Three Simple Definitions From Hebrew

Among the valuable lessons I learned in linguistics was this: To define words according to their usage.

Whoever first articulated this point was a genius. Consider, you may find an ancient document. You may decode the ancient document. You may read the ancient text. Before long you will ache for a glossary of terms wondering, "What did this word mean to that writer at that time?" However, the definition is right before us because usage is meaning. In addition, the more frequent the usage, the more detailed and nuanced the meaning we are presented with.

Having this in mind I wish to share with readers three simple definitions from Moses and the ancient patriarchs.

Definitions: "Image and Likeness" and God

When Elohim, translated as "God", saw Creation gloriously wrought according to His Word, Elohim pronounced a commandment. However, unlike the previous commands where He, Elohim, had commanded His Son to forge an earth in various stages, with each intermediate degree having flora and fauna placed here that would not only thrive but, through their cycles, prepare the biosphere to sustain a higher order of life, the culmination of the process being the biosphere's ability to sustain Human life, this crowning command that Elohim pronounced just when the earth had now reached its ultimate aim involved the direct participation of Himself:

Let-Us-make Adam in-image-of-Us, as-shape-of-Us, and let them rule over fish of the sea, over bird of the heavens, and over livestock, and over all the earth, and over all the crawler crawling along the ground. Elohim created the Adam in-image-of-Him, in-image of Elohim He-had-created him, male and female He-had-created them. (Genesis 1:26-27, from the Hebrew)

The word that gets translated "image" is "Tselem". Tselem can mean the shadow cast from something, but it often means "idol". Why idol? As the idol is meant to be a physical representation on earth of Him who dwells in Heaven, so Adam, "man", was declared to be God's representation on earth of Him, the God of Heaven. We are told that Adam was made by Elohim Himself, though not Alone, "Let-Us-make", and that Elohim made Adam in His image. That word "in" for Hebrews denotes more than "being inside". As in English, "in" denotes "by means of", for example, "Blessed are the poor in spirit". Elohim declared that They were to make Adam "by their own image"; Adam or man is in character, we might say our noblest character, a reflection or representation of what God is like: Equipped with ranges of thought and ranges of feelings.

The word that often gets translated "likeness" is "Dmut" and it means 'shape'. Now, scarcely could a better word have been chosen. When God made Adam, every physical aspect of the body of Adam was in the shape of the body of Elohim, the body of God. Though subsequent generations strayed from God's prophetic word and came to believe that God has no body or form, HE, Elohim, declared that He does indeed have a body, and our body is shaped, as He stated, "as His Body is shaped."

These two terms, "image" and "shape", were Elohim's objective in creating Adam or mankind. To be more specific, Elohim set out to make a mankind that would resemble Him, that is, we might say, resemble in character and attributes, but Elohim also determined that mankind would be "shaped" like Him.

The Name Elohim vs. The Name God

Why, you might ask, am I consistently writing "Elohim" rather than God? In English "God" is singular, and in our usage "God" is Male. In Hebrew, the Hebrew of the patriarchs, "Elohim" is plural, which for them denoted Three or more. God made Adam, 'Man', in His own image and shape/likeness, and declared that "Adam" subsumes male and female together on earth as a representation of how "Elohim" subsumes Male and Female Together in heaven.

"How or where did God say that man and woman on earth are a direct representation of Man and Woman in Heaven?", you may ask. When He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion...over all the earth" and "In the image of God created He him: male and female created He them."  This is how God was able to create Adam in His own image and shape/likeness and claim that He, Elohim, had created male and female. Did we actually see what the Hebrew told us? That when Elohim made Adam in His own Godly image and shape/likeness, there stood man and woman, because the making of the Adam was the product of Man and Woman Together?

I hear it said, I see it written, "Why should God be a Man? Why not a Woman?", "Why doesn't the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints modernize speech and write 'Heavenly Parents' in place of Heavenly Father?'" Actually, the need, as I see it, is not for the Brethren to fix Scriptural language to the English speech of the early 21st century, but for me (and others) to rely on God and study His Word through His Spirit, receiving from God the understanding of what His words meant and mean. The Father and The Mother are One, United, just as God declared Adam and Eve, them, to be "Adam", one. Never was there a father without a mother, and we were made in the glorious image and likeness of God, Elohim. That mankind is a direct representation of Elohim is something to ponder and, more to the point, live to, today and going forward.

Some may be tempted to conclude that "Heavenly Mother" is "hidden in plain sight" or "encoded" in Scripture. I believe that God does not hide things from me, but that my sight is not purely physical but also mental. To the extent that I do not understand something, I do not perceive it when I see it. But The Father can lift my understanding and open my eyes wider to perceive His Truth, as long as I keep trying to do His will and rely on the Atonement of His Son, which Sacrifice The Father prepared so that I, and others, could draw closer to Him and eventually return to Him, in His image, as His likeness.

The reader is at liberty to consider or discard what I have keyed in; as always, please remember that the passages and words cited herein are, in the very least, actually textual. Have a blessed Sabbath Day, The Lord's Day!