Czernobog
Gold Member
- Sep 29, 2014
- 6,184
- 495
In English, yes. Not in the original Hebrew. This would be why I pointed out the original Hebrew translated as God, and pointed out that the literal translation is "divine beings". The Hebrew word for "household gods" was teraphim - specifically, the rabbinical translation would be "terrible things", but it is entirely different from elohim, which translates as divine beings. Again, the command was very specific.Nope. Doesn't work. What you are describing is idol worship. The only way your explanation works is if all of those "personal gods" were, in fact, divine beings that actually existed. The worship of made up idols was covered in verses 4, and 5. Verse three specifically commanded that the jews not worship other divine beings. There is no way to get around that reality. Either other divine beings existed, in which case it is inaccurate to suggest that Jehovah is the only divine being in existence, and throws the whole God is all there is cosmology of Christianity into turmoil, or there were no other divine beings in existence, and the God of the Jews, and of Christians is in the habit of making up rules just to make up rules, for which there is no reason. Those are the only two options left available by Ex 20:3.
Of course it works. The vocabulary was such that one word was used to describe that which was being worshiped. As you may know the Hebrew languages has only one-third the number of words as English. Further, Hebrew speaks in pictures, whereas English presents subjective ideas.
You want to try to change what God commanded by obscuring the English word "gods". Unfortunately, Hebrew was much more exacting that English, so it left no room for such ambiguity.
This is why, if one wants to truly understand the Bible, it is never enough to simply read it in English, and rely on interpretations, or commentary based on the English versions of the Bible. Both Hebrew, and Latin were much more exacting languages. So, to truly understand what was being said by any particular passage where ambiguity can be a problem, it is nevcessary to learn, and read the text in its original language.
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