Let US Make Man in OUR Image! - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

Let US Make Man in OUR Image?!? ![rw-book-cover](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/38hJgc4mPrU/sddefault.jpg) 🔗 **Source:** [Let US Make Man in OUR Image?!?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [divine-council, biblical-hebrew, genesis, ancient-near-east, hebrew-bible-scholarship, trinity-doctrine] > author: Dan McClellan > source: Dan McClellan (YouTube) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU > date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}} > > # 🏷️ Title: Let US make man in OUR image?!? >  ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [Video: Let US make man in OUR image?!?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU) - Genesis 1:26–27; Genesis 3:5, 22; Genesis 6:1–4; Genesis 11:7 - Psalm 82; Isaiah 6:8; Jeremiah 23:18; Deuteronomy 32:8–9; Deuteronomy 4:19; Judges 5:20; Daniel 10:13, 20–21 ## 📝 Summary - What happened: Dan McClellan (scholar of Bible and religion; PhD, University of Exeter) explains the first-person plural in Genesis 1:26 ("Let us make humanity in our image"). He rules out the plural of majesty, the grammatical plurality of Elohim, and the Trinity, and argues the mainstream critical position: God addresses the divine council — the other gods of the ancient Israelite/Northwest Semitic pantheon. - Why it matters: Genesis 1:26 is one of the most frequently proof-texted verses in Christian theology. The video models a data-over-dogma method — dating the text (late 6th/5th c. BCE), reading the Hebrew grammar (singular verb + cohortative), and situating the verse in its Ugaritic-adjacent conceptual world rather than in later doctrinal frameworks. - Key stakeholders: Bible students and teachers who inherit the "Trinity in Genesis 1" reading; scholars of Israelite religion; anyone tracing how patron deities became guardian angels. - Risks and tradeoffs: The divine council reading is genuinely the majority critical view, but two sub-claims McClellan builds on it (Yahweh originally second-tier under Elyon in Deut 32:8–9; the redactional "jealousy" motive in Gen 1:27) are contested, and he flags the first himself. A confessional reader can accept the historical-grammatical argument while still holding a canonical/theological reading of divine plurality — those are different interpretive registers. - Bottom line: In its original context, "us" in Genesis 1:26 most plausibly means the gods of the divine council, with the God of Israel presiding; the Trinity reading is anachronistic as an account of authorial meaning, whatever its standing as later theological interpretation. ## 📖 Main Content - The question: who is the "us" when God says "Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness"? - Negative case first. McClellan eliminates three popular answers: - Not the plural of majesty / royal we. He treats this as a category error for biblical Hebrew verbs of this type (most Hebraists agree the royal-we is unattested for first-person verbs in the Hebrew Bible, though a minority still defends a plural of self-deliberation). - Not Elohim's grammatical plurality. The clause opens with a singular verb (vayyomer Elohim, "God said" — the auto-caption garbles this as "va Elohim"), so the noun's grammatically plural form is doing no work here. The plural sits in the following cohortative — a first-person plural volitional form ("let us make"). - Not the Trinity. Trinitarian doctrine develops as a conceptual framework from the late 2nd century CE onward; the text was composed in the late 6th or 5th century BCE. Author and audience could not have intended or heard it. He also notes God self-refers in the singular repeatedly in the primeval history, so the plural here marks address to a group, not internal plurality. - Positive case: the divine council. A deliberative body of gods assisting in running the cosmos was a common conceptual framework in and around ancient Israel. The Hebrew Bible retains it: Psalm 82 (the council of El / the gods, with text-critical variation between MT and Septuagint); Isaiah 6 ("who will go for us"); Jeremiah 23:18 ("who has stood in the council of the LORD"); Genesis 3:5 and 3:22 (plural "gods"/"one of us knowing good and evil"); Genesis 6 (the bene elohim, "sons/children of God"); Genesis 11:7 ("let us go down" — another cohortative). - Grammar note: a first-person plural command is unremarkable — "all right, let's go" among friends. It simply means the speaker is part of, and addressing, a group. - Ugaritic background: the Northwest Semitic pantheon has El as paterfamilias, his consort Athirat (the captions mangle her name), and their 70 sons comprising the active deities — the council. Hence the later Jewish tradition of 70 nations, 70 patron deities, and eventually 70 angelic princes. - Deuteronomy 32:8–9: McClellan (with many scholars) takes this as among the earliest strata