Exodus 3: 14 says that God is a father constantly issuing wise, life-giving power through strong imagination . . . and us

Exodus 3: 14 is one of the most important foundational verses in the Bible. As it is traditionally translated and interpreted, it is also one of the most misleading. Misunderstanding Exodus 3: 14 is detrimental to believers, for how can they believe in a God they do not know, and how can they know God as he really is if Exodus 3: 14 is mistranslated and misunderstood?

I believe that the verse means that GOD IS A FATHER, that the Ineffable is issuing life, and God is his emission of life-seed, a font of perpetual sprouting. It means that Christ is imagination--the life-giving, seeding mechanism. We create what comes forth in our lives--it is from us, and God is to be honored as the father. THAT is the nature of God-in-us and THAT is what the verse is about, so let's translate Exodus 3: 14 as "I AM FATHERING ALL THIS BY STRONG IMAGINATION."

Exodus 3: 14 is translated as "I AM THAT I AM." True, God is the Great I AM, but that is so inadequate a translation. There are several points of departure in this error:

The first departure is believing that Moses is anyone other than ourselves. We are the "son born" from the waters of consciousness. The Bible is the story within ourselves--of our consciousnesses, our imagination. Moses is an illustration and the people in the stories are emblems of ourselves.

The second departure is not discerning motives: we sense spiritual benefice--there is increase and thriving in adversity (e.g., Exodus 1: 7), and we seek to find the source of this abundance and the mechanics of getting it, not selfishly but of hunger. This takes us inside ourselves.

The third departure is believing that there is distance between ourselves and God. We will not see God outside but inside. This is the original "split-infinitive": the Infinite is God and also our consciousness, our imagination. Both sides of the single unit talk to each other, but are one.

The fourth departure is thinking that anyone wants to know God's name. We want to know God-in-ourselves' nature, for we sense spiritual benefice and seek its source.

The fifth departure is believing God-in-ourselves tells us his name when actually he speaks of his nature: Ahiyeh-Ashur-hiyeh (Exodus 3: 14, Aramaic, Victor Alexander translation, see note below).

The sixth departure is translating Ahiyeh-Ashur-hiyeh as a state of being, I AM THAT I AM--"The Great I AM," instead of translating it as God-in-ourselves' action (see below). I believe that the concept of action's flow and transitoriness is key.

The seventh departure is believing that we go forth in life in God's "name," his adjunct authority, instead of going forth in his nature as him-whom-we-are (see below). The "split-infinitive" is a shared "I."

What is the point of God-in-us saying Ahiyeh-Ashur-hiyeh? Below are the notes (1-6) Alexander attaches to Exodus 3: 14.

(1) "Ahiyeh": "the One Who Comes in His Coming," the absolute sense of "the One Who Comes." (2) "Ashur": "the Beginning Spark that kindles the Fire" or "the Light." (3) "Hiyeh": "His Coming."

(4) "Ahiyeh" and "hiyeh" are related forms of the same word. They mean more than "the Coming." They signify also the "Eternal Presence," "the Ever-Present," and the "Never Ceasing Intent of the Comer to Come." (5) In the same way, "Ashur" signifies "the Uncreated Creator who Creates Everything from Nothing." (6) Also, "Ashur" signifies: "Above-the-Flames.” (I believe note 6 refers to Ashur's relation to the Hebrew Elohim, lit. "Above-the-Flames.” We, our consciousnesses/imaginations, are the "Flames," --emanated bits of God's glory.)

Ahiyeh is the first-person singular (the Eternal Presence, the Ever-Present) form of the verb hiyeh: to exist, be, become, come to pass--always emphatic, not a  mere copula (Strong's Hebrew/Chaldee 1961). Ashur is the power and the wisdom "Above the Flames," that is, the emanation or "Son" of God which creates everything. This is the Light that lighteth, the beginning spark that kindles the flame which creates everything from nothing: "In the beginning [of creation] there was the Manifestation; and that Manifestation was with God; and God was [the embodiment of] that Manifestation. This was in the beginning with God. Everything was within his power,  [otherwise] nothing would ever exist. Through him [there] was Life, and Life became the spark of humanity, and that [ensuing] fire lights the darkness, and darkness does not overshadow it" (John 1: 1-5, Victor Alexander translation). This is transcendent transition, the motion of the Ineffable's emanation manifesting.

What does all this mean? It means that GOD IS A FATHER. The Ineffable is issuing life, and God is his emission of life-seed, a font of perpetual sprouting. It means that Christ is imagination--the life-giving, seeding mechanism. It means that we create what comes forth in our lives--it is from us. And it means that God is to be honored as the father. THAT is the nature of God-in-us and THAT is what the verse is about, so let's translate Exodus 3: 14 as "I AM FATHERING ALL THIS BY STRONG IMAGINATION."

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Notes:

God-in-us begins what he becomes, because the ineffable Most High God desired form, defined that form, and then moved to become that form, all of which happens as imagination. Nothing comes to pass without first being imagined as existent. God is father and mother of what becomes (and is what becomes, too).

God could not speak to my mind without first imagining it. He has to first imagine an event before it can happen. No healing, no appearing, no voice or other action without the imagining of it as accomplished and done first. And then the father has the utmost confidence that he can accomplish. So much faith that he believes it is accomplished. Thank God he believed that I could be saved.

This is transcendental transition, clearly typified in the stories of Adam, the rib/Eve and Cain/Abel; and Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth. Transition is accomplished by "the Uncreated Creator who Creates Everything from Nothing . . . the Beginning Spark/Light--that kindles the Fire." This is what God is and does--imagining (he hasn't got anything else to do it with!).

In Ahiyeh-Ashur-hiyeh, the life-giving, creating Son of the Most High is saying, "I am Ahiyeh, the eternal, ever-present one who comes absolutely in my coming; also Ashur, the creative action of light which by heat sparks the kindling of fire (I believe this is intense, focused, vivid, "heated" imagining); and hiyeh, the divine's manifestation.

To illustrate No-Thing, imagine the entire universe as being totally empty, not a single thing in it--an empty dimension, and then take the dimension away. The absence of dimension is hard to imagine. So is the "Ineffable." Yet there is the Source of the universe and everything in it.

God is a Father issuing life--who has become us and now employs us as channels of his life. "Seedtime and harvest" (Genesis 8: 22) is about us--we are the active agents! Do you get that feeling when you read "I AM THAT I AM?" I didn't think so. THAT AND ALL THE LIFE WE WOULD HAVE HAD IF EXODUS 3: 14 WERE PROPERLY TRANSLATED is what the mistranslation and misinterpretation have robbed us of.

The above is my own conjectured interpretation and opinion of scripture. I do not know Victor Alexander (v-a.com) to hold my views nor to share my conclusions. I think Alexander is really onto something with the ancient Aramaic texts that he uses; he inadvertently clarifies and corrects problematic doctrines, like the principle of devotion in Exodus 34: 7 and 14 (see my next post on The Becoming God--I just discovered this). I use Alexander's translations and notes because they are the best I know of, and because they agree with my views and provide wonderful discoveries, like the one just mentioned and the point of the verse below, that God is a father constantly issuing wise, life-giving power through strong imagination . . . and us.