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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 147
Yoursquove Seen One Elohim Yoursquove Seen Them All ACritique of Mormonismrsquos Use of Psalm 82
Michael S Heiser
FARMS Review 191 (2007) 221ndash66
1550-3194 (print) 2156-8049 (online)
Heiser discusses Psalm 82 and the interpretations ofElohim that Latter-day Saints and evangelicals derivefrom that scriptural passage Heiser then offers alterna-tive interpretations from his own study
Title
Author(s)
Reference
ISSN
Abstract
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Y983151983157rsquo983158983141 S983141983141983150 O983150983141 E983148983151983144983145983149Y983151983157rsquo983158983141 S983141983141983150 983144983141983149 A983148983148983103 A C983154983145983156983145983153983157983141 983151983142
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090
O ver the course o the last eight years I have read several papers
dealing in one way or another with that eature o Israelite religion
known as the divine council Anyone doing serious research in Israelite
religion is soon conronted with the powerul evidence or a pantheonin the Hebrew Bible983044 It is a dramatic example o the kind o issue with
which evangelical scholars who pursue advanced studies in Hebrew and
Semitics must deal It is also a good example o why some evangelical
colleagues whose scholarship ocuses on areas outside the Hebrew text
such as apologetics or philosophical theology cannot appreciate why
their articulation o an issue related to our area o specialization may
lack explanatory power or coherence I am reminded o Wayne Gru-
demrsquos sobering analysis o several years ago at the Evangelical Teologi-cal Society as to how we textual scholars ofen ail to make the careully
1 For an introduction to the divine council and the sons o God see Gerald Cooke
ldquoTe Sons o (the) God(s)rdquo Zeitschrif uumlr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaf 76 (1964)
22ndash47 E Teodore Mullen Te Assembly o the Gods Te Divine Council in Canaan-ite and Early Hebrew Literature (Missoula M Scholars Press 1980) Mullen ldquoDivine
Assemblyrdquo in Te Anchor Bible Dictionary ed David Noel Freedman (New York Dou-
bleday 1992) 2214ndash17 Simon B Parker ldquoSons o (the) God(s)rdquo in Dictionary o Deities
and Demons in the Bible ed Karel van der oorn Bob Becking and Pieter W van derHorst 2nd extensively rev ed (Leiden Brill 1999) 794ndash800 Parker ldquoCouncil (דוס)rdquo in
Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 204ndash8 Matitiahu sevat ldquoGod and the
Gods in Assembly An Interpretation o Psalm 82rdquo Hebrew Union College Annual 40ndash41
(1969ndash70) 123ndash37 Julian Morgenstern ldquoTe Mythological Background o Psalm 82rdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 14 (1939) 29ndash126
Michael S Heiser
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222 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
mined data o exegesis accessible to our colleagues to ormulate a coher-
ent theology derived rom the Hebrew and Greek texts not the EnglishBible We too ofen work in isolation rom one another
I bring this up or two reasons First because afer spending
nearly a decade absorbed in study o the divine council I eel more
strongly than ever that there is not a single doctrine that is untouched
by the subject Te reason is simple the divine council is all about the
nature o God his creation and rulership o all that is his heavenly
and earthly amily and the destiny o the earth and the larger cosmos
I think the topic at hand will illustrate just how ar the reach o this
subject extends Second I want to prepare you or the act that I am
going to agree and disagree with both the Latter-day Saint and evan-
gelical positions in this paper Ultimately my ocus is on certain flaws
in the LDS understanding and use o Psalm 82 but that should not be
taken as affirmation o what I know by now are common evangelical
positions on the contents o this psalm
Since I have already written on many o the topics I will touch onin this paper I will direct you to the ull argumentation or certain
points as it appears elsewhere By way o telegraphing my positions I
offer the ollowing summaries
A Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany evangelicals would probably disagree and with which manyLatter-day Saints would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 821 and 6 are divine beings not
human judges or humans ulfilling any role
2 Te term monotheism is inadequate to describe what it is
Israel believed about God and the members o his council As the text
explicitly says there are other lt ĕlōhicircm
3 Reerences to ldquousrdquo and ldquoourrdquo in passages like Genesis 126 do
not reer to the rinity Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are also not
members o the rinity
4 Te denial statements o Isaiah and elsewhere (ldquothere is no
god beside merdquo) do not constitute denials o the existence o other
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather they are statements o Yahwehrsquos incomparability
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 223
5 Te God o Israel did at times make himsel known to people
in the Old estament in ways detectable to the human sense includ-ing the corporeal
6 Te Mormon understanding o God is not inherently polytheis-
tic It is polytheistic i Latter-day Saints insist that all lt ĕlōhicircm are species-
equals which depends in part on how they parse the divine council
7 ldquoSpirit beingsrdquo such as the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are cre-
ated and thereore made o something Invisibility does not mean that
the invisible thing is immaterial All things created were made and
are made o some orm o matter whether we can detect it by our
sense or science or not o deny this would mean that ldquospirit beingsrdquo
are not part o the created order
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is no argument or his
deity (or rebuttal to the charge o blasphemy) i it is assumed that Jesus
thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans
B Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany Latter-day Saints would probably disagree and with which manyevangelicals would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are ontologically inerior to
Yahweh Tat is Yahweh the God o Israel was considered ontologi-
cally unique in Israelite thought Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other
lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh
2 Te terms henotheism polytheism and monolatry are inade-quate to describe what it is Israel believed about God and the members
o his council
3 Yahweh is neither a son o El (Elyon) nor a god distinct rom
El (Elyon) in Israelite religion
4 Te notion o a godhead does not derive rom Hellenistic phi-
losophy Its antecedents are Israelite and Jewish
5 Yahweh was thereore not ldquobirthedrdquo into existence by the
ldquoolden godsrdquo described in Ugaritic texts Yahweh had no parent and
no beginning
6 Corporeal appearances o deity are not evidence that God the
Father has a corporeal nature
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7 Te concept o the image o God does not advance the idea
that there is a genus equation o God and humankind or that God wasonce a man
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is not to be interpreted
as though Jesus thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans and so
it provides no basis or a genus equation o God and humankind
While it would be true in many respects that the position statements
o group A are undamental to arguing against certain Latter-day
Saint ideas addressed in group B my strategy or most o this paper
will be to explain statements rom both groups in tandem through a
series o our topics
opic 1 Psalm 82 Gods or Men (items A1 A3)
Evangelical objections to divine plurality in Psalms usually take
the orm o casting the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o certain passages as humanbeings It is convenient at this point to reerence several verses in
Psalm 82
1 God (lt ĕlōhicircm) stands in the divine council in the midst
o the gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) he passes judgment
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High all
o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall
all as one o the princes
A ew observations will suffice Notice that in verse one the first
lt ĕlōhicircm must point to a singular being the God o Israel due to gram-
matical agreement with singular verb orms in the verse (niszligszligab and
yišpōdagger) Te second lt ĕlōhicircm must be plural because o the preposition
that precedes it Appeals to the rinity here are indeensible since the
plural lt ĕlōhicircm are being judged or their corruption in the rest o the2 It is also at times asserted that these lt ĕlōhicircm are only idols For a reutation o
that view see Michael S Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henothe-
ism oward an Assessment o Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Biblerdquo Bulletin o BiblicalResearch (orthcoming)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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226 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 227
sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 243
One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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Y983151983157rsquo983158983141 S983141983141983150 O983150983141 E983148983151983144983145983149Y983151983157rsquo983158983141 S983141983141983150 983144983141983149 A983148983148983103 A C983154983145983156983145983153983157983141 983151983142
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090
O ver the course o the last eight years I have read several papers
dealing in one way or another with that eature o Israelite religion
known as the divine council Anyone doing serious research in Israelite
religion is soon conronted with the powerul evidence or a pantheonin the Hebrew Bible983044 It is a dramatic example o the kind o issue with
which evangelical scholars who pursue advanced studies in Hebrew and
Semitics must deal It is also a good example o why some evangelical
colleagues whose scholarship ocuses on areas outside the Hebrew text
such as apologetics or philosophical theology cannot appreciate why
their articulation o an issue related to our area o specialization may
lack explanatory power or coherence I am reminded o Wayne Gru-
demrsquos sobering analysis o several years ago at the Evangelical Teologi-cal Society as to how we textual scholars ofen ail to make the careully
1 For an introduction to the divine council and the sons o God see Gerald Cooke
ldquoTe Sons o (the) God(s)rdquo Zeitschrif uumlr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaf 76 (1964)
22ndash47 E Teodore Mullen Te Assembly o the Gods Te Divine Council in Canaan-ite and Early Hebrew Literature (Missoula M Scholars Press 1980) Mullen ldquoDivine
Assemblyrdquo in Te Anchor Bible Dictionary ed David Noel Freedman (New York Dou-
bleday 1992) 2214ndash17 Simon B Parker ldquoSons o (the) God(s)rdquo in Dictionary o Deities
and Demons in the Bible ed Karel van der oorn Bob Becking and Pieter W van derHorst 2nd extensively rev ed (Leiden Brill 1999) 794ndash800 Parker ldquoCouncil (דוס)rdquo in
Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 204ndash8 Matitiahu sevat ldquoGod and the
Gods in Assembly An Interpretation o Psalm 82rdquo Hebrew Union College Annual 40ndash41
(1969ndash70) 123ndash37 Julian Morgenstern ldquoTe Mythological Background o Psalm 82rdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 14 (1939) 29ndash126
Michael S Heiser
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mined data o exegesis accessible to our colleagues to ormulate a coher-
ent theology derived rom the Hebrew and Greek texts not the EnglishBible We too ofen work in isolation rom one another
I bring this up or two reasons First because afer spending
nearly a decade absorbed in study o the divine council I eel more
strongly than ever that there is not a single doctrine that is untouched
by the subject Te reason is simple the divine council is all about the
nature o God his creation and rulership o all that is his heavenly
and earthly amily and the destiny o the earth and the larger cosmos
I think the topic at hand will illustrate just how ar the reach o this
subject extends Second I want to prepare you or the act that I am
going to agree and disagree with both the Latter-day Saint and evan-
gelical positions in this paper Ultimately my ocus is on certain flaws
in the LDS understanding and use o Psalm 82 but that should not be
taken as affirmation o what I know by now are common evangelical
positions on the contents o this psalm
Since I have already written on many o the topics I will touch onin this paper I will direct you to the ull argumentation or certain
points as it appears elsewhere By way o telegraphing my positions I
offer the ollowing summaries
A Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany evangelicals would probably disagree and with which manyLatter-day Saints would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 821 and 6 are divine beings not
human judges or humans ulfilling any role
2 Te term monotheism is inadequate to describe what it is
Israel believed about God and the members o his council As the text
explicitly says there are other lt ĕlōhicircm
3 Reerences to ldquousrdquo and ldquoourrdquo in passages like Genesis 126 do
not reer to the rinity Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are also not
members o the rinity
4 Te denial statements o Isaiah and elsewhere (ldquothere is no
god beside merdquo) do not constitute denials o the existence o other
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather they are statements o Yahwehrsquos incomparability
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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5 Te God o Israel did at times make himsel known to people
in the Old estament in ways detectable to the human sense includ-ing the corporeal
6 Te Mormon understanding o God is not inherently polytheis-
tic It is polytheistic i Latter-day Saints insist that all lt ĕlōhicircm are species-
