Personification of Attributes - Genesis 1:26

Ben Masada

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Personification of Attributes - Genesis 1:26


"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over... the whole earth."

The above passage of Genesis has been for years the trump card in the hands of Trinitarians to drop at the right time in the assumed thought that it will guarantee them to clean up the table, so to speak. Well, let them think again, because I have news. It's no longer that easy.

Elohim is incorporeal, and incorporeality reflects no image. But then again, how to harmonize the use of the pronouns in the plural form? The attributes of God, which are part of His essence, were impersonately involved in the formation of man.

Bear in mind that only in the creation of man was the statement issued: To make man at God's image. Since God has no visible image, and man does, it's only obvious that man's image would be according to God's attributes. Therefore, His attributes in a relative portion, were the active agent in the formation of man.

Now, it's imperative to focus on the pronouns used by the sacred writer, since the pronouns are anyways what Trinitarians use to think they have made their day. "Let US make MAN in OUR image and likeness. And let THEM have dominion over everything on earth."

Now, focus on the word MAN. It is in the singular form. Nevertheless, the purpose is for THEM to dominate the earth. If THEM were a reference to man, a clarification would be in order to explain the discrepancy in the Grammar. I mean, that it would be a reference to all men. This lack of clarification was not a lapse of the author, but intentional will to direct our minds to the attributes of God, which took part in the formation of man.

It's interesting and just convenient for Trinitarians to rapidly refer "us" and "our" to God Himself and hide any word of explanation on the plural pronoun "them," which could not be a reference to man. I hope they do not do this on purpose because it would be spiritual cruelty to hide the truth.

I hope we have settled this issue. Since "them" is not a reference to man but to the attributes of God, it's only obvious that "us" and "our" are not references to God Himself but to His attributes. Therefore, the Creator of the Universe is He Who has dominion over the whole of the Universe through man by way of His attributes.

Conclusion:

It's more than obvious that Israel could not uphold the banner of absolute Monotheism in God, and start the Scriptures with statements of plurality in God. The whole issue therefore, was personification of attributes.

Ben
 
The above passage of Genesis has been for years the trump card in the hands of Trinitarians to drop at the right time in the assumed thought that it will guarantee them to clean up the table, so to speak.
Really? Can I see your evidence for that? In all my studies of Trinitarian theology, I have no recollection of Genesis 1:26 being used whatsoever, and none at all as a 'trump card'.

It's interesting and just convenient for Trinitarians to rapidly refer "us" and "our" to God Himself and hide any word of explanation on the plural pronoun "them," which could not be a reference to man. I hope they do not do this on purpose because it would be spiritual cruelty to hide the truth.
Well we don't do it at all. I rather think here you're making an unfounded accusation?

I'm certainly willing to discuss the issue, if you can show me on what evidence your claim is made.

God bless,

Thomas
 
I've heard that argument made by those who claim "elohim" to be aliens. :p

Trinitarians generally don't use that argument, and certainly not as a "trump."
 
In over 60 yerars, some of which I stood as "final test" for Campus Crusade for Christ (I was good at demolishing arguements), I have never heard this used as proof for Trinity. Nor in my readings (not as broad but at least as obscure as Thomas') have I ever come across this. Cite example, Ben, please.
 
Really? Can I see your evidence for that? In all my studies of Trinitarian theology, I have no recollection of Genesis 1:26 being used whatsoever, and none at all as a 'trump card'.


Well we don't do it at all. I rather think here you're making an unfounded accusation?

I'm certainly willing to discuss the issue, if you can show me on what evidence your claim is made.

God bless,

Thomas


False accusation, really? You must not have been around too long. I have been forced to deal with Trinitarians as Genesis 1:26 is concerned not only on line but also personally on face-to-face discussions, especially with "Messianic Jews" here in Israel. Now, if you are really willing to discuss the issue, be my guest; I'll be happy to.
Ben
 
I've heard that argument made by those who claim "elohim" to be aliens. :p

Trinitarians generally don't use that argument, and certainly not as a "trump."


