Who are the Elohim?

Elohim is a word peppered throughout the Old Testament (OT) Bible in the original Hebrew, which is typically mistranslated to English as God but as we shall see, there is a big difference between the elohim of the OT and the one true God of Jesus. For many, what you are about to read will be dramatic paradigm shift that will change your worldview.  I want to reassure Christians that your belief in Jesus Christ and the God of Jesus Christ will remain intact, but as you will learn, much of what you may have been taught to believe is not as you were told.  Everything in this article is based on the Bible.  It is our duty as believers to discern that which is true from that which is false.  I encourage you to use a reverse interlinear Bible (showing the original Hebrew text and transliteration next to the English translation) to confirm everything I cite here.  I personally use Logos for this, but there are a few free options available such as the Blue Letter Bible.  Do not simply take my word for it, do your own research.

The first thing to understand is that when you read "God" in your English translation of the OT, there are many Hebrew words in the Bible which are generically (and incorrectly) translated as "God."  So, it's important when you read the word "God" in your Bible you look at the source Hebrew word in that scripture and determine what it's actually referring to.  The words most commonly translated to God in the Bible are "Elohim" "YHWH" (aka Yahweh / Jehovah) "El" "Eloah" "Ehyeh" "El Elyon" and "Tzevaot."  Most of the time when the OT mentions God, the source word is elohim, but that does not translate to God but rather "gods" but that's not quite right either - the best translation would be "the powerful ones."  The word elohim is plural, just like cherubim and many other Hebrew words ending in -im.  Most Bible scholars are aware of this, and many try to ignore it, or explain it away.  If you read the original Hebrew you can see that YHWH, for example, is not the same as "the elohim," as there are many elohim.  YHWH is but one of the elohim.  Some say that while the word is indeed grammatically plural, it is "understood" to act singular. The reason typically given is that plural is sometimes used to show respect.  This is called "pluralis majestatis" in the Latin (think the "Royal we"), but that argument doesn't hold water when it comes to the OT.  Another argument is that perhaps it's referring to the trinity, but the original Jewish writers and editors did not believe in the trinity, that's a relatively modern belief.  Another reason neither of those explanations makes sense is that not only is the word elohim grammatically plural, but it behaves in a plural manner in the surrounding text, i.e. "Let Us go down" "Let Us make man in Our image" and most importantly, these elohim have different opinions from one another, argue with one another, and even go to war with one another.  A singular representation makes no sense in this context.  The word elohim is indeed plural, and it behaves in the Bible as if it is referring to multiple independent beings.  There is no getting around this fact.

Many researchers and theologians, such as Paul Wallace (Escaping Eden) and Mauro Biglino (Gods of the Bible), have well documented that translating elohim as "God" is simply wrong, and suggest that "the powerful ones" is a much more accurate translation.  According to Mauro Biglino, there are as many as twenty individual elohim mentioned in the OT.  They were members of a "divine council" or "sky council" where they debated, argued, and even went to war with one another, particularly when it came to disagreements regarding the development of humans. Dr. Michael Heiser discusses this council at length in his book the Unseem Realm.  There are numerous examples of the plural behavior of elohim in the OT. This is in your Bible, and I encourage you to look up each passage on your own.  We'll start at the beginning, in Genesis:

• Genesis 1:26 reads "Then [the elohim] said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 
  
  
• Genesis 3:22 reads "Then [YHWH] said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." 

