For anyone interested in taking a deeper dive into any given rabbit trail, these inevitably lead to a rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland proportions. As I’m prone to do, simply for the enjoyment of it, allow me to set the mood with a few songs along the way.
“You’re entirely bonkers, but I’ll tell you a secret, all the best people are.”
Being filled with the Holy Spirit, speak to one another with psalms and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for all things…
Yes, I quoted from Ephesians 5, and no I didn’t attribute it to anyone-- I suppose if asked, I would attribute it to Paul.
The other quote was from the Mad Hatter, of Alice in Wonderland notoriety, which is referenced (attributed) in my opening post, the song I linked and even the title of the thread.
As for the remainder of your post, I have no idea what you are talking about.
That’s the purpose of the thread, actually… making it make sense.
I do believe all scripture is God-breathed, both given and preserved for us for a good purpose. It’s useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be capable and equipped for every good work. That doesn’t mean we understand or apply it correctly. Jesus spent much of his time explaining these same scriptures, while correcting errors and challenging the purveyors of those errors. I believe we should do as the Bereans were commended for-- a noble pursuit, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so.
Scripture is in part, a collection of works… that we should think of as such-- a sort of library containing literary elements of historical record, poetry, allegory, snippets of all, anecdotes, and dreams… many dreams, from which we get much of our spiritual knowledge of a life, or realm beyond this physical world.
It’s from this spiritual realm that we get much of our theology, for that is the realm of the Father-- our Father- who art in heaven. Our scriptures are encounters with Him, experiences in spirit, that translate to experiences in our daily lives and encounters with others. Jesus came and taught us ‘the way’ to make it make sense. Many of his teachings began with some form of ‘you have heard’ or ‘you have been taught’ … but I say… In other words, you’ve been taught errors. You’re mistaken. You’ve missed something.
And much of this error in understanding was strictly about our Father. About that spiritual realm. And if he hadn’t come and explained a few things, we’d probably still be sacrificing lambs at a temple, thinking that’s how to win favor with God, or how to make amends for our sins.
The scripture we have is a collection of works. People tend to think of scripture, or the Bible as a complete work, and yet rarely think of how it came to be. It began as a story book. We have the story Moses told, and in his telling- he looks back at a time long before he lived. The creation story is quite simply- the story of Moses, or if you prefer- it’s the story of creation as told by Moses. And then we have various stories as told by others-- heroes and prophets, kings and poets alike. Each story and set of stories were added to the collection over hundreds of years and indeed, millenia.
Then came a man named Jesus, and he boldly declared in many instances to the ones who were considered the foremost “experts” in that collection of story books-- that they were badly mistaken (his words). His life and his teachings we have recorded by others and we refer to them as ‘the good news’ or gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The story with the happiest of endings, “according to…” It makes sense to phrase it this way, just as it would make much better sense to speak of that book of beginnings as ‘the genesis, according to Moses.’ The story with the happiest of beginnings, according to-- Moses.
Lastly we have a bunch of letters by a guy named Paul, who had never met this man called Jesus while he walked among us. These too, were added to the collection and are considered central to scripture and Christianity with as much or more weight than even those books of Moses that were written thousands of years ago.
Yet we have just what we have, and with all this in mind-- let’s examine some of it. We begin naturally, at the beginning-- or the raysheeth… with the firstfruits and a new season of life, after some unknown calamity had devastated the earth, making it a desolate ruin. With a beginning like this, it’s clear that there is a story that comes before the beginning of ‘this’ story.
Starting the story with the story-teller, Moses employs peculiar language that most people ignore in favor of a more comfortable understanding.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Except that’s not what Moses tells us. Properly, Moses says-- “In the beginning (the firstfruits) -elohim- created the heavens and the earth.” Why does he differentiate in this way? Why reference (a plurality) elohim, when he could have easily specified Yahweh as the sole creator?
Here is the story— At the start of it, the elohim created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth had become a desolate ruin and darkness was covering the surface of the watery abyss, but the spirit of the supreme ones was hovering over the surface of it. They said- Let there be light and there was light. They saw that the light was good so they separated the light from darkness. They called the light day, and the darkness night. Thjere was evening and there was morning, the first day.
“They” plural elohim in every case. Our english translations in every instance replace elohim with “God.”
Why? -well? -mostly because the alternative, and the correct original elohim word makes folks uncomfortable. Yet, Moses wrote what he wrote, the way he wrote it, purposefully. It wasn’t a mistake that needed correcting by scribes and translators.
Read the whole chapter and every time you read “God” -replace that with elohim, or if you prefer english words-- replace it with 'the supreme ones" because that is how Moses wrote it. Not God. Not Yahweh. “Elohim”
It’s the only way that it all makes sense when you get to verse 26 where we read:
Then the supreme ones said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”
The supreme ones created humankind in their own image, in the image of the elohim they were created, male and female they were created.
Moses used the word “elohim” purposefully and he did so to ensure an understanding that there needs to be a differentiation between “elohim” which is a general description or class of beings, and Yahweh-- one particular elohim, by name. There’s few alternative explanations. If he had meant to say “God” in reference to the sole supreme being he came to know by name as Yahweh-- surely he would have said that. But he didn’t.
Who, or what-- are elohim? It’s always plural, meaning not a singular usage. It’s like the difference between saying “people” versus “a person” -it’s obvious intent is to indicate ‘more than one.’
