Now I am all for accepting that Christianity maybe doesn't qualify as true Monotheism because of The Trinity, the words Mono and Theos are never Biblicaly used together that way so if you can't be convinced Nicene Trinitarianism is Montheistic then so be it I'm not attached to the term. But this post isn't about that, in the sense that The Trinity is a Single Deity, I believe that The Trinity is the only Deity that exists.
Christian Monolatry can easily become a Gateway drug to Arianism. Once you deem it acceptable to refer to Angels as gods it becomes easy to argue The Word being called God is just a very special Angel.
This discussion often begins with The First Commandment.
A lot of verses that seem like they are conceding other gods exist can be taken rhetorically, like when Elijah is speaking to the Priests of Baal. Atheists sometimes talk to us about our God as if He exists, and I will refer to the "God of Calvinism" but I certainly don't think that @$$hole exists.
The verse in the Exodus narrative that seemingly refers to the "gods of Egypt" I believe is a result of corrupted Masoretic vowel indicators. The context makes more sense referring to "trees of Egypt".
The real question is does the existence of Angels make the Bible Monolatry? Depends what you think about Angels. If you think the Angels already existed prior to the Creation of the Material world, that is a very Platonist Monolatry. If you think Angels are included in the "let us make man in our image" that is also an error, that is The Trinity talking, or if you want to reject Trinitarianism then it's some sort of ancient Hebrew "royal we". In my view whatever the Angels are they didn't predate Adam's Creation.
Let's use our old friend Tolkien as a comparison. The Theology presented in the Ainulindale, Valaquenta and Quenta Silmarilion is Monolatry because of the Ainur, especially the Valar but even the Maiar are fairly divine in my opinion, particularly Melian. However something like the Elves would be a different matter, people that are kind of like what Man would be if Man hadn't fallen.
My first theory for an origin story for entities like that would be Genesis 2:18-20, I think the normal Animals were created before Adam in Genesis 1 and this is the Creation of creatures that are Sapient enough to be potential mates for Adam, they include The Serpent in the next chapter, the Cheirbium/Seraphim and are perhaps the basis for the Lilith tradition as well.
A second could be the idea of there being more time between Genesis 2 and 3 then we usually assume. Maybe Cain and Abel weren't Adam and Eve's firstborn and they had prior children unaffected by The Fall? This is a bit less likely and more conjectural but Daniel does describe Gabriel using words for Human. I admit the main thing that made me think of this idea was George MacDonald's Lilith which I haven't even properly read yet, but it seems like this must be the origin of Mara, but obviously a 19th Century fantasy novel is not something to build doctrine on.
I also reject the idea of a Divine Council, Heaven is an Absolute Monarchy not a Constitutional Monarchy.
Deuteronomy 32 reads "sons of Israel" in both the Masoretic and Samaritan texts, those groups diverged from each other long before the Qumran Community formed, so what they agree on certainly takes priority over a single DSS fragment which could also just be a scribal error. And even so, since I've argued BeniElohim means believers in Genesis 6 and everywhere else the two terms don't even mean different things. Christians should see this as explained by Paul in Romans 11. Also the Qumran community were Platonist heretics if they were indeed a group of Essenes so I fundamentally don't trust them.
Psalm 82 is the real heart of arguing the "Divine Council" idea is Biblical. In John 10:34 Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 clearly showing that "ye are gods" refers to the Israelites, and He expected that application of that verse to be one none of these Pharisees would object to. But Michael Heiser is unimpressed by that, he believes secular scholarly theories about the "Ancient Near Eastern context" needs to trump The Lord Himself telling us what He meant.
This discussion often begins with The First Commandment.
I am Yahuah thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.That wording strictly speaking doesn't say other Elohim don't exist, in fact it has been taken as implying they do. Thing is if you want to be nit-picky then that wording doesn't even entirely rule out the worship of other Elohim, it just says Yahuah must always come first, but later in the Torah we see worshiping these other gods at all is forbidden. This verse's wording is ultimately neutral to if they exist or not.
A lot of verses that seem like they are conceding other gods exist can be taken rhetorically, like when Elijah is speaking to the Priests of Baal. Atheists sometimes talk to us about our God as if He exists, and I will refer to the "God of Calvinism" but I certainly don't think that @$$hole exists.
The verse in the Exodus narrative that seemingly refers to the "gods of Egypt" I believe is a result of corrupted Masoretic vowel indicators. The context makes more sense referring to "trees of Egypt".
