Are you Jewish?

Question

I have a question for you.
I know that in Judaism, God is only ONE being, whereas in Christianity it is a trinity. God, Son, Holy Ghost.
But how come, God is called Elohim? In Hebrew, the "...im" ending of a word means it is plural.
Just a question.

...Plus in Genesis 1:26 it says "Then God said, 'Let US make man in OUR image, in OUR likeness,..."
Why is it plural?

That is not true.
I took Ancient World History and my professor told me that the uniqueness about Judaism at the time was that it was the only religion that was Monotheism. They only worshipped one God. Never did the Israelites worship more than one God unless they disobeyed God and followed the religions and rituals of the pagan nations around them.
But that was the uniqueness of the Hebrews, they only had one God.
Try the book by D. Brendan Nagle "The Ancient World: A Social and Cultural History 6th edition". ...utterly boring (with barely any pictures and color), but with lots of information.

Well Shema,
when Jesus hung on the cross, he was talking only to his Father, maybe that's why it only states Eloi. If it would have been Elohim, it would include him too.

Answer 1

Elohim is the common name for God. It is a plural form, but "The usage of the language gives no support to the supposition that we have in the plural form Elohim, applied to the God of Israel, the remains of an early polytheism, or at least a combination with the higher spiritual beings" (Kautzsch). Grammarians call it a plural of majesty or rank, or of abstraction, or of magnitude (Gesenius, Grammatik, 27th ed., nn. 124 g, 132 h). The Ethiopic plural amlak has become a proper name of God. Hoffmann has pointed out an analogous plural elim in the Phoenician inscriptions (Ueber einige phon. Inschr., 1889, p. 17 sqq.), and Barton has shown that in the tablets from El-Amarna the plural form ilani replaces the singular more than forty times

Etymology-

Elohim has been explained as a plural form of Eloah or as plural derivative of El. Those who adhere to the former explanation do not agree as to the derivation of Eloah. There is no such verbal stem as alah in Hebrew; but the Arabist Fleischer, Franz Delitzsch, and others appeal to the Arabic aliha, meaning "to be filled with dread", "anxiously to seek refuge", so that ilah (eloah) would mean in the first place "dread", then the object of dread. Gen., xxi, 42, 53, where God is called "the fear of Isaac", Is., viii, 13, and Ps. lxxv, 12, appear to support this view. But the fact that aliha is probably not an independent verbal stem but only a denominative from ilah, signifying originally "possessed of God" (cf. enthousiazein, daimonan) renders the explanation more than precarious. There is no more probability in the contention of Ewald, Dillmann, and others that the verbal stem, alah means "to be mighty": and is to regarded as a by-form of the stem alah; that, therefore, Eloah grows out of alah as El springs from alah. Baethgen (Beitrage, 297) has pointed out that of the fifty-seven occurrences of Eloah forty-one belong to the Book of Job, and the others to late texts or poetic passages. Hence he agrees with Buhl in maintaining that the singular form Eloah came into existence only after the plural form Elohim had been long in common use; in this case, a singular was supplied for its pre-existent plural. But even admitting Elohim to be the prior form, its etymology has not thus far been satisfactorily explained. The ancient Jewish and the early ecclesiastical writers agree with many modern scholars in deriving Elohim from El, but there is a great difference of opinion as to the method of derivation. Nestle (Theol. Stud. aus Würt., 1882, pp. 243 sqq.) supposes that the plural has arisen by the insertion of an artificial h, like the Hebrew amahoth (maidens) from amah. Buhl (Gesenius Hebraisches Handworterbuch, 12th ed., 1895, pp. 41 sq.) considers Elohim as a sort of augmentative form of El; but in spite of their disagreement as to the method of derivation, these writers are one in supposing that in early Hebrew the singular of the word signifying God was El, and its plural form Elohim; and that only more recent times coined the singular form Eloah, thus giving Elohim a grammatically correct correspondent. Lagrange, however, maintains that Elohim and Eloah are derived collaterally and independently from El.

