A New Context for the Shema?

 

The Hebrew text you see written above is the Shema: "Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one."

If you ask most people about the context of this saying, they are likely to tell you that it was a rejection of the plethora of animal-headed gods worshipped by the Egyptians, or simply the multiplicity of gods worshipped by the goyim, the nations.

Those answering in this manner would probably not be wrong. But now it is not so simple, with people such as Mauro Biglino questioning whether YHVH was an extraterrestrial, and claiming (correctly, it seems) that Elohim, one of the Hebrew names for God, was originally a plural, as its form would indicate. They draw support from certain texts, such as Psalm 82, where Elohim appears to be used both as a singular and as a plural. They thus posit a "company of the gods" known as Elohim (the powerful ones).

Before we go any farther, let's take a look at Psalm 82. Here is the translation given in my JPS Tanakh:

God stands in the divine assembly;

   among the divine beings He pronounces judgment.

2 How long will you judge perversely,

   showing favor to the wicked?     Selah.

3 Judge the wretched and the orphan,

   vindicate the lowly and the poor,

   4 rescue the wretched and the needy;

   save them from the hand of the wicked.

5 They neither know nor understand,

   they go about in darkness;

   all the foundations of the earth totter.

6I had taken you for divine beings,

   sons of the Most High, all of you;

   7 but you shall die as men do,

   fall like any prince.

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth,

   for all the nations are Your possession.

If we look at the Hebrew, we see that in the first verse, Elohim (there used to mean God) is used with a singular verb. In its second occurrence in the same verse, it is obviously plural, because of the word "b'qerev" (among). Hebrew, by the way, does not have capital letters. The word elohim is identical in both cases.

In verse six, elohim occurs again, with the word "atem," which is "you plural." The meaning here is "divine beings."

In verse eight we are again talking about God, not the "divine beings," and the word Elohim is used with singular verb forms. So we see that elohim can have either a singular or a plural meaning.

But who were they, or whom did the Hebrews imagine them to be? The word "elohim" can be taken to mean "the high ones" or "the powerful ones." Biglino and his followers believe that they were extraterrestrials, made powerful by their advanced technology.

Many people believe that we will very soon have to confront the reality of other intelligent life in a cosmos that is unimaginably vast. These other life forms may be more advanced than we are, and therefore more powerful, but that does not mean that we should worship them.

This may be the new context for the Shema. Others may use the word "elohim" as they wish. When I say "eloheynu," our God, in the Shema, I know what I mean, and it has nothing to do with technological advancement. It has, rather, to do with one heart, one mind, one love, universal connected consciousness, ruach, pneuma, Spirit. We must not worship anything less.

Scriptural text is taken to be fair use, and no copyright infringement is intended. All non-scriptural text is Copyright © 2024 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.