A question for the Jews who are familiar with the Torah.?

I am asking this question because Christianity is welded to the Torah. And we too serve ONE God albeit in three presentations. GOD the father (The Holy of Holies) God the Son (Creator and Redeemer) God the Holy Spirit (Power and Preserver)


We trace God’s declaration that He is one God but plural in Nature to the scripture in_ Genesis1:26 “Let US make man in OUR image after OUR likeness.”


How do you explain this startling revelation in a way that doesn’t do violence to other scriptures related to God? For instance, the scriptures say no man can see God’s face and live. Moses and the 70 Elders saw Him in Exodus24:9-11


It says that Moses and the Elders SAW God and God did not lay his hand on them. Now some may see a contradiction. No man can see God and live but these men were clearing eyeballing God. That’s just one of the scriptures that slowly peel off the three persons of the God head. We Christians believe they saw Jesus (God the Creator and Redeemer) As the Redeemer; He was able to show God’s grace. No One is pure enough to look on the face of God the Father (The Holy of Holies). But that’s our story, how do you guys address this paradox?

A question for the Jews who are familiar with the Torah.?
I am not a Jew, but I read the Commentary of the Jewish New Testament awhile ago.





In it, the author said that the Bible is clear in several places that God is one.





But the Bible is also clear in several places that God is more than one.
Reply:....but G-d did kill the elders and Nadab and Abihu. At this point in the Exodus they were kind of celebrating with G-d and G-d did not want to 'spoil the moment' per se, so He waited until later --Nadab and Abihu at the dedication of the Mishkan and the elders until Numbers. Moses could see G-d, that's one of the things that makes him the greatest prophet.





According to Judaism, three gods in one just isn't possible. Sorry.





Tim, there is no Jewish New Testament. Also, when the Bible says "Let US make man..." G-d is talking to the court of the angels. Angels are also made in the image of G-d. So it is also their image. Hence ours.





Another way we can tell that G-d is always singular is that in Hebrew, the verb and noun have to agree. Take 'boy wants.' In Hebrew, it's yeled rotzeh. Now take 'boys want.' In Hebrew, it's yeledim rotzim. This is how it goes. However, there are nouns known as irregulars where they deviate from the normal path. Elokim is one of them. How do we know it's always singular? The verb is always always always singular when referring to G-d. So the noun is singular even with the irregularity.
Reply:The word "Elohim" is a plural- but it is always referring to a singular being e.g. "Diber" he spoke, no "Dabru"- they spoke. "Vayomer" - and he said, not "vayomru" - and they said. So we know that while God may have multiple aspects (and thus why he has so many names, since each aspect is unique and thus has a name) he is a singular being and is never divided, we just perceive different aspects.





As for Genesis 1:26- there are two commonly given explanations:


1) from the Midrash Rabbah and has been stated here by others- he is talking to the angels of the heavenly, just as a king consults his ministers, but then acts alone- for in the next verse it uses the word "vayivrah"- and he created, not "vayivru"- they created, showing that a singular God created man, nobody and nothing else was involved.


2) He is talking to mankind in the future. Since man is God's partner in creating the world, he addresses the future, hinting at how man will complete the creation of man, through the performance of Bris Milah (circumcision). This also explains why on the nect verse it has the singular, "Vaivrah", since mankind is not there to help him, he is only just creating him.





Moses saw only the back of God, and the hem of his robe, but he saw clearly. The elders of Israel did not have the power of prophecy that Moses did, they could only see an image of God as if it were through a sheet odf smoked glass- in otherwords, a weak and wavery image, they could not see any details or discern anything of God, merely his presence.
Reply:In "our" image -- God and the angels


OR the Royal "we."





We speak of many aspects of God.


.
Reply:The Book of Genesis contains several different strands, known as "traditions." The principal ones are J, P, and E, standing for Yahweh (the names were developed by a German, and Germans spell Yahweh as Jahweh). The J tradition is characterized by the use of that name for God, even before God revealed Himself to Moses on Sinai. The P tradition is traced to writings made by the Kahanes during the Babylonian Captivity, and it is preoccupied with the details of worship in the Temple and orderliness. Then there is the E tradition, so called because it uses the word "Elohim" for God. This name, Elohim, is found in many places in the Bible. One of the most interesting is the name of Elijah, which combines El and Jahweh into one name (Elijah = Yahweh is God).





Here's the point: Elohim is a plural noun. It takes a plural verb. Kind of like Victoria's statement "We are not amused," it's simply an artifact of ancient Hebrew grammar and the bizarre manner of speech handed down from Elizabethan and Jacobean England.





There are lots of contradictions and inconsistencies in the Bible. They result from the way in which the Bible came to be, i.e., it was compiled from many different oral and written traditions and revised, sometimes systematically, sometimes haphazardly. Look at the Book of Judges and ask yourself how could the same cities have been torn down so completely so many times.





Or look at the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels. "Gospel" may be synonymous with "truth" in some people's minds, but the evangelists don't even agree on Jesus's ancestry.





To understand the text of the Bible is to understand that one must not become fixated on the text and instead pay attention to the message. (By the way, most Christians believe that creation was performed by the Father, either with the Son or through the Son: the Nicene Creed begins, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth; and in one Lord, His Son, Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. Through him all things were made."





Now as far as seeing God is concerned, there are lots of different ways to understand the expression. However, there was a fairly universal understanding during the Axial Age that seeing God would make a human dead dead dead. The opening scene of Agamemnon has an open fire to represent what remains of Semele after she convinced Zeus to let her see him as he really was. She saw, she burned, and that's al; Aeschylus wrote.
Reply:“Let US make man in OUR image after OUR likeness.”





Explanation - this creation myth was borrowed from the Sumerians. The other gods in attendance were probably Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ea.
Reply:In the verse you speak of, G-d is talking to the Heavenly Court (the angels). You should also know that the verb form used in the subsequent verses relating to G-d's actually creating things is in the singular, not the plural.





Give me a minute or two and I'll look up the Hebrew for the Exodus passage.





[edit] Ah, yes. The better translation of the Hebrew is "saw a vision of" rather than "saw". So there's no problem. See, for example, Ibn Ezra (Emunoth VeDeyoth 2:12), and also 1 Kings 22:19, 2 Chronicles 18:18, Isaiah 6:1.

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