The real question is does the existence of Angels make the Bible Monolatry? Depends what you think about Angels. If you think the Angels already existed prior to the Creation of the Material world, that is a very Platonist Monolatry. If you think Angels are included in the "let us make man in our image" that is also an error, that is The Trinity talking, or if you want to reject Trinitarianism then it's some sort of ancient Hebrew "royal we". In my view whatever the Angels are they didn't predate Adam's Creation.
Let's use our old friend Tolkien as a comparison. The Theology presented in the Ainulindale, Valaquenta and Quenta Silmarilion is Monolatry because of the Ainur, especially the Valar but even the Maiar are fairly divine in my opinion, particularly Melian. However something like the Elves would be a different matter, people that are kind of like what Man would be if Man hadn't fallen.
My first theory for an origin story for entities like that would be Genesis 2:18-20, I think the normal Animals were created before Adam in Genesis 1 and this is the Creation of creatures that are Sapient enough to be potential mates for Adam, they include The Serpent in the next chapter, the Cheirbium/Seraphim and are perhaps the basis for the Lilith tradition as well.
A second could be the idea of there being more time between Genesis 2 and 3 then we usually assume. Maybe Cain and Abel weren't Adam and Eve's firstborn and they had prior children unaffected by The Fall? This is a bit less likely and more conjectural but Daniel does describe Gabriel using words for Human. I admit the main thing that made me think of this idea was George MacDonald's Lilith which I haven't even properly read yet, but it seems like this must be the origin of Mara, but obviously a 19th Century fantasy novel is not something to build doctrine on.
I also reject the idea of a Divine Council, Heaven is an Absolute Monarchy not a Constitutional Monarchy.
Deuteronomy 32 reads "sons of Israel" in both the Masoretic and Samaritan texts, those groups diverged from each other long before the Qumran Community formed, so what they agree on certainly takes priority over a single DSS fragment which could also just be a scribal error. And even so, since I've argued BeniElohim means believers in Genesis 6 and everywhere else the two terms don't even mean different things. Christians should see this as explained by Paul in Romans 11. Also the Qumran community were Platonist heretics if they were indeed a group of Essenes so I fundamentally don't trust them.
Psalm 82 is the real heart of arguing the "Divine Council" idea is Biblical. In John 10:34 Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6 clearly showing that "ye are gods" refers to the Israelites, and He expected that application of that verse to be one none of these Pharisees would object to. But Michael Heiser is unimpressed by that, he believes secular scholarly theories about the "Ancient Near Eastern context" needs to trump The Lord Himself telling us what He meant.
Isaiah 41 also uses "ye are gods" in a context no one disputes is about mortal human beings.
Even leaving New Testament quotes out of it, Psalm 82 was a Psalm of Asaph, Asaph we are told was a Prophet (2 Chronicles 29:30, Seer is a synonym for Prophet according to 1 Samuel 9:9). His mission was not to tell us what went on between Yahuah and other beings in Heaven, it was to tell Israel what messages Yahuah has for Israel.
Psalm 82 starts with Yahuah standing in the midst of the Congregation, not a council, this is essentially the Hebrew word translated Ekklesia(Church). In verse 6 Yahuah is speaking as if He's referring to something He said before, which explains why Jesus also seemed to claim He was quoting The Torah, this is referencing back to the BeniElohim doctrine of the Pentateuch, Exodus 4:22-23 and Deuteronomy 14:1. Also in Exodus 7:1 Yahuah says He will make Moses a god to Pharoah.
The confusion comes from verse 7, people feel saying "like men" means these people aren't men. The word for men here is Adam so it could be like how Genesis 6 distinguished sons of God from daughters of men. Or it's about how these people have gotten so arrogant they think they're no longer mere mortals like the Nagyim of Tyre in Ezekiel 28.
This is God rebuking Israel for their cultural sins like he does in Ezekiel 16, that is clear when you just read what it's actually saying in the verses that don't use controversial to translate nouns. Making it some scene in a Fantasy novel distracts from that clear message. Which matters because I feel this is a message God still has for many modern Christians.
I think the "gods" of Psalm 138 are probably the same as Psalm 82.
In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul says that the idols are nothing. He does seem to acknowledge there being others called gods and lords, but they are not actually gods. He is NOT saying there are other gods but only One matters.
