Jewish question?

Question

In the Christian book of Genesis during the creation God said " Let Us make man in Our image"

At the Tower of Babel God said " Let Us go down and confuse their words"

The word We , and Us?
And the word Elohim is plural.

My question is from a Christian perspective this all indicates the Trininty. Can you explain this from a Jewish perspective of who God is talking too? I've only heard quite complicated answers using parts of speach, and I confuse easily

Answer 1

Two simple options (of which are often adopted by christian scholars too):
1) Royal "we"
2) Speaking to angles in a polite manner.

See here:
http://j4j.org/web/faq/faq134.html

As for "elohim". The word is a complete noun and does not necessarily denote plurality. A simple example is found when G-d refers to moses as an "elohim"! Furthermore, the root of the word, "el", means "power". By giving it the pseudo-plural state, it just denotes something of great power or import. For that reason nobles and judges were also called elohim.

cheerio

Answer 2

The answer depends on which denomination of Judaism you are talking about.

The most traditional groups, the Orthodox and Chadisidic Jews, will never admit to anything that implies there might have been a polytheistic start to Judaism, so they insist it means the Royal We or a court of angels as another answerer said. They also think the argument that Elohim is just coincidently a plural sounding word is a possibility.

Other denominations of Judaism that are more liberal recognize that it could possibly be a reference to the polytheistic gods of the people in mesopotamia. Reform Judaism, which does not hold the Torah as divinely written, believes this to be the case.

I honestly do not believe that The Trinity is the most logical conclusion to be made. If it was refering to the Trinity, why use such an obtuse argument? Why not explicitly mention the Father Son and holy Ghost?

However that is just my opinion. There is no way to say for sure what it means. I hope this helps though.

Answer 3

Someone else asked the same question yesterday.

In Hebrew, verbs can be singular or plural. Although it says "us" and "our" in Hebrew the action verbs (i.e. and G-d SAID and G-d MADE man) are all singular.
Thus, there is no evidence from that that G-d is a plurality. That being the case, G-d was talking to others who were not Him, namely the angels.

As to the word Elohim, although the suffix -im implies a masculine plurality in most cases, however not neccesarily so.
As is the case, G-d referred to Moses as saying "I have made you an "Elohim" over Pharoah". Moses is singular and is called an Elohim by G-d. This also indicates that the word Elohim itself does not always refer to G-d. (another place in the Bible it refers to judges.)
Thus, again, the word itself does not imply that G-d is a plurality.

As an aside, the one who wrote the example of Moses name being plural because it ends in -es... that is a bad example because a) Moses name in Hebrew is Moshe and b) the -es suffix in Hebrew does not imply plural.

Answer 4

I'd like to know, too (I come from a Christian perspective).

For what it's worth: the first sentence of Genesis in Hebrew goes "bay-rhay-SHEET ba-RHAH e-lo-HEEM et ha-sha-MAY-im v'et ha-AHRH-etz." "Bay-rhay-SHEET" means "in the beginning," "ba-RHAH" means "he created," e-lo-HEEM means God (Elohim), et is the sign of the direct object, ha- is the definite article [an "inseparable proclitic particle", or prefix] shamayim means heaven, v' is another prefix, and it means "and", et (again) is the sign of the direct object, and ha-aretz means the earth.

Elohim actually is a plural noun (-im ending is plural). Bara is a masculine singular, simple past-tense verb. [Hebrew verbs are pretty complicated.] So we have a plural noun taking a singular verb. In addition to the singular and plural forms, Hebrew also has a dual form for two things working in concert (i.e., animals working as a team [sus, horse, becomes susayim, two-horses] and parts of the body which come in pairs [ayin, eye; einayim, eyes]). The writer of Genesis chose to use the plural instead of the dual form. If this proved anything, then everyone would be Catholic (or something like that). So there must be a Jewish exigesis of why Elohim is a plural name and also a Jewish exigesis of why it takes a singular verb?????? :-)

Answer 5

The reason is that the Bible is the first book ever written in Hebrew. Proper and consistent grammar did not yet exist.

Elohim is not a plural pronoun, it is a proper noun. For example is the word, "Moses" plural because it ends in, "es?" No.

Look at the 2nd word in the Hebrew bible, "bahrah" which means "created." The verb is conjugated in the single, not the plural. This means the word, "Elohim" is a grammatical anomaly a plural sounding word that is actually single.

Answer 6

Nice. O fcourse Elohim denotes a plurality.
I Cr 13;8a, Love never fails!!!!!
10-23-6

Answer 7

Same question for Muslims, when in the Koran Allah says we,us let us, 100 times.

Answer 8

I am not Jewish - I am christian, but I had to compliment you on your question, it's a good one. I'll be interested to see what the answer ends up to be. God bless.

Answer 9

ELOHIM... means God of more than one personality and multiple characteristic's.