Belief #2. The Godhead

[Polyglot]

Greetings Polyglot

There are 397 results for EGW "divine agencies" - an agency is like a medium, something that carries something - not something that has something on it's own

There are no results for "divine angels"
There are no results for "God the Son" Hmm?
There is no result for "God LORD" or the Hebrew terms 0430 03068 either
It is silly to call one Elohiym Son, but OK for the term Son Elohiym.
That like calling me Rob Thompson, but I am not known as Thompson Rob.

I do not find any messages saying the cherubims are divine, as only Elohiym is Divine.
However cherubims who functions as messengers can impart Divine power through faith, just as any special creature can, and this is termed an agency of divine power.

GRC 5.1 (God’s Remnant Church (The Remnant Church))
... saved, He commissions His angels to render divine help to every soul ...

The average SDA does not understand the EGW use of the term "medium" and "agency". Such terms describe things that are carried.

Divine power is available to all special creatures by faith - simply by asking - you receive from Elohiym Power.
See Psalm 119:86 All thy commandments are faithful.

You acknowledge angels as a part of the family of God, but you embrace a broad use of the term family.

My two pennies is Elohiym is a Divine Family with a Provider, Responder and Collector of Love - much the same as similes to earth as a Father, Mother and Son as personalities of Love.

Humans who by faith in Jesus, are clones and adopted into his Divine nature become higher than angels that are sinless, we are to become a special group of messengers around the throne, knowing both good and evil and overcoming through faith in the blood of the Lamb our Saviour. This makes three distinct word meanings of Family - the God head family - the adopted family and the broader family who are sinless created creatures. Shalom

Usage counts are unreliable and can be misleading. She wrote about Jesus Christ far, far more than she did about angels, and even here she rarely uses such expressions as "divine Christ" (just twice on the EGW CD), or "divine Jesus" (once). So not finding "divine angels" is unsurprising. But she clearly acknowledged that the "divine presence" which came to Zacharias was the angel Gabriel--this is evident in the quotes from The Desire of Ages which I provided.

Regarding your understanding of "elohim," it appears to follow the mistaken understanding of a vast majority of students of the Hebrew language, i.e. that the word is plural. It is not. It is a "plurale tantum." What is this?

Consider English words like deer, sheep, or physics. These words can be either singular or plural without a change in their form: the verb will tell us whether they are singular or plural. In the case of the latter, it appears plural, and yet we might say "physics IS my most difficult subject," the verb indicating singularity. In Hebrew, whenever "elohim" is used for the true God, the verb is consistently singular.

Hebrew has a number of "plurale tantum" (Latin for 'plural only'; pl. pluralia tantum) words. Consider: hashamayim (heavens), mayim (waters), panim (faces), chayim (lives), etc. These words have no known singular forms in the Hebrew language. It is not possible to say "face" (singular), one must say "faces." This does not mean that everyone is two-faced! The verbs and adjectives associated with the noun inform us whether the noun is actually singular or plural.

Note this list of pluralia tantum in Hebrew (courtesy of Wiktionary) in which "elohim" has its own entry.

Many will argue that "elohim" has a singular form. When I have pressed my Hebrew professors, including a rabbi, on this question, none has been able to confirm that a singular form exists. For example, many claim that "el" is the singular form of "elohim." This is simply untrue. "El" has its own plural form, "elim," which we see used in the book of Daniel. Others claim that "eloah" is the singular form. Both the rabbi and another of my professors admitted that this word is likely of a separate root originating outside of the Hebrew language in one of the Canaanite languages, and was likely originally associated with a false god.

Being a careful student in terms of linguistics (for I am a linguist), I am compelled to conclude that the word "elohim" has no singular form in Hebrew, just as many other nouns do not. In such a case, the verbs and adjectives must tell us whether the word is actually plural or singular. While "elohim" is used for God, for angels, for false gods, and for certain people, whenever it is applied to the true God, the grammar always indicates a singular entity. The supposed exceptions to this are places, such as Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 3:22, where others besides "God" are included, and God speaks in the first-person plural: "us."