It becomes obvious as we delve deeper into this topic, that there are a wide variety of beings being discussed in the Bible.  Some of these entities appear to be part of another dimension, perhaps a higher spiritual dimension that is out of phase with the physical realm in which we dwell.  There are times when messengers appear in our reality from that dimension, or at least from other dimensions, but those messengers are not always physical in nature, as they do not always share our physical realm.  However, there are other times when beings from those other realms do in fact take on physical form in our dimension, such as in Genesis 18, when they share a meal with Abraham, and also in Judges 6 and Daniel 8.  In Numbers 22:22, we read of an instance where an angel did not take physical form, and was at first only visible to Balaam's donkey, not to him, then later Balaam was able to see the angel as well.  These multi-dimensional beings appear to exist primarily within another dimension, but many also have the ability to transition into our dimension when necessary.  This multi-dimensional behavior is not limited only to beings, but also to craft.  The Bible mentions several objects that the elohim use for transportation, military, and scientific uses.  The first is the "ruach" whose root word is associated with fleeting, scattering, trembling or waving and is often translated as "spirit" "wind" "breath" or "something that moves" such as a craft or ship.  The second is the word "kavod" the root word of which is "weight" and can be translated as "glory" but also as "something heavy that moves" as it does in Exodus 40:34 when the kavod lifts off and departs from the Temple.  The kavod is often associated with a loud noise, thick cloud, and light when it moves, and is described in detail in Exodus 19:16 when it descends upon Mount Sinai.  The third is the cherubim, which have wings and are used to guard sacred spaces, such as the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:24), and the mercy seat (Exodus 25:18). Cherubim, like elohim, is plural and refers to multiple cherubs.  We find several places where YHWH and other elohim use a cherub for transportation, but sometimes they use a ruach or kavod instead.  In Psalm 18:10, "[YHWH] rode upon a cherub, and did fly" and in in 2 Samuel "[YHWH] rode upon a cherub and flew" but he also "appears on the wings of the ruach."

Due to the use of the Hebrew word "bara" which is best translated as "shape" or "reform" per the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, it is generally believed that Genesis 1 begins with a desolated earth, following some past cataclysm, whereby the earth is left covered in water and darkness.  Genesis 1 now reads "In the beginning, the powerful ones [shaped] the [sky] and the earth.  And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the [ships] of the powerful ones hovered over the waters."  As you continue reading Genesis 1, it reads like a terraforming event where the elohim raised the land, lowered the water levels, and separated fresh water from salt water.  

Likewise, the shaping of humans in Genesis 3 appears to be the modification or refinement of existing creatures, probably Neanderthals since they have the closest DNA to humans.  During this development process, we see a conflict arise between elohim where one faction wants humanity to be upgraded to be more intelligent and more like 'us' and another faction argues that the humans should be so unintelligent that they don't even realize they are naked.  The subordinate faction appears to win out, and performs the upgrade, making humans more intelligent, and humans gain the knowledge of good and evil and apparently many other things.  The agent of this modification may very well be the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge" and it's likely that the fruit from the "Tree of Life" behaved similarly, but it was kept off limits from humans by cherubim.

Here are a few more examples that further demonstrate the elohim are, in fact, plural:

• Joshua 24:14 reads “Now, therefore, fear [YHWH] and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the [elohim] which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve [YHWH]. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve [YHWH], choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the [elohim] which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the [elohim] of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve [YHWH].” 
  
  
• Deuteronomy 32:8 reads "When [El Elyon the Most High] distributed nations as he scattered the descendants of Adam, he set up boundaries for the nations according to the number of the [bene elohim (sons of the elohim)]. 
  
  
• Genesis 11:5 reads "[YHWH] came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. [YHWH] said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they propose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech. So [YHWH] scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city."  

I should note here that any references to YHWH in the Bible made prior to Exodus 3 are merely guesses by later editors, since YHWH did not introduce himself until Exodus 3, when he told his name to Moses. We do not know which prior accounts were referring to YHWH or to other elohim.  What likely happened is, in the sixth century BC under King Josiah, the Jewish editors in an attempt to present a more monotheistic narrative to shore up the power of the priesthood of the Jewish Temple, edited the text, pasting YHWH over "elohim" in many places, but when they did so, they did not always update the accompanying plural verb form into singular, so that is a giveaway that many of those original stories do in fact refer to elohim, not YHWH.  Genesis 11 is one of those stories that is in fact an elohim story, not a YHWH story.  The elohim become aware of and became very concerned that that the humans had become advanced and were constructing the "Tower of Babel." Given that bab means gateway and el means god(s) or powerful ones, humans may have been building a portal, dimensional gateway, or perhaps a communication device.  We don't know for sure.  We do know from the Bible that the elohim freaked out and immediately went down to destroy the tower, then went even further and removed humans' ability to communicate with one another, to ensure that humans couldn't build such a device again.  Humans had to learn to speak again and developed independent languages in different locations.  This is similar to the Mayan Popal Vuh narrative as we will see later.

