I know that Judaism and Christianity are strongly self professed monotheistic religions. Yet, I wonder how they can so definitively say this when the word they chose to use as the Deity in the beginning of their Holy Scripture is a plural. Genesis 1:1, and all of Genesis chapter 1, uses the word "Elohim" which is the plural form of "Eloah" which is the prolonged form of "El." All three of the words can be used to describe a god, gods, or The God.
The first instance of the Tetragrammaton in the Bible is in Genesis 2:5 where we see "Elohim Yahweh." So, by the beginning of the second chapter we have been shown a plural form and then a specialized plural form. We are also shown that the Entity in Genesis 1 speaks using terms like " kid·mu·tê·nu" which means "to our likeness." This furthers the theme of basically a Multigod that works in harmony making up a singular God force. Essentially a creative force.
In vs 26 of Genesis 1 we see this Entity creating man in their own likeness and then in vs 27 it identifies mankind as male and female. Therefore it is logical to assume that this God Entity is also pluralized as male and female as they made humanity in the same structure as themselves. It is also logical to assume that the Spirt of God mentioned in Genesis 1:2 to be a feminine entity of the Elohim model. A comparable, more contemporary term would be "Mother Earth." By Genesis 2:5 we have seen both the feminine and masculine versions of God. This is further understood from the archelogy of the Cannanite God's of Asherah and Yahweh which was, for a time, the way to worship God, but was eventually deemed idolatry and the idea was destroyed. Yet, we see right in the text where such an idea could have been derived.
Now, if you jump to John 1:1 you can see why the Christian's add in a third element. They have a character called the Word of God and they assert him to have been there since the Beginning. Now this character is vital to the true understanding of Genesis 1 because there are only two God characters present with a rational and logical reading of Genesis chapter 1. In the early days of Christianity it would have been a stretch to add in a third character using the text provided in Gen 1. However, that's exactly what John 1:1 does. It's telling you to go back to the beginning of the Bible and read it with this new idea in mind. Where can you find this third character identified as the Word? The answer, in part, is that you are reading the words and therfore you are the Word of God. You are the one that the Word dwells within because you are who they are taking about in Genesis 1:26. You are made in the image of God. The first page of the Bible is partly addressed to the reader simply because the reader is human.
So, now you know that you are a god because you are a child of The God according to the text. You are part of the family simply because you take in the breath of life on a daily basis. Simply because you drink from the spring of life because you have to. You would die from thirst if you did not partake and if done willingly would be a disrespect of life. Yet, also realize that you are only PART of the whole, not the whole itself. There is only one Entity worthy of worship and the rest serve as slaves. That is the way it was created from the start to work, we were never meant to act on our own accord, but in union with our Creator. Slavery is only as bad as the Master makes it out to be. And in the instance of humanity we are given an incredible amount of freedom. So much so that there is a large group of people on this planet who believe we have too much. The Word of God consists of the children of God lead by the Spirit of Truth in heaven who died for humanity on a cross in the 1st century. This would include the male and female prototypes for humanity mentioned in Genesis 1:27 and the mythological figures of Adam and Eve. However the Word of God was WITH God in the Beginning even before the creation of man. The nature of this Aspect is a complicated endeavor to grasp and stretches all the way back to the Bing Bang itself and beyond. The Word is needed in ways we still do not yet fully understand, but we know that he was needed. There has to be an Eternal King to lead or else it's eternal warfare which just allows no flesh to remain.
The Structure of God is a family and we know this because WE are a family. As an infant we start out as one and even if we break away we are in an eternal search for people of like body, mind and spirit, it's just our nature.
-Sab