Us

[nobspeople]

So as to not sidetrack the 'dominion' thread, who are the 'us' in the below:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
For discussion:
If there was only one god before creation (as many claim), who is the 'us' being referred to here?
Does god see itself in the plural?
Was jesus there with god?
Were there other gods there at the same time?
Or, if you like, how do YOU justify the 'us' here, in this quote?

[theophile]

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

The deep is God's 'partner' in creation. See Genesis 1:2. The deep is already there with God from the beginning. God hovers over her waters.

This concept / character tends to go unrecognized in its importance. You could argue as some have (see Catherine Keller's Face of the Deep) that she has been sidelined / ignored by centuries of patriarchal theology.

Also note that the deep (Hebrew tehom) is a clear reference to Tiamat (they share the same etymology). Tiamat was the dragon / chaos / sea goddess in the Enuma Elish. A main point of Genesis 1 (contrary to contemporary cosmologies) is that tehom / Tiamat is not destroyed to enable creation. Again, she is partnered with.

Hence, "Let us". And furthermore, the image of this "Us" that we are made in: man and woman.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

The deep is God's 'partner' in creation. See Genesis 1:2. The deep is already there with God from the beginning. God hovers over her waters.

This concept / character tends to go unrecognized in its importance. You could argue as some have (see Catherine Keller's Face of the Deep) that she has been sidelined / ignored by centuries of patriarchal theology.

Also note that the deep (Hebrew tehom) is a clear reference to Tiamat (they share the same etymology). Tiamat was the dragon / chaos / sea goddess in the Enuma Elish. A main point of Genesis 1 (contrary to contemporary cosmologies) is that tehom / Tiamat is not destroyed to enable creation. Again, she is partnered with.

Hence, "Let us". And furthermore, the image of this "Us" that we are made in: man and woman.

God's girlfriend, in a sense?
Partner-in-crime?
Did god create her or was she already there?
Is there more that she helped create?
Why would god need or want her help?

[1213]

...
Were there other gods there at the same time?
...

I think that is possible, because:

Now it happened on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.
Job 1:6

I said, "You are gods, All of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you shall die like men, And fall like one of the rulers."
Psalms 82:6-7

But, maybe it is just about Jesus. Bible tells all was created through Jesus. Because of that, it may be that there was God and Jesus.

in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins; who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him were all things created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him.
Colossians 1:14-16

[theophile]

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

The deep is God's 'partner' in creation. See Genesis 1:2. The deep is already there with God from the beginning. God hovers over her waters.

This concept / character tends to go unrecognized in its importance. You could argue as some have (see Catherine Keller's Face of the Deep) that she has been sidelined / ignored by centuries of patriarchal theology.

Also note that the deep (Hebrew tehom) is a clear reference to Tiamat (they share the same etymology). Tiamat was the dragon / chaos / sea goddess in the Enuma Elish. A main point of Genesis 1 (contrary to contemporary cosmologies) is that tehom / Tiamat is not destroyed to enable creation. Again, she is partnered with.

Hence, "Let us". And furthermore, the image of this "Us" that we are made in: man and woman.

God's girlfriend, in a sense?
Partner-in-crime?
Did god create her or was she already there?
Is there more that she helped create?
Why would god need or want her help?

God's girlfriend, in a sense?
Marriage is the metaphor that the bible goes on to use for the relationship between man and woman, and so it presumably holds for the (ideal) relationship between God and the deep.

Partner-in-crime?
Per above, ideally, but not necessarily. Like any marriage it starts in neutrality, and may go south, just like it does between man and woman in Genesis 3. (Satan, for example, I would argue is the manifestation of rebellious forces in the deep.)

Did god create her or was she already there?
Already there. There is no reference whatsoever to her creation (or to the creation of her waters) in Genesis 1 or anywhere else that I know. But happy to be shown otherwise on this one - it's a critical point.

Is there more that she helped create?
Anything that is in a substantial sense comes from her. Think of the deep as an abyssal space full of fluid matter (/water). As such she provides the space and building blocks of everything that is. Or of everything that isn't of a purely spiritual form (like God). You and I included. She's the real source of power in this world.

Why would god need or want her help?
Because God is spirit, which is to say God is nothing substantial in Godself. The whole point is for spirit and matter to become one (in marriage). For God to become all in all and for all matter (everything in the great deep) to join with God in achieving God's end. That's what we see happening in Genesis 1. Without that participation, including the participation of you and I (being creatures from the deep), God is essentially powerless. Atheism would be true, more or less.

[Difflugia]

So as to not sidetrack the 'dominion' thread, who are the 'us' in the below:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

The council of gods from Job 1:6, called the "sons of the gods" in the same way that people are referred to as "sons of (the) humanity" in Genesis 11:5.

