Before I dive into omnist Christianity I wanted to first cover what is a god. In the Bible there are a few words for god. In Aramaic the word is elah. In Hebrew the world is elohim. In koine Greek it’s theos and is the foundation for the study of god which is theology, while the story of the word of god is bibliology. One misconception is that Elohim is the name of our god. But it’s not. It’s just the plural word for god sometimes used for the singular, much like the pronouns they/them….. sometimes our god was called The God and that’s how the confusion begin. In the Bible the main names of god is Yahweh and El. (But those names may be of two separate gods that were later on conflated into one god in our tradition but that’s another thread for another day ).
So now for the word god. One of the most common ones is the Hebrew elohim. The first obvious use is that it is for the the deity we worship as the god of gods. Which brings up the issue that how can God be the god of gods is there are not other gods. So how else is god used. Well obviously it’s being used for other beings. Such as in Judges 11:24 when it says “eloheka” which is just a form of elohim (h430).
Additionally we see that Jesus in the gospels gets accused of being wrong for saying he’s the son of god in John 10:34-38. “ 34 Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law: ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be nullified), 36 are you saying of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
So Jesus refers to humans as gods. The verse he’s quoting comes from Psalms 82:6 though that psalms is not about humans but angels. But we do see humans referred to as gods in the tanakh/ Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 28:13-14 it calls the ghost of Samuel. It refers to his spirit as Elohim.
So we see the word god being used for our god Yahweh, used for other gods like Baal and Chemosh and for humans.
So now to Omnism. Omnism is the belief that all paths lead to god. One form of henotheism is that there is just one god and that one god has revealed himself to mankind as many different gods. This god came to the ancient Indians as Braham, to ancient Canaanites as El, to ancient Jews as Yahweh, to ancient Iranians as Ahura Mazda. That’s what we see the Bible accommodating ancient Jewish beliefs. The scholar of the tanakh Richard Friedman shows in his book “ Commentary of the Torah “ that Genesis 1 paints a picture of a flat world, floating on the chaotic waters with a dome over it. We see Joshua thinking the sun moves around us.
We see further examples of this one god revealing himself in many ways in the Bible also by the fact it borrows texts from other faiths. Genesis 1-11 is a reimagining of The Epic of the Gilgamesh. We see psalms 29 taking a poem originally meant for Baal changed to be about El and in the New Testament we see that a statue to an unknown god is hijacked to refer to Yahweh. There is also this verse that seems to indicate Yahweh was a god under the god El before they were conflated into one being.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
The word for Most High is elyown which is a version of El. The word for the lord is Yhvh which is Yahweh. So the verse may very well be read accurately as
When El apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 Yahweh’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
Some believe that perhaps Yahweh use to be an angel, possibly the angel of the lord who some think is Jesus, who was to govern over Israel.
An omnist Christian is a Christian who believes in one supreme God who had revealed himself to mankind as many gods and this supreme being of love and justice was incarnated in the flesh as Jesus Christ. We also believe that this same god will have revealed himself to any other species that exists in the universe.
So now for the word god. One of the most common ones is the Hebrew elohim. The first obvious use is that it is for the the deity we worship as the god of gods. Which brings up the issue that how can God be the god of gods is there are not other gods. So how else is god used. Well obviously it’s being used for other beings. Such as in Judges 11:24 when it says “eloheka” which is just a form of elohim (h430).
Additionally we see that Jesus in the gospels gets accused of being wrong for saying he’s the son of god in John 10:34-38. “ 34 Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law: ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be nullified), 36 are you saying of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
So Jesus refers to humans as gods. The verse he’s quoting comes from Psalms 82:6 though that psalms is not about humans but angels. But we do see humans referred to as gods in the tanakh/ Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 28:13-14 it calls the ghost of Samuel. It refers to his spirit as Elohim.
So we see the word god being used for our god Yahweh, used for other gods like Baal and Chemosh and for humans.
So now to Omnism. Omnism is the belief that all paths lead to god. One form of henotheism is that there is just one god and that one god has revealed himself to mankind as many different gods. This god came to the ancient Indians as Braham, to ancient Canaanites as El, to ancient Jews as Yahweh, to ancient Iranians as Ahura Mazda. That’s what we see the Bible accommodating ancient Jewish beliefs. The scholar of the tanakh Richard Friedman shows in his book “ Commentary of the Torah “ that Genesis 1 paints a picture of a flat world, floating on the chaotic waters with a dome over it. We see Joshua thinking the sun moves around us.
We see further examples of this one god revealing himself in many ways in the Bible also by the fact it borrows texts from other faiths. Genesis 1-11 is a reimagining of The Epic of the Gilgamesh. We see psalms 29 taking a poem originally meant for Baal changed to be about El and in the New Testament we see that a statue to an unknown god is hijacked to refer to Yahweh. There is also this verse that seems to indicate Yahweh was a god under the god El before they were conflated into one being.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9
When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
The word for Most High is elyown which is a version of El. The word for the lord is Yhvh which is Yahweh. So the verse may very well be read accurately as
When El apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;
9 Yahweh’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
Some believe that perhaps Yahweh use to be an angel, possibly the angel of the lord who some think is Jesus, who was to govern over Israel.
An omnist Christian is a Christian who believes in one supreme God who had revealed himself to mankind as many gods and this supreme being of love and justice was incarnated in the flesh as Jesus Christ. We also believe that this same god will have revealed himself to any other species that exists in the universe.