of the Hebrew Bible. Elyon ("the Most High") divides the nations according to the number of the "children of God" (so 4QDeut-j and the Septuagint; the Masoretic Text's "children of Israel" is a later alteration — this text-critical judgment is very widely accepted), and Yahweh's allotted portion is Jacob/Israel. On one reading, Yahweh here is a second-tier member of the council under a distinct high god Elyon, only later conflated with El and promoted to head. McClellan explicitly says this second-tier reading "is still being debated by scholars" — e.g., the late Michael Heiser argued Yahweh and Elyon are already identical in the poem, while Mark S. Smith and others defend the two-deity reading. McClellan thinks the data favor the earlier-stratum reading but marks it as his judgment, not consensus. - Trajectory of the council: Deuteronomy 4:19 assigns the host of heaven to the nations for worship while Israel worships Yahweh alone. Earlier texts treat celestial bodies as sentient divine warriors (Judges 5:20, stars fighting Sisera); in Persian and Greco-Roman periods the other gods are astralized or demoted into angels, yielding the guardian-angels-of-nations idea in Daniel 10 (princes of Persia and Greece vs. Michael). - Back to Genesis 1: God announces creation to the council ("let us make"), but the narrative then has only the singular deity actually create (1:27, singular verbs). McClellan glosses this as the author guarding the creative act for the God of Israel alone — "God is jealous of their creative power." That authorial-motive claim is interpretive; the singular-verb observation itself is uncontroversial. - Contested-claims ledger for study purposes: (1) divine council as referent of "us" — majority critical view, though some evangelical scholars prefer a heavenly-host/angelic-court reading that keeps the addressees non-divine in the strong sense, and others (e.g., Clines's older "self-deliberation" line) dissent; (2) Yahweh-as-second-tier in Deut 32:8–9 — live debate, McClellan flags it; (3) "children of God" as the earlier reading of Deut 32:8 — near-consensus on text-critical grounds; (4) Trinity not the authorial meaning — consensus in historical-critical scholarship; canonical rereading remains a separate theological move the video does not adjudicate beyond authorial intent. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=0) The question: who is "us" in Genesis 1:26 - Opens with the verse: "Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness." - Introduces himself as a scholar of the Bible and religion; frames the video as ruling out bad answers before giving the best-supported one. #### ⏱️ [00:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=14) Not the plural of majesty, not Elohim's grammar - "This has nothing to do with the plural of majesty or the royal we." - Elohim is grammatically plural but can be semantically singular or plural — irrelevant here because the sentence begins with a singular verb ("Elohim said"). - The plural lives in the cohortative: "a first person plural command or imperative. Let us make humanity." - Key line: "it's one deity speaking to other members of a group of which they are a part" (~0:48). #### ⏱️ [01:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=63) Not the Trinity — the anachronism argument - Trinity is "a conceptual framework that wouldn't be developed until the late 2nd century CE," centuries after the text's composition (late 6th or late 5th century BCE). - "The author and the audiences did not have that as an interpretive option." - God self-refers in the singular multiple times in the primeval history; here a single deity addresses a group, not themselves. - Strong claim: "There's no case to make that the Trinity is even a plausible interpretation... much less the most likely." #### ⏱️ [01:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=110) Majority view: the divine council - "The majority of scholars agree that what's going on here is that God is speaking to the other gods of the divine council" (~1:54). - The council was a common conceptual framework in and around ancient Israel, later renegotiated in the Persian and Greco-Roman periods. #### ⏱️ [02:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=141) Plural gods across the primeval history - Genesis 3:5 — the serpent: "you (plural) will become like the gods, knowing (plural) good and evil." - Genesis 3:22 — "the human has become as one of us" (he hedges on whether the participle is plural or an infinitive construct — a small on-camera moment of scholarly honesty). - Genesis 6 — the bene elohim ("children of God"), a common label for council gods. - Northwest Semitic pantheon structure: high god + consort; their children are the active deities running the cosmos, as seen in the Ugaritic literature. #### ⏱️ [03:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=215) Genesis 11:7 and the ordinariness of "let's" - "Let us