And God said...

Every picture's worth a thousand words.

Just maybe, God was talking in the same since as the Kings and Queens of Europe do. They say us and we when talking about themselves.
Just a thought.

OK, just to clear this up, here is a direct quote from the New American Bible:

Genesis 1:26:

Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. "

What "us" and "our" probably mean is God+the angels. Just because angels cannot create life means nothing here. Maybe He meant He'd create them, but He wanted humans to be like the angels and Himself. Just a thought.

It means God himself and his angels. And you people who say the Lord does nto exist make me sick. You will probaly follow the false god, and be sent to the lake of fire after Judgement Day, and Armageddon.

Muslims believe in the ten commandments also and they a more new religion than Christianity!

Actually, Islam's roots began nearly 2,000 years before Christ was born, with Abraham's son Ishmael (his other son, Isaac, is a patriarch of the nation of Israel).

MUST be god + angels, cause obviously it says it RIGHT there, where there is NO mention. Catholicism makes me sick, to think we're alone in the universe and so special, so ignorant. Selfish to think we're so priveledged to have gotten to the point of intelligent life. Haha.

the best way to understand the bible is to use the bible. john 1:1-3 "1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. " and john 1:14 "14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. " here we see that the word is the son of god. and we also see that the son of god (known as jesus, which also can be understood through scripture) was both with god in the beginning, but also was god. so yes, the us is infact the trinity. the trinity, all three parts and as a whole, have always been. at that "time" though, there was no need to have the separation as of yet. john3:16 tells the need for the split of father and son. before jesus left he talked about the spirit coming. so before those times, the trinity is better understood as singular. and no, this can't be talking about angels because it says he (the trinity) made everything.

[Edited on 2-1-2004 by harbaughisback]

Originally posted by Lone_Eagle
us= God + angels

Edit* nevermind, I'm confused

[Edited on 1-2-2004 by exdog]

Wow, strange that I ran into this thread today! I was listening to a radio ministry, and they were talking about how even in the Tora the Trinity existed, and was spoken of. In Genisis, the Hebrew word "elohim" is the plural for God. Elo is singular, elohim is plural. So in the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, a direct translation would be "In the beginning, Gods created the heavens and earth."

There are many places in the Bible where it switches from the singular to the plural. The explanation I've heard for this is that God is the Trinity then as He is now. After all, he is Alpha and Omega, the begining and the end. And God doesn't change..

I cannot believe that the original poster says that it was ' before Jesus and the Holy Spirits time". Thats remarkable in light of the hundreds of scriptures that say that Jesus ( the Word ) was God from the beginning as is the Holy Spirit. God is a tripart being..3 in 1. The Father refers to Gods authority..Jesus as the Word of God is the spoken reality that created everything, and the Holy Spirit is the part of God that directly causes effects to occur.the power of God, so to speak. Jesus is God the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit..so many verses point this out clearly that I wont bother quoting them here.. So many people see Jesus as the Son of God and think this means a lesser or later manifestation of God and that is totally wrong. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end..He is not a created being..he was there at the formation of the world(s) and along with the active agency of God the Father ( Holy Spirit) all that was created was created. Think of it this way...I am a man..To my wife I am a husband....to my kids I am a father...to my parents I am a son..Three beings in one? I am the same one person but have various identities and attributes that seem different to each category. Thats not a grat analogy but hope this helps a bit. Catholic dogma is often quite unscriptural but this is a clear case of you having been taught the old way of assuming that the three aspects of Gods personality are seperate when in fact they are one.

I believe that God says "us" because It is speaking as a collective. God is infinite and everything that exists is contained within It. It seems to me like God is talking to Itself as a whole being, made up of everything that had been created up until that point.

The Old Testment references to God, almost to a reference (some are not, but this is a very minor number of instances) refer to God as "Elohim". This is a word of plurality. God being referred to as more than a single entity.

The Christian belief is that the plurality of God, and the "we" used by God (by the way, this is repeated in Genesis 3:22 when God states, after the original sin, that Adam and Eve have "become like us knowing good from evil") references the tri-part nature of God - God the Creator omnipresent, God's Holy Spirit the spiritual facet of the omnipresent Creator, and God's physical manifestation - again, a small portion of the omnipresent Creator in physical form the sole purpose of interaction with man - penultimately Christ.

Polytheism, switched to monotheism according to Zecharia Sitchin. It makes you think.

by "us" he meant, him and his good friends Smith & Wesson

first off, the bible states that the devil is the god of this world, so god is a generic term there are lots of gods, and in answer to your question when he said lets make man in our image he was stating that man should be like him in the spirtual way, knowing things like selfawareness, awareness of god himself, love, right and wrong etc, this was being said in the presence of others at the time, it does not mean they had anything to do with the actual creation.

US = God and Angels(maybe) but I believe that it's God and Jesus. Either way.
What i do know is that
Angels = Extraterrestrials lol

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26)

The Bible has a crisis from the very beginning in that Biblical translators have chosen to use the word "God" for the Hebrew term 'Elohim.' The problem, here lies in the fact that Elohim represents the plural form of 'El.' Elohim literally means 'gods.' A more honest translation of Verse 1 should read, "In the beginning Gods created the heaven and the earth," and in Verse 26: "And the Gods said..."

"Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them." (Exodus 18:11)

Here we have the Bible alluding to the existence of more than one god.

Note that it does not say "the Lord is the only god" but rather that he "is greater than all gods."

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3)

"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;" (Exodus 20:5)

Note this does not mean "I am the only god," but rather, that one shall not believe in other gods above the God of the Chosen People.

Scholars and archeologists know that the early Hebrews practiced polytheism.

Not only does the Bible describe the polytheism of the Hebrews but digs from archeological sites give evidence that these early people believed in many gods, or more accurately, goddesses. They have found many statuette goddesses among their living dwellings.

Monotheism appears later in the Bible. Historically, monotheism got taught by many Greek philosophers. Judaism later separated itself from the Hellenistic world with its belief in only one supreme deity.

The Dark Bible

And I thought he said, there's going to be a floody duddy. haha

The Christian information about a creation comes from a mistranslation of the Jewish Testament. The Jewish text reads:
"In beginning, the GODS MADE the heaven and the earth."

The Christians CHANGED that to read:

"In THE beginning, GOD CREATED the heaven and the earth."

I believe it may refer to the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.