How many Gods?

Genesis 1:26

I've begun reading the Bible.  I'm trying to read a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New Testament each day.  This morning I'm up to Genesis 6, and Matthew 6.

Genesis 6 kind of blew me out of the water a little with this:  "...the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.  ...The Nephilim were on the earth in those days - and also afterward - when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them.  They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

Wow -- that seems so like ancient Greek mythology - where the gods and demigods mate with humans.  Would not the "sons of God" be gods themselves - albeit perhaps lesser than God?  And their half human offspring were heroes and men of renown - which seems an awful lot like the Greek myths also.  And one does get the sense sometimes that there are people among us, but who mostly keep out of the spotlight, who are radically powerful - in intellect, in creativity, in influence, etc.  There are people who are so far above the rest of us that we just can't fathom them (Aristotle for example).  Could these people somehow be the Nephilim?  Or their offspring?  Perhaps very distant and watered down offspring - hence the seeming lack of Aristotles and Platos of today?  (Note:  I'm never quite sure if the Nephilim is synonymous with the sons of God, or is that the term for the half human offspring???)  

When I couple this stuff about sons of God with the plural "our" of Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness...'", I can't help but get the sense that there is more than one God (there are other passages that seem to point this way also that I don't have at my fingertips - for example I believe there are passages about not worshiping other gods that are phrased in such a way as to indicate that there are other gods that could be worshiped but instead we're supposed to only worship the head honcho - the big guy - the number one God.)

Time is tight - so that's as far as I can go with this for now.  I definitely want to look further into the Nephilim.  

Genesis 3:22

"And the Lord God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.'"     

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As to Genesis 1:26,  I've been thinking about this off and on since I read this.  I've entertained different ideas, and also found commentary on the internet about it.  I haven't seen anyone else say this, but I have to say I find it significant that the first indication of a plural God comes with the passage about making man and woman in God's image.  Why wasn't the "us" used in the earlier creation verses?  Why wait until here?   I know there are those who say this is about the Trinity - but again why bring it up at this verse?  If it's about the Trinity - why doesn't the OT always use "us"?  And in any case, what would this plural have meant to people for all those years between when it was written and the time of Christ?  Others have said it's just a royal "we" - so to speak.  I'm not sure, but I believe the royal "we" comes from Kings claiming to be acting on God's behalf - the other part of the "us" with Kings is God.  So what would the other part of the royal we be with regard to God?  And again, why introduce us to the "royal we" at this particular point?  Since it is kind of jarring, this deviation from the singular God in the earlier part of the creation story, and the "us" of Genesis 1:26, I would think it significant.  And why have it at this exactly point in the story?

I've entertained a number of ideas, none of which I've completely ruled out.  The Trinity idea and the royal we ideas both have something to them.  But they don't fully satisfy.  Other ideas I've had are that there were (and perhaps still are) many Gods, but that the God of the Bible is the head honcho - either he fought and perhaps is still fighting his way to that level - or maybe is just always was that he was head honcho who tolerates the lesser gods, at least so long as they don't get too carried away.  But in any case, there are other gods, and God works with them.  Another idea is that there are powerful beings, below God, but working with him.  These would likely be the angels of the Bible - perhaps the demigods of ancient Greece.  If these are the sons of God, then they are likely also in God's image.  And maybe they partook of the making of man - so man was made in the image of God and of the angels??  I've had other sketchier thoughts - but have not been fully satisfied with any of them.  For one thing, none of these ideas addresses why the concept was introduced at this point, nor do they address the fact that it isn't really brought up that much afterward either.

My current thought - and by far the most satisfying to both my head and heart so far - is that the introduction of the "us" God is at this point in the story for a very good reason.  And, as with all parts of the Bible, especially those parts that don't make sense at first and are hard to understand, it is there to teach us something important.  My current thought is that it is showing us, not a God with three aspects (not the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), but rather a God with two aspects (Male and Female).  It's very easy to anthropomorphize God, seeing him as some kind of very large, oldish man - with a long flowing beard - a cudgel-like staff in his raised fist.  If one then tries to picture a multiple aspect God - however - one gets confused very quickly (by one I mean me).  The problem of picturing this "us" God is, for me, true of both the Trinity and the Male/Female dichotomy.  As for the Male/Female -- Would a Male/Female God be a hermaphrodite?  Or would we have two people-ish Gods standing there?  One the big, kind of scary, oldish man with a wise gentle old woman standing next to him?  While I don't really think either of these is quite right - I would lean towards the second.  If for no other reason than, if I may reverse engineer the story a little, that is much more in keeping with the image of the humans that God made. 

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Ok - so in this morning's reading, something jumped out at me which adds to this post.  In Exodus 20:3 - the first of the ten commandments:  "You shall have no other gods before me." First, I note that it says to not have other gods before God.  This seems to read as if there are other gods - but God comes first.  If there were not other gods to worry about, a much simpler and straightforward way of saying it would have been for God to say "I am the only god - do not worship any other as they are false gods."  The rest of Exodus 20 seems fairly straightforward and clear - some ambiguity as is unavoidable with language - but not a chapter that is all that hard to understand.  The footnote does say that an alternate translation is "besides" God.  With "besides" it would be less so - but even then it still reads as if there were other gods.  When I read this in light of the Genesis "us" - it seems as if there are other gods - but they must come second to God.  But, in Exodus 20:23 - we have "Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold."  Here it seems more like a command to not worship idols - to not worship things humans have made themselves.  So - at first read - I'm not completely sure - but it is something to keep in mind and study further.  ( I really want to study the different names of God in the original and see if that clears things up - or of course it might just make things more confused!)




(work in progress - but comments welcome at any time)