go down and see what the humans are doing" — another cohortative. - "There's nothing unusual about this... the speaker is part of a group and the speaker is addressing the group" — like telling friends "all right, let's go." #### ⏱️ [04:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=253) Psalm 82: the council made explicit - Explicit reference to the council of El / divine council / council of the gods, depending on manuscript (Septuagint has the plural) and whether El is read adjectivally. - "A deliberative body of gods that assists in decision-making regarding the running of the cosmos." - Cosmically, Adonai (McClellan's spoken substitute for the divine name) heads the council; geopolitically, patron deities of the nations comprise it. - In Psalm 82 they are condemned to mortality so God can "rise up and inherit all nations" — the universalization of Israel's God. #### ⏱️ [05:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=342) Prophets in the council - Isaiah 6: the council asks "who will go for us"; Isaiah volunteers — a human participating in council deliberation. - Jeremiah (23:18) asks sarcastically "who has stood in the council of the LORD." #### ⏱️ [06:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=378) Ugaritic background: El, Athirat, and the 70 sons - Biblical council imagery shows "dependence on or at least descent from" the Ugaritic conceptualization: El as paterfamilias, Athirat as consort, their 70 sons as the circle/council of the gods. - (Caption garbles: "yugaritic," "aat," "potter familius.") #### ⏱️ [06:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=409) Deuteronomy 32:8–9: an early window - Song of Moses vv. 8–9 read as reported elders' speech in one of "the earliest parts of the entire Hebrew Bible." - The Most High (Elyon) divides the nations "according to the number of the children of God"; MT's "children of Israel" is an alteration of the earlier reading. - "Adonai's portion is Jacob; Israel is his allotted share" — many scholars see the nations being divvied up among patron deities, with Israel allotted to Yahweh by Elyon. - Suggests Yahweh entered the pantheon on the second tier and became head only after conflation with El. #### ⏱️ [09:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=554) He flags the debate honestly - "That's still being debated by scholars." - "There are an awful lot of folks who are just allergic to the notion that the God of Israel was ever anything other than the head of the gods. But I think the data make that the most likely reading." - Note the epistemic structure: consensus claim (divine council) kept separate from his contested judgment (second-tier Yahweh). #### ⏱️ [09:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=578) Deuteronomy 4:19: allotted gods of the nations - Sun, moon, stars, host of heaven "are given to all of the nations of the earth to worship"; Israel must worship Adonai alone. - A later text still presupposing a patron deity over every nation. #### ⏱️ [10:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=614) From patron gods to guardian angels - Judges 5:20 — the stars fight against Sisera: sentient celestial warriors, "a vestigial remnant of the earlier notion of the divine council." - In later periods the gods are astralized (inanimate celestial bodies) or demoted into angels. - Daniel 10 — princes of Persia and Greece battling Michael: national guardian angels as the transformed patron deities. "The notion of guardian angels originates in... a later alteration of the notion of patron deities." - The 70 nations / 70 patron deities / 70 sons of Athirat correspondence. #### ⏱️ [12:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=730) Back to Genesis 1: announced plurally, executed singularly - "That's what's going on in Genesis 1:26 and 27. God is speaking to the other gods of the divine council." - But: "the author does not want those other gods participating in the actual creation of humanity" (~12:17) — the narrative has only the singular God of Israel create. - His gloss: "God is jealous of their creative power" — the one clearly interpretive (rather than descriptive) move in the video. - Dating note: written before the full transition from patron deities to national angels. #### ⏱️ [13:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=786) Recap and further reading - Recap: not plural of majesty, not the royal we, "absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the trinity, which is not a concept that existed when the text was written." - Points to on-screen texts for further reading on the divine council; signature sign-off ("the fit for this video is still Hellboy"). ## 📚 References - [Let US make man in OUR image?!? — Dan McClellan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU) - Michael S. Heiser, *The Unseen Realm* — evangelical-friendly divine council treatment that dissents from the two-deity Deut 32:8–9 reading; useful counterweight in Logos. - Mark S. Smith, *The Early History of God* and *The Origins of Biblical Monotheism* — standard critical accounts of El/Yahweh convergence. - E. Theodore Mullen, *The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature* — foundational monograph. - Dead Sea Scrolls 4QDeut-j and the Septuagint at Deuteronomy 32:8 — the text-critical basis for "children of God." - Ugaritic texts (KTU corpus) — El, Athirat, and the seventy sons. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - The plural in "let us make" isn't about the word Elohim, a royal we, or the Trinity. The verb "said" is singular, and the plural is a cohortative — ordinary "let's" language a speaker uses toward a group they belong to. The Trinity can't be the referent because that framework postdates the text by roughly seven centuries, so neither author nor audience could have meant or heard it. - The best-supported referent is the divine council: the assembly of gods that ancient Israel, like its Northwest Semitic neighbors, pictured helping run the cosmos, with Israel's God at its head. The Hebrew Bible keeps traces everywhere — Psalm 82, Isaiah's commissioning, Genesis 3, 6, and 11, Deuteronomy 32:8–9 and 4:19 — and over time those other gods got demoted into the guardian angels of the nations we meet in Daniel. In Genesis 1 itself, God announces creation to the council, but the text pointedly lets only the one God do the creating. ## 📰 Newsletter - Not applicable to this source — the newsletter section targets WordPress/community content, and this is a biblical-scholarship video with no WordPress angle. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Not applicable to this source — no developer-relations content in a Hebrew Bible exegesis video. #### OSPO - Not applicable to this source — no open-source program office relevance. #### Community - Not applicable to this source — no open-source community operations relevance. #### WordPress - Not applicable to this source — no WordPress ecosystem relevance. #### The WPCC - Not applicable to this source — no WordPress community collective relevance. ### FAIR - Not applicable to this source — no federated repository/governance relevance. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - If Genesis 1:26's "us" addresses the divine council, other cohortatives in the primeval history (Gen 3:22; 11:7) should pattern the same way — announced plurally, executed by the singular deity. (Testable against the Hebrew verb forms.) - If MT's "children of Israel" in Deut 32:8 is secondary, the motive was theological scandal-avoidance; comparable scribal "corrections" should cluster around other polytheism-adjacent passages (e.g., Deut 32:43; Gen 6:1–4 reception). - If guardian angels descend from national patron deities, Second Temple literature should show a datable gradient: sentient stars → astralized bodies → named angelic princes (Judges 5 → Deut 4:19 → Daniel 10 → 1 Enoch). - If the author of Genesis 1 restricts creation to one deity deliberately, Priestly material elsewhere should show the same monotheizing redactional tendency relative to its sources. - The 70-nations/70-gods correspondence (Genesis 10; Ugaritic 70 sons of Athirat) predicts the later rabbinic 70-angels-of-the-nations tradition as a direct descendant rather than an independent invention. ### 📊 Methodology - Text criticism: collate MT, 4QDeut-j, and LXX at Deut 32:8–9 and Psalm 82; tabulate variants and their theological direction. - Comparative philology: parallel the Hebrew council vocabulary (sod, adat El, bene elohim) with Ugaritic equivalents in the KTU corpus. - Redaction criticism: map singular vs. plural verb forms across Genesis 1:26–27 and the other primeval-history cohortatives. - Reception history: trace the Gen 1:26 "us" through Jubilees, Philo, rabbinic midrash (e.g., angels-as-addressees), and patristic Trinitarian readings to date each interpretive layer. ### ❓ Questions - Where exactly does the semantic line fall between "gods of the council" and "heavenly host/angels" for the original audience of Genesis 1 — and is that distinction ours or theirs? - Does the Priestly author's monotheizing program explain the image-of-God language itself (humans as the council's earthly representatives), not just the singular execution? - How should a confessional reader relate authorial-intent findings like this to canonical rereadings (e.g., NT-informed plurality) — complementary registers or competing claims? - What does "image" and "likeness" mean if the addressees share it ("our image") — royal-representative ideology, physical form, or both? ### 🔮 Future Research - The debated second-tier Yahweh reading of Deut 32:8–9: weigh Smith/McClellan against Heiser's Yahweh-Elyon identification with the primary texts open. - Psalm 82's genre and date, and whether its deposed gods are the same figures as Genesis 1's addressees. - The image-of-God (tselem/demut) debate