Towards, unto, into and in Theos

The words used in the English bible that relate to the creator are inadequately translated, which is really a fundamental argument throughout this blog. In particular, as we have seen in the previous entry (prerequisites V) the term that is usually represented by the capitalised LORD is in fact the name Yahweh (or possibly Yahwah) – יהוה – whose meaning we discussed in prerequisites V and is described as his name (and memorial). Its meaning is ‘he will (cause to) be(come)’. It is sometimes represented as capitalised GOD especially in the prophetic book of Yehezq’el. It is then paired with the lower case ‘Lord’ which translates the Hebrew אדני (‘adonay) which appears in a plural form (Lords). It appears to be acceptably translated ‘Lord(s)’ carrying, as it does, a sense of authority over another by the Lord and reverence to the Lord by that person in submission to him. Interestingly a homograph of Lord is translated ‘sockets’ when referring to those objects of silver that were sunk into the ground to act as a foundation for the support of the poles that formed the tabernacle in the wilderness. This could be seen as a metaphor that, in the uncertain ground of the wilderness journey, ‘adonay is a sure foundation for the support of those raised up elements that form the dwelling of Yahweh among man.

The other terms that are often translated, poorly, ‘God’ are, in numerical order, ‘elohym (אלהים); ‘el (אל) and ‘eloah (אלוהּ). The last term is used mostly in the book of ‘Yob and occasionally in the Psalms and may be an emphatic version of ‘el (אל) which are then pluralised to ‘elohym (אלהים). Numerically ‘elohym is used ten times more than ‘el and ‘eloah is used only 57 times. Clearly, it is the title ‘el (אל) which is the focus of this blog and its various homographs and their meanings will be discussed in later blogs.

From time to time, and regularly accompanying the title ‘el (אל), is the title shaday (שׁדּי). This is usually translated as ‘Almighty’. In fact the word is, homographically, ‘breasts’, symbolising the nurturing and feeding of his people by shaday and is closely related to words meaning ‘field’ (again symbolising nourishment) and ‘destruction’. Again, the pairing of these opposites (nourishment and destruction) hints at the antitheses at the heart of creation which ‘el has put in place as a defining feature of his work and our understanding of it and which appears as one of the meanings behind the title ‘el as we shall see later on in future blogs.

In the New Testament, as we have discussed earlier, the word translated ‘God’ is Theos (θεος) coming from a word meaning to set or place. The verb ‘to set/place’ and the term Theos are used adjacent to each other in 1 Corinthians 12:

But now has Theos set the members every one of them in the body, as it has pleased him. (1 Cor.12.18)

And Theos has set some in the ekklesia, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of languages. (1 Cor.12.28)

So, Theos has set in place people within the assembly to perform certain tasks, to manifest the spirit, and that setting in place seems to have order, that is that possessors of certain gifts in the ekklesia at that time had preeminence, particularly the apostles, then the prophets and then the teachers. Mediation of the word having priority.

This greek verb to set/place (tithemi τίθημι) is used in quotation in a number of places but one is in Maththaios 22:

The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, till I set your enemies under your feet (Math.22.44)

This verse is quoting Psalm 110.1 where the verb ‘to set’ (שית) is related to the idea of ‘setting his name there’ which we saw in Prerequisites (homographs). This intensifies the sense of Theos being about a set place, ordered under his hand at a future time.

Above, in Maththaios 22 we notice that the word LORD is first capitalised and then in lower case. This is because the Psalm from which it is quoting uses Yahweh first and then ‘adonay. However the Greek is using kurios (κυριος) for both words and, indeed, this is the word used in the New Testament that is translated by the English ‘Lord’.

Another title for him is ‘Almighty’ which is the Greek pantokrator (παντοκρατωρ). Only once is this term used outside of Revelation and is probably relatively accurately translated, coming from the greek words for all (things) and power/might.