Psalm 82 reads that "Elohim stand in the El Adat [divine council]; He judges among the elohim" and verse 6 reads "You are elohim, and all of you are bene Elyon [sons of El Elyon]."  The Ugarit texts which are old Hebrew texts that predate the Bible describe the Canaanite pantheon, and use the same verbiage as the Hebrew Bible.  It refers to El (El Elyon) and Asherah at the top of their pantheon, with the elohim as the children of El, to include Ba'al, Yamm, and Mot.  The Israelites later added the war god YHWH "the destroyer" to the pantheon as one of the sons of El, and then later yet, merged El and some of his sons together into a monotheistic "God" entity, likely in the sixth century BC.

Another example of multiple elohim with different plans is Genesis 22 where Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac.  One elohim (or faction of elohim) ask him to sacrifice his son, and another elohim sends an urgent messenger to tell him to stop, don't do it.  Obviously, this is not the same being, and makes much more sense when properly read as different beings.

As we read other creation stories from around the world, we gain more context. It appears that humans were likely engineered to serve the needs of the elohim, mining and gathering resources and food for them.  Many of these stories predate the Bible. The many similarities with Genesis cannot be ignored, given that these stories come from all corners of the earth, independent of one another.  The Enuma Elish, from 13th century BC Mesopotamia, is the oldest known creation story, which predates Genesis and states, quite similarly to Genesis "In the beginning, there was only undifferentiated water swirling in chaos."

The Mayan Popal Vuh narrative speaks of advanced beings arriving on a flooded planet Earth, who then terraform the Earth, and adapt humanity's ancestors into a useful workforce.  Quetzacoatl (aka Kulkulcan), a "feathered serpent" (dragon?) attempts to engineer human-like beings, with varying degrees of success.  After the animals, they attempted to engineer a human-like being, but the being was unintelligent and had no soul, so they decided to wipe them out with a flood.  A later attempt supposedly resulted in the monkeys, and a third attempt resulted in humans that were too advanced, so Quetzacoatl produced a vapor to degrade human intelligence, perception, and communication.  While not exactly the same narrative that exists in Genesis, we can see parallels to the creation, flood, and Tower of Babel events.

The Genesis 6 narrative is the same narrative that you find in Africa, the Carribean, Philippines, India, and in Scandanavian and Celtic civilizations in which the "bene ha elohim" [sons of the elohim] come down to Earth and decide to mate with human females, which was a forbidden practice for the elohim.  This resulted in the genetic mutation of the Nephilim [giant] offspring and other genetic corruption upon the Earth.  Upon discovering this corruption, the other elohim punished the bene ha elohim and engineered a flood that was designed to wipe out this corruption.  At least one elohim did not want to destroy all of humanity, and found a (genetically?) pure human champion in Noah, and instructed Noah and his family as to how to survive the flood and rebuild humanity on Earth, by building an ark.  The same narrative exists in the Akkadian version (which predates the Biblical Genesis) in which Ea in the Babylonian (Enki in the Sumerian), warns Atrahasis (Noah) of the impending flood and gives him instructions on building an ark.  This same narrative exists nearly everywhere on the planet - among dozens of North American Indian tribes, the Aztecs, the Maya, South American tribes, in China, Iran, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Norse, Greeks, Irish, Welsh, Finnish, Australia, Polynesia and even Siberia.  