equals which depends in part on how they parse the divine council
7 ldquoSpirit beingsrdquo such as the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are cre-
ated and thereore made o something Invisibility does not mean that
the invisible thing is immaterial All things created were made and
are made o some orm o matter whether we can detect it by our
sense or science or not o deny this would mean that ldquospirit beingsrdquo
are not part o the created order
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is no argument or his
deity (or rebuttal to the charge o blasphemy) i it is assumed that Jesus
thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans
B Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany Latter-day Saints would probably disagree and with which manyevangelicals would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are ontologically inerior to
Yahweh Tat is Yahweh the God o Israel was considered ontologi-
cally unique in Israelite thought Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other
lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh
2 Te terms henotheism polytheism and monolatry are inade-quate to describe what it is Israel believed about God and the members
o his council
3 Yahweh is neither a son o El (Elyon) nor a god distinct rom
El (Elyon) in Israelite religion
4 Te notion o a godhead does not derive rom Hellenistic phi-
losophy Its antecedents are Israelite and Jewish
5 Yahweh was thereore not ldquobirthedrdquo into existence by the
ldquoolden godsrdquo described in Ugaritic texts Yahweh had no parent and
no beginning
6 Corporeal appearances o deity are not evidence that God the
Father has a corporeal nature
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7 Te concept o the image o God does not advance the idea
that there is a genus equation o God and humankind or that God wasonce a man
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is not to be interpreted
as though Jesus thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans and so
it provides no basis or a genus equation o God and humankind
While it would be true in many respects that the position statements
o group A are undamental to arguing against certain Latter-day
Saint ideas addressed in group B my strategy or most o this paper
will be to explain statements rom both groups in tandem through a
series o our topics
opic 1 Psalm 82 Gods or Men (items A1 A3)
Evangelical objections to divine plurality in Psalms usually take
the orm o casting the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o certain passages as humanbeings It is convenient at this point to reerence several verses in
Psalm 82
1 God (lt ĕlōhicircm) stands in the divine council in the midst
o the gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) he passes judgment
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High all
o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall
all as one o the princes
A ew observations will suffice Notice that in verse one the first
lt ĕlōhicircm must point to a singular being the God o Israel due to gram-
matical agreement with singular verb orms in the verse (niszligszligab and
yišpōdagger) Te second lt ĕlōhicircm must be plural because o the preposition
that precedes it Appeals to the rinity here are indeensible since the
plural lt ĕlōhicircm are being judged or their corruption in the rest o the2 It is also at times asserted that these lt ĕlōhicircm are only idols For a reutation o
that view see Michael S Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henothe-
ism oward an Assessment o Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Biblerdquo Bulletin o BiblicalResearch (orthcoming)
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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226 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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228 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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mined data o exegesis accessible to our colleagues to ormulate a coher-
ent theology derived rom the Hebrew and Greek texts not the EnglishBible We too ofen work in isolation rom one another
I bring this up or two reasons First because afer spending
nearly a decade absorbed in study o the divine council I eel more
strongly than ever that there is not a single doctrine that is untouched
by the subject Te reason is simple the divine council is all about the
nature o God his creation and rulership o all that is his heavenly
and earthly amily and the destiny o the earth and the larger cosmos
I think the topic at hand will illustrate just how ar the reach o this
subject extends Second I want to prepare you or the act that I am
going to agree and disagree with both the Latter-day Saint and evan-
gelical positions in this paper Ultimately my ocus is on certain flaws
in the LDS understanding and use o Psalm 82 but that should not be
taken as affirmation o what I know by now are common evangelical
positions on the contents o this psalm
Since I have already written on many o the topics I will touch onin this paper I will direct you to the ull argumentation or certain
points as it appears elsewhere By way o telegraphing my positions I
offer the ollowing summaries
A Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany evangelicals would probably disagree and with which manyLatter-day Saints would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 821 and 6 are divine beings not
human judges or humans ulfilling any role
2 Te term monotheism is inadequate to describe what it is
Israel believed about God and the members o his council As the text
explicitly says there are other lt ĕlōhicircm
3 Reerences to ldquousrdquo and ldquoourrdquo in passages like Genesis 126 do
not reer to the rinity Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are also not
members o the rinity
4 Te denial statements o Isaiah and elsewhere (ldquothere is no
god beside merdquo) do not constitute denials o the existence o other
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather they are statements o Yahwehrsquos incomparability
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5 Te God o Israel did at times make himsel known to people
in the Old estament in ways detectable to the human sense includ-ing the corporeal
6 Te Mormon understanding o God is not inherently polytheis-
tic It is polytheistic i Latter-day Saints insist that all lt ĕlōhicircm are species-
equals which depends in part on how they parse the divine council
7 ldquoSpirit beingsrdquo such as the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are cre-
ated and thereore made o something Invisibility does not mean that
the invisible thing is immaterial All things created were made and
are made o some orm o matter whether we can detect it by our
sense or science or not o deny this would mean that ldquospirit beingsrdquo
are not part o the created order
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is no argument or his
deity (or rebuttal to the charge o blasphemy) i it is assumed that Jesus
thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans
B Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany Latter-day Saints would probably disagree and with which manyevangelicals would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are ontologically inerior to
Yahweh Tat is Yahweh the God o Israel was considered ontologi-
cally unique in Israelite thought Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other
lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh
2 Te terms henotheism polytheism and monolatry are inade-quate to describe what it is Israel believed about God and the members
o his council
3 Yahweh is neither a son o El (Elyon) nor a god distinct rom
El (Elyon) in Israelite religion
4 Te notion o a godhead does not derive rom Hellenistic phi-
losophy Its antecedents are Israelite and Jewish
5 Yahweh was thereore not ldquobirthedrdquo into existence by the
ldquoolden godsrdquo described in Ugaritic texts Yahweh had no parent and
no beginning
6 Corporeal appearances o deity are not evidence that God the
Father has a corporeal nature
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7 Te concept o the image o God does not advance the idea
that there is a genus equation o God and humankind or that God wasonce a man
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is not to be interpreted
as though Jesus thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans and so
it provides no basis or a genus equation o God and humankind
While it would be true in many respects that the position statements
o group A are undamental to arguing against certain Latter-day
Saint ideas addressed in group B my strategy or most o this paper
will be to explain statements rom both groups in tandem through a
series o our topics
opic 1 Psalm 82 Gods or Men (items A1 A3)
Evangelical objections to divine plurality in Psalms usually take
the orm o casting the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o certain passages as humanbeings It is convenient at this point to reerence several verses in
Psalm 82
1 God (lt ĕlōhicircm) stands in the divine council in the midst
o the gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) he passes judgment
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High all
o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall
all as one o the princes
A ew observations will suffice Notice that in verse one the first
lt ĕlōhicircm must point to a singular being the God o Israel due to gram-
matical agreement with singular verb orms in the verse (niszligszligab and
yišpōdagger) Te second lt ĕlōhicircm must be plural because o the preposition
that precedes it Appeals to the rinity here are indeensible since the
plural lt ĕlōhicircm are being judged or their corruption in the rest o the2 It is also at times asserted that these lt ĕlōhicircm are only idols For a reutation o
that view see Michael S Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henothe-
ism oward an Assessment o Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Biblerdquo Bulletin o BiblicalResearch (orthcoming)
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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5 Te God o Israel did at times make himsel known to people
in the Old estament in ways detectable to the human sense includ-ing the corporeal
6 Te Mormon understanding o God is not inherently polytheis-
tic It is polytheistic i Latter-day Saints insist that all lt ĕlōhicircm are species-
equals which depends in part on how they parse the divine council
7 ldquoSpirit beingsrdquo such as the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are cre-
ated and thereore made o something Invisibility does not mean that
the invisible thing is immaterial All things created were made and
are made o some orm o matter whether we can detect it by our
sense or science or not o deny this would mean that ldquospirit beingsrdquo
are not part o the created order
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is no argument or his
deity (or rebuttal to the charge o blasphemy) i it is assumed that Jesus
thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans
B Position statements on Psalm 82 and the divine council with whichmany Latter-day Saints would probably disagree and with which manyevangelicals would likely agree
1 Te plural lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are ontologically inerior to
Yahweh Tat is Yahweh the God o Israel was considered ontologi-
cally unique in Israelite thought Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other
lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh
2 Te terms henotheism polytheism and monolatry are inade-quate to describe what it is Israel believed about God and the members
o his council
3 Yahweh is neither a son o El (Elyon) nor a god distinct rom
El (Elyon) in Israelite religion
4 Te notion o a godhead does not derive rom Hellenistic phi-
losophy Its antecedents are Israelite and Jewish
5 Yahweh was thereore not ldquobirthedrdquo into existence by the
ldquoolden godsrdquo described in Ugaritic texts Yahweh had no parent and
no beginning
6 Corporeal appearances o deity are not evidence that God the
Father has a corporeal nature
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7 Te concept o the image o God does not advance the idea
that there is a genus equation o God and humankind or that God wasonce a man
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is not to be interpreted
as though Jesus thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans and so
it provides no basis or a genus equation o God and humankind
While it would be true in many respects that the position statements
o group A are undamental to arguing against certain Latter-day
Saint ideas addressed in group B my strategy or most o this paper
will be to explain statements rom both groups in tandem through a
series o our topics
opic 1 Psalm 82 Gods or Men (items A1 A3)
Evangelical objections to divine plurality in Psalms usually take
the orm o casting the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o certain passages as humanbeings It is convenient at this point to reerence several verses in
Psalm 82
1 God (lt ĕlōhicircm) stands in the divine council in the midst
o the gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) he passes judgment
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High all
o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall
all as one o the princes
A ew observations will suffice Notice that in verse one the first
lt ĕlōhicircm must point to a singular being the God o Israel due to gram-
matical agreement with singular verb orms in the verse (niszligszligab and
yišpōdagger) Te second lt ĕlōhicircm must be plural because o the preposition
that precedes it Appeals to the rinity here are indeensible since the
plural lt ĕlōhicircm are being judged or their corruption in the rest o the2 It is also at times asserted that these lt ĕlōhicircm are only idols For a reutation o
that view see Michael S Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henothe-
ism oward an Assessment o Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Biblerdquo Bulletin o BiblicalResearch (orthcoming)
