1 And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.
(Abr. 4:1)
Gods – The use of this word in the Abrahamic account of Creation has been one of the more controversial aspects of the book. However, in the underlying Hebrew, the word is Elohim which is used throughout the Hebrew Bible, as the most common word for “God”, though it is actually plural. Moreover Smith’s word choice seems to be influenced by Genesis 1:26 “Let us make man in our image” which seems to parallel the plan to create in Abr. 3:22-28. Smith uses the English “Gods” to carry this “us/our” forward thru the account of Creation, and thus, it is no more out of place than the “us” and “our” in Genesis 1:26.
organized and formed – The great Torah commentator Ibn Ezra writes in his commentary to Genesis that the verb “created” in Genesis 1:1 need not refer to creation ex nihilo (from nothing)
Most of the commentaries say that this Hebrew verb refers specifically to creation ex nihilo, making something out of nothing, as in “If the LORD make a new thing” (Num. 16:30). But they have forgotten “God created the great sea monsters” (v. 21), which were brought forth from the waters (see v. 20). In v. 27 “created” is used this way three times! “I form the light, and create darkness” (Isaiah 45:7) is even more disastrous for their theory; here God is “creating” nothingness– light is a substance, darkness merely its absence. The correct explanation is precisely this: The word ברא is two different verbs: one, a verb that means “to create out of nothing,” and another that is an alternate form of the verb ברה.
In his book The Kabbalah; The Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews, Adolphe Frank writes:
Is not this what is called the doctrine of emanation? Is not this the doctrine which denies the popular belief that the world was evolved from nothing? The following words free us from uncertainty: “The end of the ten Sefiroth is tied to their beginning as the flame to the fire-brand, for the Lord is One and there is no second to Him: and what will you count before the One?” [(Sefer Yetzirah 1:7)]
However in a later passage the Sefer Yetzirah says: “He formed substance from tohu and made nonexistence into existence.” (Sefer Yetzirah 2:6)
So it cannot be ruled out that Elohim created or emanated the “materials” (Abr. 3:24) before the materials were “organized” or that the “materials” that were organized, might have been some form of an emanation of Elohim Himself.
(See comments to “materials” in Abr. 3:24)
21 And the Gods prepared the waters that they might bring forth great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters were to bring forth abundantly after their kind; and every winged fowl after their kind. And the Gods saw that they would be obeyed, and that their plan was good.
(Abraham 4:21)
The First Century Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria writes that Elohim created a “plan” for the creation, before the actual creation itself:
(129) So Moses, summing up his account of the creation of the world, says in a brief style, “This is the book of the creation of the heaven and of the earth, when it took place, in the day on which God made the heaven and the earth, and every green herb before it appeared upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up.” Does he not here manifestly set before us incorporeal ideas perceptible only by the intellect, which have been appointed to be as seals of the perfected works, perceptible by the outward senses. For before the earth was green, he says that this same thing, verdure, existed in the nature of things, and before the grass sprang up in the field, there was grass though it was not visible. (130) And we must understand in the case of every thing else which is decided on by the external senses, there were elder forms and motions previously existing, according to which the things which were created were fashioned and measured out. For although Moses did not describe everything collectively, but only a part of what existed, as he was desirous of brevity, beyond all men that ever wrote, still the few things which he has mentioned are examples of the nature of all, for nature perfects none of those which are perceptible to the outward senses without an incorporeal model.
(Philo; On Creation 129-130)
IV. We must mention as much as we can of the matters contained in his account, since to enumerate them all is impossible; for he embraces that beautiful world which is perceptible only by the intellect, as the account of the first day will show: (16) for God, as apprehending beforehand, as a God must do, that there could not exist a good imitation without a good model, and that of the things perceptible to the external senses nothing could be faultless which wax not fashioned with reference to some archetypal idea conceived by the intellect, when he had determined to create this visible world, previously formed that one which is perceptible only by the intellect, in order that so using an incorporeal model formed as far as possible on the image of God, he might then make this corporeal world, a younger likeness of the elder creation, which should embrace as many different genera perceptible to the external senses, as the other world contains of those which are visible only to the intellect. (17) But that world which consists of ideas, it were impious in any degree to attempt to describe or even to imagine: but how it was created, we shall know if we take for our guide a certain image of the things which exist among us. When any city is founded through the exceeding ambition of some king or leader who lays claim to absolute authority, and is at the same time a man of brilliant imagination, eager to display his good fortune, then it happens at times that some man coming up who, from his education, is skilful in architecture, and he, seeing the advantageous character and beauty of the situation, first of all sketches out in his own mind nearly all the parts of the city which is about to be completed–the temples, the gymnasia, the prytanea, and markets, the harbour, the docks, the streets, the arrangement of the walls, the situations of the dwelling houses, and of the public and other buildings. (18) Then, having received in his own mind, as on a waxen tablet, the form of each building, he carries in his heart the image of a city, perceptible as yet only by the intellect, the images of which he stirs up in memory which is innate in him, and, still further, engraving them in his mind like a good workman, keeping his eyes fixed on his model, he begins to raise the city of stones and wood, making the corporeal substances to resemble each of the incorporeal ideas. (19) Now we must form a somewhat similar opinion of God, who, having determined to found a mighty state, first of all conceived its form in his mind, according to which form he made a world perceptible only by the intellect, and then completed one visible to the external senses, using the first one as a model.
V. (20) As therefore the city, when previously shadowed out in the mind of the man of architectural skill had no external place, but was stamped solely in the mind of the workman, so in the same manner neither can the world which existed in ideas have had any other local position except the divine reason (Logos) which made them; for what other place could there be for his powers which should be able to receive and contain, I do not say all, but even any single one of them whatever, in its simple form? (21) And the power and faculty which could be capable of creating the world, has for its origin that good which is founded on truth; for if any one were desirous to investigate the cause on account of which this universe was created, I think that he would come to no erroneous conclusion if he were to say as one of the ancients did say: “That the Father and Creator was good; on which account he did not grudge the substance a share of his own excellent nature, since it had nothing good of itself, but was able to become everything.” (22) For the substance was of itself destitute of arrangement, of quality, of animation, of distinctive character, and full of all disorder and confusion; and it received a change and transformation to what is opposite to this condition, and most excellent, being invested with order, quality, animation, resemblance, identity, arrangement, harmony, and everything which belongs to the more excellent idea.
(Philo; On Creation IV, 15b-V, 22)
31 And the Gods said: We will do everything that we have said, and organize them; and behold, they shall be very obedient. And it came to pass that it was from evening until morning they called night; and it came to pass that it was from morning until evening that they called day; and they numbered the sixth time.
(Abr. 4:31)
On the plan for Creation see comments to 4:21
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