Relationships Part Two

Inter-relational dynamics in the Old Testament
 
With this in mind, the singularity and plurality of God may be addressed and, hopefully, accepted in the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 and the encounter that Abraham had with the LORD in Genesis18:1-33.
“In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.[1] “This is the genealogical annals of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”.[2] “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”[3]
There is only One God. This God is affirmed as being One in the opening of the Shema (or the “Saying”), a central teaching in Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one”.[4]
 
Prima facie, references to plurality of this one God, who is also one, can be inferred in the creation narratives by the words, “Let us make humankind”, “in our image, in our likeness”, “male and female he created them”.
It has been advocated by many that the plural “us” and “our” here is akin to the royal prerogative used by sovereigns in ancient times when addressing themselves. However, this cannot explain the distinctiveness and separateness of male and female, in humankind, made as image and likeness of God. This can only infer and suggest plurality in the singularity or one of God.
Adam acknowledged this male and female distinctiveness in humanity, even as he also acknowledged that the distinctiveness has a common source.[5] “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[6]
The word rib can also mean side.[7] Hence, the phrase “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” makes sense if God took a side of Adam to make woman.
Immediately after Adam’s acknowledgement, God pronounced[8]: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and join to his wife and they shall be one flesh.” – Two flesh becoming One flesh origination. This Two flesh becoming One flesh simple joint relationship can in some sense be viewed as an embryonic form of the joint and several bonding. Though the two are no longer two but one, yet in order to be one there must be the two and the distinctiveness of each in the two is acknowledged and accepted. What has not been fleshed out, however, is acknowledgement that any one of the two is able to act for and on behalf of all, and as all.


[1] Genesis 1:1 Hebrew Text: Westminister Leningrad Codex with vowels – Scripture 4 All Hebrew Interlinear Bible (OT), The Stone Edition Tanach

[2] Genesis 2:4 Hebrew Text: Westminister Leningrad Codex with vowels – Scripture 4 All

[3] Genesis  1:26,27 New International Version

[4] Deuteronomy 6:4

[5] Genesis 2;21-23

[6] Genesis 2:22,23

[7] Hebrew צֵלָע tsêlâʻ, tsay-law'; or (feminine) צַלְעָה tsalʻâh Strong’s Definitions H6763; from H6760; a rib (as curved), literally (of the body) or figuratively (of a door, i.e. leaf); hence, a side, literally (of a person).

[8] Genesis2:24, Matthew 19:5

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