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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226 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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224 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
7 Te concept o the image o God does not advance the idea
that there is a genus equation o God and humankind or that God wasonce a man
8 Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 82 in John 10 is not to be interpreted
as though Jesus thought the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were humans and so
it provides no basis or a genus equation o God and humankind
While it would be true in many respects that the position statements
o group A are undamental to arguing against certain Latter-day
Saint ideas addressed in group B my strategy or most o this paper
will be to explain statements rom both groups in tandem through a
series o our topics
opic 1 Psalm 82 Gods or Men (items A1 A3)
Evangelical objections to divine plurality in Psalms usually take
the orm o casting the plural lt ĕlōhicircm o certain passages as humanbeings It is convenient at this point to reerence several verses in
Psalm 82
1 God (lt ĕlōhicircm) stands in the divine council in the midst
o the gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) he passes judgment
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High all
o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall
all as one o the princes
A ew observations will suffice Notice that in verse one the first
lt ĕlōhicircm must point to a singular being the God o Israel due to gram-
matical agreement with singular verb orms in the verse (niszligszligab and
yišpōdagger) Te second lt ĕlōhicircm must be plural because o the preposition
that precedes it Appeals to the rinity here are indeensible since the
plural lt ĕlōhicircm are being judged or their corruption in the rest o the2 It is also at times asserted that these lt ĕlōhicircm are only idols For a reutation o
that view see Michael S Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henothe-
ism oward an Assessment o Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Biblerdquo Bulletin o BiblicalResearch (orthcoming)
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 233
Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 239
a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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258 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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psalm and sentenced to ldquodie like humankindrdquo851972 In verse six the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm o 821 are reerred to once again as lt ĕlōhicircm but are urtheridentified as sons o the God o Israel (the Most High)
Te power o the ldquodivine beingsrdquo interpretation o the plural
lt ĕlōhicircm in this psalm derives rom both internal and external consid-
erations With respect to the ormer i the lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 are
humans why are they sentenced to die ldquolike humansrdquo Tis sounds as
awkward as sentencing a child to grow up or a dog to bark Te point
o verse 6 is that in response to their corruption the lt ĕlōhicircm will be
stripped o their immortality at Godrsquos discretion and die as humans
die Second what is the scriptural basis or the idea that this psalm
has God presiding over a council o humans that governs the nations
o the earth At no time in the Hebrew Bible did Israelrsquos elders ever
have jurisdiction over all the nations o the earth In act other divine
council texts such as Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have the situation exactly
oppositemdashIsrael was separated rom the nations to be Godrsquos personal
possession and the ocus o his ruleLastly and most tellingly Psalm 895ndash8 (Hebrew vv 6ndash9) renders
a human interpretation or the plural lt ĕlōhicircm nonsensical since this
unambiguously parallel text clearly states that the council o the sons
o God is in heaven not on earth
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders O L983151983154983140 your
aithulness in the assembly o the holy ones 6 For who in the
3 Plural language like that ound in Genesis 126 322 117 is most coherently
interpreted as exhortations or statements made by the singular God to his council mem-
bers an interpretive option that is not novel I these passages were the only passages that
evinced divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible and there were no explicit reerences to a
divine council one could perhaps iner the Godhead but this would be reading the New
estament back into the Old
4 Fuller deenses o this view accompanied by bibliographic sources are ound
in Michael S Heiser ldquoDeuteronomy 328 and the Sons o Godrdquo Bibliotheca Sacra 158
(JanuaryndashMarch 2001) 52ndash74 Willem S Prinsloo ldquoPsalm 82 Once Again Gods or
Menrdquo Biblica 762 (1995) 219ndash28 and Lowell K Handy ldquoSounds Words and Meaningsin Psalm 82rdquo Journal or the Study o the Old estament 1547 (1990) 51ndash66 Cyrus H
Gordon ldquoםיהל in Its Reputed Meaning o Rulers Judgesrdquo Journal o Biblical Literature54 (1935) 139ndash44
5 Te terms heavens and aithulness in these verses may be best understood
abstractly as ldquoheavenly onesrdquo and ldquoaithul onesrdquo
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skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 227
sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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228 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 239
a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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226 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
skies ( intašša˙aq) can be compared to the L983151983154983140 Who among
the sons o God (bi intnecirc lt ēlicircm) is like the L983151983154983140 7 the ear-some God in the council o the holy ones great and awesome
above all who are around him 8 O L983151983154983140 God o hosts who
is as powerul as you are O L983151983154983140 with your aithulness all
around you (Psalm 895ndash8)
Externally it is well known among Semitists and scholars o the
Hebrew Bible that the phrases bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc
hālt ĕlōhicircm have certifiable linguistic counterparts in Ugaritic textsreerring to a council o gods under El and that the meaning o these
phrases in the Hebrew Bible points to divine beings Tose who work
outside the primary texts are ofen unaware o these data and thus ail
to discern their significance
Evangelical scholars have commonly appealed to Exodus 216 and
228ndash9 as proo that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are humans Neither pas-
6 Tere are several general phrases or a council o gods that provide a conceptual
parallel with the Hebrew Bible p∆r lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o El the godsrdquo (Gregorio Del
Olmo Lete and Joaquiacuten Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆rrdquo in A Dictionary o the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic radition [hereafer DULA ] 2669 Keilalphabetische exte aus Ugarit [here-
afer KU] 14729 111828 11489 p∆r bn lt ilmmdashldquothe assembly o the sons o El the godsrdquo
(DULA 2669 KU 14III14) p∆r kkbmmdashldquothe assembly o the starsrdquo (DULA 2670
KU 110I4 the phrase is parallel to bn lt il in the same text see Job 387ndash8) mp∆rt bnlt il mdashldquothe assembly o the godsrdquo (DULA 2566 see KU 1653 c 14025 42 along with
bn lt il in 14033 41 and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same textmdashlines 7 16
24 1627 112315) O closer linguistic relationship to material in the Hebrew Bible are
gt dt lt ilmmdashldquoassembly o El the godsrdquo (DULA 1152 see KU 115II 7 11) dr lt il mdashldquoassem-
bly (circle) o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 See KU 115III19 1397 116216 18718) dr bnlt il mdashldquoassembly (circle) o the sons o Elrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 14025 33ndash34) dr dtšmmmdashldquoassembly (circle) o those o heavenrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see KU 110I 3 5) drlt il wp∆r bgt lmdashldquothe assembly (circle) o El and the assembly o Baalrdquo (DULA 1279ndash80 see
KU 1397 16216 18718) Tis list hardly exhausts the parallels between the dwelling
place o El which served as the meeting place o the divine council at Ugarit and the abode
o Yahweh
7 Another attempt to avoid taking Psalm 82 at ace value is to argue that reer-
ences to Moses as lt ĕlōhicircm (Exodus 416 71) Israel as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo (Exodus 423 Hosea111) and Israelites as ldquosons o the living Godrdquo (Hosea 110 [Hebrews 21]) mean that the
lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 are human rulers namely the elders o Israel None o these reerences
undoes the act that the council o lt ĕlōhicircm is a heavenly one in Psalms 82 and 89 In act
I have never actually seen any publication objecting to the lt ĕlōhicircm as divine beings that
includes discussion o Psalm 89 A ull answer as to the import and meaning o Moses as
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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228 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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sage is any help or that view actually Exodus 211ndash6 recounts the pro-
cedure undertaken when a slave chooses to stay with his master ratherthan go ree Part o that procedure reads ldquothen his master shall bring
him to lt ĕlōhicircm and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost
And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
be his slave oreverrdquo Te word lt ĕlōhicircm here can easily be translated
as a singular (ldquoGodrdquo) and ofen is making an appeal to this text as a
plural tenuous However it seems quite plausible that the final editor
o Deuteronomy thought it might be a plural or deemed that it could
be understood as a plural because in the parallel passage to Exodus
211ndash6 ound in Deuteronomy 1515ndash18 the reerence to bringing the
slave beore lt ĕlōhicircm has been removed A removal only makes sense
i a later editor in the wake o Israelrsquos punishment or ollowing afer
other gods thought that lt ĕlōhicircm might sound theologically inappro-
priate I the word was understood as reerring to plural humans there
would be no such need to remove it O course an original Mosaic
text in Deuteronomy 15 may simply have omitted this detail or someindiscernible reason Tat option o course would lend no weight to
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view since lt ĕlōhicircm can easily be translated as sin-
gular in the passage
Exodus 227ndash9 (Hebrew vv 6ndash8) is also interesting but lends no
credence to the argument that plural lt ĕlōhicircm reers to humans
lt ĕlōhicircm and human beings as Godrsquos children requires a good deal o background discus-
sion related to the divine council Te oundational reason is that in the Israelite worldview
the earthly amily o the Most High was originally intended to dwell where the Most High
and the heavenly council dwelt Hence the explicit and requent overlap between Israelite
and wider Canaanite material with respect to descriptions o Yahwehrsquos abode his council
divine Sonship (in heaven and on earth) and council activity Te bibliography related to
these themes is copious though not synthesized See or example Richard J Clifford TeCosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old estament (Cambridge MA Harvard University
Press 1972) Brendan Byrne ldquoSons o GodrdquomdashldquoSeed o Abrahamrdquo A Study o the Idea othe Sonship o God o All Christians in Paul against the Jewish Background (Rome Biblical
Institute Press 1979) Harald Rieseneld ldquoSons o God and Ecclesia An Intertestamental
Analysisrdquo in Renewing the Judeo-Christian Wellsprings ed Val A McInnes (New YorkCrossroad 1987) 89ndash104 James abor ldquoFirstborn o Many Brothers A Pauline Notion o
Apotheosisrdquo in Society o Biblical Literature 1984 Seminar Papers (Atlanta Scholars Press
1984) 295ndash303 Devorah Dimant ldquoMen as Angels Te Sel-Image o the Qumran Com-
munityrdquo in Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East ed Adele Berlin (Bethesda MD
University Press o America 1996) 93ndash103
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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7 I a man gives to his neighbor money or goods to keep
sae and it is stolen rom the manrsquos house then i the thieis ound he shall pay double 8 I the thie is not ound the
owner o the house shall come near to God (lt ĕlōhicircm) to show
whether or not he has put his hand to his neighborrsquos property
9 For every breach o trust whether it is or an ox or a donkey
or a sheep or a cloak or or any kind o lost thing o which
one says ldquoTis is itrdquo the case o both parties shall come beore
God (lt ĕlōhicircm) Te one whom God (lt ĕlōhicircm) condemns shall
pay double to his neighbor (English Standard Version ESV)
Te question is whether lt ĕlōhicircm speaks o the lone God o Israel or o
plural individuals (Israelrsquos elders) o address this question we must
consider the passage in Exodus 18 where Jethro appeals to Moses to
select helpers
13 Te next day Moses sat to judge the people and the peo-
ple stood around Moses rom morning till evening 14 WhenMosesrsquo ather-in-law saw all that he was doing or the people
he said ldquoWhat is this that you are doing or the people Why
do you sit alone and all the people stand around you rom
morning till eveningrdquo 15 And Moses said to his ather-in-law
ldquoBecause the people come to me to inquire o God (lt ĕlōhicircm)
16 when they have a dispute they come to me and I decide
between one person and another and I make them know thestatutes o God and his lawsrdquo 17 Mosesrsquo ather-in-law said to
him ldquoWhat you are doing is not good 18 You and the people
with you will certainly wear yourselves out or the thing is
too heavy or you You are not able to do it alone 19 Now obey
my voice I will give you advice and God (lt ĕlōhicircm) be with
you You shall represent the people beore God (hālt ĕlōhicircm)
