring to for example one angel.
 
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Demetrius194

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Hi there!

What can resolve the argument is if you read chapter 18 of Genesis, where THREE men come to Abraham, whom (all three of them) the Bible calls the "LORD" (in Western translations). Of course, it is a bad argument in the eyes of those who WANT to hear that God is unitarian. What you seek you will always "find".
 
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Berean777

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How many scholars believe Moses actually authored Genesis though? If he wasn't the author then the language he spoke/read wouldn't come into play.

I believe it was written in cuneiform form that was based on concrete functional language rather than the abstract languages of today.

For example:

Tomorrow is behind of me
Yesterday is in front of me

At first the concrete language doesn't make sense to today's readers. But if read intuitively you can look at it from a functional point of view. That is to tomorrow is behind me, meaning in a functional position where the eyes can't see it coming and yesterday is in front of me because it can be seen by the eyes because the events have already unfolded and been witnessed.

There are ancient language researchers who have uncovered and unlocked a lot of mysteries in how people wrote and understood texts compared to today's abstract language. They would look at language as functional related to process documentation, rather than using adjectives or describing what things looked like. Especially in the case of Genesis, we are not even told what Adam and Eve looked like. You would think that the writer documenting what they looked like would be important. But functional concrete language is not interested in describing things (adjectives). In that language adjectives were mute.
 
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Berean777

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If we use the word Elohim to translate it to Gods as a functional usage of the language, then what comes to mind?

and it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's house

It would rendered "when my God onto my God caused me to wander"

In the same language structure that King David used of my Lord said onto my Lord.

Functionality points there being a hierarchy from one person down to another, where both personalities or persona's are the one God.

It follows that Abraham is receiving a message passed down to him from God to God that is person to person of that one infinite substance/being who is the one God. So Moses was receiving his message from the designated interpretor who is the Living Word. Moses writes it down the way Abraham portrays the functionality of two persons parsing down instruction.

This further John 5:30 states I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

It follows that the Gods spoken in plural is from the top hierarchy of the trinity, the Father down to the Living Word, who then decimates the message in understandable byte sizes down to Abraham. The second in command God, the Living Word even dined in Abraham's tent.
 
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Notrash

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I believe the tri-unity was preimaged in the lives and experiences of Abraham (Father) Isaac(son/Jesus) and Jacob/Israel (th changed of the holy Spirit) See Ps 105:1-10 & Rom 9:5-23.

A second pre-imagery is in Jesse/David/Solomon. See Rev 21:? I am the root and offspring of David. He Jesus is also David. Here the tri-unity is expressed.

There may be a third representation in tge pr-flood world with Noah and Lamech being involved but the 3rd party is unclear.

Is this possibly what Abraham was referring to by 'gods'.

Did God hive him an early understanding of the triunity?

Did he understand that when God said that his spirit would not always (forever) strive with (against) man that he intended that one day his spirit would strive from within man after 120 yrs....I.E....after the remaking of the world by water and after remaking the world of the law of moses (another 120 yr) by blood
 
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redleghunter

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The original texts were not written in Hebrew. But in Ancient scholarly Egyptian. The language had no single version when referring to gods so every reference to God was plural. Later Hebrew writings corrected this to singular. I wouldn't bet the farm on the grammar if I was you.

The Paleo Hebrew was closer to Philistine/Canaanite.
 
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Commander Xenophon

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The original texts were not written in Hebrew. But in Ancient scholarly Egyptian. The language had no single version when referring to gods so every reference to God was plural. Later Hebrew writings corrected this to singular. I wouldn't bet the farm on the grammar if I was you.

Define "scholarly Egyptian." Do you mean Demotic, Hieratic, what?
 
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