The final term that is used for Theos is ‘Father’ (pater πατηρ). The term ‘Father’ is used widely in the New Testament but very sparingly in the Old Testament perhaps because the causal meaning inherent in being a father is already implied in the causal meaning associated with Yahweh’s name – he will (cause to) be(come).

‘In the beginning he, [that is] ‘elohym created the heavens and the earth’ (Gen.1.1)

In Biblical Hebrew, as in many languages, the form of the verb and that of the noun which is the subject of that verb should agree in number and gender. The awkwardness of the above translation of Genesis 1.1 is because the noun (‘elohym) is a masculine plural noun but it does not agree with the verb which is in the masculine singular (he). So, although they agree in gender, they do not agree in number. The reason behind this is because the motivating force, the impetus and direction, of the creative activity is being governed by the singular he, the Theos of Iohannes 1.1 who, in the beginning, was the word. He is the one creating but it is ‘elohym, the masculine plural agents of his plan, who are enacting the word, the pattern which he has instructed them of, who are carrying out that directive.

‘see now that I, I am he, and there is no ‘elohym with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. (Deut.32.39)

A feature of Biblical Hebrew is also this absence of the verb ‘to be’ on many occasions. Instead terms, here pronouns, are juxtaposed with an implied ‘am’ between. When the verb ‘to be’ is invoked it is, therefore with added significance. The creator Yahweh speaks in the first person singular but refers to himself in the third person singular. This is because the word is given to his people to allow them to be able to understand and approach him. He (the I) gives us the information to come to know him (the he). He creates life and he can take it away (the opposite); even when man has sinned (is wounded) he can be healed; he has ultimate control (the power of his hand). Note here the presence of these opposites. Antitheses, we will see later on, play an important part in his identity. Control also is fundamental in coming to know ‘el (אל).

Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that does speak: behold, it is I (Yesha’yahu 52.6)

The passage in question is set at a time when the people he had called to demonstrate his name in themselves had signally failed to do this task. He identifies a future time when this trend will be reversed. In that day (when they will truly embody his name) they will know that I am he.

This movement from the ‘I’ to the ‘he’ in the context of the name is particularly clear at the point when he reveals his name, and its meaning, to Mosheh, in Exodus 3:

‘And Mosheh said unto ‘elohym, Who am I that I should go unto Phar’oh and that I should bring forth the people from Mitsraym?’ (Ex.3.11)

Note here the two occurrences of the word unto (‘el אל) which are in bold type and the threefold use of ‘I’ by Mosheh. It is because Mosheh does not grasp that the ‘I’ who will be bringing them out of Mitsraym is the ‘he’ who is speaking to him and so he says to Mosheh:

And he said, Certainly I will be (‘ehyeh אהיה) with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Mitsraym, ye shall serve ‘elohym upon this mountain. (Ex.3.12)

I have left the 17th century English in place here to show the difference between the singular (thee/thou) and plural (ye) of the word ‘you’. ‘elohym is telling Mosheh that it is not the I (Mosheh) but it is the I (‘elohym) who will be carrying out this work, so that, when Mosheh obeys the word spoken to him, he will be the I (‘elohym). The verb ‘I will be’ is the same that we saw in the section ‘Prerequisites III’ along with the homographic ‘with thee/thy people’. Above, you will remember, we noted that the use of the verb ‘to be’ is not as common as in English and so adds weight when it is invoked. Here it is in the future tense and in the ‘I’ (1st person singular) form. It is at a point in the future that he will be with Mosheh, that is when he is before Phar’oh and speaking the words which he has given him. Mosheh’s response to this is:

And Mosheh said unto ‘elohym, Behold, when I come unto the children of Yisra’el, and shall say unto them, The ‘elohym of your fathers has sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? (Ex.3.13)

Again we should note here the repeated presence of the homographic ‘el אל translated ‘to’/’unto’ (in bold type). Mosheh is involved in a conversation with ‘elohym firstly and then a foreseen conversation he will have with the people of Yisra’el. Mosheh has asked about his name in the context of one (Mosheh) speaking as an agent of another (‘elohym) and ‘elohym’s response to this question is a direct one:

