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LDS The 'beginning' of God in Mormonism

dzheremi

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Those are some very weird and nonsensical questions, fatboys. The presupposition behind them seems to be that God experiences time and existence as we do, whereby He would 'gain' knowledge (despite already possessing all of it, as you say), and 'know' that slamming your finger in a door hurts, and that this knowledge is what gives Him the 'right' to judge us.

To tie it in with BigDaddy4's link, it would seem that the Mormon religion is incapable or unwilling to distinguish between the Creator and the created. As per the link: "God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them."

So even the (supreme? first?) God of Mormonism, the one who gave the law to the 'weaker intelligences', nonetheless advanced to that position by the accumulation of power, glory, and intelligence.

Perhaps this theology is at the root of questions like yours, fatboys, but from a Christian perspective they are wildly inappropriate and strange. The god revealed in those questions is not the almighty Pantocrator of Christianity, who rules over all, is the creator and just judge of everything, and is forever perfect and lacking in nothing.
 
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NYCGuy

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It is very interesting to see how some Mormons are claiming that God had to learn something to know something, while Christians claim that God knows something because, being God, He has always known something, even all things. He doesn't need to learn or experience something to know it.

And of course Christians believe that Jesus on earth, being fully God and fully man, could indeed learn and progress in His humanity, while in His Godhood, He didn't have to.

The Mormon deity is sounding...limited.
 
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Peter1000

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But again, how did he not come from anywhere, if he himself had a father, who had a father, etc.? That's what doesn't make sense. You're saying that he didn't come from anywhere as though it should be self-evident, but at the same time you're establishing him as one in a supposedly endless line of 'god the fathers' who themselves had fathers. So it's really not the same.
So the question should be: Is there really a first father?

The answer to that question is the same answer that you should have given, when I ask you where the 1 God came from.

The answer for both questions is: We don't know. The scriptures do not give us this information. The closest NT scripture that touches on it is Revelations 4:8 which says that the Lord God 'is, was, and is to come'.

There is also another interesting scripture about Jesus:
Read Acts 8:33
33 In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.

Who shall declare his generation? IOW who knows how Jesus was generated or came into existence?

So the scriptures are not much of a help in letting us know where God the Father or God the Son or God the HS came from. So as difficult as it is to answer your question about where Mormons first God came from, it is as difficult for you to answer where did the 1 God come from.

If you have scriptures that shed light on where the 1 God came from let me know. To say 'He did not come from anywhere', is not an answer, or at the most, it is a very very weak answer.
 
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Peter1000

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It is very interesting to see how some Mormons are claiming that God had to learn something to know something, while Christians claim that God knows something because, being God, He has always known something, even all things. He doesn't need to learn or experience something to know it.

And of course Christians believe that Jesus on earth, being fully God and fully man, could indeed learn and progress in His humanity, while in His Godhood, He didn't have to.

The Mormon deity is sounding...limited.
You make a statement that God knows all, that is fine, but if pressed to explain how God knows all, you have little to answer with, except, He is God, don't you know that God knows all? He does not come from anywhere, He has always been and He has always known everything. Well, that doesn't answer the question.

So tell me: Where did the 1 God come from and how does the 1 God know all?
 
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Peter1000

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But again, how did he not come from anywhere, if he himself had a father, who had a father, etc.? That's what doesn't make sense. You're saying that he didn't come from anywhere as though it should be self-evident, but at the same time you're establishing him as one in a supposedly endless line of 'god the fathers' who themselves had fathers. So it's really not the same.
I thought, the original question was: where did the first Father come from?

Do you want to talk about the first Father or our God the Father?
 
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Ran77

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Mormons have an idea that we all have an eternal "intelligence" within us, that has always existed, never created. So, this is how he can engage in double speak. They will say that we are all literal spirit children of heavenly parents, that Jesus Christ is literally the first born spirit son of God. However, they'll also say that Jesus is eternal because of that eternal intelligence (as well, we're all eternal for the same reason). So, a Mormon could say that the Father had a Father who had a Father, etc., while at the same time say that He is eternal and has always existed, because of that uncreated eternal intelligence.

You must also know that Mormons reject creation from nothing, and instead believe that God creating was more "organizing" pre-existing, eternal, matter, including those eternal intelligences, from which our heavenly parents "created" us as their literal spirit children.

Well said.


:)
 
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Peter1000

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God always existed as God. He never not existed or never existed as not God. I AM. Not, I was... or I came from...
God always existed as God. He never not existed or never existed as not God. The scriptues only tell us that
'I AM', it does not tell us I was... or I came from..., you are exactly right. Well, those are fine Christian attributes of God, but it is simply a choke on the question of where did the 1 God come from?