I took the below photo when we visited Browning, Montana in the Blackfoot Indian Reservation.  In their creation story, Napi was the first old man, and was given certain powers. In those days humans and "star people" lived on the Earth together.  When a human child killed a star child, the star people left Earth and convinced the creator to flood the Earth to kill off humans.  Napi and a few others including animals were stranded on a mountaintop from the flood where he made the rainbow and subdued the rain and rebuilt humanity.  This was their creation story, passed down from generation to generation, long before Europeans brought the Bible to North America.

The Norse Grimnismal, the Indian Vedas in the Mahabrarata, and the Greeks all speak of advanced beings arguing with one another, and even going to war with one another, regarding the best ways to manage humans on Earth.

When Jesus arrives on the scene, he is born a Jew, and brought up with Jewish traditions.  God obviously paved the way for his arrival, as there are numerous prophecies in the OT that Jesus fulfills.  According to scripture, Jesus was sent to Earth to deliver an important message about salvation for the human race.  While he is a Jew, he repeatedly points out where the OT and the practices of the Jews are wrong.  The New Testament records many times when Jesus says "You have heard it said this, but I say this."  He appears to be trying to bring humanity around to a different perspective or paradigm, often using parables, without telling the Jews flat out that they have been worshipping false gods.  That said, there are times when Jesus doesn't beat around the bush, saying in John 10:7 “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Jesus emphasizes the unconditional love and forgiveness of God as a defining characteristic.  The God of Jesus cannot lie.  He is pure goodness and absolutely consistent.  There is a philosophical presupposition that exists throughout history, from Plato to Jesus to Paul to Marcion, who all insist that God cannot lie or act in an evil manner, as they are contrary to His nature.  God is known by the exhibition of love, mercy, and grace.  Jesus said in Mark 10:18 that “No one is good—except God alone" and that he offers boundless mercy and forgiveness.  Jesus' description of the nature of God is in stark contrast to the behavior of the elohim in the OT, including YHWH.  They lie to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:16 when they say "you will surely die" from eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.  They undermine the free will of Pharoh in Exodus 4:21, kill innocent children in Exodus 90-11 and again in 2 Kings 2:23, murdering 42 children merely because they called Elijiah bald.  They wipe out entire populations including men, women, children, and livestock in Deuteronomy 20:16, and treat those who try to serve them, such as Saul, with disdain and malice.  In Exodus 3, YHWH even uses the title "El Shaddai" for himself, which means "god of destruction" from the root Hebrew word shadad, meaning to plunder, overpower, or devastate.

To be clear, the God of Jesus, being the essence of benevolence, does have moral standards that must be adhered to if we want to return to God.  These standards seem to be based on the premise of Luke 6:31 to "do unto others as you would have done unto you."  When you treat others poorly, this behavior will be reflected back to you.  This seems to be a universal truth which permeates all cultures.  The elohim, like humans, are not perfect in their adherence to these standards.  Some particularly malevolent elohim completely ignore any moral standards, not unlike malevolent humans.  We are imbued with a soul, our essence, which seems to be a part of God himself and it's this essence which only temporarily resides in our human bodies.  Therefore, when we behave in a manner which injures others, we are only harming ourselves, as they also have a soul which is part of God.  This also explains the negative NDEs that some people experience when they die, as the suffering they inflicted upon others is being repaid at that time.  I do not believe that this negative experience is "forever" - nowhere does the Bible say this.  Jesus, rather, uses the Greek term "aeon" meaning an age or period of time to describe this process.  God wishes for all souls to ultimately return to Him, of their own free will.  Those who want nothing to do with God are granted their wish but that is not exactly a happy place.

In Acts 17:24, Paul defines God as "the source of the cosmos and everything in it.  Everything in which we all live and move and have our being."  This is the true God, the God of Jesus, not the elohim which are discussed in much of the OT.  This was actually a common viewpoint of the early church in the first and second centuries after Jesus, and included such prominent theologians such as Origen, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Marcion, who I will elaborate on below.