and bring their cases to God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) 20 and you shall
warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them
know the way in which they must walk and what they must
do 21 Moreover look or able men rom all the people men
who ear God who are trustworthy and hate a bribe and
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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place such men over the people as chies o thousands o hun-
dreds o fifies and o tens 22 And let them judge the peopleat all times Every great matter they shall bring to you but any
small matter they shall decide themselves So it will be easier
or you and they will bear the burden with you 23 I you do
this God will direct you you will be able to endure and all
this people also will go to their place in peacerdquo 24 So Moses
listened to the voice o his ather-in-law and did all that he
had said 25 Moses chose able men out o all Israel and madethem heads over the people chies o thousands o hundreds
o fifies and o tens 26 And they judged the people at all
times Any hard case they brought to Moses but any small
matter they decided themselves 27 Ten Moses let his ather-
in-law depart and he went away to his own country (Exodus
1813ndash27)
Te points to be made here are straightorward (1) the menappointed by Moses are never called lt ĕlōhicircm or hālt ĕlōhicircm in the text
(2) even afer the elders are appointed the singular God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) is
still hearing cases which may suggest the same is happening in Exo-
dus 228 and (3) one cannot argue that hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to God while
lt ĕlōhicircm minus the article (the orm in Exodus 228) reers to the human
elders since lt ĕlōhicircm and hālt ĕlōhicircm are interchanged in verse 19 with
reerence to the singular God o Israel Even the act that lt ĕlōhicircm in Exo-dus 228 agrees with a plural predicator does not orce us to interpret
hālt ĕlōhicircm in that verse as reerring to a group Te noun lt ĕlōhicircm plus
plural predication occurs in one o nine instances o which I am aware
in the Hebrew Bible For now it should be noted that only one o them
might indicate plural divine beings but that is shaky at best and would
only serve to argue in my avor here Other instances such as 2 Samuel
8 Tese passages are Genesis 2013 357 Exodus 228 1 Samuel 2813 2 Samuel723 1 Kings 192 2010 Psalm 5812
9 I speak here o Genesis 357 A case or plurality can be coherently argued but it
would require an exceptional instance where hālt ĕlōhicircm reers to multiple divine beings
or Israel Elsewhere hālt ĕlōhicircm is ound in contexts where oreign gods are the reerent
but this would be the lone occasion or the council gods o Israel
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 231
Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 239
a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 231
Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 239
a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 231
Both proposals ail on a number o levels With respect to the first
option it is evasive to appeal to inept redactors when onersquos theory o acampaign to stamp out polytheistic texts encounters a ldquoproblem pas-
sagerdquo especially when Psalm 82 is by no means the only text evincing
divine plurality and a divine council ldquomissedrdquo by redactors o cite but
one example there are explicit reerences to gods and a divine council
in Second emple period Jewish literature In the Qumran sectarian
material alone there are approximately 185 occurrences o lt ĕlōhicircmhālt ĕlōhicircm bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm bĕnecirc lt ecirclōhicircm and bĕnecirc hālt ĕlōhicircm in contexts
where a divine council is mentioned with the same vocabulary (gt ēƒāhsocircd qāhāl ) utilized in texts o the Hebrew Bible or a divine assem-
bly983044 In act it is apparent that some o these reerences allude to or
draw on canonical material I there was a campaign to allegedly cor-
rect ancient texts and their polytheistic views the postexilic Jewish
community either did not get the message or ignored it
Concerning the second viewpoint that polytheism is being used
rhetorically in Psalm 82 much is made o the last verse in that psalmwhere God is asked to rise up and possess the nations (828) Tis
is interpreted as a new idea o the psalmist to encourage the exilic
communitymdashthat despite exile Yahweh will rise up and take the
nations as his own having sentenced the other gods to death Tis
view ignores preexilic texts such as Psalm 24 and 29 long recognized
as some o the most ancient material in the canon983044 For example
Psalm 291 contains plural imperatives directed at the bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm pointing to a divine council context Verse 10 declares ldquoTe L983151983154983140 sits
enthroned over the flood the L983151983154983140 sits enthroned as king oreverrdquo
In Israelite cosmology the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated
over the solid dome that covered the round flat earth Since it cannot
Simon B Parker ldquoTe Beginning o the Reign o GodmdashPsalm 82 as Myth and Liturgyrdquo
Revue Biblique 102 (1995) 532ndash59
14 Heiser ldquoTe Divine Councilrdquo 176ndash213
15 Some scholars date the poetry o this psalm to the period between the twelfh andtenth centuries 983138983139983141 See Frank M Cross Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic Essays in theHistory o the Religion o Israel (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1973) 91ndash93
See also David N Freedman ldquoWho Is Like Tee among the Gods Te Religion o Early
Israelrdquo in Ancient Israelite Religion Essays in Honor o Frank Moore Cross ed Patrick D
Miller Jr Paul D Hanson and S Dean McBride (Philadelphia Fortress 1987) 317
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232 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 233
Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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234 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 239
a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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coherently be asserted that the author would assert that Gentile
nations were not under the dome and flood this verse reflects the ideao world kingship Te Song o Moses also among the oldest poetry in
the Hebrew Bible echoes the thought In Exodus 1518 the text reads
ldquoTe L983151983154983140 will reign orever and everrdquo As Frank M Cross noted over
thirty years ago ldquoTe kingship o the gods is a common theme in early
Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics Te common scholarly position
that the concept o Yahweh as reigning king is a relatively late develop-
ment in Israelite thought seems untenablerdquo983044 I would agree
Te objection that naturally arises in response is that statements rom
the mouth o Yahweh that ldquothere is none beside merdquo are denials o the
existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm Te problem with this argument is threeold
First all the denial statements made by Isaiah and other prophets
have exact or near exact linguistic equivalents in two passages univer-
sally regarded as containing ldquovestigesrdquo o other godsmdashDeuteronomy
419ndash20 and 328ndash9983044 Tese statements actually speak to Yahwehrsquos
incomparability among all the other lt ĕlōhicircm not to the denial o theexistence o other lt ĕlōhicircm
Te second problem concerns Deuteronomy 3217 a text that
alludes to the ailures o Israel in disobeying the warnings o Deuter-
onomy 419ndash20983044 Tis text quite clearly has Moses reerring to the
other lt ĕlōhicircm as evil spiritual entities (šēdicircm) ldquoTey [Israel] sacrificed
to demons (šēdicircm) who are not God (lt ĕlōah)983044 to gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) they did
not know new ones that had come along recently whom your athershad not reverencedrdquo While these lesser lt ĕlōhicircm are linked to the statues
that represented them in the mind o their worshippers (Deuteronomy
428 725 2864) these beings must be considered real spiritual entities
16 Frank M Cross and David N Freedman Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula M Scholars Press 1975) 65 n 59
17 See the discussion o the linguistic work published in this area in Nathan Mac-
Donald Deuteronomy and the Meaning o ldquoMonotheismrdquo (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2003)
and Heiser ldquoMonotheism Polytheism Monolatry or Henotheismrdquo (orthcoming) 18 For example Deuteronomy 173 2925ndash26 3017 3116 3216
19 Note that lt ĕlōah is singular and so the translation ldquo who are not godsrdquo is
inaccurate Such a translation is also awkward in light o the ollowing plural lt ĕlōhicircm
Arguing that the lt ĕlōhicircm were merely idols creates contradictions with other portions o
Deuteronomy and the Hebrew Bible
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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236 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Te command in Deuteronomy 3243 (reading with Qumran) ldquobow
down to him all you godsrdquo assumes this as well o reject the reality othese entities in the Israelite worldview is to cast the canonical writer as
someone who did not believe in the reality o demons a position out o
step with other canonical authors
Lastly there is a logic problem I one goes back and reads the
denial statements in Deutero-Isaiah it is not difficult to discern uponwhat basis the denial language occurs Is the language concerned with
making the point that Yahweh is the only god who exists or something
else In Isaiah 4310ndash12 Yahweh claims to be unique in his preexistence
in his ability to save and in his national deliverance In Isaiah 446ndash8
the ocus is on certain attributes o Yahweh In the texts rom Isaiah
45 there are very obvious comparisons between Yahwehrsquos deeds jus-
tice salvation and deliverance o his children and the impotence o
the other gods All these passages are transparently concerned with
comparing Yahweh to other godsmdashnot comparing Yahweh to beings
that do not exist Tat would be empty praise indeedbull Presupposition 2 Yahweh and El were at one time separate dei-
ties in the primitive stage o Israelrsquos religion
Many scholars who hold to the evolutionary trajectory o Israelite
religion described above hold that Yahweh and El are cast as separate
deities in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 Tis notion has been put
orth most recently by Mark S Smith and the late Simon B Parker
Mormon scholarship ofen reerences the writings o Margaret Barkerin this regard as well According to Smith Parker and Barker pas-
sages like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 have Yahweh as a son o El-Elyon Uti-
lizing these sources LDS scholars state
Yahweh was preeminent among the sons o El in the Israel-
ite conception Te gods o this heavenly council were assigned
to be the gods o various nations (Deuteronomy 328) and Yah-
weh was the god o Israel As Israelite thought developed El asthe Father receded into the background and Yahweh contin-
ued to gain in prominence1048624
20 Brant A Gardner ldquoMonotheism Messiah and Mormonrsquos Bookrdquo 2003 www
airldsorgFAIR_Conerences (accessed 6 November 2006)
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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In the earliest Israelite conception according to this view
ather El had a divine son named Jehovah or Yahweh El orElyon (ldquothe Highestrdquo or ldquoMost Highrdquo) and Yahweh were dis-
tinct Indeed the apparent original reading o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 seems to indicate a number o ldquosons o Elrdquo among
whom Yahweh was the most prominent
Gradually it seems El aded into the background as Yah-
weh his preeminent son came to the ore983044
As a son Yahweh was a created being Mormon scholarship finds
evidence or this in the material o Ugarit since El was the ather-
creator o the other gods along with his wie Asherah In act Mor-
mon scholars argue that the biblical El (the Father o Yahweh) was
himsel created on the basis o Ugaritic religion which has El being
athered by still older gods Te rise o Yahweh as preeminent son
is important to Mormon theology since Latter-day Saints hold that
Jesus was the incarnation o Yahweh Evangelicals would say the same
thing but Mormonismrsquos perspective on this is related to a distinction
between EL and Yahweh
In terms o an evaluation o the separateness o El and Yahweh
Latter-day Saint scholars have too blithely accepted the positions o
Smith Parker and Barker All is not nearly as tidy as they propose I
have detailed the weaknesses o this idea elsewhere and so I offer only
a ew observations here851972
First the separation o El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
in part depends on the decision to take the kicirc o 329 as adversative
thereby denoting some contrast between Elyon o 328 and Yahweh o
21 Daniel C Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquo Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature o Humankindrdquo in Te Disciple as Scholar Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor o Richard Lloyd Anderson ed Stephen D Ricks Donald W
Parry and Andrew H Hedges (Provo U FARMS 2000) 492 493 emphasis removed 22 Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489 On the ldquoolden godsrdquo see Cross Canaanite Mythand Hebrew Epic 40ndash41 Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 641ndash45
23 Michael S Heiser ldquoAre Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 328ndash9 and
Psalm 82rdquo HIPHIL 3 (2006) available at wwwsee-jnetDeaultaspxtabid=77 (accessed
15 March 2007)
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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258 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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329 (ldquoHowever [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquos portion is his peoplerdquo) Other scholars
however consider the kicirc o 329 to be emphatic ldquo And lo [kicirc ] Yahwehrsquosportion is his peoplerdquo Other scholars accept the adversative use but
