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Monday, April 16, 2018

The dictionary fallacy

Apostate Dale Tuggy attempted a response to my (then) latest post:


No, there’s nothing “slanted” about the question. OT monotheism is as clear as can be – the one true God there, the only creator, is YHWH. 

To ask whether the Spirit of God is additional to God is prejudicial because Trinitarians don't think God is one thing while the Spirit is another thing additional to God. Tuggy has already cast the issue in terms that treat a unitarian conception as the basis of comparison, such that anything over and above it must be tacked on to that. 

A pointless exercise, I think, because basic reading comprehension very quickly delivers the monotheism I mentioned above. 

i) Tuggy doesn't like it when I call his bluff. But he's the one who objects to filtering Scripture through catholic/Nicene categories. He constantly labors to shoehorn my position into a catholic/Nicene paradigm, even though I dissent from some planks of Nicene theology. For instance, I share the position of Warfield and Helm (among others) in rejecting eternal generation/procession.

Indeed, Tuggy recently went a step further in suspending the NT from consideration when reading the OT. So I'm just taking his hermeneutical methodology to a logical conclusion. For the sake of argument, let's approach the OT in a vacuum. As if we were reading the text for the first time, starting at Genesis. As if we had no knowledge of historical theology. 

ii) From that standpoint, monotheism is not a given. And, indeed, there are OT scholars who think the OT preserves divergent theologies with traces of polytheism, viz. P. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation (Baker 2005), 97-102. They think the OT teaches henotheism rather than monotheism. 

Is that my own position? No. But I'm responding to Tuggy on his own grounds. 

This is a pop apologetics junk argument. No, that elohim often has a singular meaning, despite its plural structure, is shown by its use with singular verbs and singular personal pronouns. When it was used to mean “gods” instead of “God,” the accompanying words would be plural. Not confusing, really, any more than is our word “pants.” Thus, there’s not even a semblance of a hint here of “plurality within God.” That’s merely projected onto the texts.

i) Let's see:

Many scholars from various positions in biblical studies argue that the original mythic character of Genesis can still be seen in the "cleansed" text. For example, it is often argued that the plurality of the name of God (elohim) in Genesis 1 suggests an original polytheism that only later evolved into an argument monotheism. Similar claims are made about another key word from the creation account [tehom]. J. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Zondervan 2013), 35. 

ii) Another example is Gen 6:4, which many scholars think is a residual reflection of pagan tales about gods fathering demigods by sexual intercourse with mortal women, viz. I. Provan, Discovering Genesis: Content, Interpretation, Reception (Eerdmans 2015), 110-12; N. Sarna, Genesis (JPS 1989), 45; B. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge 2009), 90.

Are those my own positions? No. But the point is that you don't have to be a Trinitarian to reject Tuggy's unitarian reading of the OT. Many OT scholars reject Tuggy's interpretation because they think the OT is theologically diverse. 

Most commenters now think that this is the divine council, the elohim (deities) – we would say angels – which attend God.

Yes, but there are problems with that:

i) Are human creatures made in the image of angelic creatures?

ii) OT scholars typically think the "divine council" has its origin in the Canaanite/Ugaritic pantheon. For instance:

It reflects an originally polytheistic account insufficiently sanitized. J. Collins, Genesis 1–4: A Linguistic. literary, and Theological Commentary (P&R 2006), 59. [Collins rejects that option]

This is the Israelite version of the polytheistic assemblies of the pantheon–monotheized and depaganized. N. Sarna, Genesis (JPS 1989), 12. 

iii) Deut 32:8-9 is a Pentateuch prooftext for the divine council. Many scholars think that's a domesticated version of the Canaanite pantheon, in which there's a high god or presiding god above a second tier of lower gods who function as national/patron deities. On that interpretation, Elyon is the high god while Yahweh is one of the lesser, territorial divinities. Cf. J. McConville, Deuteronomy (IVP 2002), 448,54; D. Block, Deuteronomy (Zondervan 2012), 753; The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Theology (Baker 2000), chap. 1. 