Jesus brought the revelation to man that salvation comes from changing our mindset, offering forgiveness, and following God, the source of all things.  Jesus says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."  He is saying this is the way, the only way.  Do not follow the elohim (who are thieves and robbers) or others who may lead you astray.

Marcion of Sinop was one of the most prominent early Christian scholars, who lived in the second century AD, and who likely created the first edition of the New Testament (NT) Bible.  Marcion was a huge fan of Paul, and perhaps the best interpreter of Paul's works.  In Marcion's view, Jesus' teachings had to be completely separated from the OT and Jewish laws and traditions, following Jesus' principle that "You cannot put new wine into an old wineskin, or it will burst" and that "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit."  The elohim of the OT were so evil and contradictory in behavior to the God that Jesus describes, that Marcion reasons that they simply cannot be one and the same.  The bad fruit of the OT cannot be related to the good fruit of the NT.  In Marcion's worldview, and in the worldview of the majority of the early Christians, according to many historians, the material world as we know it (likely the result of a re-shaping or terraforming of an earlier Earth) was actually created by (somewhat mechanical, possibly evil) demiurge or elohim, not by God.  Plato, who predated Jesus by several centuries, had a similar belief system which he outlines in his book Timaeus.  In it he says that the demiurge who shaped the material world is generally benevolent, but imperfect, and thus his material world is also imperfect.  They believe that the true God is above all life, and the demiurge is subordinate to God.  The Cathars of southern France managed to maintain this belief system through the 13th Century AD, until they were wiped out by the Catholic Church in the Medieval Inquisition.  They believed in the laying on of hands and spoke in tongues, but that was deemed witchcraft by the Catholics when it occurred outside of the Catholic Church.

Paul seems to agree with this duality as well when in 2 Corinthians 4:3, he says "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake."  Christianity is ultimately dualist in its very nature, extoling the virtues of spirituality and the spirit realm, while repudiating the flesh and the material world.  In 1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul explains that the God of Jesus has predestined the crucifixion, and that the archons of this world are blind to it, and thus they are not of God.  Paul's implication is that these archons are both blinded by and controlled by the elohim of this world.  "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

Paul is known to have chastised Jesus' disciples and the Church of Jerusalem for continuing to honor Jewish practices, stating in Romans 21-24 "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus."  Jesus decided that rather than discrediting YHWH's arbitrary laws entirely, he would complete and fulfil them instead.  This was a brilliant approach that would satisfy the Jewish traditions and provide a path consistent with their philosophy for the salvation not only of the Jews, but for all of humanity.  James in Acts 15 makes it clear that the laws of YHWH no longer apply since Jesus fulfilled and replaced the law.

Jesus never once refers to his father as YHWH.  In fact, there is a particularly telling scene in John 8: 37 where Jesus confronts the Jews, saying "I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God [Theos, the source of all life]; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”  Jesus makes it quite clear that his father, God, is not the same as the father of the Jews, and He in fact calls the father of the Jews the devil.

Jesus mocks YHWH again in Matthew 7 (and also in Luke 11) where he says "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  Jesus is clearly mocking YHWH's mistreatment of the Jews in Numbers 21, when the people said "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food." and YHWH's response was not to help them, but to send snakes to attack and kill them: "YHWH sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died."  Jesus is saying what kind of father is that, who would do such a thing as to send a snake when their children ask for a fish - obviously not a good father.  YHWH's nature is also made clear in Exodus 33 when he tells Moses that he should stay away from the people, lest they anger him to the point of destroying them: "for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, and I might destroy you on the way.” 

There are many times that Jesus references the OT, and when he does so he often favors the Septuagint translation over the Hebrew, and many times he corrects, or re-interprets the OT.  A few examples are Matthew 5:38 and Deuteronomy 19 where Jesus states "You have heard that it was said 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' but I say to you, do not resist the evildoer.  But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well."  Jesus also re-interprets Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18, and again changes words from Zechariah 13:7 in Mark 14.  The consistent theme seems to be that Jesus references those universal truths that he finds in the OT for his Jewish audience, as well as those prophecies which foretell of his arrival - no doubt part of God's ultimate plan, but he does not endorse the OT as a whole, and he goes as far as to call the elohim of the OT "thieves and robbers."