In english, it gets translated to mean- supreme ones or supreme beings. At times the term is related to angels, and sons of God. We see the distinct plurality of the term in the very first chapter of Genesis as mentioned-- “Let us create…” and “in our image” and later in Genesis 6 we see this reference to the sons of God-- descendants of elohim.
In the book of Job, which some suggest may have been written long before Moses wrote Genesis-- we read of an interesting spiritual encounter-
Now the day came when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD—and Satan also arrived among them…
The text suggests that Satan can be included in this elohim (sons of elohim) class. It also names one elohim-- Yahweh as Chief among them, which is really interesting if indeed the book of Job predates Genesis, while not suggesting Moses had access to it as a reference. Fascinating nonetheless.
I first discovered the peculiarity when taking an introductory Hebrew course. Then I went digging deeper and discovered a scholar by the name of Mike Heiser that many are now familiar with. Mike has sadly since passed, but I was surprised to discover that it was this same oddity in the Hebrew that piqued Mike’s exploration into the textual usage and interpretations. He describes the encounter like this>>>
It was in church on a Sunday morning while still in graduate school. I was chatting with a friend who, like me, was working on a PhD in Hebrew studies, killing a few minutes before the service started. I don’t recall much of the conversation, though I’m sure it was something about Old Testament theology. But I’ll never forget how it ended. My friend handed me his Hebrew Bible, open to Psalm 82. He said simply, “Here, read that . . . look at it closely.”
The first verse hit me like a bolt of lightning:
God [elohim] stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods [elohim].
Heiser really awakened me to things in God’s Word that I really didn’t have a grasp on. Psalm 82 is still a fantastical wonder to me. There is a 4½ hour youtube vid where he explained this and many other things that left me speechless for weeks! God, Himself became much more ‘bigger’ in my life. He is a God of Family.
Ephesians 4:14-15 ‘For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,’
There are ‘powers’ that are above us humans that God created. Wheather it be the Holy ones, the fallen ones, Principalities or spiritual wickedness, angels, cherubs, demons and whoever else. He created them all. Some stayed and some rebelled against His authority but we have Jesus who brought us back to the Father, because He loved us when we were unlovable.
1st Samuel 28:13 ‘ And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth’ KJV
I believe the gods ascending up were elohim. In fact, in the Hebrew, would gods literally mean elohim?
MeE
I carefully read your post(s), but I’m having a hard time understanding what you are implying. Maybe it is just too dark in this rabbit hole for me to see? Can you pick one point, state it clearly enough for a dolt like me to understand you, and shed some light on your postulate? I’d like to discuss this with you, but I’m unsure how to start. Thanx
Christians tend to struggle with the term “gods” -even when they employ “the small ‘g’ rule.” The argument is made that there is only one God (big G) and because of that there are no other gods, yet scripture makes it clear that there are many gods-- false gods, lessor gods, gods of other nations and peoples.
I prefer to speak in broader terms, and let elohim stand as a class, the way we say humans are a class, or birds, or fish, as examples- though there are various and numerous kinds of each. Elohim can be thought of as “spiritual beings” or simply ‘spirits’ and as such they are of the class of what we might the heavenly or spiritual realm.
To your point, the elohim mentioned in 1 Samuel are spiritual beings-- no different than the spiritual beings mentioned in Genesis 1-- who created the earth and all that is in it. What? Yes.
Hi @Kpuff - welcome to Crosswalk. Please try to think of this as a simply inquiry, rather than some sort of lecture or lesson with a point to press. I’m here (and happy) to discuss with anyone who has an interest. Really, I’m just asking questions about scripture, and more so-- the things we have been taught ‘about’ scripture, and this is my primary focus. Have we been taught correctly? Have we explored enough?
Theologians, and in particular- orthodox or fundamentalist Christians treat scripture as if it is settled science, when that just isn’t the case. When you are no longer permitted to ask questions and investigate answers you inch closer to belonging to a cultic belief system. Instead, asking honest questions and then systematically seeking answers through analysis moves us toward true understanding rather than simple regurgitation of something lessor, endlessly repeated.
If asked, and “since” you asked-- to boil it all down to a single and simple point-- this thread is for seekers. The point being that there is likely much more to the story than we know, so let’s explore together some alternate avenues of thought.
MrE
OK. Thanx.
To be more clear, I guess what I’m wondering about, specifically in this thread “The Rabbit Hole – Theological deep exploration” is are we discussing “How Christians might need to think outside their theological comfort zone”, or are we discussing “Christian freedom to explore theological theories that may be alternatives to the main stream”, or are we discussing “various theories of creation”, or are we discussing “Elohim”, or are we discussing “common misconceptions from scripture that are made more clear by looking at the original languages”? Or am I missing the discussion thread altogether, and I have not landed on your stream of thought yet? I am happy to listen (read) the thoughts of other saints on any or all of these topics, but I’m having a hard time following.
That’s the nature of rabbit trails Kevin-- they go off in all directions which can be followed to some degree. As for ‘the rabbit hole’ itself, I’ve alluded a few times to Alice in Wonderland-- a great book for any reader. It was written by Lewis Carrol way back in 1865, telling of the adventures of a girl (Alice) who fell down a rabbit hole and of all she experienced there. Cartoons and movies alike, none do justice to the book itself. I consider it a kind of allegory for the conversation here, as one of the major themes is this idea of questioning assumptions.
Trying again to answer you direct question regarding what the thread is about… it’s about time. It’s about eternity beyond time. And it’s primarily about the things we’ve been taught to accept without question or further inquiry. That, in my opinion is a mistake.