Is that my own position? No. I'm just responding to Tuggy on his own grounds. Given the polytheistic background of the divine council interpretation, that's a highly ironic interpretation for a unitarian to champion! 

Nope, not two characters! That’s not how an ancient reader would take Genesis 1:2. He would assume that in some sense God has a body, and then like us, he also has a spirit – the unseen power, the source of life or the inner being. There is no self-to-self interaction here, e.g. conversation or interpersonal cooperation, or other signs to indicate that elohim is one self and his “spirit” or breath is another.

i) If, according to Tuggy, the ruach is the soul to Elohim's body, then the ruach is the seat of divine personality.

ii) And, yes, the combination of v2 and v26 does imply a collaborative audience.  

I don’t think most ancient readers would make a clear distinction between creatures and minor deities. These latter typically derive from other deities, and ultimately from the high God.

Which ignores the context of my statement. Initially, a reader won't draw that distinction. But as he reads further into the OT text, that distinction will become more evident. 

Oy. That silly, Athanasian “on the divine side” rhetoric – a classic weasel phrase. I need to do a whole post on that some time. For now: notice why he adopts this odd phrase here – by talking abstractly about “the divine side,” this leaves it as an open question whether or not this “spirit” is the same self as God, or a self in addition to God. Convenient! But supposedly, he’s arguing that in the OT, one might well think that the spirit of God is a someone in his own right, a self in addition to God.

To be on the divine side is not to be on the mundane side. Not to be a creature. 

Notice the obvious usage that he leaves out in this list – “spirit” as the inner part or aspect of a human person, often standing in for the person himself, so that what, e.g. your spirit feels is just what you feel.

Which, by analogy, makes the Spirit of God entirely divine. That's Tuggy's dilemma. 

What, pray tell, does it mean to say that OT theology is “binitarian”? Serious question. I assume, by analogy with “trinitarian,” that it means that there are two “Persons” in the OT (the Father and the Spirit?) which share an ousia. In my book What is the Trinity? chapter 7, I discuss nine things which “same ousia” might mean. Until our would-be apologist specifies which he means, we don’t even have an intelligible view here, which we might look into the OT to try to find. He’s just got traditional catholic language, and he’s hoping that the OT somehow gets one part way there. But “where” is “there”? I mean, what sort of ousia-sharing does he have in mind? I really don’t know. But then, none of us is in a position to see whether or not this is to be found taught or presupposed or even hinted at in the OT. Past experience has taught me that Steve Hays is proudly and defiantly confused on this topic; he has no one interpretation of the traditional catholic Trinity language, as best as I can tell. 

i) Defending traditional catholic Trinity language was never my aim. I take the position of theologians like Warfield, Frame, Feinberg, and Helm regarding the autotheistic nature of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

ii) I do agree with the Nicene creed that the Son (and Spirit) are consubstantial with the Father. 

iii) I didn't use traditional catholic language. I used David Cline's characterization of "duality in the godhead". Clines is a renown OT scholar, and quite liberal. 

No, it is a proper name. Evidently, our would-be apologist is reasoning backwards here – if God is tripersonal, he ought not have a proper name, which would suggest that he’s a single person. 

I said nothing to indicate that God can't have a proper name because he's tripersonal. I didn't reason backwards from the Trinity to the conclusion that Yahweh is not a proper name. 

But, this is not what the scholars say. He may be assuming here that a proper name can’t have a meaning, but of course, many OT and NT names do have meanings, e.g. Immanuel, Joshua/Jesus.

I made no such assumption. Tuggy has a lively imagination. 

“Lexicons? Who needs ’em?”

Bizarre free-wheeling here. Kids, if you’re going to do apologetics, do you homework first. Don’t just pop off and try to one-up the other guy. It’s no good to insist that God can’t have a proper name, when the reference books say that in the OT he does! That second sentence – is that supposed to be the reason for the first? If so, it is a wild non sequitur. Just because God can’t have a true peer, it doesn’t follow that he can’t have a proper name. Nor does it follow that other beings make be like him in kind, though not full peers – e.g. men, angels.