I quarantee you can't answer the question, because it is unknown. Our bible doesn't tell us.

If I am wrong, give me a scripture that tells us where the 1 God came from. It doesn't exist.

So we speculate that God always existed as God. He never not existed, or never existed as not God, etc., etc., etc.. Is that really true. Unknown.
 
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Rescued One

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I see. :scratch:

Someone earlier in this thread mentioned this 'intelligences' concept, but I didn't connect it to any kind of creation of Christ or of the Father, because...well, I guess because I'm a Christian, so I take it as a basic theological concept that God is not created. That's Arianism (with their belief that Christ is a lesser being than the Father, created by Him rather than being of the same substance/essence/consubstantial/homoousios), which if I recall correctly Peter earlier objected to being identified with. I'm not sure on what basis, if what you write is true, but there you have it.

It's not exactly Arianism because the Father was also organized from pre-existing matter.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, God is eternal and uncreated because the 'stuff' of which He is organized (intelligences) is itself eternal and uncreated. Is that right?

It depends on how they use the term "created." There was a time when the Father was just intelligence and hadn't become a spirit child of his father. We are said to be one species, gods and humans.

Cos, yeah...that's light-years away from anything I would have guessed (I thought Mormons were more like ordinary unitarians). It's got a weird sort of gnostic element to it, doesn't it? If you ever read any gnostic writings (which I don't make a point of doing, but have done because there is a large body of gnostic writings in Coptic, the liturgical language of my church), you can't help but notice that they are really interested in the organization of the universe, and they have all kinds of esoteric creation stories and cosmological treatises. It's fascinating stuff, at least from an anthropological point of view, but I don't know that it really makes for a very coherent or cohesive theological outlook.

No, they aren't like what little I know of Unitarians. Joseph Smith's grandfather was a Unitarian preacher.

When Joseph wrote the "Inspired Version" of the Bible he did an extensive re-write of Genesis. But when the LDS went west, they didn't have the writings to take with them. Emma Smith had them and didn't recognize Brigham Young as successor to Joseph. So she stayed in Illinois.

As it turned out, the LDS (Salt Lake) have part of it in the Pearl of Great Price (Moses):

Origin of the Book of Moses Material
The material constituting the eight chapters of the book of Moses is an extract from Joseph Smith’s translation of theBible. More precisely, chapter one of Moses is an account of a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph just prior to, or at the commencement of, the translation, while Moses chapters two through eight constitute his translation of Genesis from chapter one through chapter six, verse thirteen. [Moses 1, 2–8; Gen. 1–6:13] The Joseph Smith translation of the Bible (hereafter identified as JST) began with Genesis and continued through the entire Bible to the book of Revelation. The initial draft of his Bible translation was made between June 1830 and July 1833. However, the short excerpt that we recognize as the book of Moses, being the early part of Genesis, was completed in its first draft by February 1831. 1

Examination of the original manuscripts of the JST shows that, soon after the initial writing, Joseph further modified and revised these early chapters in a number of ways.
How We Got the Book of Moses

The next book in the Pearl of Great Price is called the Book of Abraham. Joseph claimed that he translated it from parchments:

Chapter 4
The Gods plan the creation of the earth and all life thereon—Their plans for the six days of creation are set forth.

1 And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods,organized and formed the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth, after it was formed, was empty and desolate, because they had not formed anything but the earth; and darkness reigned upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon the face of the waters.

3 And they (the Gods) said: Let there be light; and there was light.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/4?lang=eng
 
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Peter1000

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Follow up: It also begs the question -- God is organized of eternal intelligences, so who is doing that organizing? Another God? (That is to say, another one of the endless 'God the Fathers'?)

Hmmm. Now I can understand how they can explain things as they do, but it seems like it just kicks the can down the road a bit.
You stare at the question today. As you say Mormons can kick the can down the road. But that is not good enough for me, so we answer the question as good as we can.

But the answer is the same, we have not been given that information. We have not been told if there is a 'first God'. If there is a 'first God', we have not been told how He came into existence. We will probably not know that until the next life. Sorry.

But you face the same question as we face, it's the same. Our question is: Where did the 'first God' come from? Your question is: Where did the '1 God' come from? We can answer yours, but not ours.
 
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BigDaddy4

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So the question should be: Is there really a first father?

The answer to that question is the same answer that you should have given, when I ask you where the 1 God came from.

