In answer to the video "Deuteronomy 6:4 - Scripture Twisting 101"
God in the HB is Echad/one Exod9:7,Eccl4:8. Each of the things listed are not a compound unity. And if "one" in Hebrew can also be more than one why not a trillion? Both masculine and feminine forms of echad are found in the HB almost a thousand times and Christian translators always seem to understand that echad means ONE every single place except when they choose to say that it isn't. Echad/one, as in every language can be used figuratively for a compound unity as in one nation or one family, see also Gen1:5,2:24,Numb13:23. But most often literally means an “absolute one” and not compound at all. It is the direct context that decides whether the word is used figuratively or literally. When God told Abraham to take his son to "one/echad of the mountains" did He mean to divide his son upon a compound of mountains? When Hagar put her boy under "one/echad of the shrubs" did she cut him up under multiple plants? All analogies trinitarians try making eventually fall apart. None of them even adress the logical problem of the trinity, which is not whether one entity can be composed of multiple entities, but whether the so called components are the entity itself. Is a car engine "the car"? is hydrogen, one component of water, water itself? Is an individual within a nation, the nation itself?
It is the height of absurdity to suggest that a passage refuting idolatry and multiple deities, would tell the people that "your Lord is a unity of divine beings".
When husband and wife are figuratively "one" for instance, the multiplicity of subjects is made clear in the sentence.
Further, the analogy doesnt adress the problem of the trinity. Adam and Eve are still 2 distinct humans even after becoming one in marriage. The trinity, according to its proponents, is not composed of 3 distinct gods; this would be tritheism instead. Again, the language here is figurative, while the trinity, a multiplicity of divine beings making one God is literal. Nothing presupposes in the Schema, and its direct context, that the intent is figurative or that a compound unity is meant
Deut6:4 "Listen, O Israel – the Lord your God, the Lord is ONE”.
Echad here is an adjective, and it describes the proper noun "the Lord", which is in the singular. This rules out the possibility of a "compound unity" in this highly relevant passage in terms of what the HB teaches on monotheism. Echad in this case assumes its primary literal meaning of "absolute one". Similar usages are found in 2Sam13:30,17:12. The Schema contains 2 core messages that are prevalent throughout the Jewish writing; nationalism and monotheism. YHWH is the God of Israel (our God), and this same YHWH is echad/one. It is one of the most blatant examples of what Biblical scholars have termed Jewish monolatry, the belief in one ethno-centered tribal deity, without excluding the existence of deities to other nations. The infamous missionary corruption of a commentary from the Zohar, where the writer supposedly wonders at the threefold repetition of God's name in the Schema is a known 20th century forgery, absent from this Jewish book. In fact there is a quote from the Zohar saying
"You are One but not in a countable sense" (Zohar petichat eliyahu).
As to Yachid, it literally means "only". See Gen22 for example. To repeat, in Hebrew the word for one is echad (masculine) and ahat (feminine). Try telling a school kid to start counting with "yachid"...
No comments:
Post a Comment