A lesson for would-be apologists here; don’t pounce on your opponent so fast that you can’t take time to look things up in standard reference sources. Both your misinformation and your lack of self control reflect poorly on the cause you think you’re serving.

i) To begin with, Tuggy commits what William Vallicella dubs "the Dictionary Fallacy: thinking that certain philosophical questions can be answered by consulting dictionaries. 

ii) As far as what scholars say, there's no consensus on "Yahweh". There are OT scholars who think God's answer to Moses is evasive. They think God refuses to provide a name because that gives people control over a deity. 

iii) In general, divine names for the one true Deity are appellatives rather than proper names. 

iv) In addition:

The answer Moses receives is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a name. It is an assertion of authority, a confession of an essential reality, and thus an entirely appropriate response to the question Moses poses. J. Durham, Exodus (Word 1987), 38. 

The answer in v14…set against the pagan context of the question, rejects the very idea of a name for God. He is not like Amun or Ptah; he cannot be assigned a place and identity in the cosmos as one of the gods. In the most ultimate sense, he has no name…To ask his "name" is to miss the point completely, because he is not one of the gods at all…It is not God's name in the way that Seth, Horus, Thoth, or Bastet identify and define individual Egyptian gods…As the angel of YHWH said to Manoah, "Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful" (Judg 13:18). D. Garrett, A Commentary on Exodus (Kregel 2014), 207-208. 

Simply put, monotheism has no need, possibly no room, for a name–a proper name–for Deity. Proper names are labels by which individual or particular members of a class are differentiated one from another. If Deity is a class with but one member, then the common name or noun for that class is sufficient…Our capitalization of God or Deity owes then to the respect for the concept of singleness of deity, and to an inherited convention for the differentiation of the One and Only God of Scripture from the many gods that (exist(ed) only in the minds of pagans…In monotheism a proper name for Deity is in a sense blasphemous, allowing as it may for the existence of other deities by other names. H. Brichto, The Names of God: Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings (Oxford 1998), 31,33.

It's amusing to see the inverse ratio between Tuggy's confidence and competence. He accuses me of making unscholarly, uninformed claims, yet throughout his reply he exposes his utter ignorance of the relevant literature, while I can easily back up my claims–as in fact I've done in this rejoinder. Tuggy falls into the classic trap of simultaneously overestimating himself and underestimating his critics. 

12 comments:

  1. Quite a lot of irrelevant veribage here. Of course, I have no problem with non-Jewish influences on OT texts. Loved the Currid book. I do think that the "henotheism" term is unfortunate and unhelpful, but that's another discussion.

    "duality in the godhead"
    :-/ Same complaints hold. What *sort* of duality is meant, and what is meant by "godhead"? Still nothing in hand, to see whether or not it best explains the theology implicit in OT texts, as opposed to just good old, "unitarian" monotheism.

    So, all the reference sources tell us that "YHWH" functions as God's proper name. You unaccountably ignore this, and I call you one it. And you cry "dictionary fallacy." As someone who's graded many hundreds of college student papers in Philosophy, I think I know what that is, Steve. But there is no philosophical question here - the matter is just the function of that word, which is the area of people specializing in ancient Hebrew etc. That, as far as I know, is not a matter of philosophy, any more than whether some word is an adjective or a noun.

    Feel free to explain your "appellatives vs. proper names" distinction, if indeed anything of substance hangs on that.

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  2. Those quotes are interesting - apparently you were repeating some dubious name-speculations. What do Durham and Garret think is required for a word to be a personal, proper name? What condition does "YHWH" lack? Because scholars, and everyone else, will normally go around saying that this is "the name of Israel's god" or of the one God, the creator, in the OT. And it functions referentially, the way names and other singular referring terms are treated in modern logics. And we capitalize it, and use personal pronouns with it. Nor does it some to be a general noun, like "god" etc, nor any other common sort of word.

    "Proper names are labels by which individual or particular members of a class are differentiated one from another."