If God were in fact plural, then the Bible contradicts itself, for there are thousands of references to "elohim" which inform us that He is singular based on the grammatical context. Furthermore, the "me" in the first commandment is unmistakably singular, and we are to have no other god before this "me."

God is a Being, not a family: but God has a family, and we may be in it.

 

[rob]

Usage counts are unreliable and can be misleading. She wrote about Jesus Christ far, far more than she did about angels, and even here she rarely uses such expressions as "divine Christ" (just twice on the EGW CD), or "divine Jesus" (once). So not finding "divine angels" is unsurprising. But she clearly acknowledged that the "divine presence" which came to Zacharias was the angel Gabriel--this is evident in the quotes from The Desire of Ages which I provided.

Regarding your understanding of "elohim," it appears to follow the mistaken understanding of a vast majority of students of the Hebrew language, i.e. that the word is plural. It is not. It is a "plurale tantum." What is this?

Consider English words like deer, sheep, or physics. These words can be either singular or plural without a change in their form: the verb will tell us whether they are singular or plural. In the case of the latter, it appears plural, and yet we might say "physics IS my most difficult subject," the verb indicating singularity. In Hebrew, whenever "elohim" is used for the true God, the verb is consistently singular.

Hebrew has a number of "plurale tantum" (Latin for 'plural only'; pl. pluralia tantum) words. Consider: hashamayim (heavens), mayim (waters), panim (faces), chayim (lives), etc. These words have no known singular forms in the Hebrew language. It is not possible to say "face" (singular), one must say "faces." This does not mean that everyone is two-faced! The verbs and adjectives associated with the noun inform us whether the noun is actually singular or plural.

Note this list of pluralia tantum in Hebrew (courtesy of Wiktionary) in which "elohim" has its own entry.

Many will argue that "elohim" has a singular form. When I have pressed my Hebrew professors, including a rabbi, on this question, none has been able to confirm that a singular form exists. For example, many claim that "el" is the singular form of "elohim." This is simply untrue. "El" has its own plural form, "elim," which we see used in the book of Daniel. Others claim that "eloah" is the singular form. Both the rabbi and another of my professors admitted that this word is likely of a separate root originating outside of the Hebrew language in one of the Canaanite languages, and was likely originally associated with a false god.

Being a careful student in terms of linguistics (for I am a linguist), I am compelled to conclude that the word "elohim" has no singular form in Hebrew, just as many other nouns do not. In such a case, the verbs and adjectives must tell us whether the word is actually plural or singular. While "elohim" is used for God, for angels, for false gods, and for certain people, whenever it is applied to the true God, the grammar always indicates a singular entity. The supposed exceptions to this are places, such as Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 3:22, where others besides "God" are included, and God speaks in the first-person plural: "us."

If God were in fact plural, then the Bible contradicts itself, for there are thousands of references to "elohim" which inform us that He is singular based on the grammatical context. Furthermore, the "me" in the first commandment is unmistakably singular, and we are to have no other god before this "me."

God is a Being, not a family: but God has a family, and we may be in it.

I see. So tell me WHOM is this verse referring to?

Job 5:17 ¶ Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

So is Eloah and Shadday are just descriptions of the same singular form Elohiym as a whole? Is that how you see this verse ?

Shalom

 

[Polyglot]

I see. So tell me WHOM is this verse referring to?

Job 5:17 ¶ Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:

So is Eloah and Shadday are just descriptions of the same singular form Elohiym as a whole? Is that how you see this verse ?

Shalom

Job is one of the books of poetry in Hebrew. This may be why the Jews do not accept it as part of Moses' writings. They do not believe Ellen White, of course, who tells us that Job was written by Moses, along with Genesis, while he was keeping sheep for his father-in-law. (They contend that Job is a more advanced level of Hebrew, indicative of a later text.)

Hebrew poetry is unlike English poetry. In English, poets typically like to use lines of similar syllable counts, perhaps repeating a consonant sound (alliteration), or repeating a vowel (assonance). Rhyming of lines, along with rhythm, are important to English poetry.

None of the above is required for Hebrew poetry, which virtually never has these features. Hebrew poetry is all about parallelism, chiasm (inverse parallelism or palindromic parallelism), and contrast.