The answer for both questions is: We don't know. The scriptures do not give us this information. The closest NT scripture that touches on it is Revelations 4:8 which says that the Lord God 'is, was, and is to come'.

If you don't know, then you shouldn't guess, as it leads to heresy and creates a false god. The Bible has some things to say about false gods and it's not good. Christians do know there is ONLY 1 Father who has ALWAYS existed, so there is nowhere for Him to "come from".
 
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NYCGuy

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You make a statement that God knows all, that is fine, but if pressed to explain how God knows all, you have little to answer with, except, He is God, don't you know that God knows all? He does not come from anywhere, He has always been and He has always known everything. Well, that doesn't answer the question.

So tell me: Where did the 1 God come from and how does the 1 God know all?

Your logic makes absolutely no sense, no matter how many times you repeat it. The answers that have been given to you are indeed answers. You may not agree with them, you may reject them, however they are answers.

The fact is that Christians believe that God doesn't "come from" anywhere. God has always existed as God. That is the answer to your question of where did the 1 God come from. He didn't "come from" anywhere.

God knows all because it is His nature to know all. He is omniscient, by nature. God did not have to learn to know. I would not call the nature of God "little to answer with", unless you are rejecting the belief that it is God's nature to be omniscient.
 
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BigDaddy4

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God always existed as God. He never not existed or never existed as not God. The scriptues only tell us that
'I AM', it does not tell us I was... or I came from..., you are exactly right. Well, those are fine Christian attributes of God, but it is simply a choke on the question of where did the 1 God come from?

I quarantee you can't answer the question, because it is unknown. Our bible doesn't tell us.

If I am wrong, give me a scripture that tells us where the 1 God came from. It doesn't exist.

So we speculate that God always existed as God. He never not existed, or never existed as not God, etc., etc., etc.. Is that really true. Unknown.
Why would we want to answer a non-sensical question? As God said to Moses "I AM that I AM" (Exodus 3:14)

Here's one for you, what does the color purple taste like?

For your scripture challenge, see Psalm 90:2.
 
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Peter1000

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It's not exactly Arianism because the Father was also organized from pre-existing matter.



It depends on how they use the term "created." There was a time when the Father was just intelligence and hadn't become a spirit child of his father. We are said to be one species, gods and humans.



No, they aren't like what little I know of Unitarians. Joseph Smith's grandfather was a Unitarian preacher.

When Joseph wrote the "Inspired Version" of the Bible he did an extensive re-write of Genesis. But when the LDS went west, they didn't have the writings to take with them. Emma Smith had them and didn't recognize Brigham Young as successor to Joseph. So she stayed in Illinois.

As it turned out, the LDS (Salt Lake) have part of it in the Pearl of Great Price (Moses):

Origin of the Book of Moses Material
The material constituting the eight chapters of the book of Moses is an extract from Joseph Smith’s translation of theBible. More precisely, chapter one of Moses is an account of a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph just prior to, or at the commencement of, the translation, while Moses chapters two through eight constitute his translation of Genesis from chapter one through chapter six, verse thirteen. [Moses 1, 2–8; Gen. 1–6:13] The Joseph Smith translation of the Bible (hereafter identified as JST) began with Genesis and continued through the entire Bible to the book of Revelation. The initial draft of his Bible translation was made between June 1830 and July 1833. However, the short excerpt that we recognize as the book of Moses, being the early part of Genesis, was completed in its first draft by February 1831. 1

Examination of the original manuscripts of the JST shows that, soon after the initial writing, Joseph further modified and revised these early chapters in a number of ways.
How We Got the Book of Moses

The next book in the Pearl of Great Price is called the Book of Abraham. Joseph claimed that he translated it from parchments:

Chapter 4
The Gods plan the creation of the earth and all life thereon—Their plans for the six days of creation are set forth.

1 And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods,organized and formed the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth, after it was formed, was empty and desolate, because they had not formed anything but the earth; and darkness reigned upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon the face of the waters.

3 And they (the Gods) said: Let there be light; and there was light.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/4?lang=eng
My response is that I have forgotten most of what I learned about the history of the JST. So I won't comment, but I will comment on the name of Elohim.

The name Elohim, is the most interesting name in the bible. It is a name that is plural and should be translated 'Gods', but the translators of all the hundreds of versions of the bible translate it as a singular name, 'God'.

There has been millions of pages and hundreds of books written about the name Elohim. One writer I read 20 years ago, so I don't have a reference said that Elohim, among other possible meanings, could have refered to a 'council of Gods'.