do not separate El and Yahweh in the passage Since scholarship on
this construction lacks consensus conclusions based on the adversa-
tive syntactical choice are not secure
Second Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title ldquoMost Highrdquo
(gt lyn or the shorter gt l ) is never used o El in the Ugaritic corpus In
point o act it is Baal a second-tier deity who twice receives this titleas the ruler o the gods LDS scholars who ofen reer to Yahweh as
the second-tier deity under El lt ĕlōhicircm have not accounted or this act
Te point here is to rebut the argument that the mere occurrence o the
term gt elyocircn certainly points to El in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 Due to the
well-established attribution o Baal epithets to Yahweh the title gt elyocircn
could conceivably point directly to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 It
is also worth recalling that i Smith is correct that Yahweh and El weremerged by the eighth century 983138983139983141 due to the transeral o Asherah
to Yahweh as consort then a Yahweh-El usion had occurred beore
Deuteronomy was composed Hence it would have been possible or
the author o Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head o the divine
council Indeed what point would the Deuteronomic author have had
24 Italics are or emphasis For the arguments or an adversative - see James Muiכי
lenburg ldquoTe Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages o the Particleכי
in the Old estamentrdquo
Hebrew Union College Annual 32 (1961) 139ndash40 and sevat ldquoGod and the Gods in
Assemblyrdquo 132 n 28
25 Italics are or emphasis See Anton Schoors ldquoTe Particle rdquoכי Old estament Stud-ies 21 (1981) 240ndash53 Jeffrey H igay Te Jewish Publication Society orah CommentaryDeuteronomy Te raditional Hebrew ext with the New JPS ranslation (Philadelphia
Jewish Publication Society 1996) 303 Duane L Christensen Deuteronomy 2110ndash3412
(Nashville Nelson 2002) 791 (n 9a-a) 796
26 Paul Sanders Te Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden Brill 1996) 159ndash60
363ndash74 esp 373
27 Marjo C A Korpel A Rif in the Clouds Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions othe Divine (Muumlnster Ugarit Verlag 1990) 276 Nicholas Wyatt ldquoTe itles o the Uga-
ritic Storm-Godrdquo Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992) 419 Eric E Elnes and Patrick D Miller
ldquoElyonrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 294
28 See KU 116III6 8 Wyatt ldquoUgaritic Storm-Godrdquo 419 Peterson incorrectly has
El as king o the gods (Peterson ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 489)
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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in mind to bring back a Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected
two hundred years priorTird although gt elyocircn is paired with El in the Hebrew Bible as
Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller point out it is most ofen an epithet o
Yahweh Smith and Parker are o course well aware o this but attri-
bute it to ldquolater traditionrdquo contending that in Deuteronomy 328ndash9
the title o Elyon should be associated with El distinct rom Yahweh
Again this would be most curious i Yahweh and El had been used
as early as the eighth century In this regard it is interesting that
other texts as early as the eighth century speak o Yahweh perorm-
ing the same deeds credited to gt elyocircn in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 For
example Isaiah 1013 has Yahweh in control o the boundaries o
the nations8519721048624 It appears that the presupposition o an early Yahweh
and El separation requires the exegete to argue or ldquoa later traditionrdquo
at this point
Fourth separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 328ndash9 is
internally inconsistent within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy atlarge Tis assertion is demonstrated by the two preceding verses 6
and 7 Tose two verses attribute no less than five well-recognized El
epithets to Yahweh demonstrating that the redactors who ashioned
Deuteronomy recognized the union o El with Yahweh as one would
expect at this point in Israelrsquos religion851972983044
29 Elnes and Mil ler ldquoElyonrdquo 296
30 Jos Luyten ldquoPrimeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song o Moses (D 32
1ndash43)rdquo in Das Deuteronomium Entstehung Gestalt und Botschaf ed Norbert Lohfink
(Leuven Leuven University Press 1985) 342
31 See Sanders Provenance o Deuteronomy 32 360ndash61 Tese verses clearly con-
tain elements drawn rom ancient descriptions o El and attribute them to Yahweh At
Ugarit El is called lt ab lt adm (ldquoather o mankindrdquo KU 114I37 43) and regr lt il lt abh lt ilmkl dyknnh (ldquoBull El his ather El the king who establishes himrdquo KU 13V35ndash36 14
I4ndash6) Yahweh is described as the ldquoatherrdquo (lt ā inticirckā) who ldquoestablished yourdquo ( yĕ not ōnĕnekā)
Yahweh is also the one who ldquocreatedrdquo Israel (qānekā) in verse six Te root qny denot-
ing El as creator is ound in the Karatepe inscriptionrsquos appeal to lt l qn lt r szlig (ldquoEl creator
o the earthrdquo Herbert Donner and Wolgang Roumlllig Kanaanaumlische und AramaumlischeInschrifen 4th ed Band 1 [Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1979] the text cited is KAI26III18ndash19) At Ugarit the verb occurs in the El epithet qny wlt adn lt ilm (ldquocreator and
lord o the godsrdquo KU 13V9) and Baal calls El qnyn (ldquoour creatorrdquo KU 110III5)
Genesis 1419 22 also attributes this title to El Deuteronomy 327 reerences the yĕmocirctgt ocirclām (ldquoages pastrdquo) and šĕnocirct docircr-wăƒocircr (ldquothe years o many generationsrdquo) which cor-
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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242 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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Last but not least in importance the idea o Yahweh receiving
Israel as his allotted nation rom his Father El is internally inconsis-tent in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy 419ndash20 a passage recognized
by all who comment on these issues as an explicit parallel to 328ndash9
the text inorms us that it was Yahweh who ldquoallottedrdquo (˙lq) the nations
to the host o heaven and who ldquotookrdquo (lq ) Israel as his own inheri-
tance (c Deuteronomy 926 29 2925) Neither the verb orms nor
the ideas are passive Israel was not given to Yahweh by El which is
the picture that scholars who separate El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy
32 want to ashion In view o the close relationship o Deuteronomy
328ndash9 to Deuteronomy 419ndash20 it is more consistent to have Yahweh
taking Israel or his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord
o the council
In summary the Mormon material I have read on this issue tells
me quite clearly that the matter has not been closely analyzed Latter-
day Saint scholars have too quickly assumed that Smith Parker and
Barker have settled the issue Tey have notbull Presupposition 3 We must use seventeenth-century English vo-
cabulary to define an ancient Semitic worldview
Does the affirmation o the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm by the canoni-
cal authors disqualiy Israelite religion as monotheistic Are other
terms used in academic discourse or ancient religious pantheons
more appropriate Te short answer to both questions in the view o
this writer is a qualified no Te answer is qualified with respect to therespond respectively to Elrsquos description (gt lm Mitchell Dahood with adeusz Penar
ldquoUgartic-Hebrew Parallel Pairsrdquo in Ras Shamra Parallels Te exts rom Ugarit and theHebrew Bible ed Loren R Fisher F Brent Knutson Donn F Morgan [Rome Pontifica l
Institute 1972] 294ndash95) and title (lt ab šnm ldquoather o yearsrdquo KU 16I36 117VI49)
at Ugarit Since the El epithets o Deuteronomy 326ndash7 are well known to scholars o
Israelite religion those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in Deuteron-
omy 328ndash9 are lef to explain why the redactor o verses 6ndash7 would unite Yahweh and
El and in the next stroke separate them Tose who crafed the text o Deuteronomy
32 would have either expressed diametrical ly oppositional views o Yahwehrsquos status inconsecutive verses or have allowed a presumed original separation o Yahweh and El to
stand in the textmdashwhile adding verses 6ndash7 in which the names describe a single deity It
is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless unskilled or conused I they
were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect this potential
conusion to have been quickly removed
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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240 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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a worship o one god afer anotherrdquo851972 Teophile J Meek reerred to
preexilic Israelite religion as both henotheistic and monolatrous851972thereby equating the two based on the prohibition o worship-
ping other gods But did the canonical Israelite writer believe that
Yahweh was superior on the basis o sociopolitical actors or was
Yahweh intrinsically ldquootherrdquo with respect to his nature and certain
attributes Did the writer view Yahweh as only a being who could
not be limited by the powers o other deities or was there something
unique about Yahweh that both transcended and produced this total
reedom
H H Rowley reacting to the work o Meek moved toward the
idea o uniqueness but did so using the word henotheism What dis-
tinguished Mosaic religion in his mind rom that o other henotheists
was ldquonot so much the teaching that Yahweh was to be the only God or
Israel as the proclamation that Yahweh was uniquerdquo851972 Rowleyrsquos ocus
on uniqueness was on the right track but his approach has the disad-
vantage o trying to convince the academic community to redefine aterm whose meaning by now is entrenched
Te proposal offered here is that scholars should stop trying to
define Israelrsquos religion with singular imprecise modern terms and
instead stick to describing what Israel believed Monotheism as it is
currently understood means that no other gods exist Tis term is
inadequate or describing Israelite religion but suggesting it be done
away with would no doubt cause considerable consternation among
certain parts o the academic community not to mention the inter-
ested laity Henotheism and monolatry while perhaps better are
inadequate because they do not say enough about what the canonical
writer believed Israel was certainly monolatrous but that term com-
ments only on what Israel believed about the proper object o worship
not what it believed about Yahwehrsquos nature and attributes with respect
to the other gods
35 Yusa ldquoHenotheismrdquo 63913 quoting Muumlller Selected Essays 137
36 Teophile J Meek ldquoMonotheism and the Religion o Israelrdquo Journal o BiblicalLiterature 61 (1942) 21ndash43
37 H H Rowley ldquoMoses and Monotheismrdquo in From Moses to Qumran Studies inthe Old estament (New York Association Press 1963) 45
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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In my judgment it is not difficult to demonstrate that the writers
o the Hebrew Bible held a firm uncompromising belie in Yahwehrsquosldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo among the other gods assumed to exist In brie-
est terms the statements in the canonical text (poetic or otherwise)
inorm the reader that or the biblical writer Yahweh was an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm was Yahwehmdashand never was nor could be Tis
notion allows or the existence o other lt ĕlōhicircm and is more precise
than the terms polytheism and henotheism It is also more accurate
than monotheism though it preserves the element o that conception
that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity Yah-
wehrsquos solitary ldquoothernessrdquo with respect to all that ismdashboth in heaven
and in earth
At this juncture I would expect Mormon scholars to ask a air
question on what grounds can this description o species-uniqueness
be established Tat will be a ocus in topic 3 but first I will deal with
one more presupposition
bull Presupposition 4 Te word lt ĕlōhicircm necessarily speaks o theontological traits o the God o Israel thereby tagging the word with
ldquospecies-exclusivityrdquo
We have unortunately become accustomed to talking and writ-
ing about the word lt ĕlōhicircm with imprecision Since the word is ofen
used as a proper noun in the Hebrew Bible and since we have used a
modern term like monotheism to define what Israelites believed let-
ting the text say what it plainly saysmdashthat there are multiple lt ĕlōhicircm mdashhas become a painul earul experience or evangelicals Tis pho-
bia can be (and should be) cured by letting the text o the Hebrew
Bible hold sway over our theology
Te acts o the text are straightorward Tere are a number o
different entities called lt ĕlōhicircm in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is an
lt ĕlōhicircm in act he is called hālt ĕlōhicircm (ldquothe Godrdquo) when compared to
other lt ĕlōhicircm (eg Deuteronomy 435) Tere are also lt ĕlōhicircm (ldquosons
o the Most High sons o Godrdquo) who are not Yahweh (eg Psalm
821 6) Demons (šēdicircm) are reerred to as lt ĕlōhicircm (Deuteronomy
3217) as are the departed human dead (1 Samuel 2813) Other than
the mal lt ā not yhwh (ldquoAngel o Yahwehrdquo) there are no instances where
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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able 1 Beings Tat Are Real Tat Exist394041424344
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Earthly Plane of Reality
Beings Tat by Nature Occupy the
Spiritual Plane of Reality
(beings that when mature by nature
have visible corporealitymdasheg ldquoflesh
and bonerdquo)
(beings that by nature do not have visi-
ble corporeality but that may or may
not have materiality depending on
whether they are created beings)851972
errestrial Lie lt ĕlōhicircm