And ‘elohym said unto Mosheh, I will be (אהיה) who I will be (אהיה): and he said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Yisra’el, I will be (אהיה) has sent me unto you. (Ex.3.14)

and:

And ‘elohym said moreover unto Mosheh, Thus shall you say unto the children of Yisra’el, Yahweh (יהוה) ‘elohym of your fathers, the ‘elohym of ‘Abraham, the ‘elohym of Yitshaq, and the ‘elohym of Ya’aqob, has sent me unto you: this is my name to/for ‘olam (לעלם), and this is my memorial to all generations. (Ex.3.15)

Again, note the occurrences of to/unto (in bold) and the use of to/for ‘olam, which we mentioned in the blog about truncations as an occurrence of the shortened form of ‘to’/’unto’ and indicative of a journey in time. However, the real significance of this verse is the use of the name Yahweh (יהוה) and it being referred to as ‘my name’ and ‘my memorial’. The verb ‘to be’ in its first person singular future tense – I will be (אהיה ‘ehyeh) – has been transposed into the 3rd person singular future tense – he will be (יהיה yihyeh) – but the 2nd y (י) being replaced with a w (ו). This appears to imply a causal sense to the verb but the critical issue is that when his name is formalised as a name rather than the verb alone it is moved from the ‘I’ to the ‘he’. We are therefore able to say that ‘he will (cause to) be’ is his name. This name that causes to be is closely linked to the idea of agency, that is it pertains to those who act on his behalf, just as the ‘he’ in the beginning is enacted by plural ‘elohym. It is the word given by the ‘he’ to the ‘they’ which allows them to be (or indeed become) him. It is this revelation that he gives which allows us to refer to him as the ‘he’ rather than the ‘I’. If we were to utterly be(come) him and demonstrate his qualities in ourselves then we could, with his son Iesous, say ‘I am’, as he did in the New Testament. Indeed, if we strive to attain unto him and are found faithful in that age (‘olam) then we also shall be able to say, I am.

So, the ‘I’ gives us the ability to understand him as ‘he’ through revelation of his mind by his word. If/when we attain to that mind we will also say, because we have become, ‘I’.

To conclude, therefore, we can see that the name is about agency or representation. When someone is sent by him to do his will, to speak his words, by the instruction of the word, then they become him. When they speak they are no longer their own ‘I’ but the ‘I will be’ that is him. When this is recorded for others in his revelation it becomes ‘he’. ‘He’ is the revelatory cause and manifestational outcome.

We have already seen in the previous blog entry how that the preposition ‘el אל (‘to’ or ‘unto’) can be shortened, or truncated, down to one letter, that is the letter ל (l), and still retain the sense of ‘to’ or ‘unto’. This was seen in the format ‘I will be to them for ‘elohym and they shall be to me for a people’. Recurring, as it does, in the prophecies of Yehezq’el and Yeremyahu.

This, again, is relevant to the argument about the use of the homographic ‘el אל and its transferable meanings. Truncation in prepositions is a common phenomenon in biblical Hebrew. These prepositions are pre-positioned directly in front of the word which they govern and are directly attached to the beginning of that word. An interesting occurrence is the use of לאל in place of the longer form אל־אל (to/unto ‘el). Both forms occur in the Hebrew Old Testament and it is possible that the longer form creates a greater emphasis on the ‘to’/’unto’ sense.

The same truncation process also occurs with other prepositions such as מ (m) from the long form מן (min) meaning ‘from’/’of’ and ש (sh) from the long form אשר (‘asher), meaning ‘who’.

