In answer to the video "Deuteronomy 6:4 - Scripture Twisting 101"
In the HB, the term "holy spirit" (in which "holy" is an adjective) never appears. But there is ruach hakodesh (lit. the spirit/wind of holiness). It is the pre-condition for prophethood, endowing an individual with divine intuition, wisdom Job32:8, warnings and glad tidings, as well as the ability to communicate God's direct words 2Sam23:2. Such person becomes God's representative on Earth and then either reforms or leads the Israelites to victory.
As a side note, Trinitarians claiming that this ruach is a divine entity separate from God the Father must explain verses like Judges9:23,1Sam16:14,Isa19:14 speaking of
"an evil spirit from God"and of
"a spirit of perverseness".If, as trinitarians say, God's holy spirit is a divine entity, God's evil spirit should also be a different divine entity. 1Kings19:11 is even more damning to this idea
"And He said: "Go out and stand in the mountain before the Lord, Behold! the Lord passes, and a great and strong wind (b'ruach) splitting mountains and shattering boulders before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind (ha-ruach). And after the wind an earthquake-not in the earthquake was the Lord".
This spirit of God first appears in Gen1. It is neither qualified as holy nor evil, it could be any of the 2 since God directly creates both good and evil Deut30:15,Isa45:7,1Sam16:14, and neither is it described as taking part independently in the act of creation. In fact its mention is preceded by the presence of already created worldly entities, like the waters and the earth.
The spirit/wind of holiness in the talmud is an agent sent by God to allow prophecy and revelation (Midrash Rabbah, Song of Songs 1.1,Sotah 16d). A well known teaching in rabbinic 2nd temple literature is that the end of prophecy was accompanied with the departure of the holyspirit "From the time that the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, died, the holy spirit was withdrawn from Israel". The RUACH is always at the disposal of God to bestow upon whomever He chooses Num11:17,25,29,Isa42:1,44:3,Joel3:1.
All this parallels in many ways with the Quran's description of the RUH that descends to the prophets to give them inspiration. The spirit of God is certainly an agent of God, separate from Him and fully encompassed by His will. The spirit being of/from God, does not entail him being a separate divine entity, anymore than the hand, arm or eyes of God are separately divine. Even if one turns to the highly esoteric and cryptic Zohar, believed to have originated somewhere in the 1st-2nd century CE when Judaism had been infiltrated by Graeco-Roman concepts, one might find notions of God having different aspects through which He interacts with the world. However none of those aspects are ever manifested in human form and neither are they separate entities to be individually worshipped.
As to Gen16:7-13 The Hebrew for angel/malak means a messenger, as noted by one of those youtubers. It is not "the" angel/messenger, as deceptively rendered in most Christian translations (see also Zech1:12). It is just "an" angel/messenger, one among the many which God dispatches to perform a specific task. By definition, one cannot be the sender of a message, as well as the messenger itself. This angelic messenger was acting as God's agent to Hagar. He was given the power to do what he said he would do in the verse. After telling her that he will multiply her progeny exceedingly, the messenger tells her to name the first of that progeny, Ishmael
"for the Lord/YHWH has heard your affliction".The messenger's promise to make her progeny fruitful came as a result of her affliction, which YHWH, not the messenger, saw and solved, through His messenger. As previously noted, there are different such angelic messengers of God, elsewhere said to be under God's command or asking for information 2Sam24:16,Zech1:12-13.
This is nothing strange for the HB, including the Quran to have God acting in this world through different means, without him being actually present, or having agents speaking on His behalf. That is why for instance no Jew reading Isa48:16 would even remotely think that God is sending His own self. Rather it is the prophet relating God's speech, who interjects. This is seen from the next verse
"So said the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; "I am the Lord your God..."
There is thus an interjection by the prophet, from the end of v16 to the beginning of v17 before the prophet re-introduces God's direct speech. There is no confusion of characters in the Abrahamic traditional understanding of these passages, portraying the entity through whom God manifests His will in the world as God Himself.
The notion of a God with multiple persons in One, or Who manifests in separate entities with a common divine essence, never crossed the minds of those that wrote these stories. Yet out of all people, the Israelites are known for their propensity to stray from strict monotheism into the worship of deities besides God. Nothing should have stopped them from similarly worshipping those entities through whom God acts in the world, as divine distinct persons, had there been any hint in their minds to such concepts from their scriptures. But until the emergence of Christianity in a Roman theological background, no Jew is ever found holding such beliefs. Much less Abraham and Hagar as depicted in the aforementioned passage, nor Jacob Gen31:13 who was similarly visited in dreams by God's angelic messenger, spoken to in a very similar manner as Hagar was. They never worshipped these supposed divine manifestations yet it is claimed that they saw different entities, sometimes simultaneously, identifying themselves as divine?