Origin stated that if we are to believe that the elohim of the OT refer to God, then God commits "such things as we would not believe of the most savage and unjust of men" and which he believes is entirely contrary to the nature of God.  In fact, the logic of most early Christians, including Irenaeus, Justin Marter, Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and Marcion, in general did not believe that the books of what we now call the OT should be included with the NT for the Gentiles, but only for the Jews.  Rather, most of them believed that stoicism and the writings of Plato are a more appropriate primer for Christianity for the Gentiles than the OT.  Paul agrees with this approach in Galatians.  Plato's writings indicate that he believed that our material world was created to imitate forms from a higher realm, and our imperfect material world imitates or mimics those forms.  He believed in the pre-existence of the soul and that our consciousness survives death, and we take the lessons of this life with us.  These are foundational principles that lend themselves to the God of Jesus and the Christian duality of the superiority of the spiritual realm, and inferiority of the material realm, and align very closely with the beliefs of early Christians.

From this perspective, we come to realize that much of the OT is not about the God of Jesus, but rather describe elohim, which are powerful beings, with capabilities we would likely deem supernatural.  These beings appear to have multi-dimensional capability, and their powers could be inherent or derived from advanced technology, we don't know for sure.  What are they from our orthodox perspective?  Angels?  Demons?  Principalities? From our modern perspective, with many technological tools and wonders now at our disposal, we can read the Bible in ways that translators throughout the centuries could not have comprehended, and the original witnesses were hard pressed to describe, and see how at least many of the tools used by the elohim could have been technological in nature.  Let's take a look at a few of those.

In Exodus 33, we can picture a physical ship generating the 'pillar of cloud' as YHWH arrives and departs, with a rocket or thrust plume, kicking up sand and dust, which is not an uncommon sight for humans today viewing a rocket launch, landing, or even just a vertical landing and takeoff by a helicopter or Harrier or F-35.  Later, at Moses' request, YHWH puts on a demonstration of his kavod (heavy ship) for Moses. "Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your kavod!” And He said, “I Myself will make my kavod pass before you, and will proclaim the name of YHWH."  The Hebrew word pana can be a verb or a noun.  The verb is to turn or to face, and the noun is face, as a human face.  The traditional translation of Exodus 33:20 (noun) is “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" but the proper translation (verb) is “You cannot see [my kavod] when it [turns / faces], for no man can see [it] and live!”  This is a completely different reading which makes so much more sense in the context of what YHWH is saying to Moses.  YHWH said, “Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while my kavod is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you" "you shall see [its] back”  So this is a demonstration of YHWH's kavod for Moses, and Moses must hide behind a rock during the turning / facing of the ship and can only view it later, after it has passed by, or he will be destroyed.  This also explains why YHWH told Moses that no other people may be present on the mountain nor any animals, or they would have also been destroyed. This is all consistent with a large physical ship, within our dimension, creating a dangerous blast area as it maneuvers.  It is quite likely that Exodus 33 references two ships: a smaller craft that is used when YHWH visits Moses at the tent, creating a 'pillar of cloud' and then the kavod, a heavy ship, which lands on Mt. Sinai.

In Ezekiel 1:4 we have a further description of YHWH's ship.  NASA engineer Josef Blumrich set out in the 1960s to disprove the theory that Ezekiel saw a ship, but he was unable to do so and in fact became so convinced after his detailed analysis that he wrote the book "The Spaceships of Ezekiel."  The omni-wheel, described by Ezekiel, was patented by NASA and is still used on rovers and space craft to this day.  Ezekiel describes a wheeled chariot descend toward him from the sky, landing, generating wind and kicking up dust, and emitting brilliant light.  He describes the fire beneath as 'glowing metal' which is as good a description of any today we might come up with to describe a plume of fire from a rocket or jet with afterburner.  Ezekiel 1:4 reads "As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire."  Elijiah in 2 Kings 2:11 was taken by a "chariot of fire" and went up to heaven by a "seara" which is translated as a strong wind.  Remember "ruach" is also translated as wind.  The imagery should be quite familiar by now.