    This is just false, a careless piece of speculation. A unique class-member can have a proper name. E.g. The Smith's only child is named George. And even a necessarily unique class member, the only member of the god-class, can have a proper name - as evidenced by this very case! Names are used to refer, and not only to separate one class member from another. (BTW I am assuming here, as explained in my "On Counting Gods" the distinction between the concept of a deity and that of a god. The OT God is the only god, but not the only deity, as I define those concepts.)

    Still, we can simply observe that in OT times, God was thought to be a member of the class of elohim.

    "“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders?" Ex 15:11

    This assumes that he is a deity, though he surpasses the others.

    "Be attentive to all that I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips." Ex 23:13

    Notice the "other" - other deities, that is, deities other than YHWH - who is thereby assumed to be a deity. (And also a god, and the only one.)

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  3. "Simply put, monotheism has no need, possibly no room, for a name–a proper name–for Deity."

    Quite a pronouncement there, given "YHWH," and "Allah," (which has turned into a proper name, arguably) and the confused Christians who call the one God "Jesus" (indisputably a proper name).

    Those guys are distracted, I think, by the plausible suggestion that in that famous exchange God avoids giving a proper name, lest he be confused with various deities in the mythologies. And I think it is right, that there was an ancient concern about magical practices involving use of deities' names. (I suspect this is partly why "YWHW" fell out of use before Jesus's time.) But even if "YHWH" was originally not a name, which can be argued, remember that whether or not a word is a name is a matter of function. And it manifestly functions as the proper name of Israel's deity in most of the OT.

    Steve, if you want to define some special use of the words "name" or "proper name" or "personal name" on which "Steve" and "Jesus" and "Zeus" are names, but "YHWH" is not, go ahead and give it a try. But to most of us, as evidenced by that lexicon entry I linked, "YHWH" just obviously is a name, the proper name of God.

    Your answer can take roughly this form. Because it lacks ____, which is had by "Steve," "Jesus," "Zeus," the word "YHWH" is not a proper name. Or: Because YWHW has the feature ____, which is not had by "Steve," "Jesus," or "Zeus," it can't be a proper name, though these last three are.

    I retract my original charge of simple hasty ignorance. Instead, I think you're guilty of not thinking critically about some rather wild claims being made by OT experts. I guess that's not as bad.

    Again, unless you define your special sense of "proper name," generally people will just think it is obviously false to say that in the OT God has no proper name. Educated people will say, "Dud, 'Yahweh'!" Go ahead and explain what it is that they and the lexicon writers are missing.

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    Replies
    1. "What *sort* of duality is meant, and what is meant by "godhead"? Still nothing in hand, to see whether or not it best explains the theology implicit in OT texts, as opposed to just good old, "unitarian" monotheism."

      This is the 118th post I've done in response to you. I've covered much of that ground in the past. I'll probably do some additional posts on the Spirit of God. In the past, Christology was your focus rather than pneumatology.

      "So, all the reference sources tell us that 'YHWH' functions as God's proper name. You unaccountably ignore this, and I call you on it."

      You make a public fool of yourself by repeating that demonstrably false allegation.

      "But there is no philosophical question here - the matter is just the function of that word, which is the area of people specializing in ancient Hebrew etc. That, as far as I know, is not a matter of philosophy, any more than whether some word is an adjective or a noun."

      The nature of names, proper names, &c., is very much a philosophical issue. For instance:

      https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/names/

      "Feel free to explain your 'appellatives vs. proper names' distinction"

      An appellative is like "father," doctor".

      "This is just false, a careless piece of speculation. A unique class-member can have a proper name. E.g. The Smith's only child is named George. And even a necessarily unique class member, the only member of the god-class, can have a proper name"

      Misses the point. A proper name is superfluous if there's only one example in kind.

      "And it manifestly functions as the proper name of Israel's deity in most of the OT."

      Actually, it functions to emphasize God's covenantal role.

      "on which 'Steve' and 'Jesus' and 'Zeus' are names, but "YHWH" is not"…

      Polytheistic gods have proper names because it's…polytheistic! Necessary to differentiate one god or goddess from another in the pantheon. In theory they could be given numbers.