Furthermore, and perhaps of significance in the progression of this blog is the use of the preposition ב (b). This letter is known as ‘beth’ and is taken from the word for house (beth בית). Early Hebrew, both paleo-Hebrew and before that proto-sinaitic, are somewhat pictorial in nature and letters seem to bear a resemblance to certain things which they then bear the name of. In this case the letter ‘beth’ is supposed to, in a pictorial form, represent a house. In any case, one of the primary meanings of ב when prefixing another word is that of ‘in’. This heightens the relationship of the truncated ב with the word from which it was seemingly taken (בית – house) because the journey ‘into’ ends with being ‘in’ and the final ‘in’ is often in a/the house. Thus:

And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to Yahweh: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house (בבית), because she hid the messengers that we sent. (Yehoshua’ 6.17)

So here, as with Noah, salvation is dependent on being in the house and, presumably, her relatives, after being called by her, had to make that journey unto, before being in, the house.

A common use of the preposition ל (l) is in the term לעולם (le’olam), usually translated ‘for ever’ but really meaning ‘to/for the age’. The use of the truncated ל (l) in this phrase will be useful in upcoming blogs in considering ‘el אל as not only a journey in distance but also in time.

The term Homograph is constructed from two Greek words meaning ‘the same’ and ‘writing’. As a word it is not present in the Greek New Testament but is used in the English language to describe a word that is made up of the same letters but may not necessarily either be pronounced the same or mean the same thing. We are going to use homograph to describe a word that is spelt with the same letters and has a relation with other words spelt the same.

A premise to the trajectory of this blog is that one of the terms, incorrectly, translated ‘God’ in the Hebrew Old Testament (‘el אל) is an identical spelling (that is, a homograph) to the Hebrew word for ‘to’ or ‘unto’ (‘el אל). Furthermore, that this fact is pertinent to understanding the meaning of one of the titles by which the creator has decided to call himself by. This argument relies on accepting that there is a relationship of meaning between scriptural homographs. In this case that relationship is to say that there is a directional sense embedded in the meaning of this particular title for the creator (‘el אל) and that this goes to the heart of a particular and profound aspect of his identity. This being the case it would be wise to show that there is room in the word to grasp the significance of homographic relationships.

Homographs, as we mentioned above, are when two words are identical in the letters that they present, in this case the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This can be because they present the same 2 or 3 letter stem or they present the same in a constructed form.

In the first category we can look at the homograph שבע (sheba’) 

This occurs as the verb ‘to swear’ and as the number ‘seven’. They occur together in Genesis 21 where ‘Abraham swears an oath with ‘Abimelek concerning a well. ‘Abraham sets seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves and ‘Abimelek asks what they mean.

‘And he said, for these seven ewe lambs shall you take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Wherefore he called that place Beer-sheba’ because there they sware both of them’ (Gen.21.30,31)

I have highlighted the relevant words – seven and sware – to show how they correspond. The fact that the two terms are linked in meaning is evident to ‘Abraham too as he explicitly connects them. That is, there are seven ewe lambs as a sign that he was swearing this oath with ‘Abimelek.

In the same verse (31) we also have the use of the term ‘there’ (שם) which is homographic with the verb ‘to set/place’ and the word for ‘name’. Interestingly this verb to set or place has a relation to the New Testament Greek word from which the title Theos (θεος) comes. That is, that at the heart of the meaning of Theos (θεος) is the idea of a set place.

Again these terms occur in close proximity with one another and are, therefore, clearly linked.

‘But unto the place which Yahweh your ‘elohym shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, unto his habitation shall you seek, and there you shall come’ (Deuteronomy 12.5)

As you can see in the Hebrew text, as in the English, the 3 homographs are put together – ‘to put’, ‘his name’ and ‘there’ with a further ‘there’ at the conclusion of the verse (all highlighted).

So, there is a place which he shall choose and he requires his people to seek it out and to come unto it, presuming therefore that when they come unto it he is there.