Trump card. The card that defines the wining party in a game of cards. Now, read Genesis 1:26 and tell me if you are not tempted to believe that God is not absolutely One.
Ben
 
False accusation, really? You must not have been around too long. I have been forced to deal with Trinitarians as Genesis 1:26 is concerned not only on line but also personally on face-to-face discussions, especially with "Messianic Jews" here in Israel. Now, if you are really willing to discuss the issue, be my guest; I'll be happy to.
Ben

I've have seen people use the argument that the pluralistic reference to God in Genesis implies that God might be "triune" (to which the argument is usually that the reference is an honorific title for God -- the royal We). But Genesis 1:26 isn't my idea of a pluralistic reference. Actually, if we are all made in the image of God, that would be a point against triune-ness.

It's the same thing with John 17:21. If we are either all made in the image of God or we can all be one, how then can there be a Trinity? Whatever qualities, attributes or relationship Jesus shared with God did not exclusively belong to him alone, but were available to all human beings.

Jesus was just more in touch with his "humanity" than most people. He was more human than most people. What is clear is that Jesus didn't believe in a Trinity.
 
Well, let them think again, because I have news.

I hope we have settled this issue.


Conclusion:

The whole issue therefore, was personification of attributes.

Ben
Ben, this is absolutely hilarious. I took out the minutia and just left the bragadocious which speaks louder than the rest.

"I hope 'we' have settled this issue"

Now this is where the typical comeback would be....what you gotta mouse in your pocket? As 'we' weren't involved at all in your monologue, nor the settling of the issue that to date, no Christian understands as an issue.

Ben, if you are Jew, revel in it. Don't worry about those that proslytize and witness on ya, just live your life and enjoy your religion.

Explore other religions and theologies if you like, but telling us what we think from on high...it don't go over so well...
 
vampires don't have a reflection in a mirror.

i'm not sure how it relates to the subject but i'm sure it does.
 
False accusation, really?
Yes.

If you're talking about orthodox Christianity, then accuracy would help. If you're talking about supporters of a particular doctrine within a tradition, then the term 'trinitarian' would apply.

As Genesis 1:26 has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity, it's a false accusation.

If you mean Christians, then again you're being prejudiciously selective in your materials.

God transcends all attributes. It is the language of metaphor.

God bless,

Thomas
 
I've have seen people use the argument that the pluralistic reference to God in Genesis implies that God might be "triune" (to which the argument is usually that the reference is an honorific title for God -- the royal We). But Genesis 1:26 isn't my idea of a pluralistic reference. Actually, if we are all made in the image of God, that would be a point against triune-ness.

It's the same thing with John 17:21. If we are either all made in the image of God or we can all be one, how then can there be a Trinity? Whatever qualities, attributes or relationship Jesus shared with God did not exclusively belong to him alone, but were available to all human beings.

Jesus was just more in touch with his "humanity" than most people. He was more human than most people. What is clear is that Jesus didn't believe in a Trinity.

I agree, yet I think it is a device he has used...

Father, Son, Holy Spirit
Unseen, Seen, Whole
Beloved, Lover, Love

When transcending the duality, you realize truth for yourself, what is called a satori or accepting the holy spirit becomes a reality. Certainly, he permits that all men can engage with this, in fact this is the whole point of his mission. Trying to understand it logically utterly misses the point, however.

Certainly, as far as Ben is concerned, this is difficult to justify unless we go to mystic Judaism... yet Judaism upholds that all men are gods. For me, Holy Spirit is the truth of God, while Father and Son describes the relationship between the realized man and the absolute - a continuation, as with the genes of the parent in the child. God is in all things, and yet beyond them all, the totality of them all, not limited to anything by itself.

All men can encounter the oneness of their being, Jesus has only recognized it in himself, he is a product of Judaic mysticism, one who has realized what the Torah points at - as was the Baptist, and many others even at the time of Jesus. The most important since is probably Baal Shem, although Judaism seems to be far less potent in recent years...
 
I've have seen people use the argument that the pluralistic reference to God in Genesis implies that God might be "triune" (to which the argument is usually that the reference is an honorific title for God -- the royal We). But Genesis 1:26 isn't my idea of a pluralistic reference. Actually, if we are all made in the image of God, that would be a point against triune-ness.

It's the same thing with John 17:21. If we are either all made in the image of God or we can all be one, how then can there be a Trinity? Whatever qualities, attributes or relationship Jesus shared with God did not exclusively belong to him alone, but were available to all human beings.