      Jesus is given a name to distinguish him from his relatives. In addition, like many Jewish names, it means something.

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    2. "This is the 118th post I've done in response to you. I've covered much of that ground in the past."

      If only this were a valid inference! "I have said many words on X. Therefore, my position on X should be clear to all."

      A professional specialist in the field, after interacting with you over many years, says he can't discern your position. And your answer is gesture at the number of your posts? This is a lazy dodge, sorry. I think you are just not able to face up to your confusions on this issue. I encourage you to read What is the Trinity?, specifically the chapters laying out different ways of parsing the traditional talk of "Persons" and "ousia," and then see if you can pick an actual position. Then, maybe we'll have something to argue about - something specific enough to compare with the biblical texts.

      How names, proper names function in general - sure, those are philosophical topics. But this is not: whether or not the ancient Hebrew word "YHWH" functions as a proper name for God.

      So as you've explained an "appellative," it is a singular referring term that can also be used as a general noun. So then, "God" and "Lord" and "King" would be appellatives - but I would say that they are in effect names - they do what proper names do - their main function is just to refer to an individual. In any case, by (what I infer is) your criterion, "YHWH" is not an appellative, right? It's a proper name - like the lexicons say.

      To be fair, I think in this exchange you've been the victim of some bad philosophy, passed down through theologians and biblical scholars. There is an old, Platonic-Christian view of naming, which modern philosophy has just discarded. It goes something like this: to name is to state the essence of. And to state the essence of something, you must comprehend that essence. BUT, we all know (wink) that we must say that God's essence can't be comprehended - because the "Arians" think it can be. So, God can't be named.

      But of course, we name things all the time without comprehending their essences. This both for applying "names" in the sense of kind-terms (e.g. human, divine) and in the sense of proper names, e.g. Steve, YHWH.

      So when these scholars want to say that God can't be named, doesn't have a proper name, I think this history is in the background. Their fear is that if God *can* be named, then he'll be comprehensible, or not unique, or too creature-like... or something. Of course, none of those things follow. A proper name needn't somehow express the essence of the named thing. It's a sad fact of human nature that theoretical commitments can blind even PhDs to the obvious.

      In sum, I was a little to hard on you in my post. Sorry about that. But still, when we find scholars saying something that seems to admit of easy counterexamples (scholar: God has no proper name, linguist: in OT God's proper name is YHWH), we need to go into critical thinking mode, and ask *why* they are making such a strange assertion, and what it could mean. Evidently, they have a "heavy" idea of what "naming" involves. But that is based on some highly implausible speculations, which have rightly been wholly discarded by philosophers in modern times.

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    3. "A professional specialist in the field, after interacting with you over many years, says he can't discern your position."

      You don't get to play the self-appointed referee. You're a unitarian propagandist, not a nonpartisan outside observer. Your opinion is not my standard of comparison. I have nothing to prove to you. I don't write for your benefit. You're just a foil.

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    4. "I encourage you to read What is the Trinity?"

      You mean, pick up a copy at the shift shop, alongside used books by John Spong, Shirley MacLaine, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, and Joel Osteen?

      "specifically the chapters laying out different ways of parsing the traditional talk of 'Persons' and 'ousia,' and then see if you can pick an actual position."

      Choosing from your set of rigged options?

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  4. Eh... Should be "*Dude*, 'Yahweh'!" in that last bit.

    :-)

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  5. Dale Tuggy

    Quite a lot of irrelevant veribage [sic] here...

    Do I spy a fairly large log in a professional philosopher's eye? It's amusing to see Dale of all people call someone out for "a lot of irrelevant verbiage" since Dale himself is hardly a person one could describe as brief and to the point in his use of words. One wouldn't exactly say pithy and pertinent words are Dale's forté!

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  6. “No, there’s nothing “slanted” about the question. OT monotheism is as clear as can be – the one true God there, the only creator, is YHWH.”