Furthermore, as a matter of interest which will be highly relevant in the coming argument the word ‘unto’ (אל) occurs both in its full form and in its truncated form (ל) in this verse (Deut.12.5). In a sense we shall see that this verse is a perfect summing up of the argument of this blog. That is, that there is a journey to take unto a final settled destination and that the process and final destination are summed up in the idea of the name (of Yahweh) and the journey in the title ‘el (אל) and the destination in the title Theos (θεος).

The third of our homographic examples is the Hebrew word עם and its constructed form עמך. In the first form the word means ‘with’ or ‘people’ and in the second ‘with you’ or ‘your people’ where ‘you’ is in the singular (in the KJV thee/thy).

An example where the two seem to come together is in Deuteronomy 32:

‘Rejoice, you nations with his people’ (Deut.32.43)

This is then quoted up into Romans:

‘Rejoice you nations with his people’ (Rom.15.10)

In the first passage the word ‘with’ is not present in the Hebrew text but the homographic ‘people’ is. In the New Testament quotation the words ‘with’ and ‘people’ are both present in the text. The spirit of Theos instructing us that the sense of ‘with’ is included in the word ‘people’. This shows that in certain circumstances the homograph can hold more than just one of the meanings at the same time.

With you/thee occurs, for example, in Yehoshua’ 1:

‘There shall not any man be able to stand before you all the days of your life: as I was with Mosheh so I will be with you: I will not fail you or forsake you. (Yehoshua’ 1.5)

In the following verse there is also a strong context of Yahweh creating a ‘people’ firstly through the work of Mosheh and now through Yehoshua’ as he takes them into the land and divides it into an inheritance for them. The sense of Yahweh promising to be (in the future) with Yehoshua’ as he was (in the past tense) with Mosheh is important, the verb ‘to be’ in the future tense being critical here as it is critical in Exodus 3 where ‘I will be’ is the basis for the revealing of the name of Yahweh to Mosheh and the people being created by him. Here the ‘I will be’ is about taking the people forward through the person of Yehoshua’ whose name means ‘he shall save’ and is identical to Iesous’ name in the New Testament (see Math. 1.21).

A similar pattern is evident in Judges where Gide’on is called by Yahweh to smite the people of Midyan:

‘And Yahweh said unto him, Surely I will be with you and you shall smite Midyan as one man’ (Judges 6.16)

The context again is of Gide’on saving the people of Yahweh. Yahweh is using Gide’on as one man leading and saving his people. This is done with the use of the relatively rare construction used both in Yehoshua’ 1 and Exodus 3 – ‘I will be’ – with the notion of him being with the representative man for the purpose of saving him and his people. Again, we see an example of homographs used in the close context of understanding the name both of Yahweh (the father) and Yehoshua’/Iesous (the son)

The use of ‘your/thy people’ occurs in the book of Ruth:

‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave you nor to return from following after you for where you go I shall go, where you lodge I shall lodge, your people are my people and your ‘elohym my ‘elohym.’ (Ruth 1.16)

We can note here that people are juxtaposed with ‘elohym. This juxtaposition of people and ‘elohym is used repeatedly in the books of Yeremyahu and Yehezq’el where it is combined with the form of the verb ‘to be’ used in Yehoshua’ 1. Thus:

‘I will be to them for ‘elohym and they shall be to me for a people.’ (Yehez.37.27)

In the “I will be with thee”, homographically interpretable as “I will be thy people” it is as though the former quotation from Yehezq’el has been contracted down into one phrase. In the elongated quotation the truncated form of ‘el (אל), that is ל, is repeatedly used and translated ‘to’ and ‘for’. Thus, ‘I will be to them for ‘elohym and they shall be to me for a people.’ The idea of being, as in becoming and taking on an identity, is seen as occurring at a future time when the identities of ‘elohym and people are intertwined, are so ‘one unto another’ that they are one. Thus the promise of, at the same time, being with thee (Mosheh and then Yehoshua’) are indistinguishable from ‘elohym being the people. So, Yahweh being with these shepherds of Yisra’el is a precursor for him being the people and them being him. The being and becoming the identity of Yahweh which happens to the shepherd first then happens to the flock subsequently because the shepherd, having first become ‘elohym, then teaches them how to become ‘elohym too. As this process is certain to occur it is as though the people are in the shepherd as he stands before Yahweh to receive his teaching.

