“[T]he doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine…. The head God organized the heavens and the earth. I defy all the world to refute me. In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. Now the learned priests and the people rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing. If we pursue the Hebrew text further, it reads, 'The head one of the Gods said, Let us make a man in our own image.' I once asked a learned Jew, 'If the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heim in the plural, why not render the first Eloheim plural?' He replied, 'That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible.' He acknowledged I was right…. In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on. The word Eloheim ought to be in the plural all the way through—'Gods'. The heads of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take [that] view of the subject, its sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfection of the Gods. All I want is to get the simple, naked truth, and the whole truth.”

History of the Church, 6:474-76 (7 April 1844)
1840s, King Follett discourse (1844)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "[T]he doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine…. The head God organized the h…" by Joseph Smith, Jr.?
Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Joseph Smith, Jr. 40
American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day… 1805–1844

Related quotes

Douglas William Jerrold photo

“God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image."”

Douglas William Jerrold (1803–1857) English dramatist and writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 257.

Ricky Gervais photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo
Anne Sexton photo

“God owns heaven but He craves the earth.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States
Henri Barbusse photo

“All this is within us, and has fallen upon our heads. And God Himself, who is all these kinds of heavens in one, has fallen on our heads like thunder, and His infinity is ours.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The heavens have fallen on our heads! What a tremendous idea! It is the loftiest cry that life hurls. That was the cry of deliverance for which I had been groping until then. I had had a foreboding it would come, because a thing of glory like a poet's song always gives something to us poor living shadows, and human thought always reveals the world. But I needed to have it said explicitly so as to bring human misery and human grandeur together. I needed it as a key to the vault of the heavens.
These heavens, that is to say, the azure that our eyes enshrine, purity, plenitude — and the infinite number of suppliants, the sky of truth and religion. All this is within us, and has fallen upon our heads. And God Himself, who is all these kinds of heavens in one, has fallen on our heads like thunder, and His infinity is ours.

Rod Serling photo

“According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Source: The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories

William Tyndale photo

“In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”

William Tyndale (1494–1536) Bible translator and agitator from England

Genesis 1:1; archaic spelling: In the begynnynge God created heaven and erth.
Tyndale's translations

Albert Einstein photo

“My God may not be your idea of God, but one thing I know of my God — he makes me a humanitarian. I am a proud Jew because we gave the world the Bible and the story of Joseph.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 106

Kent Hovind photo

“I believe in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth, and God did it that way on purpose just to make the Big Bang theory look stupid.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

100 Reasons Evolution is So Stupid! (2001)

Related topics