DevilInPgh and Marketand Church:
I gotta put in here. While I concur that evidence is that 'elohim is being treated as a singular [compare gender concord with pneuma in the Koine], the Genesis opening is not the best evidence.
We are dealing with a fairly basic component of a pretty old Semitic text. While things vary with language and era, the evidence says that in the Qal / Perfective in early Semitic the base unsuffixed form used for third person singular is used when a plural subject follows, though the form with -w suffix is used when a plural subject precedes.
Here a subject noun plural in shape follows the verb - which I say can not be considered irrefutable evidence on whether it is semantically singular or plural. We need to seek elsewhere for definitive evidence.
03 May 2011, 8:07 pm