So Christians have a hard time with the name of Elohim. They twist and contort and use all the literary measures they can muster to make a plural name a singular name. But as hard as they try, it just doesn't remedy the fact that Moses used Gods instead of God. The interesting question is why?

When Jesus was dying on the cross, he referred to his God, Eloi/Eli, which is the singular form of Elohim.
Read Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46. I think that is interesting. JS was spot on with God's and Elohim.
 
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Rescued One

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My response is that I have forgotten most of what I learned about the history of the JST. So I won't comment, but I will comment on the name of Elohim.

The name Elohim, is the most interesting name in the bible. It is a name that is plural and should be translated 'Gods', but the translators of all the hundreds of versions of the bible translate it as a singular name, 'God'.

There has been millions of pages and hundreds of books written about the name Elohim. One writer I read 20 years ago, so I don't have a reference said that Elohim, among other possible meanings, could have refered to a 'council of Gods'.

So Christians have a hard time with the name of Elohim. They twist and contort and use all the literary measures they can muster to make a plural name a singular name. But as hard as they try, it just doesn't remedy the fact that Moses used God's instead of God. The interesting question is why?

When Jesus was dying on the cross, he referred to his God, Eloi/Eli, which is the singular form of Elohim.
Read Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46. I think that is interesting. JS was spot on with God's and Elohim.

Elohim is not someone's name.

But as hard as they try, it just doesn't remedy the fact that Moses used God's instead of God. The interesting question is why?

"God's" is singular. It means "belonging to God" or "God is."

We are part of a people of God's own possession who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light!

God's not dead.
 
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Rescued One

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Your logic makes absolutely no sense, no matter how many times you repeat it. The answers that have been given to you are indeed answers. You may not agree with them, you may reject them, however they are answers.

The fact is that Christians believe that God doesn't "come from" anywhere. God has always existed as God. That is the answer to your question of where did the 1 God come from. He didn't "come from" anywhere.

God knows all because it is His nature to know all. He is omniscient, by nature. God did not have to learn to know. I would not call the nature of God "little to answer with", unless you are rejecting the belief that it is God's nature to be omniscient.

And besides God is everywhere (omnipresent).
 
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withwonderingawe

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Those are some very weird and nonsensical questions, fatboys. The presupposition behind them seems to be that God experiences time and existence as we do, whereby He would 'gain' knowledge (despite already possessing all of it, as you say), and 'know' that slamming your finger in a door hurts, and that this knowledge is what gives Him the 'right' to judge us.

To tie it in with BigDaddy4's link, it would seem that the Mormon religion is incapable or unwilling to distinguish between the Creator and the created. As per the link: "God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them."

So even the (supreme? first?) God of Mormonism, the one who gave the law to the 'weaker intelligences', nonetheless advanced to that position by the accumulation of power, glory, and intelligence.

Perhaps this theology is at the root of questions like yours, fatboys, but from a Christian perspective they are wildly inappropriate and strange. The god revealed in those questions is not the almighty Pantocrator of Christianity, who rules over all, is the creator and just judge of everything, and is forever perfect and lacking in nothing.

In this you are deviling into the mysteries, at the point where we don't know.

There is a little bit of a struggle between the theologians like McConkie(s) and the more intellectual types at BYU. Joseph McConkie, Bruce's son, wrote a commentary on the Doctrine and Covenant. In it he disputed the idea that God had to learn anything for he is the the one who wrote the laws of physics, he said the idea was built on fallacy in the halls of intellectualism (that was a paraphrase). He and Professor Eugene England had a little of a debate where he said,

"In his response, McConkie stated that his father, Elder McConkie, and grandfather Joseph Fielding Smith, taught of a God that is not progressing and whose perfection is absolute. “Though I accord a man the privilege of worshipping what he may, there is a line—a boundary—a point at which he and his views are no longer welcome.” Joseph concluded: “I do not see the salvation of BYU in the abandonment of absolutes, and with the prophets whose blood flows in my veins, I refuse to worship at the shrine of an ignorant God.”

then this;
on 1 June 1980, Elder Bruce R. McConkie delivered at a BYU Devotional, a lecture entitled “The Seven Deadly Heresies.” The primary “heresy” Elder McConkie warned against was the belief that “God is progressing in knowledge and is learning new truth. This is false, utterly, totally, and completely.” He further stated that we cannot be saved unless we believe that the “truth as revealed to and taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith is that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.” McConkie belittled those who think otherwise as having “the intellect of an ant and the understanding of a clod of miry clay in a primordial swamp.”