The Use of the Word

The Hebrews had three common names of God, El, Elohim, and Eloah; besides, they had the proper name Yahweh. Nestle is authority for the statement that Yahweh occurs about six thousand times in the Old Testament, while all the common names of God taken together do not occur half as often. The name Elohim is found 2570 times; Eloah, 57 times [41 in Job; 4 in Pss.; 4 in Dan.; 2 in Hab.; 2 in Canticle of Moses (Deuteronomy 32); 1 in Prov., 1 in Is.; 1 in Par.; 1 in Neh. (II Esd.)]; El, 226 times (Elim, 9 times). Lagrange (Etudes sur les religions sémitiques, Paris, 1905, p. 71) infers from Gen., xlvi, 3 (the most mighty God of thy father), Ex., vi, 3 (by the name of God Almighty), and from the fact that El replaces Yah in proper names, the conclusion that El was at first a proper and personal name of God. Its great age may be shown from its general occurrence among all the Semitic races, and this in its turn may be illustrated by its presence in the proper names found in Gen., iv, 18; xxv, 13; xxxvi, 43. Elohim is not found among all the Semitic races; the Aramaeans alone seem to have had an analogous form. It has been suggested that the name Elohim must have been formed after the descendants of Shem had separated into distinct nations.

Meaning of the Word

If Elohim be regarded as derived from El, its original meaning would be "the strong one" according to Wellhausen's derivation of El, from ul (Skizzen, III, 169); or "the foremost one", according to Nöldeke's derivation of El from ul or il, "to be in front" (Sitzungsberichte der berlinischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1880, pp. 760 sqq.; 1882, pp. 1175 sqq.); or "the mighty one", according to Dillmann's derivation of El from alah or alay, "to be mighty" (On Genesis, I, 1); or, finally "He after whom one strives", "Who is the goal of all human aspiration and endeavour", "to whom one has recourse in distress or when one is in need of guidance", "to who one attaches oneself closely", coincidentibus interea bono et fine, according to the derivation of El from the preposition el, "to", advocated by La Place (cf. Lagarde, Uebersicht, etc., p. 167), Lagarde (op. cit., pp. 159 sqq.), Lagrange (Religions semitiques, pp. 79 sqq.), and others. A discussion of the arguments which militate for and against each of the foregoing derivations would lead us too far.

If we have recourse to the use of the word Elohim in the study of its meaning, we find that in its proper sense it denotes either the true God or false gods, and metaphorically it is applied to judges, angels, and kings; and even accompanies other nouns, giving them a superlative meaning. The presence of the article, the singular construction of the word, and its context show with sufficient clearness whether it must be taken in its proper or its metaphorical sense, and what is its precise meaning in each case. Kautzsch (Encyclopaedia Biblica, III, 3324, n. 2) endeavours to do away with the metaphorical sense of Elohim. Instead of the rendering "judges" he suggests the translation "God", as witness of a lawsuit, as giver of decisions on points of law, or as dispenser of oracles; for the rendering "angels" he substitutes "the gods of the heathen", which, in later post-exilic times, fell to a lower rank. But this interpretation is not supported by solid proof.

According to Renan (Histoire du peuple d'Israel, I, p. 30) the Semites believed that the world is surrounded, penetrated, and governed by the Elohim, myriads of active beings, analogous to the spirits of the savages, alive, but somehow inseparable from one another, not even distinguished by their proper names as the gods of the Aryans, so that they can be considered as a confused totality. Marti (Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, p. 26), too, finds in Elohim a trace of the original Semitic polydemonism; he maintains that the word signified the sum of the divine beings that inhabited any given place. Baethgen (op. cit., p. 287), F.C. Baur (Symbolik und Mythologie, I, 304), and Hellmuth-Zimmermann (Elohim, Berlin, 1900) make Elohim an expression of power, grandeur, and totality. Lagrange (op. cit., p. 78) urges against these views that even the Semitic races need distinct units before they have a sum, and distinct parts before that arrive at a totality. Moreover, the name El is prior to Elohim (op. cit., p. 77 sq.) and El is both a proper and a common name of God. Originally it was either a proper name and has become a common name, or it was a common name has become a proper name. In either case, El, and, therefore, also its derivative form Elohim, must have denoted the one true God. This inference becomes clear after a little reflection. If El was, at first, the proper name of a false god, it could not become the common name of a false god, it could not become the common name for deity any more than Jupiter or Juno could; and if it was, at first, the common name for deity, it could become the proper name only of that God who combined in him all the attributes of deity, who was the one true God. This does not imply that all the Semitic races had from the beginning a clear concept of God's unit and Divine attributes, though all had originally the Divine name El.

