Why do chrisitians maintain that there is only one god when the bible makes it clear that there are many? [Spirituality & Religion]

If there is only one god, why do we have the worlds "El" and "Elohim"? One singular, one plural, both used by the god of the bible.
Why do we have god telling us to worship no OTHER gods before him? Why are there references to "we" to "I" ? Obviously there would be no competition between a fake god who couldn't do anything and real god who could grant miracles and punish the unfaithful.

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Northwest · M

The New Testament uses parts of the Old Testament, as reference or stating points. When it comes to the use of El and Elohim, it's not clear that the latter is the plural of the former. Given the context, it is a Homonym of the former.

Keep in mind also, that the New Testament, was initially written in ancient Greek, based on a combination Aramaic oral tradition/written text (Aramaic, not Hebrew was the language spoken during the time of Christ).

Christians also come in various flavors. You will find the hateful variety, like HippyJoe, and the Pope variety and other people in between.

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SW-User

@Celine it amazes me that somebody can take a THEORY as fact

Northwest · M

@Celine

Yeah i guess it's all pretty complicated what with all the translations. Because i've also heard that given the context it's clear that it refers to many gods and is not the name of the god.

As a Homonym, it would be something like "the Supreme Being", but consider the context of the time: prevalence of paganism, absence of Internet and Google, it's not surprising to find different linguistic references to the same thing.

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Northwest · M

@Celine

I'm aware of the different flavours. It sometimes amazes me that some people can preach the love of christ while being so shitty to people in their daily interactions

The Evangelicals, some of the "born again" groups, and other "Christian" denominations that rely more heavily on the OT, preach hatred and exclusionism.

Today, they are the #1 obstacle to peace. They want all Palestinians removed (via any means) from the West Bank, replaced with Jewish settlers, and a great battle to happen, when the Jewish army will eliminate its opponents.

That's part of the Armageddon prophecies, preparing for the Second Coming, and when it's all over, only a certain number of people will be saved, all Jews (but a few who convert to Christianity) and all other people will be doomed to eternity in hell.

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Northwest · M

@Celine

So there's just a homonym that means both the supreme being and a plurality of gods? Bad homonym lol

Only if you apply relatively modern grammatical rules, to something written/documented more than a couple of thousand years ago, when only a few people can read/write.

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Northwest · M

@Celine

Well i guess i don't know any other way to apply grammatical rules lol. But then, i'm no biblical scholar

I am not a biblical scholar. I don't put much thought into any longer. I am an atheist, but I am not going to fault any (peaceful) people for their beliefs. It's all about faith.

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Northwest · M

@Celine

I don't fault them for believing. I just like to see why they believe certain things.

Faith cannot be explained/justified through normal logic flow.

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Northwest · M

@Celine

I mean even using the framework upon which the elements of their belief are founded. There are so many denominations of christianity all apparently working off the same book

Catholics/Greek/Eastern/mainstream Protestant Christians make up most Christians (more than 85%), and they base their belief system on the New Testament, which has no such ambiguities.

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