The only beings outside of The Trinity who The Bible ever considers worthy of being called Elohim or Theos in the right circumstances are Humans. We were made in the Image and Likeness of God and made a Living Soul by the Breath of God, and then the Word of God incarnated as one of us and gave us the ablity to become Sons of God, granting us His authority, and now the Holy Spirit of God indwells within those of us who believe making us The Temple of God and Body of Christ. But we are currently still in our fallen state, at the Resurrection we will be perfected.
Here are some prior posts I made about Angels before fully forming the position I argued for in this post but are still posts I agree with (mostly).
The Torah and Angels.
The Nephilim and the Sons of God.
Even leaving New Testament quotes out of it, Psalm 82 was a Psalm of Asaph, Asaph we are told was a Prophet (2 Chronicles 29:30, Seer is a synonym for Prophet according to 1 Samuel 9:9). His mission was not to tell us what went on between Yahuah and other beings in Heaven, it was to tell Israel what messages Yahuah has for Israel.
Psalm 82 starts with Yahuah standing in the midst of the Congregation, not a council, this is essentially the Hebrew word translated Ekklesia(Church). In verse 6 Yahuah is speaking as if He's referring to something He said before, which explains why Jesus also seemed to claim He was quoting The Torah, this is referencing back to the BeniElohim doctrine of the Pentateuch, Exodus 4:22-23 and Deuteronomy 14:1. Also in Exodus 7:1 Yahuah says He will make Moses a god to Pharoah.
The confusion comes from verse 7, people feel saying "like men" means these people aren't men. The word for men here is Adam so it could be like how Genesis 6 distinguished sons of God from daughters of men. Or it's about how these people have gotten so arrogant they think they're no longer mere mortals like the Nagyim of Tyre in Ezekiel 28.
This is God rebuking Israel for their cultural sins like he does in Ezekiel 16, that is clear when you just read what it's actually saying in the verses that don't use controversial to translate nouns. Making it some scene in a Fantasy novel distracts from that clear message. Which matters because I feel this is a message God still has for many modern Christians.
I think the "gods" of Psalm 138 are probably the same as Psalm 82.
In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul says that the idols are nothing. He does seem to acknowledge there being others called gods and lords, but they are not actually gods. He is NOT saying there are other gods but only One matters.
The only beings outside of The Trinity who The Bible ever considers worthy of being called Elohim or Theos in the right circumstances are Humans. We were made in the Image and Likeness of God and made a Living Soul by the Breath of God, and then the Word of God incarnated as one of us and gave us the ablity to become Sons of God, granting us His authority, and now the Holy Spirit of God indwells within those of us who believe making us The Temple of God and Body of Christ. But we are currently still in our fallen state, at the Resurrection we will be perfected.
Here are some prior posts I made about Angels before fully forming the position I argued for in this post but are still posts I agree with (mostly).
The Torah and Angels.
The Nephilim and the Sons of God.
It seems to me that in the NT (2 Cor 4:4, 1 Cor 8:5) there are other gods, not just called gods, but are gods, (they are called gods and lords, but right after he says there are many gods and lords, and he then says "to us," using the dative, there is one God etc etc). This seems to me like monolartry.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Psalms 82, it seems to me that if it were talking about men it wouldn't make sense that their punishment is that they will "die as men" ... all men die as men, I know you address this, but the problem is not only that one would need reasons for taking this reading rather than the standard reading, one would also have to account for the inter-testamental literature that takes the standard reading (1 Enoch for Gensis 6, various Qumran sectarian material for Psalms 82, etc etc).
Also "sons of the highest" seems to be the used in the same way Genesis 6 uses it, i.e. as heavenly beings.
As far as John 10 is concerned, well ... I'm not a Trinitarian (I'm a JW), so I actually take that to be in reference to the fact that there ARE other gods, (I think John, or at least the author of the prologue, is aware of Philo, who used the logos to refer to a second, lesser God).
Anyway, although I disagree with your stance here, I appreciate the well thought out and argued post ... I actually think Psalms 82 can go both ways, I just think the reception history pushes it towards the standard position.
The Intertestimental material are the Jewish Fables Paul told us not to regard.
DeleteI respect JWs, but I have pretty strongly refuted Arianism in even it's mildest form here.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2019/09/semi-arianism-and-second-ecumenical.html
And I have posts on Annihilationism.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/search/label/Annihilationism