Jesus was just more in touch with his "humanity" than most people. He was more human than most people. What is clear is that Jesus didn't believe in a Trinity.


Wow! I almost agree with you. However, I must remind you that God has no image. Therefore, one more reason that God is absolutely One. BTW, Jesus himself declared that God is Spirit. (John 4:24) Therefore, incorporeal. And there is no plurality in incorporeality.
Ben
 
Ben, this is absolutely hilarious. I took out the minutia and just left the bragadocious which speaks louder than the rest.

"I hope 'we' have settled this issue"

Now this is where the typical comeback would be....what you gotta mouse in your pocket? As 'we' weren't involved at all in your monologue, nor the settling of the issue that to date, no Christian understands as an issue.

Ben, if you are Jew, revel in it. Don't worry about those that proslytize and witness on ya, just live your life and enjoy your religion.

Explore other religions and theologies if you like, but telling us what we think from on high...it don't go over so well...

Well my friend, the reason for my struggle is based on the fact that Judaism, which was the Faith of Jesus, has been distorted by Christian preachers every time Jesus is preached as a demigod, which is the son of a god with an earthly woman, as if Greek Mythology is possible in Judaism. That's why I got into this, to defend Judaism from being vandalized by Christianity through the Pauline policy of Replacement Theology. Someone gota do something.
Ben
 
Yes.

If you're talking about orthodox Christianity, then accuracy would help. If you're talking about supporters of a particular doctrine within a tradition, then the term 'trinitarian' would apply.

As Genesis 1:26 has nothing to do with the doctrine of the Trinity, it's a false accusation.

If you mean Christians, then again you're being prejudiciously selective in your materials.

God transcends all attributes. It is the language of metaphor.

God bless,

Thomas


Good! After this one, I am sure you are going to explain to us how God referred to Himself in the plural pronoun if He is absolutely One and why image if He, according to Jesus himself in John 4:24 is a Spirit, which is incorporeal. As you know, I am sure, there is no image to incorporeality.
Ben
 
The (local) Elohim, Those Whom and which stand fairly close to the pinnacle of achievement as far as we're able to understand, aren't so difficult to behold ... as some might seem. It's easy to endlessly complicate it, especially if we don't quite know where to start.

Ever looked through a telescope and beheld a planet? Have you seen Venus, perhaps, or Mars? Saturn, Jupiter or perhaps one of the others? I mean planets, not stars.

Then you've seen an Elohim. If you walk outside and behold the grass, the sky, the dirt, trees, fish or birds ... again, you have seen parts of our most local Elohim (again, with a spiritual stature far beyond your ken or mine, even if the EARTH Elohim is right here "under our feet").

Seven Sacred Elohim were incarnate in our System [Itself the embodiment or expression of a SOLAR Lord, or an Elohim of Greater stature still] ... and this is not including a few Whom and which are well on the way, but still get classified as non-Sacred, or in an in-between stage. Earth is in between, Mars is non-sacred, and so on. Thus, neither of these were or are as yet among the Seven.

Earth is to Saturn [a Sacred Planet] as Mars is to Mercury, or perhaps Neptune, in some sense. Vulcan, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Uranus ... in proper Order, 1 to 7; these are the Sacred Elohim, or Planets, of our System.

Now this is all taught for tens of thousands of years, and it is Biblical, as will be a ton of other astrological and astronomical Teaching ...

... but clearly, insight has been lacking when the majority of scholars have bent their minds - otherwise keen & sharpened, I suppose - to the task. All I tend to see is a bunch of tail-chasing, and every now & then a new skeptic [at least here at Interfaith] arriving, apparently to hammer away at the status quo, and tell us where - or where not - we should in our imaginations, go.

There is no argument that the Elohim, on Their own level, appear formless, beyond what we call attributes and anthropomorphic qualities (otherwise expressed: spiritually, psychologically, even physically). But so, too, is your spirit, your soul, or even your astral body, or your etheric. Do you disbelieve that these various subtler aspects of your constitution exist, simply because you cannot see them?

