Thursday, October 22, 2020

Robert F. Smith, "Who is Elohim in Mormonism, and how does the Bible support that?"

 Over on the Quora Website, Robert F. Smith provided this very useful answer to the question, "Who is Elohim in Mormonism, and how does the Bible support that?" I am reproducing it here to make sure it gets wider readership as it is a very useful response, and as is his usual practice, accompanied by many scholarly references:


The title Elohim is used by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in a number of official liturgical and canonical contexts.[1] However, since the esoteric usage is off-limits, and since the term is part of the official Scriptural Canon of the LDS Church, it might be well to focus on that:

Biblical Hebrew ʼĒlʼĔlōhîm, “God(s),” and variations (Genesis 1:1, Exodus 9:1, 12:12, 20:3, 1 Samuel 1:17, Psalms 19:1, 82:6, Isaiah 43:12).[2] In LDS usage, Elohim is equivalent to God the Father,[3] and the head of pantheon or Gottheit (Godhead).[4]

Gregorio del Olmo Lete characterizes ilhm in Ugaritic texts as "the ʼIlāhūma, divine beings," and relates them to Hebrew ʼĕlōhîm.[5] Tess Dawson says that "the Ugaritic word ʼilahuma is related to one of the names of the Hebrew deity, Elohim, which means 'gods'." However, she sees the ʼilahuma or Divine Assembly as the sons and daughters of ʼAthiratu and Ilu.[6]

In his study of the Ugaritic pantheon, del Olmo Lete notes that the god-lists at Ugarit demonstrate the preeminence[7] of

“the ‘god-father’ (ilib), an epithet in which, possibly there is an evolution or syncretism: from the ‘father of the god’ or the ‘father-god’ of family / personal / nomadic religion with its divinized ancestors, there is a shift to the ‘god / ʼIlu-father’, i.e., to the confession of the supreme god ʼIlu under the title of ‘universal father’ (‘father of gods and men’, as he is known in myth and epic). To this ‘primitive’ epithet / title belong two other personal names of the supreme deity, culturally more exact but noetically more imprecise, il and dgn (1 + 2), forming a first tri-unity of epithets (cf. also KTU 1.123:1-3: il wilm…il…il šr). Although the epithets might be distinct in the cult and in the prayers of the faithful, in myth and theology they correspond to the same god.

Del Olmo Lete adds that “’My father’ is the god summoned by the faithful person who utters the incantation, . . .”[8]


[1] Ryan C. Davies & Paul Y. Hoskisson, “Usage of the Title elohim in the Hebrew Bible and Early Latter-day Saints,” in A. Skinner, M. Davis, and C. Griffin, eds., Bountiful Harvest: Essays in Honor of S. Kent Brown (Provo: Maxwell Institute/BYU, 2011), 113-135; Daniel O. McClellan, “’You Will Be Like the Gods’: The Conceptualization of Deity in the Hebrew Bible in Cognitive Perspective,” master’s thesis (Trinity Western Univ., 2013), online at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/80296084.pdf .

[2] R. N. Holzapfel, D. M. Pike, and D. R. Seely, Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament (SLC: Deseret Book, 2009), 17-18; cf. Seixas, Manual Hebrew Grammar, 2nd ed., 55 (§ 63) Elōheem; 85.

[3] LDS Gospel Topics section online at God the Father (God the Father) .

[4] LDS Gospel Topics section online at Godhead (Godhead) .

[5] Del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 2nd ed., 82,85,87,180.

[6] Dawson, The Horned Altar: Rediscovering & Rekindling Canaanite Magic (MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2013), 48, ʼAthiratu = Asherah, who is elsewhere the consort of YHWH.

[7] Del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 2nd ed.,368; 366, “a late sublimation of the ancestor cult.”

[8] Del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 2nd ed., 323 n156, reading KTU 1.82:9.