As we have established that we are now enquiring after Theos. It is critical that we consider the expression of himself, that is the word of Theos.

The expression of the spirit or mind which is Theos, that is the word, is spirit and is Theos.

In the beginning was the word and the word was towards Theos and the word was Theos. The same was in the beginning towards Theos. (Ioh.1.1,2)

And:

But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth: for the father seeks such to worship him. Theos is spirit and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth (Ioh.4.23,24)

So the word and Theos are the same yet the word is also in a reciprocal relationship towards him. That is, it goes out from him, being him, and returns to him. The word is the expression of spirit. Theos is spirit.

Furthermore, because the word is Theos and Theos is without fault, then the word is also without fault. Man, contrariwise is full of faults. The word which is Theos, is of Theos and returns to Theos is faultless. The copying and enunciating of it by man is not without fault.

Furthermore, the pure and faultless word which is Theos needs to be sought out by man.

The glory of ‘elohym to conceal a word and the glory of kings to seek out a word (Prov.25.2)

The expression of his spirit is seen in the 66 books of the Bible. 39 of which, in the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, with the exception of portions of Dany’el and ‘Ezra’ which were written in Aramaic. The Hebrew which we have is written in a square Aramaic script that seemed to have emerged from Babylon from around the time of Dany’el and ‘Ezra’. Whereas the originals were probably written in paleo (or proto) Hebrew, a kind of Phoenician alphabet and, possibly, in the case of the first 5 books of the bible a script some refer to as proto-sinaitic. In any case all of these scripts are slightly different representations of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The 27 books of the New Testament are written in koine (or common) Greek.

We are constantly in a process of trying to refine our association with this revealed word to try to get to the original expression of spirit which is Theos. If we use a modern English translation we are further away from that distilled spirit than if we are looking at Greek and Hebrew biblical manuscripts. If we are further away from receiving the pure spirit of Theos then we are further away from reciprocating it and, therefore, further away from him. Clearly, the word of Theos, being Theos, is only present in its pure form in heaven but, nevertheless, we must strive to attain unto that mind.

Furthermore, following on from the points made above about the purity and originality of texts in an attempt to get close to that ideal this blog will be based on analysis of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia text for the Hebrew Old Testament with the proviso that it is understood that the original written form would not only have been written predominantly in paleo-hebrew script but would have also been written without pointing and accents as also is the case for the Greek New Testament for which we will reference the 26^th Edition of the Nestle-Aland Text and the Hodges/Farstad 2^nd edition of the Majority Text, which not only would have been unaccented but also written in uncial (capital) form.

Why should we use the greek word Theos (θεος), the Hebrew word ‘el (אל) or any of the other words used to describe the creator in the Bible, rather than the commonly used term ‘God’?

The habit of the Roman empire was to assimilate local deities and customs (feasts etc) into the empire as it was present in a particular locality. This made various nations and tribes less hostile to the empire as they were not under the impression that the empire had utterly subdued them, destroying their customs and, therefore, their cultural identity, but had merely modified the names and feasts of their tradition.

In the early 4th century AD, during the reign of Constantine the Great, christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. In the same century Bishop Ulfilas (311-383) translated the Bible into Gothic, the language (whose alphabet, it is argued, he largely created from Greek and Latin) of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths who were then resident in central Europe. In this translation, or perhaps more accurately in this first presentation of the Bible in the newly created Gothic language, he substituted the Greek term Theos (θεος) and/or the Latin term Deus with the Gothic ‘Gudan’. This term was also the term used to describe a proto-Germanic deity and may have been the origin for the term Goth. It is one of a number of deities shared with the Scandinavian nations where the Goths emerged from where he was called Odin and in the British Isles as Wodan. Eventually, as German developed, the term became Gott, which today is still used (in German) as the noun ‘God’.