Answer 2

I'm not Jewish, but I can provide some historical information.

The earliest semitic culture was polytheistic. Of the pantheon, the chief god was (for lack of better spelling of the original pronounciation) yahweh. When 'Elohim' was used, it reflected that the Chief God Yahweh was speaking to the rest of the pantheon.

As the semitic culture moved to monotheism, however, the use of the plural took on the concept of the "Royal We". That is, if you were to offend the Queen over an intimate and personal dinner, she may say, "I am not amused," whereas if you did the same at an official state function, she would say, "We are not amused." The 'we' here reflects that the speaker is speaking for the entirety of the kingdom... to offend the Queen at a state function is to offend the United Kingdom as a whole. So when the monotheistic Yahweh speaks in the plural, it is taken to be the Royal We scenario, speaking for the whole of the Kingdom.

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Amina:

You might want to notice that at no place did I directly reference Judaism. By the time the semetic culture had codified Judaism, it was monotheistic. However, like all other monotheisms, it originated in a polytheistic source.

The use of Elohim, plural, is a holdover from the polytheistic roots.

Religions evolve.

Of course, this calls all of them into question, as truth doesn't evolve, truth is.

Answer 3

Just because a Hebrew word has -im at the end does not neccessarily mean that it is plural.

The best example of that is the word Elohim. In Exodus G-d says that he made Moses an "Elohim" to Pharoah, in that context, it means a lord (small L) over Pharoah. Also, the word can also refer to a judge, and angel, or a VIP as well.

Since Moses was singular, you cannot argue then that Elohim implies a plurality.

Besides, Hebrew verbs also have different suffixes to indicate whether they are operating for a plural or singular. When referring to G-d, it always uses singular.

Answer 4

the word elohim, while it has a plural ending, is singular in meaning. elohim is not the only word in hebrew that has a plural ending even in singular form. the word chayim, which means "life", is an example. the word panim, which means "face" is another one... when one of these ambiguous words is being used, we tell whether it is singular or plural by looking at the verb. in the case of elohim, the verb is always third person masculine singular, and so are all the pronouns.

Gen 1:1
breishit *bara* elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz

the verb bara means "he created", and as i said, it is third person masculine singular. if elohim was supposed to be plural in meaning, the verb used here would be "baru" instead of "bara".

Answer 5

None Jew here but here is an article if you wish to read.

Elohim





There are those who will not use El or any of the variations of El such as Elohim, Eloah, etc. because El is used to refer to a pagan mighty one.



This brief article asks for common sense regarding the use of El and it’s variations.



Quickly think of the names of 5 prophets in the Old Testament (TaNaKh). Were any of them the following?



Samuel – Heard of El

Ezekiel – El will strengthen

Daniel – Judge of El

Joel – Yah is El



Strongs defines El as follows:



H410

אל
'êl

Shortened from H352; strength; as adjective mighty; especially the Almighty (but used also of any deity): - God (god), X goodly, X great, idol, might (-y one), power, strong. Compare names in “-el.”



Did the Eternal despise the use of El or any of its variations? Common sense tells us no.



Why? Because His servants names contain this title. If the Almighty took offense at His followers using this title He certainly would have prevented them from using it in their names.



Even Messiah used this title:



Mat 27:46 And about the ninth hour יהושע cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Ěli, Ěli, lemah sheḇaqtani?” that is, “My Ěl, My Ěl, why have You forsaken Me?”



YHWH Shalom,


Also the link below is a very good article!

Answer 6

there are plenty of words that end with an s that are not plural, like axis, or conscious, the end of the word means nothing.

Alternatively, elohim could imply ownership by more than one person, as in their G-d.

Answer 7

nope I'm still in one piece n u can check if u want

Answer 8

no