“I am who I am.” God is The great I am. This a statement of Consciousness defining the three aspects of consciousness -I exist -I know (i exist) -I do (declaration of action) creation and destruction
I am who I am, came as the result of Moses wanting to identify God, and God being more than a little obtuse.
Knowing someone’s name was a sign f authority, t is why Jew refuse to name God. YAHWEH was an acronym to avoid a true name. a place holder if toy will And still people still made it into a name!
Rihard
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YES! I was just about to reply in the same way.
This “interpretation” is so out of context, the level of absurdity is gigantic. It is like saying a Dr. Seuss book is about quantum physics.
We are all made in the image of God. The image of God is the mind body and spirit The mind is the knowing, the body is the experience, and the spirit is the spoken Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Cor 1 15:44
And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female created He them. And God blessed them;
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We are all made in the image of God. The image of God is the mind body and spirit The mind is the knowing, the body is the experience, and the spirit is the spoken Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Cor 1 15:44
And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female created He them. And God blessed them;
Speculation. Indeed, speculation derived from Greek thought.
More than a little allegorical.
I much prefer the concept from second-Temple Judaism that “I am that I am” indicates that God is the one who uniquely is self-generated. That’s what the LXX translation is getting at – ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν (eh-GO ei-me hoh OWN) can be rendered as “I am the being-one”, i.e. the one in whom all being has its source.
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The question Moses asked was rational. There were tens of gods that people served in the region around Egypt. If someone speaks about the ‘will of god’ in such circumstances, how could the listeners know which god you are talking about?
Another topic is what the answer was. It is almost mindblowing to think everything the name reveals. It reveals something about who God is (as @St.Roymond wrote) but it can also point towards the potential in the relationship with God. ‘I am’ your shield, ‘I am’ your healer, and whatever else God, the almighty ‘I am’, can be in our life.
AFAIK, Jews avoid the use of the Name by replacing it with ‘Adonai’ (Lord) when reading the text. I have been told that the ‘vocal marks’ (niqqud) of YHWH in the Masoretic text were the vocals of ‘Adonai’, likely to remind the reader to use the word ‘Adonai’ when reading YHWH.
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But God does identify Himself. He is the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. After the Exodus He adds “The God who lead you out of Egypt”.
God is identified by who He associates Himself with and by what He has done. There is no need for a name.
As I understand it the pronunciation of the tetragrammaton has been lost in the mists of time. It was only spoken by the High Priest and not in Worship.
Elhoim is the term of choice for Lord, it is not a name as such. In fact all these claims of the Jewish names for God are spurious., but there has to be a way of putting it in the script. That was what the tetragrammaton was for. A place marker or short hand to save writing out "The God of, ff
Still humans will make anything into a name without a thought. And once it is published or “recognised” then it must be right!
Richard
I think there are plenty of biblical evidences supporting this idea
Below is one of them
Matthew 22:37
Jesus said unto him, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’
Lets also remember that the curse in the Garden of Eden included bodily physical death (we know this because it states “from dust/ground you came and to dust/ground you shall return”) and, at the time of Noahs global flood God limited the ages of men to 120 years…so the notion of image of God including “body” here is certainly correct.
I can add dozens more references to this, but time is short (my weekly flght to from Melbourne to Sydney is taxying out onto the runway to takeoff and i loose WWW connection shortly)
Only single text straw plucking without cross referencing experiences any problem with that.
That says nothing about what constitutes the image of God. Indeed from the fact of the Incarnation we could conclude that the image consists of acting as the Father would in any situation.
Better to go to theology rather than grabbing at dubious cross-references – remember, cross-referencing is not theology.
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Put it back in context…
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall[b] also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Therefore using this to say God created man as body and spirit doesn’t work. Which means making this what the “image of God” means also doesn’t work.
Yes! Of Course! That is Awesome! “all thy Heart (body), all thy Soul (spirit), and all thy mind(mind)”!
Please share more references when you can! Blessings!
That depends on how we define “body” and “spirit” and the relationship. In the OT, in the Hebrew, a human is a soul, and a soul is body plus spirit, one being.
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