Within the ldquohigherrdquo term one findsldquospecies-differentiationrdquo
Plants
Animals
(some with nepheš )Humans1048624
(flesh + nepheš )
(Israelite) YHWH-EL983044Sons o God
Demons851972
Human disembodied dead
39 lt Ĕlōhicircm is a ldquoplane o realityrdquo termmdashit denotes a beingrsquos primary or proper (but
not necessarily exclusive) ldquoplace o residencerdquo For example Yahweh is still omnipresentbut is requently spoken o having a throne ldquosomewhererdquo Demons seek bodies to possess
Te sons o God and the lt ĕlōhicircm angels o Genesis 18ndash19 took corporeal orm Tereore
lt ĕlōhicircm may take on flesh and bone but their intrinsic nature does not include either
Humans get to see the other side in ecstatic experiences and the disembodied dead can
be contacted and appear on the earthly plane
40 No human being has any unique quality or attribute that no other human had or
has Hence there is no division o species or species-uniqueness under the broader term
human Tough unique (cloning excepted) DNA does not produce another species only
variation within a species
41 Yahweh is an lt ĕlōhicircm but no other lt ĕlōhicircm are Yahweh Yahweh is hālt ĕlōhicircm 42 ldquoSonsrdquo o the Most High = sons o Yahweh i indeed Yahweh and Elyon are the
same which the text (in my judgment) clearly indicates Tese are o lower ontological
status than Yahweh since they are created Tey also have a lower status in Yahwehrsquos
bureaucracy (c the patriarchal or royal house analogy) Tese ldquosonsrdquo (called so because
o their creation) are lt ĕlōhicircm and some (at least) serve Yahweh as messengers (mal lt ā not icircm)
In this way the three-tiered (some want our) bureaucracy common to divine council
discussion is coherent Lastly these lt ĕlōhicircm may be loyal to Yahweh or allen Te act
that they are rebellious and evil does not remove them rom this reality plane
43 Demons are o lower ontological status than Yahweh since they are created I
demons originated as described in extracanonical literature such as 1 Enoch (and they
might since it appears the biblical material on the Rephaim is analogous with or without
an emendation to nplym in Ezekiel 3227) then they are o lower ontological class than
the ldquosonsrdquo class above since they would have had a human parent
44 Te disembodied dead exist on the ldquospiritual planerdquo (the ldquoother siderdquo) and so are
called lt ĕlōhicircm Tis is quite consistent with the rest o ancient Near Eastern material
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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One could object that the idea o ldquospecies-uniquenessrdquo is unintel-
ligible with respect to divine beings perhaps by analogy to the humanworld I am human yet no other human is me but all humans share the
same species status Hence one can be unique in properties but species-uniqueness is a allacy Te analogy with humankind is flawed however
since no such claim as preexistence beore all humans is seriously offered
An attribute shared by no other member in the species by definition makes
that entity species-unique despite any other shared qualities
o summarize this topic I wish to stress two important acts
(1) Te idea o an evolution in Israelite religion toward monotheism is a
commonly held position but it lacks coherence and explanatory power
when it comes to the canonical text and later Jewish material (2) Te
idea that El and Yahweh were once separate deities also lacks coherence
It remains to be seen and likely depends on LDS input how essential
those ideas are to their belies I they are essential then their ounda-
tion lacks the kind o certitude I would think they are seeking
opic 3 Te Notion of a Godhead in Israelite and Jewish Tought
(items A5 A7 B4 B6)
Latter-day Saints accept the idea o a godhead but one that differs
somewhat rom traditional Christian orthodoxy Some statements
rom LDS scholars are illustrative
We accept indeed devoutly affirm the oneness the inex-
pressibly rich unity o Father Son and Holy Spirit We could
even I suppose employ the words rinity and trinitarian-ismmdashas Elder James E almagersquos hugely influential 1899 work
on Te Articles o Faith in act doesmdashthough we typically do
not Te Bible testifies to this important truth and so even more
explicitly do the peculiarly Latter-day Saint scriptures We do
not (borrowing a description o polytheism that Paul Owen
cites) ldquopostulate different gods to account or different kinds oeventsrdquo We simply eel no need to endorse the doctrine o onto-
logical unity worked out most prominently at Nicea
45 Daniel C Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo
FARMS Review o Books 141ndash2 (2002) xvii remarks at the debate organized under the
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244 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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Latter-day Saints know nothing o an ontological ldquosub-
stancerdquo to ldquodividerdquo we resolutely decline to ldquoconoundrdquo theldquopersonsrdquo We affirm that the Father and the Son are distinct
personages o flesh and bone Te preincarnate Jesus was
revealed to ancient Israel as the Yahweh o the Hebrew Bible
Elohim o course is plural in orm And sometimes it is
clearly plural in meaning But even when it reers to a single
divine person it implies plurality
First there is only one God because the Father is thesupreme monarch o our universe Tere is no other God to
whom we could switch our allegiance and there never will be
such a being He is ldquothe Eternal God o all other godsrdquo (DampC
12132) Elder Boyd K Packer writes ldquoTe Father is the one true
God Tis thing is certain no one will ever ascend above Him
no one will ever replace Him Nor will anything ever change
the relationship that we His literal offspring have with Him
He is Elohim the Father He is God o Him there is only one
We revere our Father and our God we worship Himrdquo
Second the Father Son and Holy Spirit are so unified in
mind will love and covenant that they can collectively be
called ldquoone Godrdquo (see 2 Nephi 3121 DampC 2028) Elder
Bruce R McConkie explained ldquoMonotheism is the doctrine or
belie that there is but one God I this is properly interpreted
to mean that the Father Son and Holy Ghostmdasheach o whomis a separate and distinct godly personagemdashare one God
meaning one Godhead then true saints are monotheistsrdquo
auspices o the Society o Evangelical Philosophers in conjunction with the joint annual
national meeting o the American Academy o Religion and the Society o Biblical Litera-
ture (the AARSBL) 17 November 2001 Te citation o Paul Owen comes rom ldquoMono-
theism Mormonism and the New estament Witnessrdquo in Te New Mormon Challenge Responding to the Latest Deenses o a Fast-Growing Movement (Grand Rapids MI
Zondervan 2002) 278 Underlining is my own 46 Peterson ldquoHistorical Concreteness or Speculative Abstractionrdquo xviindashxviii
47 Citing Boyd K Packer Let Not Your Heart Be roubled (Salt Lake City Bookcraf
1991) 293 emphasis in original
48 Citing Bruce R McConkie ldquoMonotheismrdquo in Mormon Doctrine 2nd ed (Salt
Lake City Bookcraf 1966) 511
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 247
attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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250 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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258 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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Tird even though an innumerable host o beings may be
gods and though many more will become such there is stillonly one God because all o them are unified in essentially the
same way as the Father Son and Holy Spirit Tereore the
act that the Father has a ather and that his sons and daugh-
ters may be deified has no particular bearing on the question
o whether there is one God
While we believe in the existence o many separate beings
who are correctly termed ldquoGodsrdquo in a very real sense they areall one
Inormed Latter-day Saints see Elohim and Jehovah
as divine name-titles that are usually applied to specific mem-
bers o the Godhead but can sometimes be applied to any or
all o them1048624
Members o the Church o Jesus Christ and creedal Chris-
tians affirm together that Jesus Christ is true God and true man
However since Latter-day Saints reject the notion o creatio ex
nihilo [which would make the Father ontologically unique] we
can also consistently assert that Jesus is subordinate in rank
and glory to the Father and was created by the Father983044
Te acceptance by Latter-day Saints o the anthropomor-
phic God o the Bible requires us to reject the Greek notion othe absolute uniqueness o the one God Tat God is in some
sense unique and that there is a ldquoCreator creature distinctionrdquo
are acts taken or granted by Latter-day Saints but to us this
does not imply some unbridgeable ldquoontological gaprdquo
I will try to summarize what seems to be articulated in these
passages
1 Tere is one God (the Father) 49 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 218ndash19
50 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 220ndash21
51 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 251
52 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 246
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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attributes Tese other selves are Yahweh in that they are ontologically
identical Tey are not the Father though and so in that sense it may(perhaps awkwardly) be said that they are not Yahweh I think it better
to say that they share Yahwehrsquos essence but they are also independent
(but not autonomous) personal beings distinct rom Yahweh
oward articulating my view o how this all works with respect
to the Hebrew Bible and the Israelite divine council the first step is
to return to the Yahweh-El (Elyon) issue As you recall El was the
ldquoFatherrdquo god at Ugarit having birthed 70 sons with Athirat his wieTese sons are ldquosons o Elrdquo (bn lt il bn lt ilm) and are reerred to as
ldquogodsrdquo (lt ilm) One o Elrsquos sons (though his lineage is mysterious) is
Baal Tis divine amily is described via patriarchal motis and royal
house rulership motis
Anyone who does serious work in Israelite religion knows that
the biblical writers attribute epithets and attributes o both Ugaritic
El and Baal to Yahweh Tis is why such notions as a separation oEl and Yahweh as Father and Son inherently spring not rom the data
but rom the presupposition o an evolutionary trajectory in Israelite
religion A separation o deities must be posited and then orced upon
texts like Deuteronomy 328ndash9 despite the data (even in the same pas-
sage) to the contrary As a result o the presupposition when the text
does not support the presumption appeals are made to the redactor
or to the material being ldquolaterdquo added to erase the evidence o two
separate godsmdashnever minding the act that in Second emple Jewish
54 Olmo Lete and Sanmartiacuten ldquo p∆r rdquo (DULA 1225ndash27) KU 116V10ndash25 140
R25 41ndash42 165R 1ndash3 1162 16ndash17 c Mullen ldquoDivine Assemblyrdquo 215
55 DULA 148ndash51
56 J David Schloen ldquoTe Patrimonial Household in the Kingdom o Ugarit A
Weberian Analysis o Ancient Near Eastern Societyrdquo (PhD diss Harvard University
1995) J David Schloen Te House o the Father as Fact and Symbol Patrimonialism inUgarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 2001)
57 Lowell K Handy Among the Host o Heaven Te Syro-Palestinian Pantheon asBureaucracy (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1994) Conrad E LrsquoHeureux Rank amongthe Canaanite Gods El Bagt al and the Rephaim (Missoula M Scholars Press 1979)
58 See John Day Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses o Canaan (Sheffield Sheffield
Academic Press 2000) 13ndash41 91ndash127 and Mark S Smith Te Early History o God Yahwehand the Other Deities in Ancient Israel 2nd ed (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2002) 19ndash56
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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able 3 A Comparison of the Divine Council at Ugarit and of
Israel with Yahwehrsquos Coregent
Te Divine Council at Ugarit Te Divine Council of Israel
ldquoslot 1rdquo El
(high sovereign but not
called ldquoMost Highrdquo)
YHWH ldquoslot 1rdquo
ldquoslot 2rdquo
Baal
Coregent or ldquodeputyrdquo o Elthe ldquoruler king o the godsrdquo
(ilm) the ldquoMost Highrdquo
Te coregency was ought or
among the sons o El and so the
coregent is a created son o El
who acts as the special agent o
Elmdashfights his battles and rules
the gods as appointed authority
over the other lower-rankingdivine rulers (mlkm) o the
earth the sons princes o El
ldquoslot 2rdquoTe Angel o Yahweh in
whom was the Name (Exodus
2320ndash23 Genesis 3222ndash32
c Hosea 124ndash5 [Heb] Gen-
esis 4815ndash16)
Te ldquoGlory-Manrdquo on Godrsquos
throne (Ezekiel 126ndash27
Exodus 249ndash11 337ndash345
Isaiah 6)
Te Word Te Word is
identified as Yahweh c the
ldquovisionrdquo language not just
auditory (Genesis 151ndash6)
Yahweh is the Word that
came and ldquostoodrdquo beore
Samuel c the vision lan-
guage especially the verb
ldquoappearrdquo (1 Samuel 3) Note
the Word is identified asYahweh and then he touches
Jeremiah with his hand
(Jeremiah 11ndash10)
For humankindrsquos benefit
Yahweh chooses to make himsel
known by means that are detect-
able to the human senses As
uncreated spirit (Isaiah 4310ndash12
John 424) and ldquogloryrdquo his
essence is undetectable without
intermediate means Tese
means also serve to protect
humans rom the ull essence
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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I would like to unpack the table and articulate why my assertion
that Israel saw Yahweh as species-unique can be justified via the textAs I have noted above I would expect Mormon scholars to want to
know on what grounds I base my estimation that Yahweh is species-
unique Tis is important or i Yahweh is to be seen as species-unique
then my notion that Israelrsquos theology required that Yahweh fill both
the head and coregent slots in the divine council is also established