in its ancient Near Eastern royal-statue context (Middleton, *The Liberating Image*). - How Second Temple Jewish interpreters (before the Trinity existed) handled the plural — the earliest reception is the cleanest test of the anachronism argument. ### 💡 Implications - Method: dating a doctrine tells you what a text's author could not have meant; that discipline transfers to every proof-text you evaluate. - Teaching: presenting the divine council reading requires distinguishing "what the author meant" from "what the canon came to mean" — collapsing those registers is where Bible-study conflict actually starts. - Translation awareness: English Bibles that print "sons of Israel" at Deut 32:8 without a footnote are making a text-critical choice for you; check the apparatus. - The guardian-angel genealogy reframes Daniel 10 and popular angelology as the fossil record of Israel's earlier religious world. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: Flesch-Kincaid grade ~10–11 — conversational sentence rhythm but dense technical vocabulary (cohortative, Septuagint, paterfamilias, astralized). #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: on-screen scripture citations and a closing further-reading list. - Improve: a pantheon-tier diagram (El/Elyon → council → messengers), a timeline from Ugarit to Daniel, and side-by-side MT/LXX/DSS text of Deut 32:8. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: entirely spoken-word delivery; McClellan's cadence carries the argument well. - Improve: none needed for this format; a podcast feed version would serve commute listening. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: defines cohortative, divine council, bene elohim in passing; good analogies ("all right, let's go"). - Improve: a glossary card for Ugaritic names (El, Athirat) whose auto-caption spellings are unrecognizable. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: nothing hands-on. - Improve: a "look it up yourself" exercise — open Deut 32:8 in two translations plus the NET footnotes and compare. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: strong elimination structure (rule out three readings, then argue the fourth) with dated evidence. - Improve: an explicit premises-to-conclusion outline separating consensus claims from the presenter's contested judgments. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: active comment section culture on this channel; video responds to a circulating claim. - Improve: discussion prompts distinguishing historical from theological questions for group study. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: self-contained 13-minute argument with a further-reading list. - Improve: reflection questions on how the viewer's tradition reads Gen 1:26 and why. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: stars-as-warriors (Judges 5) links cosmology to lived sky-watching. - Improve: draw out how ancient observers mapped celestial phenomena onto divine hierarchy. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: YouTube page chrome is navigable; the video content itself is audio-first and fully consumable without vision. - Improve: the description should carry the further-reading citations as text, not only on-screen. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: standard YouTube player keyboard controls. - Improve: chapter markers would enable keyboard jumping between argument sections. #### Contrast and readability - Present: talking-head format with overlaid citation text. - Improve: verify on-screen scripture overlays meet 4.5:1 against the background. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: player captions are resizable via YouTube settings. - Improve: nothing content-side. #### Media and captions - Present: auto-captions only, with serious proper-noun errors ("Dan Mlelen," "yugaritic," "Septuagent," "Cicora," "Elon" for Elyon) — actively misleading for study use. - Improve: uploaded corrected captions and a downloadable transcript; this channel's technical vocabulary makes auto-captioning a real comprehension barrier for deaf viewers. #### Forms and interactions - Present: none beyond standard YouTube engagement. - Improve: not applicable. #### Standards reference - Caption accuracy gap maps to WCAG 2.2 AA 1.2.2 (Captions, Prerecorded); missing transcript maps to 1.2.1/1.2.3. ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: situates Israelite religion inside its broader Northwest Semitic world rather than treating it as sui generis; engages Ugaritic material respectfully. - Improve: note where Jewish interpretive tradition (rabbinic readings of the plural) diverges from Christian ones. #### Inclusive language - Present: says "humanity" rather than "man" when rendering adam; uses "they/themselves" for God when discussing grammar; title's "man" mirrors the popular rendering being critiqued. - Improve: minimal jargon flagging for newcomers (cohortative, MT, LXX go by quickly). #### Neurodiversity support - Present: single sustained argument, clear signposting ("couple things that are not going on here"). - Improve: chapters and an on-screen outline would reduce working-memory load in the long middle section. #### Representation - Present: single presenter; cites the scholarly field collectively ("majority of scholars," "I and other scholars"). - Improve: naming specific scholars on both sides of the Deut 32:8–9 debate would model the field's actual diversity of judgment. #### Psychological safety - Present: critiques positions, not believers; acknowledges the debated point rather than steamrolling it. - Improve: the "allergic to the notion" line edges toward psychologizing dissenters; naming their actual arguments would be fairer. ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Grammatical argument (0:31–0:55): deductively tight — a singular verb governing Elohim severs the "plural noun = plural God" inference, and the cohortative locates the plurality in address, not identity. This is standard Hebrew grammar, not a contested reconstruction. - Anachronism argument (1:03–1:26): valid historical reasoning about authorial intent — a framework unavailable to author and audience cannot be the authorial meaning. Note its precise scope: it constrains what the text meant, not what later canonical readers may do with it; McClellan's conclusion ("no case... even a plausible interpretation") is stated about the original context, where it holds. - Convergent-evidence argument (2:21–9:38): inductive case built from independent text families (Genesis primeval history, Psalms, prophets, Deuteronomy) plus external comparanda (Ugarit). Multiple independent lines converging on the council reading is the strongest kind of case available in this field. - Epistemic hygiene (9:14): he explicitly separates the majority-view claim from his contested Deut 32:8–9 judgment ("that's still being debated by scholars... but I think the data make that the most likely reading"). Modeling calibrated confidence strengthens rather than weakens the argument. #### Fallacies - Mild ad hominem adjacent (9:16): "an awful lot of folks who are just allergic to the notion" attributes resistance to psychology rather than engaging dissenters' arguments (Heiser's Yahweh=Elyon case rests on textual parallels, not allergy). Fix: state and answer the strongest opposing argument. - Unargued authorial motive (12:19): "God is jealous of their creative power" presents an interpretive gloss on the author's intent with the same confidence as the grammatical data; the singular execution is data, the jealousy motive is conjecture. Fix: flag it as a proposed explanation among others (e.g., council as audience/witnesses rather than excluded rivals). - Appeal-to-majority risk (1:52, 4:13): "majority of scholars agree" is used accurately here (it is the majority view), but the video leans on the head-count rather than showing why the majority holds it in each instance; the supporting texts mostly discharge this. No fix required, just awareness that consensus is evidence, not proof. #### Tone of voice - Confident, brisk, occasionally combative on the negative claims ("absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the trinity"); candid and self-correcting on details ("I don't recall" whether a form is participle or infinitive construct); signature deadpan sign-off. The certainty gradient generally tracks the evidence gradient, which is the right shape. ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: no denial or minimization pattern; he affirmatively flags the weakest link in his own chain (Deut 32:8–9 debate). - Attack: the "allergic" remark is dismissive toward dissenting scholars but brief and not directed at any accuser; it undercuts fairness, not safety. - Reverse victim/offender: absent — no self-victimization; he positions himself as correcting popular claims, not as persecuted. - Overall: DARVO framework does not meaningfully apply to this source; rhetoric is standard academic myth-busting with one lapse into psychologizing opponents. ## 🎯 Conclusion - Bottom line: read in its late 6th/5th-century BCE context, Genesis 1:26's "us" is God addressing the divine council — the reading the Hebrew grammar, the surrounding primeval-history texts, and the comparative Northwest Semitic evidence converge on. The Trinity reading fails as an account of authorial meaning by simple chronology; the plural-of-majesty reading fails on Hebrew grammar. The narrative's pivot to singular verbs in 1:27 keeps creation itself in the hands of Israel's God alone. - For study practice: keep McClellan's two registers separate. His consensus claims (council reading, LXX/DSS "children of God" at Deut 32:8) sit on firm ground; his contested judgments (second-tier Yahweh, the "jealousy" motive) are flagged or flaggable. That separation — not any single conclusion — is the transferable method. - Next steps: open Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32:8–9 side by side in Logos with the LXX and DSS apparatus; read Heiser and Smith against each other on Yahweh and Elyon; revisit how "image and likeness" functions if the council shares it. ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Let US make man in OUR image?!? > Density: 2–5 Literature atoms (H3), 0–3 Permanent candidates (H4). > Konik claim-header rules: present tense, declarative, ≤10 words, > searchable, unique. Atomicity: one declarative sentence per atom. ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) ### [H1] Genesis 1:26 plural addresses the divine council > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > The majority of scholars agree that what's going on here is that God is speaking to the other gods of the divine council **Context & use**: - ~1:54 in the video, immediately after eliminating the Trinity reading. - The load-bearing positive claim; connects Gen 1:26 to Psalm 82, Isaiah 6, Deut 32:8–9. Consensus-level, unlike the second-tier-Yahweh claim. **Tags**: #xref **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=110)  ### [H2] Cohortative grammar marks one deity addressing a group > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > it's one deity speaking to other members of a group of which they are a part **Context & use**: - ~0:48, the grammatical core: singular verb ("Elohim said") + first-person-plural cohortative ("let us make"). - Severs both the plural-of-majesty and the Elohim-is-plural inferences in one move; reusable against any grammar-based proof-texting. **Tags**: #xref **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=47)  ### [H3] Author restricts actual creation to the singular deity > [!quote] ID:rw_pending > the author does not want those other gods participating in the actual creation of humanity **Context & use**: - ~12:17: creation is announced plurally (1:26) but executed with singular verbs (1:27). - The monotheizing redactional move — council acknowledged as audience, excluded as agent. McClellan's "jealousy" gloss on top of this is interpretive. **Tags**: #xref **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU?t=730)  ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### [P1] Doctrine dating bounds what a text's author could mean **Claim** (one sentence, Courtney's voice): A conceptual framework that postdates a text's composition cannot be that text's authorial meaning, only a later rereading. **Evidence pointer**: [[#H1]] — the Trinity (late 2nd c. CE) vs. Genesis 1 (late 6th/5th c. BCE) is the clean worked example. **Scope & conditions**: Holds for claims about authorial intent and original-audience meaning; does not by itself rule out canonical or theological rereadings, which claim a different kind of validity. **Links** (≥1 with annotation): - [[Ecclesiastes study]] — because applies-in dating Qoheleth's frameworks before importing later theology - [[Data over dogma methodology]] — because extends McClellan's core method to any proof-text evaluation  ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] How do pre-Trinitarian Jewish interpreters (Philo, Jubilees, rabbis) read the "us" — angels? court? Worth checking as the cleanest test of the anachronism argument. — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Which English translations footnote the Deut 32:8 "sons of God" variant? Compare ESV, NRSVue, NET notes in Logos. #fleeting #inbox ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Study Psalm 82 + Deuteronomy 32:8-9 in Logos with LXX and DSS variants alongside Heiser and Smith — Bible study prep #things  📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Articles/Let US Make Man in OUR Image!.md|Let US Make Man in OUR Image?!? by Dan McClellan]] ## Highlights - it's one deity speaking to other members of a group of which they are a part. So ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kxsdw6zqr5n2ty1c9qe9gvd5)) - Note: H2 — the grammatical core (~0:48): singular "Elohim said" followed by first-person-plural cohortative "let us make." - Tags: atom/literature/h2 - much less the most likely. The majority of scholars agree that what's going on here is that God is speaking to the other gods of the divine council, which ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kxsdw5q0bwecmwfcytjzzqtf)) - Note: H1 — the central claim (~1:54): the Genesis 1:26 plural addresses the divine council, argued after eliminating plural-of-majesty, Elohim's grammar, and the Trinity readings. - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - council. However, the author does not want those other gods participating in the actual creation of humanity. And so ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kxsdw9szt37zphk7yaxter1q)) - Note: H3 — the monotheizing pivot (~12:17): creation announced plurally in 1:26 but executed with singular verbs in 1:27. - Tags: atom/literature/h3