Well I can see you, and I am not fooled ... or at least, not entirely. When it comes to particulars, I still must struggle - but I am far from perfect, even as some of the Elohim are Whom we can behold in the Heavens. Just because I cannot readily SEE you as you more truly are (UNITED in both Consciousness and sense of Self with OTHERS) ... does not mean that I cannot grasp the idea, or that I must reject the facts out of hand, as if I were somehow the gold standard, and as if it were up to ME to decide how God has built the worlds and Universe.

Neither should we presume or assume that we know best when it comes to the matter of the Elohim. Until you have studied what the ancients of EVERY Tradition you can access have had to say on the matter, perhaps it's best to keep silent on things you understand about as well as I understand particle physics. Yes, yes, yes, I know. There are materials available now, and even the laity may marvel at the mystery of the Higgs-Boson.

So too, if you like, may you MARVEL at the Heavens. But as one lyricist wrote, some decades ago:
People beseech me, but they'll never teach me
Things that I already know ...

I'm a believer, I ain't no deceiver
Mountains move before my eyes
My Destiny planned out, I don't need no handout
Speculation of the `wise' ... ;)
I can show you another Eloha, fairly easily. Go look in the mirror.

You won't behold the same Eloha [Elohim] as orbit the Solar Eloha {Helios, Ra, etc.} ... known today by the names of the physical planets [poor Vulcan, a SACRED Planet, but not even acknowledged by the men of science of today ... why? Because they cannot SEE the Blacksmith of the Gods? Oh come now, what a cop-out!].

But in the mirror is all the evidence you should need, that yes, we are descended (SIC) from GODS ... and yes, the Divine Spark, the Divine Potential, dwells within us. Strange that men who call themselves learned, cannot grasp this simple fact, or explain it, or apparently begin to even understand.

I understand. I understand that they are threatened, they are quickly lost if we attempt to speak on such matters [even admitting our own, or MY own LIMITED expertise, as any of us must honestly do before we proceed]. And though we shall not see the subject revealed in full anytime soon, I still find it not the least surprising that some would far prefer to dote upon the more easily accessed and well-hashed matters discussed within their own theology textbooks ... written, at best, in the last few hundred years.

I far prefer what the ANCIENTS had to say. And their Wisdom remains evident, to this day ... except where modern Science HAS been able to make various confirmations, removing all shadow of a doubt!

This too will occur, gradually, even regarding such matters as the Seven Prajapatis, the Amshaspends, the Elohim, the Mind-Born Sons of Brahma, the Heavenly Spirits, the Planetary Logoi, the SEVEN Spirits before the THRONE, the 7 GREAT Spirits, and so forth.

Many names and terminologies, ONE TRUTH that underlies, nuanced perhaps, and approached differently by different people in different times ... but not at all confusing, any more than you will behold your friend Sally, know her as a HUMAN BEING, and not mistake her, two hours later, for your other friend, SUE, or SAM, or SHELLY. Does the similarity confuse you, simply because each person has an S in her name?

Do you REALLY know that little about the figure in the mirror? Do you REALLY think that the meatbag of appearance is no other, no different, than the Being (or Spirit) that will live on, surviving death?

Then why such confusion when you look out, peering through a telescope, and notice Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania?

Could it be that modern SCIENCE has taught you all that IT can about such hunks of gas and dirt ... and that, having failed to question further, you really just haven't reached that Realization ... that planets too, as the tangible, physical EMBODIMENTS of Spirits ... EVOLVE?

Hylozoism is perhaps one of the most sublime philosophies, or philosophical concepts I think I have ever encountered. Perhaps we can smile together, as we begin to dimly sense some of the implications of this path of inquiry.

Namaskar :)
 
People beseech me, but they'll never teach me
Things that I already know ...

I'm a believer, I ain't no deceiver
Mountains move before my eyes
My Destiny planned out, I don't need no handout
Speculation of the `wise' ... ;)
[/INDENT]

ok... quoting Ozzy Osbourne on a religious thread is like Triple Point Word Score!! :)

well done!

metta,

~v
 
ok... quoting Ozzy Osbourne on a religious thread is like Triple Point Word Score!! :)

well done!

metta,

~v
Lol ... yeah, the really good stuff was in Sabbath days, when those fellas were pretty much anti-war, social progressives ... just with a GRIND!