And the act that there are in effect two Yahweh figures occupying
these slots in turn establishes an Israelite godhead or both slots arefilled by the same essence In turn establishing that two beings who
are ontologically the same (Yahweh and his coregent) are at the top
o the council will accurately account or the biblical data concern-
ing the relationship o Yahweh to the other lt ĕlōhicircm something I do
not believe Mormon doctrine accomplishes coherently I agree with
Barry Bickmore when he says that we ought to be concerned more
with how God is unique as opposed to whether he is unique Whatollows addresses that concern
Tere are five lines o evidence or Yahweh being species-unique
1 Yahweh is said to be the creator o all other members o the heav-
enly host In order to comprehend this argument we must establish
that the Hebrew Bible at times uses the phrase heavenly host o actual
animate beings Te ollowing verses in Deuteronomy are relevant
2 I there is ound among you within any o your towns
which the L983151983154983140 your God is giving you a man or woman
who does what is evil in the sight o the L983151983154983140 your God in
transgressing his covenant 3 who has gone and served other
gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and bowed down ( yišta˙ucirc) beore them the sun
or the moon or any o the host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim)
which I have orbidden (Deuteronomy 172ndash3)
Tey turned to the service o other gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) and
worshiped ( yišta˙ucirc) them gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) whom they had not
59 Bickmore ldquoO Simplicity Oversimplification and Monotheismrdquo 258
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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254 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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252 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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creator o the heavenly host (see below) i they are idols then Yahweh
is an idol makerI am not arguing that the Hebrew Bible always means real divine
beings when using the vocabulary o the heavenly host While the Old
estament at times has biblical figures reerring to idols as ldquogodsrdquomdash
something inevitable given the behavior o the Gentile nationsmdashit is
not coherent to argue that the Old estament writer always (or even
mostly) meant ldquoidolsrdquo when writing o plural lt ĕlōhicircm or the ldquohost o
heavenrdquo
It is also unwarranted to argue that all the heavenly host terminol-
ogy can only mean the chunks o rock and balls o gas in the cosmos851972
It was commonly believed in the ancient world (Israelites included)
that the heavenly bodies were either animate beings or were inhabited
or controlled by animate beings Hence in scripture there is overlap
with respect to just who or what is reerred to by the terms sun moonstars and heavenly host However an overlap is not an erasure o one
element o the conceptionIt is clear rom the above passages in Deuteronomy that the sun
moon and stars are explicitly reerred to as ldquoother godsrdquo (lt ĕlōhicircmlt ă˙ēricircm) not as idols Tis is also clear rom passages like Job 384ndash7
where the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ĕlōhicircm) are reerred to as stars (kocirc not ĕ intecirc intōqer ) Te classic divine council passage 1 Kings 22 also utilizes the
heavenly host terminology or what are clearly divine beings
19 And he [Micaiah] said ldquoTereore hear the word othe L983151983154983140 I saw the L983151983154983140 sitting on his throne and all the
host o heaven (szligĕbālt haššāmayim) standing beside him on his
right hand and on his lef 20 and the L983151983154983140 said lsquoWho will
entice Ahab that he may go up and all at Ramoth-gileadrsquo
And one said one thing and another said another 21 Ten a
62 For example 1 Kings 149 Such statements need to be balanced with others such
as 2 Kings 1918 63 Tis is not to suggest that this terminology always points to divine beings
64 Fabrizio Lelli ldquoStarsrdquo in Dictionary o Deities and Demons in the Bible 809ndash15
Ida Zatelli ldquoAstrology and the Worship o the Stars in the Biblerdquo ZAW 103 (1991) 86ndash99
Luis I J Stadelmann Te Hebrew Conception o the World A Philological and LiteraryStudy (Rome Pontifical Institute 1970)
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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spirit (hārucirca ) came orward and stood beore the L983151983154983140 say-
ing lsquoI will entice himrsquo 22 And the L983151983154983140 said to him lsquoBy whatmeansrsquo And he said lsquoI will go out and will be a lying spirit in
the mouth o all his prophetsrsquo And he said lsquoYou are to entice
him and you shall succeed go out and do sorsquo 23 Now there-
ore behold the L983151983154983140 has put a lying spirit in the mouth o all
these your prophets the L983151983154983140 has declared disaster or yourdquo
(1 Kings 2219ndash23 ESV)
Te point here is that Yahweh is not holding council with physical
chunks o stone and balls o gas
All o this is important or noting passages like Nehemiah 96 and
Psalm 1481ndash5
6 You are Yahweh you alone You have made heaven
the heaven o heavens and all their host (kol-szligĕbālt ām) the
earth and all that is upon it the seas and all that is in themand you preserve all o them and the host o heaven (szligĕbālt
haššāmayim) worships you (Nehemiah 96)
1 Praise the L983151983154983140 Praise the L983151983154983140 rom the heavens
praise him in the heights 2 Praise him all his angels
praise him all his hosts (kol-szligĕbālt āw) 3 Praise him sun
and moon praise him all you shining stars (kol-kocirc not ĕ intecirc lt ocircr )
4 Praise him you highest heavens and you waters above theheavens 5 Let them praise the name o the L983151983154983140 For he com-
manded and they were created (Psalm 1481ndash5)
Notice that in Nehemiah 96 Yahweh alone is the creator None o the
other gods have creative power marking Yahweh as distinct Te par-
allelism in Psalm 148 makes clear the conceptual overlap in that it has
the heavenly hostsmdashsun moon and starsmdashworshipping and praisingYahweh their creator
65 Te phrase in the heights has divine council overtones See Norman C Habel
ldquoHe Who Stretches Out the Heavensrdquo Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972) 417ndash18 and
Korpel Rif in the Clouds 376ndash82
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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2 Yahweh was considered preexistent to all gods As such contrary
to Latter-day Saint belies he had no parents Te text o Isaiah 4310ndash12 is straightorward in this regard
ldquoYou are my witnessesrdquo declares Yahweh ldquoand my ser-
vants whom I have chosen that you may know and believe
me and understand that I am he Beore me no god (lt ēl ) was
ormed and afer me there shall not be [any]rdquo
It is most coherent to consider lt ēl generic and so the writer is tell-ing us that no god was created prior to Yahweh It would be awkward
or lt ēl to be a proper name here since Yahweh received El epithets but
the point would still be interesting there was no creator god (El was
the Creator god) beore Yahweh (ie he is the only god who can claim
this power)
It should be noted that verse 10 does not contradict the clear state-
ments elsewhere in scripture that Yahweh created the divine memberso the heavenly host Te verse does not deny that Yahweh created any
lt ĕlōhicircm Rather it asserts there will be no such god as Yahweh to ol-
low I the objects o creation were what was intended to be negated
we would expect a plural orm o hyh not the singular yihyeh or some
other negated plural construction
3 Yahweh has the power to strip the other lt ĕlōhicircm o their
immortality
6 I said ldquoyou are gods (lt ĕlōhicircm) sons o the Most High
(gt elyocircn) all o yourdquo 7 Tereore you shall die as humankind
and you shall all as one o the princes (Psalm 826ndash7)
I Yahweh did not have superior power how could he do this I
Yahweh is not ontologically distinct and unique whence does this
superior power derive I Mormons postulate that the power derives
rom superior status or authority how was such status or authority
obtained Who gave itmdashanother ontologically parallel god
4 Yahweh is reerred to as hālt ĕlōhicircm in comparative statements
while no other god or group o gods is ever spoken o in such a manner
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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Incomparability statements point to Yahwehrsquos ontological distinctive-
ness Consider the passages belowYou have been shown in order to know that Yahweh he
is the god (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) Beside him there is no
other (Deuteronomy 435)
As Bruce Waltke and Michael OrsquoConnor note (quoting Muraoka)
ldquothis construction has lsquoselective-exclusiversquo orce the subject ocus
is singled out and contrasted with other possible or actual alterna-
tivesrdquo Tis use is especially striking in 1 Kings 1821 where Elijah
challenges Baal and his worshippers by saying ldquolsquoI Yahweh is the
(true) God (hālt ĕlōhicircm) ollow him but i Baal then ollow himrsquo And
the people did not answer him a wordrdquo
Know thereore today and lay it to your heart that Yahweh
he is the God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) in heaven above and
on the earth beneath there is no other (Deuteronomy 439)For Yahweh your God he is God o gods and Lord o
lords the great the mighty and the awesome God (hālt ēl )
who is not partial and takes no bribe (Deuteronomy 1017)
Tat all the peoples o the earth may know that Yahweh is the
God (par excellence hālt ĕlōhicircm) there is no other (1 Kings 860)
Who is like you Yahweh among the gods (bālt ēlicircm) (Exo-dus 1511)
For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh Who
is like Yahweh among the sons o God (bĕnecirc lt ēlicircm) (Psalm
896 Hebrew v 7)
Latter-day Saints simply cannot have it both ways I these denial
statements do not rule out the reality o other lt ĕlōhicircm as they obvi-
ously cannot in view o Psalm 82 and other passages then it cannot
be coherently denied that that points to Yahwehrsquos uniqueness In
66 Bruce K Waltke and Michael P OrsquoConnor An Introduction to Biblical HebrewSyntax (Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1990) 297
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
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σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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My point here is that i Yahweh is not ontologically different rom
the other lt ĕlōhicircm then why does he merit worship On what basiswas it decided that he is worthy o worship and the others are not An
appeal to Yahwehrsquos deliverance (eg the Reed Sea) as though Yahweh
just did something or Israel that some other god could have pulled off
is pointless since the text judges such deliverances to be indicators o
Yahwehrsquos matchless power
Tese five considerations are powerul testimony to Yahwehrsquos
distinctiveness especially given the exclusivity with which they are
articulated in the text Yahweh shares these attributes and this status
with no other lt ĕlōhicircm Israelrsquos ldquoYahweh-uniquenessrdquo theology then
remained intact in this divine council structure since the second power
in heaven was also Yahweh Te Angel the Word and the Glory-Man
are visible representations o the coregent Yahweh that slot which was
occupied by ldquothe Most High Sonrdquo in Ugaritic terminology In a patri-
archal model o the council this would be the ldquofirstbornrdquomdashthe one
who is to inherit the status o the patriarch or who unctions as thepatriarch i need be In a royal house model this would be the elect
son the scion who ofen unctioned as king in other places as though
he was the kingmdashand under such conditions he was the king Tis
ldquounique Sonrdquo (there was only one) occupying the second slot may also
be said to be Yahwehrsquos chie agent (mal lt ā not ) distinct rom all other
divine sons and agents (mal lt ā not icircm)
Tere are other hypostasized agents o Yahweh such as the Namethe hidden Glory (in the cloud) and Wisdom but these figures are
never ldquoseenrdquo and never ldquoappearrdquo as a human orm My godhead within
the council idea must include them in some way and so I parse their
status with the above coregent figures as ollows In the Hebrew Bible
we have (1) Yahweh the Father (2) the visible (and at times corpo-
real) essence o Yahweh the Father in human orm and (3) the visible
essence o Yahweh the Father that is not in human orm Te Angel
the Word and the Glory-Man all appear in human orm Te Name
or example does not Rather the Name can be linked to the non-
humanoid cloud that fills the temple (the place Yahweh put his Name)
Te same is true o the hidden Glory While the Glory could appear in
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 259
51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4147
260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 261
them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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human orm (the Glory-Man) the Glory was more requently veiled
in the cloud Wisdom is cast as emale and cocreator in the HebrewBible (Proverbs 822ndash31) because o grammatical gender but Wis-
dom is never seen by anyone as ar as the text inorms us Wisdom is
also never interchanged with any o the other hypostatized figures o
Yahweh
None o these figures is explicitly linked to the Spirit o God as ar
as I have been able to determine Te Name is said to be ldquoinrdquo the Angel
and so there is some similarity to the Spiritrsquos role elsewhere Te Spiritis also interchanged with the God o Israel on occasion Te data
lead me to believe that the various coregent figures cannot neatly be
categorized as ldquoSonrdquo and ldquoSpiritrdquo to use the terminology requently
ound in the New estament Te role o the coregent slot (the COO)
was filled by ldquoother Yahwehrdquo figures in whatever way Yahweh chose
to appear Yahweh the Father (the CEO) unctioned as High Sovereign
