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Why doesn't the Tanakh say that God is only one person?

calm

Active Member
Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and those who live the Jewish faith claim that but I cannot read in the Tanakh that God is only one.
 

calm

Active Member
"Hear O Israel the LORD is our God the LORD is one."

One just means one. Nothing more and nothing less.
No, "one" does not mean the person but the unity.
The Hebrew word which is translated here as "one" is "echad". It is also said that male and female are one flesh. And the Hebrew word "echad" is also used here. And of course Adam and Eve are different persons but the "one" refers to the unity, or rather to the nature.
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
And did God say in the beginning: "Let me create man after my image" or "Let us create man after our image"?
The latter. I only have time now for the short answer because it's soon shabbat, which is: It's "the royal 'we'" and there are proofs for this from the Tanach, but I don't have time at the moment. Perhaps someone else does have time to further explain. Have a nice weekend.
 

Flankerl

Well-Known Member
Why do you have to start this "I am going to teach the Jews something about their language"-stiff before Shabbat?

Why not any other day of the week? I wanted to be entertained into the night. :(
 

calm

Active Member
The latter. I only have time now for the short answer because it's soon shabbat, which is: It's "the royal 'we'" and there are proofs for this from the Tanach, but I don't have time at the moment. Perhaps someone else does have time to further explain. Have a nice weekend.
The "Royal we" argument again. You don't have to explain that argument to me, I know it already. And it's been refuted enough times.
 

calm

Active Member
Why do you have to start this "I am going to teach the Jews something about their language"-stiff before Shabbat?

Why not any other day of the week? I wanted to be entertained into the night. :(
Hebrew is their language? It is God's language and the first man who spoke this language was Adam. And Adam was not part of the jewish faith of today.
 

Darkforbid

Well-Known Member
Genesis 1:27

'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them'
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and those who live the Jewish faith claim that but I cannot read in the Tanakh that God is only one.
Are you asking why God is not identified textually as a person, or why the singular verb/pronoun is or is not used to refer to God in a particular case?
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
And did God say in the beginning: "Let me create man after my image" or "Let us create man after our image"?
Your mistake is literalism. The meaning is that every human can experience the Divine.
 

Samael_Khan

Goosebender
Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and those who live the Jewish faith claim that but I cannot read in the Tanakh that God is only one.

There is a theory that the Israelites were originally Henotheists and then progressed to monotheism. Which I can see when reading the Bible. The language seems to suggest that they believed that there were many Gods but only one worthy of worship and he was more powerful than the rest.

Also the idea of God being one is tricky in the early old testament. The Israelite God's nature seems to be fluid, which means that he can manifest into creation in multiple places at once and in bodily form as when he eats with Abraham before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.

Below is a link to a jewish scholar named Benjamin Sommer who speaks about this in front of a jewish audience:

 
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