One only finds that kind of confusion among the Helenized people transposing their Greco-Roman theological background into these passages, disregarding the rules of the language and the culture of those that penned them. This disconnect between Trinitarian theology and the scriptures that should support it, if not, foreshadow it, does not deter Christians from repeating such passages in their arguments. What is worse is their seeking confirmation in rabbinic writings, those very people that abhor their theology as idolatry. The Quran, although it insists on dissociating Jesus from the false teachings attributed to him, never labels Christians as idolaters. Among those rabbinic sources in which Christians attempt finding confirmation for beliefs, which those very rabbis actually loath, is the Zohar. This mystical and cryptic book is known for its complexity and ambiguity, hence the rabbis highly discouraging the layman approaching it. Christians will claim for instance that the 10 "sefirot" are aspects of God just like the 3 persons of the Trinity. In a nutshell, the sefirot are neither aspects of God nor distinctly divine. They are 10 different ways a person can perceive the one and the same entity of God. For example when light is seen through a prism, this one beam of light is perceived in different colors, but it is still the same one and only beam of light. That is why, again, no Jew ever worshipped 10 different divine "aspects" of God. And if Christians are so keen in seeking traces of polytheism in the Zohar, then such passages abound, depending on how one understands certain bizarre esoteric concepts. The first cause of the universe is depicted as a male god than united with a female counterpart, resulting in male and female lesser gods. Their purpose in turn is to unite sexually, and their union is either prevented or allowed depending on the level of righteousness and unity of the first humans, which failed, then of the Jewish people throughout history. The words of the Torah itself are extensions of the divine source, manifesting within the Jews that read and recite it.
Christians in short have nothing explicit pre-christianity endorsing something close to a multiplicity of the godhead. They will thus either rely in their apologetics on non-Jews or on academics, who by definition need to make unconventional, controversial observations to hope to be published. Had the notion of trinity, incarnation or anything christological been floating among 1st century Jews then Jesus would have been explicit in claiming his supposed divinity. Yet Christians themselves will say that the reason Jesus kept his true identity secret was because his contemporaries, including his own followers were unprepared to hear such ideas.
Alan F Segal's best selling work, unsurprisingly among the missionaries, is one of those aforementioned controversial works. It is based on a misunderstanding of rabbi Akiva, who lived in the 2nd century CE and who was murdered by the Romans. He is rebuked in the Talmud for misrepresenting the aggadah, which wasnt his field of expertise. He is corrected, not for speaking of 2 powers among 2 different heavenly personalities, much less of Jesus or the messiah, but for making
"the Divine presence profane, presenting it as though one could sit next to him. Rather the 2 thrones are designated for 2 different purposes; one for judgement and one for righteousness" (Chagigah14a:5).
His misrepresentation of the aggadah, due to his lack of experience in it, made it seem to the layman, especially with a hellenistic theological baggage as was the case with many Christian converts among the greco-roman population, and even the hellenized Jews, as if the 2 thrones are meant for God and another entity next to him. The 2 thrones however are not meant for 2 entities rather for 2 purposes.
After the good news is conveyed to her, Hagar gratefully turns to God who told her, through His messenger that He had seen her suffering
"You are the God of seeing".This is a similar expression as the one ending Muslim prayers
"You are the Seeing, the Hearing".She continues with an expression of amazement that can be translated in different ways, the closest to the literal wording being
"have I seen him here also after I have seen?"
Hagar is wondering to have seen God's emissary in her situation and location, a second time just as she had previously seen him. According to Jewish understanding, she had seen such agents of God in Abraham's house, which she assumed to be normal since he was a prophet. She was not expecting they would come to her specifically. Hagar's amazement was unrelated to seeing God Himself. At the end of the passage, she names the location
"the living One who sees me".
The place isnt named after Hagar's supposed experience of seeing God Himself, which would have certainly been more pertinent. Instead she labels it the place where God saw her, because this is where He saw her affliction, then sent her glad tidings through His angelic messenger. Seeing God is a unique experience, and much more significant than God seeing His creatures and answering their afflictions, which is a common belief in Abrahamic religions. Why would then the place be named after her relatively insignificant experience?
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