I wish I knew sometimes where Ozzy might attribute some of his lyrics, or what Inspiration he might claim. I know we could ask him now, but umm ... what's the point! :p

I still like the commercial from a year ago where he say, "What the f's a Bieber?" Some kinda cellular ad, I think.
 
The (local) Elohim, Those Whom and which stand fairly close to the pinnacle of achievement as far as we're able to understand, aren't so difficult to behold ... as some might seem. It's easy to endlessly complicate it, especially if we don't quite know where to start.

Ever looked through a telescope and beheld a planet? Have you seen Venus, perhaps, or Mars? Saturn, Jupiter or perhaps one of the others? I mean planets, not stars.

Then you've seen an Elohim. If you walk outside and behold the grass, the sky, the dirt, trees, fish or birds ... again, you have seen parts of our most local Elohim (again, with a spiritual stature far beyond your ken or mine, even if the EARTH Elohim is right here "under our feet").

Seven Sacred Elohim were incarnate in our System [Itself the embodiment or expression of a SOLAR Lord, or an Elohim of Greater stature still] ... and this is not including a few Whom and which are well on the way, but still get classified as non-Sacred, or in an in-between stage. Earth is in between, Mars is non-sacred, and so on. Thus, neither of these were or are as yet among the Seven.

Earth is to Saturn [a Sacred Planet] as Mars is to Mercury, or perhaps Neptune, in some sense. Vulcan, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Uranus ... in proper Order, 1 to 7; these are the Sacred Elohim, or Planets, of our System.

Now this is all taught for tens of thousands of years, and it is Biblical, as will be a ton of other astrological and astronomical Teaching ...

... but clearly, insight has been lacking when the majority of scholars have bent their minds - otherwise keen & sharpened, I suppose - to the task. All I tend to see is a bunch of tail-chasing, and every now & then a new skeptic [at least here at Interfaith] arriving, apparently to hammer away at the status quo, and tell us where - or where not - we should in our imaginations, go.

There is no argument that the Elohim, on Their own level, appear formless, beyond what we call attributes and anthropomorphic qualities (otherwise expressed: spiritually, psychologically, even physically). But so, too, is your spirit, your soul, or even your astral body, or your etheric. Do you disbelieve that these various subtler aspects of your constitution exist, simply because you cannot see them?

Well I can see you, and I am not fooled ... or at least, not entirely. When it comes to particulars, I still must struggle - but I am far from perfect, even as some of the Elohim are Whom we can behold in the Heavens. Just because I cannot readily SEE you as you more truly are (UNITED in both Consciousness and sense of Self with OTHERS) ... does not mean that I cannot grasp the idea, or that I must reject the facts out of hand, as if I were somehow the gold standard, and as if it were up to ME to decide how God has built the worlds and Universe.

Neither should we presume or assume that we know best when it comes to the matter of the Elohim. Until you have studied what the ancients of EVERY Tradition you can access have had to say on the matter, perhaps it's best to keep silent on things you understand about as well as I understand particle physics. Yes, yes, yes, I know. There are materials available now, and even the laity may marvel at the mystery of the Higgs-Boson.

So too, if you like, may you MARVEL at the Heavens. But as one lyricist wrote, some decades ago:
People beseech me, but they'll never teach me
Things that I already know ...

I'm a believer, I ain't no deceiver
Mountains move before my eyes
My Destiny planned out, I don't need no handout
Speculation of the `wise' ... ;)
I can show you another Eloha, fairly easily. Go look in the mirror.

You won't behold the same Eloha [Elohim] as orbit the Solar Eloha {Helios, Ra, etc.} ... known today by the names of the physical planets [poor Vulcan, a SACRED Planet, but not even acknowledged by the men of science of today ... why? Because they cannot SEE the Blacksmith of the Gods? Oh come now, what a cop-out!].

But in the mirror is all the evidence you should need, that yes, we are descended (SIC) from GODS ... and yes, the Divine Spark, the Divine Potential, dwells within us. Strange that men who call themselves learned, cannot grasp this simple fact, or explain it, or apparently begin to even understand.