Is it possible that some of these elohim are the same race of beings Quetzacoatl, the feathered serpent dragon in the Mayan Popul Vuh?  In the Bible, 2 Samuel 22:9 reads "In my distress I called upon [YHWH]" "And from His temple He heard my voice, And my cry for help came into His ears. Then the earth shook and quaked, The foundations of heaven were trembling And were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up out of His nostrils, Fire from His mouth devoured;" "[He] came down With thick darkness under His feet. And He rode on a cherub and flew; And He appeared on the wings of the ruach. And He made darkness canopies around Him, A mass of waters, thick clouds of the sky. From the brightness before Him Coals of fire were kindled. [YHWH] thundered from heaven" "The foundations of the world were laid bare By the rebuke of [YHWH], At the blast of the breath of His nostrils."  There are dragon legends and stories from across the world in which dragons demand sacrifices that include livestock, gold, and virgins, from the Dragon of Silene, the Red Dragon of Wales, Fafnir of Norway, Smok of Krakow, and Yinglong of China, to name a few.  In an eerily similar tale, in the Bible, in Numbers 31:37, YHWH of the Bible demands tribute of 675 sheep and goats, 72 cattle, 61 donkeys, 32 virgins, and 430 pounds of gold.  Is this coincidence?

Today, we have admission from many government officials around the world that there are craft flying in and around the earth that are "not of terrestrial origin" and even physical bodies recovered.  There is video evidence, radar evidence, and thousands of eye-witness testimonies to that effect all confirm a physical existence within our dimension, but these craft also behave in ways which seem to demonstrate the ability to move in and out of our dimension, or at least fold or bend space-time, such as when they fly into mountains. Based on their flight characteristics, even when they are within our dimension, they are not constrained by the same laws of physics that apply to our craft in our dimension, such as gravity and inertia, maneuvering in ways that would be impossible for our aircraft.  Are these the same, or different beings as the elohim of the Bible?  Are the elohim of the Bible being kept at a distance by other races?  Is a "sky council" or "galactic federation" prohibiting direct intervention in humanity's development?  Do the elohim or other races meddle in the affairs of humans, behind the scenes?  We don't know for sure.

Paul Hellyer, the former Defense Minister of Canada, stated in 2013 that to his knowledge, at least 4 different species of intelligent beings have been visiting Earth regularly for thousands of years.  He says they are particularly concerned about our use of nuclear weapons and monitor them closely.  Of course there are many recorded incidents that corroborate this interest.  Astronaut Edgar Mitchell has said "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real."  Respected Israeli professor and retired General Haim Esed, who headed Israel's space agency for nearly 30 years and was responsible for Israel's first satellite and the development of UAVs, says that based on intelligence he has seen, there is indeed a "galactic federation" that has been in contact with the American government for many decades.  According to General Haim, this federation is waiting for humans to have a better understanding of space and time, before disclosing their presence publicly.  They are concerned that if it were disclosed as things stand right now, there may be panic and chaos on Earth, as people's worldviews shift, radically.  Some people may not be able to handle such information.  He says they also monitor our nuclear weapons, and have prevented nuclear launches and accidents in the past. Once this public disclosure happens, and we are able to learn from the members of this federation, humanity will take a huge technological leap forward, on the order of hundreds or even thousands of years of advancement.  He says "They, too, are researching and trying to understand the entire fabric of the universe, and they want us as helpers."  Is the fabric of the universe God, "the source of the cosmos and everything in it?"  Sooner or later, we're going to find out.