[theophile]

So as to not sidetrack the 'dominion' thread, who are the 'us' in the below:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

The council of gods from Job 1:6, called the "sons of the gods" in the same way that people are referred to as "sons of (the) humanity" in Genesis 11:5.

I agree that the children of God are part of the 'us', but they are also the product of a prior union of spirit and matter (for lack of better term) that constitutes a more original 'us' that we lose sight of if we focus only on the children of God and stop with that.

They are just like Jesus, who was the product of spirit (God) and matter (Mary) coming together.

In Genesis 1, Mary = the deep. A womb-like structure present from the beginning with God. Everything else - the children of God included - flow from this original union / 'us'...

Otherwise all you have is asexual reproduction on God's part. No marriage. No original "man and woman" that humankind is made in the image of.

[Diagoras]

[Replying to nobspeople in post #1]

The deep is God's 'partner' in creation. See Genesis 1:2. The deep is already there with God from the beginning. God hovers over her waters.

This concept / character tends to go unrecognized in its importance. You could argue as some have (see Catherine Keller's Face of the Deep) that she has been sidelined / ignored by centuries of patriarchal theology.

Also note that the deep (Hebrew tehom) is a clear reference to Tiamat (they share the same etymology). Tiamat was the dragon / chaos / sea goddess in the Enuma Elish. A main point of Genesis 1 (contrary to contemporary cosmologies) is that tehom / Tiamat is not destroyed to enable creation. Again, she is partnered with.

Hence, "Let us". And furthermore, the image of this "Us" that we are made in: man and woman.

Always interesting to learn more about creation accounts. I had a quick look at the Wikipedia article for 'Tehom' and found:

Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern writes in his comparative study of Babylonian and Hebrew creation myths:

According to both traditions before the creation all was water. The deep is personified as a terrible monster, which in the Babylonian version bears the name of "Tihamat," corresponding to the Hebrew "Tehom," used as the technical expression for the primæval ocean. The Hebrew word is employed without the article, like a proper name, thus indicating that in Israelite tradition also it stood originally for some mythological being.

This of course raises questions such as how did Tehom come about in the first place, but it's not really surprising to find similarities between the two myths.

[Difflugia]

I agree that the children of God are part of the 'us', but they are also the product of a prior union of spirit and matter (for lack of better term) that constitutes a more original 'us' that we lose sight of if we focus only on the children of God and stop with that.

They are just like Jesus, who was the product of spirit (God) and matter (Mary) coming together.

In Genesis 1, Mary = the deep. A womb-like structure present from the beginning with God. Everything else - the children of God included - flow from this original union / 'us'...

Otherwise all you have is asexual reproduction on God's part. No marriage. No original "man and woman" that humankind is made in the image of.

What reason do you have that the author of Genesis 1 had something like this in view?

[William]

[Replying to Diagoras in post #8]

This of course raises questions such as how did Tehom come about in the first place, but it's not really surprising to find similarities between the two myths.

If we observe the character of Tehom as the subconscious realm of Spirit - at some point Spirit became consciously acquainted with this realm and perhaps even approached it - personified as a terrible monster - and the engagement with its scary mysteriousness is akin to having a 'dark night of the soul'

In an obscure night
Fevered with love's anxiety
(O hapless, happy plight!)
I went, none seeing me
Forth from my house, where all things quiet be [SOURCE]

The dark night of the soul is a stage in personal development when a person undergoes a difficult and significant transition to a deeper perception of life and their place in it. This enhanced awareness is accompanied by a painful shedding of previous conceptual frameworks such as an identity, relationship, career, habit or belief system that previously allowed them to construct meaning in their life. [SOURCE]

Through perseverance and commitment to the engagement, it slowly became apparent to Spirit that some of the things previously hidden from itself, required adressing.

Thus...Sol+Earth=forms through which to deal with those hidden things

Sol represents 'The Husband" and Earth "The Wife" and earthen forms as "The Children" - specifically human beings.

Sol seeds the Mother planet with information and the planet responds by using that information to produce forms.

Mother Earth herself has information within her...a kind of "micro-Sol" as it were...



...and given the theory that all the planets of the Sol system originally were parts of Sols wholeness which fragmented into planets and moons...one can fill in the gaps...

Being Born
Calculator
Mother Earth
[The entity consciousness which is Mother Earth - is "The Creator" of the forms from Her Belly]
The entity consciousness which is Mother Earth - is "The Creator" of the forms from Her Belly = 916
There is no need to proclaim a supernatural event to what is simply an idea put into action.= 916
[SOURCE]