They both had sharp tongues!

But the prophet ,Pre. Kimball, took McConkie aside and he had to say, well this is my opinion.

So you see, we see through a glass darkly.

England's idea goes like this; (and it faintly Gnostic)

"I think [Joseph Smith] eventually saw no inherent contradiction between the Lectures (on Faith) and his later understanding of God as having “all” knowledge and power, sufficient to provide us salvation in our sphere of existence (and thus being “infinite”), but also as one who is still learning and developing in relationship to higher spheres of existence (and thus “finite”)...."

Where we believe there are Father's of Gods and this has been going on for an unknown infinite period of time our Father and God has all knowledge pertaining to creation as we know it but there are higher levels of glory and spheres which we do not comprehend and our God is learning about them, the possibility is infinite. To put God in a box is to limit his infinite existence.

Br McConkie's idea is based on this;

Luke 11:34

34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light;

and Joseph Smith expansion of that passage in the D&C 88

Doctrine and Covenants 88:11 -67
And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—

And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.

and
D&C 121
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.

As a being becomes more righteous God's light begins to fill his whole soul driving all darkness out of him and as that happens the person begins to have his understanding quickened and he begins to comprehend all things. It's not a matter of book learning but of becoming sanctified and thus perfectly righteous.

John 17
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;

There is a oneness which occurs between the Gods where they become one in knowledge and perfections.

Now it doesn't matter which one is right perhaps there it truth in the middle ground. I'd be interested in what my fellow Mormons think on the subject.

http://www.eugeneengland.org/a-prof...and-and-bruce-r-mcconkie-on-the-nature-of-god
 
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dzheremi

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My response is that I have forgotten most of what I learned about the history of the JST. So I won't comment, but I will comment on the name of Elohim.

The name Elohim, is the most interesting name in the bible. It is a name that is plural and should be translated 'Gods', but the translators of all the hundreds of versions of the bible translate it as a singular name, 'God'.

There has been millions of pages and hundreds of books written about the name Elohim. One writer I read 20 years ago, so I don't have a reference said that Elohim, among other possible meanings, could have refered to a 'council of Gods'.

So Christians have a hard time with the name of Elohim. They twist and contort and use all the literary measures they can muster to make a plural name a singular name. But as hard as they try, it just doesn't remedy the fact that Moses used God's instead of God. The interesting question is why?

When Jesus was dying on the cross, he referred to his God, Eloi/Eli, which is the singular form of Elohim.
Read Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46. I think that is interesting. JS was spot on with God's and Elohim.

I'm sorry, but no. This is all very off the mark.

The use of the plural to refer to a singular entity is what we call the "Majestic Plural" (or the "Royal We", when assumed by a monarch or other high leader like a Sultan). This is why Elohim is plural, not because it should be translated as "Gods". In fact, as you may read at the link, Adonai is plural (adon 'Lord'), and yet the Shema, the famous statement of monotheism of the Jews, reads "shema yisrael, adonai elohainu, adonai echad" -- "hear, O Israel, the Lord (pl.) is our God; the Lord (pl.) is one". It is not "the Lords are our Gods; the Lords are one." Because there's only one God, since the Jews are monotheists. If they had intended it to be understood polytheistically, it would not include the last clause, adonai echad (the Lord is one).

And, no, Christians most definitely do not 'have a hard time with the name of Elohim'. All of our doxologies are similar: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God." It is the Mormons who apparently have trouble with Elohim, seeing as how you cannot understand that it is referring to one God, and instead say that it must be a confirmation of your prophet Joseph Smith's polytheistic theology. That's simply incorrect.

Edit: And elloi is not the singular of elohim. The singular is el, expanded to eloah with the added third radical of the root -- hence the related forms in languages like Arabic (Allah) and Syriac (Aloho or Alaha). I don't know Syriac, but the plural 'Gods' in Arabic would be alaliha (الآلهة), which does occasionally appear in our hymns, like in the second canticle of the midnight praises, where -- if it is prayed in Arabic -- a verse goes "ashkuru ilah ilaliha" (O give thanks to the God of gods). This is no doubt something that we inherited from the Jews, who while worshiping only the one God, certainly recognized that the nations had their own gods which the Jews were not to worship.

And so we say that our God is the true God among all others, and give Mormons and other polytheists no credit for having 'rediscovered' this concept for polytheism (which never went anywhere, anyway; the Mormons just tried to bring it back in a pseudo-Christian context and failed, since Christianity is monotheistic).

 
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