הִנֵּ֤ה אַשְׁרֵ֣י אֱ֭נֹושׁ יֹוכִחֶ֣נּֽוּ אֱלֹ֑והַּ. Behold, happy (A) [is] the man whom God (B) corrects (C);
וּמוּסַ֥ר שַׁ֝דַּ֗י אַל־תִּמְאָֽס׃ And the chastening (C) of the Almighty (B) should not [be] despised (A).

This one uses a chiastic structure to parallel the two lines. A -> B -> C; C -> B -> A.

In other words, the lines are saying essentially the same thing, using similar, but different, expressions in each. This gives them a poetic value that emphasizes the thought in a sage sort of way. It no more indicates "God" and "Almighty" as being two different entities than it should be taken to mean that correction and chastening are entirely different things. In other words, the poetry is intentionally using different terms to address the same concepts.

Neither "eloah" nor "shaddai" in this verse are forms of the root "elohim." The word "elohim" itself is absent in this verse. Some may see some connection between "elohim" and "eloah," while others will tell you they come from separate roots entirely, and are "false cognates." What is this?

False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds or spelling and meaning, but have different etymologies; they can be within the same language or from different languages, even within the same family. For example, the English word dog and the Mbabaram word dog have exactly the same meaning and very similar pronunciations, but by complete coincidence. Likewise, English much and Spanish mucho came by their similar meanings via completely different Proto-Indo-European roots, and same for English have and Spanish haber.

 

[rob]

Wow thanks Polyglot, you are certainly the scholar.

Proverbs is also poetry is it not, and here is one verse I would like to analyze:-

Pr 1:8 My son,
hear the instruction of thy father,
and forsake not the law of thy mother:

So using your poetry logic the terms "instruction" and "torah" are the same thing, AND
the persons "father" and "mother" are the same thing too.

So a Jew sees the father's instructions (we SDA see the moral law differently) as a subset of the 613 commandments.
And thus we might also assume they see a father and a mother as the same unit?

But the SDA see the fathers instructions, the moral law, as different to the "torah" which was placed beside the ark, not inside the ark along with the Father's Ten Commandments.

So the SDA are breaking the poetry parallel here? Or being a hypocrite? Or maybe your scholarship of poetry is all wrong?

Shalom

 

[Polyglot]

So the SDA are breaking the poetry parallel here? Or being a hypocrite? Or maybe your scholarship of poetry is all wrong?

The fact that the fifth commandment specifically references both father and mother is a good indication that they are separate. Were they considered a single being, the word "father" would have sufficed--and it would have had a closer parallel with that of representing our Father in heaven. No scripture references a "Mother" in heaven.

So Proverbs 1:8 is a poetic expansion of the fifth commandment with respect to instructions and laws (precepts).

 

[rob]

Greetings

Happy Sabbath

P:" No scripture references a "Mother" in heaven.

(1) Jer 44:17 alludes to Israel copying what they knew about Elohiym, ie the Devil copys truth but spoils the truth with error

The Two Babylons, Hislop speaks of false pagan deities as family models.

(2) Pr 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

Rob: The "I" here is a reference to "wisdom" in feminine love personality, as the poetry makes this a simile of.
She was there when creation was being created.

(3) The Hebrew word "ruwach" meaning HS or medium is feminine, and is written as "her" once in the OT

Ho 4:19 The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
(KJV)

EGW uses the term "her wings" many times as a reference to an "angel of mercy"

(4) Lu 7:35 But wisdom is justified of all her children.

Jesus alludes to calling Wisdom by her Name, and her children.

(5) Ahabah love is referenced here with Jesus and the HS both named

Isa 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love "ahabah" and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

Jer 31:3 The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

Here YHWH of eternity loves with both ahab and ahabah.

Question: Does a solitary deity love with both personalities from one deity? No, not as Isaiah 63:9 says - the evidence is the ahabah the beloved love or responder love flows mostly from the Shadday / HS.

-----

You dismissed my point about poetry parallels? Is the moral law separate from the torah teachings?
Yes? that you admit in my view of parallels are similes mostly
No? than you go along with Jews 613 laws, and no moral laws as ten commands only?

Shalom