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Elohim - God or gods

Elohim - God or gods

The answer, yes.

Joel Muddamalle, PhD's avatar
Joel Muddamalle, PhD
Feb 15, 2023
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Humble Theology
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Elohim - God or gods
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Yahweh is an Elohim, but no other Elohim is Yahweh - Dr. Michael Hesier

One of the challenges modern readers of the Bible have is our worldview. Some certain concepts and topics come up in Scripture that can feel uncomfortable or simply foreign to us. The easiest thing to do is either write them off with some easily explainable rationale that fits nicely into our 21st-century worldview. Or, we just ignore it and move on. Act like it was never there in the first place.

One of these topics is in relationship to the God of creation in comparison to the gods of the nations. Is it possible that there is room for more than one god in Christianity? You may be surprised at my answer – yes.

In the Hebrew Bible, the word translated as “God” or “gods” is ʾĕlōhîm. We find the word occurring around 2,570x with a variety of meanings.[1] This is where we have to lay aside our modern worldview and put on the worldview of the Ancient Near Eastern Israelites. The language of "Elohim" can't be reduced. We…

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