I understand. I understand that they are threatened, they are quickly lost if we attempt to speak on such matters [even admitting our own, or MY own LIMITED expertise, as any of us must honestly do before we proceed]. And though we shall not see the subject revealed in full anytime soon, I still find it not the least surprising that some would far prefer to dote upon the more easily accessed and well-hashed matters discussed within their own theology textbooks ... written, at best, in the last few hundred years.

I far prefer what the ANCIENTS had to say. And their Wisdom remains evident, to this day ... except where modern Science HAS been able to make various confirmations, removing all shadow of a doubt!

This too will occur, gradually, even regarding such matters as the Seven Prajapatis, the Amshaspends, the Elohim, the Mind-Born Sons of Brahma, the Heavenly Spirits, the Planetary Logoi, the SEVEN Spirits before the THRONE, the 7 GREAT Spirits, and so forth.

Many names and terminologies, ONE TRUTH that underlies, nuanced perhaps, and approached differently by different people in different times ... but not at all confusing, any more than you will behold your friend Sally, know her as a HUMAN BEING, and not mistake her, two hours later, for your other friend, SUE, or SAM, or SHELLY. Does the similarity confuse you, simply because each person has an S in her name?

Do you REALLY know that little about the figure in the mirror? Do you REALLY think that the meatbag of appearance is no other, no different, than the Being (or Spirit) that will live on, surviving death?

Then why such confusion when you look out, peering through a telescope, and notice Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania?

Could it be that modern SCIENCE has taught you all that IT can about such hunks of gas and dirt ... and that, having failed to question further, you really just haven't reached that Realization ... that planets too, as the tangible, physical EMBODIMENTS of Spirits ... EVOLVE?

Hylozoism is perhaps one of the most sublime philosophies, or philosophical concepts I think I have ever encountered. Perhaps we can smile together, as we begin to dimly sense some of the implications of this path of inquiry.

Namaskar :)


This of yours is too pantheistic an idea of God. I do believe that God is not personal, but not that God is an intergral part of the universe. I like to think of God as outside the matter of the universe, outside time and outside space. The man who builds a house or the watch, is not part of that house or a piece of that watch. That's how I see God.
Ben
 
Ben Masada said:
False accusation, really? You must not have been around too long. I have been forced to deal with Trinitarians as Genesis 1:26 is concerned not only on line but also personally on face-to-face discussions, especially with "Messianic Jews" here in Israel.
not only has thomas been here a good long time, his views are in no way the sort that either you and i ought to find objectionable; furthermore they are without exception backed up by impeccable sourcing in catholic doctrine. if you want to go ahead and critique the "messianic" and more rednecked types of christianity, you are free to do so, but please do so in a reasonable fashion and try to refrain from crass overgeneralisation.

Lunitik said:
Judaism upholds that all men are gods.
judaism upholds that humans are made in the Divine Image - that is *quite* different.

Jesus has only recognized it in himself, he is a product of Judaic mysticism, one who has realized what the Torah points at - as was the Baptist, and many others even at the time of Jesus.
hmmm. not sure i've ever seen that demonstrated in any credible fashion. what the Torah points at is far more complex and subtle.

The most important since is probably Baal Shem
yeah, that's right. absolutely nothing happened in judaism between 33 and 1700. how palpably ignorant.

although Judaism seems to be far less potent in recent years...
i assure you we can still get it up. in fact it is this so-called "potency" that most annoys our detractors, who apparently still wish we would convert, die out or submit to massacre - but here we are, still getting up people's noses...

AndrewX said:
Neither should we presume or assume that we know best when it comes to the matter of the Elohim.
well, quite!

Earth is to Saturn [a Sacred Planet] as Mars is to Mercury, or perhaps Neptune, in some sense. Vulcan, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Uranus ... in proper Order, 1 to 7; these are the Sacred Elohim, or Planets, of our System.
doesn't the discovery of pluto rather screw that one up?

I understand. I understand that they are threatened, they are quickly lost if we attempt to speak on such matters [even admitting our own, or MY own LIMITED expertise, as any of us must honestly do before we proceed].
er...um...adfgb..m,lhj
su80
g
4578
dfgujghkjhk
\suioawoe7rt7os
v gngfn

oops! sorry, nodded off and hit my head on the keyboard there. however, it's nice to see one thing on which we agree: the mumbling national treasure known as ozzy.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
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