Elohim Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == Latter Day Saint movement== {{main|God in Mormonism}} {{further|Beliefs and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints}} In the [[Latter Day Saint movement]] and [[Mormonism]], ''Elohim'' refers to [[God the Father]].<ref name="Davies 2003">{{cite book |last=Davies |first=Douglas J. |author-link=Douglas Davies |year=2003 |chapter=Divine–human transformations: God |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fw8DIziwEDsC&pg=PA67 |title=An Introduction to Mormonism |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=67–77 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511610028.004 |isbn=9780511610028 |oclc=438764483 |s2cid=146238056}}</ref><ref name="EoM">{{citation |contribution-url=https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/God_the_Father |contribution=God the Father |pages=548–552 |author1-last=Robinson |author1-first=Stephen E. |author2-last=Burgon |author2-first=Glade L. |author3-last=Turner |author3-first=Rodney |author4-last=Largey |author4-first=Dennis L. |editor-last=Ludlow |editor-first=Daniel H. |editor-link=Daniel H. Ludlow |year=1992 |title=[[Encyclopedia of Mormonism]] |location=[[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishing]] |isbn=0-02-879602-0 |oclc=24502140 |via=[[Harold B. Lee Library]] |access-date=7 May 2021}}</ref> Elohim is the father of Jesus in both the physical and the spiritual realms, whose name before birth is said to be [[Jehovah]].<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/><ref>[[First Presidency (LDS Church)|First Presidency]] and [[Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (LDS Church)|Quorum of the Twelve Apostles]], "The Father and the Son", ''[[Improvement Era]]'', August 1916, pp. 934–42; reprinted as [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/the-father-and-the-son?lang=eng "The Father and the Son"], ''[[Ensign (LDS magazine)|Ensign]]'', April 2002.</ref> In the belief system held by the Christian churches that adhere to the Latter Day Saint movement and most [[Mormonism|Mormon denominations]], including [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church), the term ''God'' refers to Elohim (the Eternal Father),<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/> whereas ''[[Godhead (Christianity)|Godhead]]'' means a council of three distinct gods: Elohim (God the Father), [[Jehovah]] (the Son of God, Jesus Christ),<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/> and the [[Holy Spirit in Christianity#The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints|Holy Ghost]], in a [[Nontrinitarianism|non-trinitarian conception of the Godhead]].<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/> In Mormonism, the three persons are considered to be physically separate beings, or personages, but united in will and purpose; this conception differs significantly from [[mainline Christian]] [[trinitarianism]].<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/><ref>The term with its distinctive Mormon usage first appeared in ''[[Lectures on Faith]]'' (published 1834), Lecture 5 ("We shall in this lecture speak of the Godhead; we mean the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."). The term ''Godhead'' also appears several times in Lecture 2 in its sense as used in the [[Authorized King James Version]], meaning ''divinity''.</ref> As such, the term ''Godhead'' differs from how it is used in mainstream Christianity.<ref name="Davies 2003"/><ref name="EoM"/> This description of God represents the [[orthodoxy]] of the LDS Church, established early in the 19th century.<ref name="Davies 2003"/> The [[Book of Abraham]], a [[sacred text]] accepted by some branches of the Latter Day Saint movement, contains a paraphrase of the first chapter of Genesis which explicitly translates ''Elohim'' as "the Gods" multiple times; this is suggested by Mormon [[apostle (Latter Day Saints)|apostle]] [[James E. Talmage]] to indicate a "plurality of excellence or intensity, rather than distinctively of number,"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Talmage |first1=James E. |title=Jesus the Christ, (1956 ed.) |date=September 1915 |page=38}}</ref> in contrast to his contemporary apostle [[Orson F. Whitney]]'s explanation that, while to "the modern Jew [Elohim] means the plural of majesty, not of number...to the Latter-day Saint it signifies both."<ref>''[[Elias: An Epic of the Ages]]'' by Orson F. Whitney. 1914. p 118.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page