    That’s interesting. What about all the “Christian” exegetes today who recognize the pre-redacted polytheistic nature of the OT? What about all the ancient “Christian” witnesses who were polytheists?

    In a previous posts com-box, Tuggy said this to me:

    “No, "faith alchemist," in the last 120 years or so, mainstream theologians have practically acted as if unitarian Christians never existed, or were a rare anomaly.”

    Well what about those poor “polytheist Christians” who have been ignored by mainstream theologians? Poor polytheist Christians... After all it’s very uncharitable for Tuggy to assume the OT is “monotheistic,” or that it’s authors would ever think that way. Out of all the ANE cultures, Israel alone is monotheistic? Very uncharitable.

    “the one true God there, the only creator, is YHWH.”

    Indeed. Since the NT authors were so well versed in the OT, it’s interesting how they include Jesus on the creator side of that discussion.

    It’s also interesting that Tuggy affirms the identity of God as sole creator and then says this:

    “Oy. That silly, Athanasian “on the divine side” rhetoric – a classic weasel phrase.”

    But that’s not what Steve (or Athanasius) said, he wasn’t talking abstractly, he grounded the distinction in God’s exclusive role as creator:

    “The Spirit is a heavenly agent on the divine side of the creature/Creator divide.”

    I’m sure Athanasius is so freakin’ proud that, almost 1700 after his death, he’s still a burr in the Arian saddle!

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  7. What do you mean, "what about the poor'polytheist Christians' who have been ignored..." Who ignores them? They are everywhere that we look. Just walk into any Baptist, Methodist, Catholic (and so on) church and you'll be in the middle of more polytheists than you can shake a stick at!!

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  8. In the following examples the one true God is connected with plural verbs, plural adjectives and plural nouns. Sometimes in conjunction with the term "elohim".

    Nick Norelli in his book The Defense of an Essential: A Believer’s Handbook for Defending the Trinity listed the following:

    QUOTE
    1. Plural Verbs

    o Genesis 20:13
    English Translation: God caused me to wander
    Hebrew: ה התתְעוו ו אלתהים, א אלֹל ה היםם
    Literally: They caused me to wander

    o Genesis 35:7
    English Translation: God appeared
    Hebrew: נהגתְלֹו ו א אלֹלָיםו לָ ה א אלֹל ה היםם
    Literally: They appeared

    o 2Samuel 7:23
    English Translation: God went
    Hebrew: לָ הלֹתְכוו ו -א א אלֹל ה היםם
    Literally: They went

    o Psalms 58:12
    English Translation: God that judges
    Hebrew: א אלֹל ה היםם ששלפתְ ה טיםם
    Literally: Gods that judge

    2. Plural Adjectives

    o Deuteronomy 5:26
    English Translation: living God
    Hebrew: א אלֹל ה היםם ח חים ה יםום
    Literally: Living Gods8

    o Joshua 24:19
    English Translation: holy God
    Hebrew: א אלֹל ה היםם תְ קדֹלששהיםם
    Literally: Holy Gods

    3. Plural Nouns

    o Ecclesiastes 12:1
    English Translation: thy Creator
    Hebrew: בוולרתְ אֶ איםךלָ
    Literally: Creators

    o Isaiah 54:5
    English Translation: For thy Maker is thy husband
    Hebrew: בל ע עולֹחיִךתְ עולששחיִךתְ
    Literally: Makers, Husbands9

    o Malachi 1:6
    English Translation: Master
    Hebrew: ע אדֹולנהיםם
    Literally: Masters10

    o Daniel 7:18
    English Translation: Most High
    Hebrew: אֶ עולֹתְיםולנהיםן
    Literally: Most High Ones

    footnotes:
    8 See also 1Samuel 17:26, 36 & Jeremiah 10:10, 23:36 for “living Gods”
    9 See also Psalm 149:2 for “Makers”
    10 Nearly every occurrence of the noun “Lord” ( ע אדֹולנהים ) in reference to God appears in the plural form.
    END QUOTE

    As Anthony Rogers says in one of his articles:

    When all is said and done, the Old Testament uses plural nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives for God.

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