This page was migrated in July 2022 from my older website, biblicalambiguities.net.
31 July 2022 Navigate up to the Genesis index: index-genesis.
The word God in ba-genesis-1, and in the Bible in general, is sometimes the object of discussion because it looks plural: ʾelohim. The Hebrew ending -im is usually the equivalent of making an English word plural. But in the great majority of cases in the Hebrew Bible, ʾelohim is a singular word: "God" or "a god." There are places in the Bible where it is plural there, and in those places it is written the same way: ʾelohim.
So, some would argue, in Genesis 1:1 we should read "The gods created" instead of "God" created. They are wrong, because Genesis 1:1 contains the verb bara, created, which is singular, showing that ʾelohim must in this case be singular in meaning.
There are some passages where it can be tricky to tell whether or not ʾelohim is meant to be plural. This is not one of them.
As an interesting historical side note, Joseph Smith had a fantastical exposition on his theory that "God" was plural in Genesis 1:1, along with a variety of other misapprehensions of the Hebrew, which can be sampled in his "King Follett Sermon".
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