We can see, therefore, that the use of the term ‘God’ originates in the habit of Romans of assimilating nations and their deities into the prevailing Roman culture and, in this case, religion. Its presence indicates a compromised position where a Norse/Gothic deity has been confused with the one revealed in the bible. As is the case in assimilation and compromise the values of the two become confused and their qualities bleed into one another.

If language is the expression of a mind then by using the term ‘God’ we are, however unwittingly, part of an expression which the creator of the heavens and earth did not choose for himself, therefore we are not expressing his mind but the mind of a false understanding of another, mythological, deity. We should therefore prefer to use the term he uses and the meaning underpinning it.

And perhaps also why in that order? As mentioned in the previous blog the motivation for starting this journey, several years ago, was the realisation that one of the words translated ‘God’ in the Old Testament was the Hebrew word ‘el (אל) which is the same word as ‘to’ or ‘unto’. Also that the main word translated ‘God’ in the New Testament is the Greek word Theos (θεος). We might conclude, therefore, that there is an equivalence between the two.

In the new testament there are two primary words for forward direction. These are pros (προς) and eis (εις). They are both translated ‘to’ and ‘unto’ but carry further senses. Particularly, pros (προς) which is also translated as ‘before’ and ‘with’. The second word – eis (εις) – is most usually translated as ‘unto’ or ‘into’. A good way of seeing them both and differentiating their meanings is to think of a journey to a house. Pros (προς) is the journey taken that ends up with you standing before, or in front of, the house whereas eis (εις) is the journey taken that ends up with you in, that is inside, the house.

We can see, therefore, that this journey starts out facing a direction, embarking on it and following the path until we come face to face and then, finally, in Theos. Theos is the one we must turn our head towards, aim towards, draw near to and, finally, become one with. We can see therefore the journeying element of ‘el (אל) combining with the set place, or final destination, of Theos (θεος).

The phrases pros ton Theon (προς  τον θεον) – towards/before the Theos; pros Theon (προς θεον) – towards Theos; eis ton Theon (εις τον θεον) – unto/into the Theos; and eis Theon (εις θεον) – unto/into Theos are all used in the New Testament. We will come to these in another blog.

For now we will move onto our first prerequisites blog dealing with the question of why we should use the term Theos and not God.

Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you (Acts 17.23)

This blog is an attempt to follow a pathway towards understanding who Theos is. In fact it is evident that presupposing the path, or indeed the questions we should ask, may be presumptuous. So, for example the question may be to understand who Theos will be, or indeed, what is Theos?

What seems clear, however, is that the one that Paulos was declaring unto the Athenians in Acts 17, whom they ignorantly worshipped is, almost certainly, still largely unknown.

The impetus for beginning this journey was a realisation some years ago that one of the Hebrew words translated ‘God’ in the Old Testament was exactly the same word as the word ‘to’ or ‘unto’. A similar term also translated ‘God’ in the New Testament is the greek word Theos. This term is derived from a verb meaning ‘to set’ or ‘to place’. We will explore these meanings in the upcoming blogs.

An advantage of a blog is that, unlike a book, it does not have to take a formal structure, and we can move back and forth, going over new and revisited ground repeatedly as our understanding progresses. In that sense it is like the human mind (or spirit) which grows, and diminishes, in forward and backward steps and repeated surges of renewed resolution.

The first sections I have called ‘prerequisites’ because they are presumed understanding required before progressing. However, in a sense, all understanding is like this. That is, we come to a body of understanding with knowledge that has been accrued previously and provides building blocks to progress and create the edifice we are constructing. The edifice, like the journey, of course is never completed but always in the progress of being built and, while on the way, may need partial or complete rebuilding.