over everything o return to Ugarit as an analogy the ldquoSonrdquo aspect o
the coregent slot derives rom the use o the metaphor o the patriar-
chal house and royal household Baalrsquos roles o warrior administrator
temple occupant prince and vizier were carried out by various mani-
estations o Yahwehrsquos essence Tese maniestations were detectable
by the human senses and ofen included the simultaneous presence o
Yahweh the Father and so they are not mere ldquomodesrdquo As a result I
would not say that Israelite religion had a rinity in the way we typi-
cally articulate the Godhead I would say that the notion o a godheadis part o Israelite religion and this idea becomes clearer in the prog-
ress o revelation
opic 4 Te ldquoSpecies-Uniquenessrdquo of the Son Coregent Jesus and
the Quotation of Psalm 82 in John 10 (items A8 B8)
Significantly the New estament writers link all these coregent
figures with Jesus Jesus is the Word (John 11) the incarnated Glory
(John 114 175 24) and Wisdom (1 Corinthians 124 c Luke 1149ndash
67 See or example Isaiah 638ndash10 comparing the context and verb lemmas in verse
10 with Psalm 7840
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4147
260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 261
them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4347
262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
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I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
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Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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51 and Matthew 2334ndash36) He was given bears the Name (John 176ndash
12 Revelation 1912ndash16) and was thought to be the delivering Angel(Jude 5 c Exodus 2320ndash23 Judges 21ndash5) Jesus was also the ldquoCloud
Riderrdquo a deity title description o Baal at Ugarit attributed only to
Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible the lone exception being the son o man
in Daniel 7
Such identifications would mean that Jesus is in the Israelite God-
head Second emple Jewish texts abound with speculation as to the
identity o the second power Jewish writers o that time argued or
exalted angels (Michael Gabriel) and certain Old estament figures
(Moses Abraham Adam) in the coregent slot What made Christian-
ity distinct was the claim that the second power had become a human
being vulnerable to death and that this human being had walked
among them in recent days and had suffered crucifixion at the hands
o the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities
All o what we have discussed in this paper to this point was part
o the Jewish thought o the Second emple period as my own dis-
sertation and the copious scholarly literature on these subjects have
established By the time o Jesusrsquos ministry1048624 Jewish writers com-
mitted to monotheism even upon pain o death could accept that
68 Tere is a text-critical issue in Jude 5 Te scholarly inormation on the coregent
linkages to Jesus is copious See or example Charles A Gieschen Angelomorphic Chris-tology Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden Brill 1998) Gieschen ldquoBaptismal Praxis
in the Book o Revelationrdquo wwwiwuedu~religionejcmGieschenhtm (accessed 24
April 2007) Jarl E Fossum Te Image o the Invisible God Essays on the Influence o Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1995) Dar-
rell D Hannah Michael and Christ Michael raditions and Angel Christology in EarlyChristianity (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1999) Ben Witherington III Jesus the Sage TePilgrimage o Wisdom (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress 1994) Aqila H I Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Jesusrsquo Sel-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis o Messianic Psalms (uumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) Daniel Boyarin ldquoTe Gospel o the
Memra Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to Johnrdquo Harvard Teological Review943 (2001) 243ndash84
69 See the sources in note 6470 Afer the second century and on into the rabbinic era these ideas became heretical
to Jewish teachers and writers Te ldquostandardizationrdquo o the Masoretic text and rejection
o the LXX occurred at the same time (not coincidentally in my view) See Alan F Segal
wo Powers in Heaven Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden
Brill 1977) Daniel Boyarin ldquowo Powers in Heaven Or the Making o a Heresyrdquo in Te
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
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them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
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264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4147
260 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
there was a council o lt ĕlōhicircm in Psalm 82 (c the Qumran data) and
that there was a second power in heaven who ldquowas Yahweh but wasnrsquotYahweh the Fatherrdquo Again I am not saying that Judaism had a rin-
ity I am only saying that the necessary concepts and categories were
in place Te idea that the traditional Christian articulation derives
rom Greek philosophy is untrue983044 Te key conceptual elements are
certifiably Israelite
Tis background is important or interpreting the significance o
Jesusrsquos quotation o Psalm 826 in John 1034ndash35 I have never comeacross the view I have o this issue in print and so it seems best to give
the ull context o Jesusrsquos quotation in order to clariy my thoughts
22 And it was at Jerusalem the east o the dedication and
it was winter 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomonrsquos
porch 24 Ten came the Jews round about him and said to
him ldquoHow long are you going to make us doubt I you are
the Christ tell us plainlyrdquo 25 Jesus answered them ldquoI toldyou and you believed not the works that I do in my Fatherrsquos
name they bear witness o me 26 But you believe not because
you are not o my sheep as I said to you 27 My sheep hear my
voice and I know them and they ollow me 28 And I give to
them eternal lie and they shall never perish neither shall
anyone pluck them out o my hand 29 My Father who gave
them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluckIdea o Biblical Interpretation Essays in Honor o James L Kugel ed Hindy Najman and
Judith H Newman (Leiden Brill 2004) 331ndash70
71 Interestingly species-uniqueness is the basis or Godrsquos distinction rom the other
gods in later Jewish writers For example 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse o) Enoch (J) 22 affirms
that while other gods are eckless they exist and are temporary ldquoAnd do not turn away
rom the Lord and do not worship vain gods gods who did not create the heaven and
the earth or any other created thing or they will perish and so will those who worship
themrdquo Te same book later has God inorm Enoch that ldquoTere is no adviser and no suc-
cessor to my creation I am sel-eternal and not made by handsrdquo (334) Sibylline Oracles coness that ldquoGod is alone unique and supremerdquo since he is ldquosel-generated [and] unbe-
gottenrdquo Yet in the same text one reads that ldquoi gods beget and yet remain immortal there
would have been more gods born than menrdquo See John J Collins ldquoSibylline Oraclesrdquo in
Te Old estament Pseudepigrapha ed James H Charlesworth (New York Doubleday
1983) 1470ndash71 (the citations are rom ragments 117 21 33)
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4247
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 261
them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4347
262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4447
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4547
264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4247
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 261
them out o my Fatherrsquos hand 30 I and my Father are onerdquo
31 Ten the Jews took up stones again to stone him 32 Jesusanswered them ldquoMany good works have I shown you rom
my Father or which o those works do you stone merdquo 33 Te
Jews answered him saying ldquoFor a good work we would not
stone you but or blasphemy and because that you being a
man make yourself Godrdquo (John 1022ndash33)
Te quotation o Psalm 826 ollows
34 Jesus answered them ldquoIs it not written in your law
lsquoI said you are godsrsquo 35 If he [God] called them gods to
whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be
broken 36 do you say of him whom the Father has sanc-
tified and sent into the world lsquoYou blasphemersquo because I
said I am the Son of God 37 I I do not the works o my
Father believe me not 38 But i I do though you donrsquot believe
me believe the works that you may know and believe thatthe Father is in me and I in himrdquo 39 Tereore they sought
again to take him but he escaped out o their hand 40 And
went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at
first baptized and there he abode 41 And many resorted unto
him and said John did no miracle but all things that John
spake o this man were true 42 And many believed on him
there (John 1034ndash42)
Here is what we can glean without interpretive disagreement
1 Jesus preaced his quotation by asserting that he and the
Father were one (John 1030)
2 Tis claim was regarded as blasphemy in that Jesus was mak -
ing himsel out to be God (John 1033)
3 In deense o his assertion Jesus quoted Psalm 826 Tat is to
establish his claim to be God Jesus went to Psalm 826
4 He ollows the quotation with the statement that the Father
was in him and he was in the Father
Te standard view o this quotation is that Jesus was endorsing
the human lt ĕlōhicircm view and thereby arguing ldquoI have every right to
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4347
262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4447
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4547
264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4347
262 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
call mysel divinemdashyou guys can do it as well on the basis o Psalm
826rdquo Te problem o course is that this amounts to Jesus saying ldquoyoumere mortals can call yoursel gods so I can toordquo I this is a deense
o his own deity it is a weak one
Although Latter-day Saints agree with me that the lt ĕlōhicircm in
Psalm 826 are in act divine beings they preer the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view or Jesusrsquos use o Psalm 826 Recall that Latter-day Saints argue
that humans are the children o God who is embodied based on their
understanding o the image o God851972 I Jesus is in act not claiming
to be ontologically different than the Jews who were assailing him the
Mormon position is bolstered Tis might strike evangelicals as odd
given Jesusrsquos claim that he and the Father were one (John 1030) but
Latter-day Saints insist that Jesus was claiming to be a god not the
Father citing the absence o the definite article beore θεόν in verse
33 ldquoyou being a man make yoursel Godrdquo (σὺ α νθρωπος ω ν ποιεις
72 With respect to the disconnect between the psalmrsquos original meaning and Jesusrsquos
understanding o it Mormon scholarship rescues Jesus rom being in error by appealing
to material in the Book o Abraham that resolves the tension (see the discussion in Peter-
son ldquolsquoYe Are Godsrsquordquo 541ndash42) Latter-day Saint scholars reason that the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view is supportive o their doctrinal affirmation that humans are lt ĕlōhicircm Tis idea is
based on the Mormon understanding o the image o God and so it would be unair to
say that Mormon theology desperately needs Jesusrsquos endorsement o the human lt ĕlōhicircm
view It certainly helps though
73 Te reasoning is that since we are created in Godrsquos image and likeness that must
mean we are divine like him and he is embodied like us Latter-day Saints seek to draw
support or this understanding rom certain passages that reer to human beings as
lt ĕlōhicircm or as Godrsquos children (or example Moses is spoken o as lt ĕlōhicircm in Exodus 416
71 and the nation o Israel is reerred to as Yahwehrsquos ldquosonrdquo in Exodus 423 Hosea 111)
Te trajectories on which this doctrine is built supposedly bolstered by Barkerrsquos work
are flawed Mormon writer Brant Gardner notes ldquoWhen Margaret Barker describes
the nature o the heavenly council she also notes the key that resolves our problems in
understanding Nephi and the subsequent Nephite theology lsquoTere are those called sons
o El Elyon sons o El or Elohim all clearly heavenly beings and there are those called
sons o Yahweh or the Holy One who are humanrsquordquo (citing Margaret Barker Te Great Angel A Study o Israelrsquos Second God [Louisville KY Westminster John Knox 1992] 5
[4]) Barkerrsquos argument proceeds on the assumption that when the Hebrew Bible reers tosons o an El-derivative deity (El Elyon Elohim) those sons are heavenly beings When
the text speaks o Yahweh or the ldquoHoly Onerdquo having sons those sons are human beings
Barkerrsquos ldquocrucial distinctionrdquo (p 4) is incorrect since she misses Hosea 110 where ldquosons
o the living God (El)rdquo are clearly human beings Te Mormon material I have read has
not caught the error and proceeds to make apologetic points on a flawed assumption
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4447
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4547
264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4447
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 263
σεαυτὸν θεόν) Tat Jesus was claiming to be a god would be accept-
able or Latter-day Saints since we are all gods by virtue o being cre-ated in Godrsquos image But i Jesus held that the Father had ontological
superiority that is another story
I propose however that the lt ĕlōhicircm o Psalm 82 were not human
and that Jesus was in act asserting his own unique ontological one-
ness with the Father Beore deending that thesis let me first address
the notion that John 1033 has Jesus only claiming to be a god A syn-
tactical search o the Greek New estament reveals that the identicalconstruction ound in John 1033 occurs elsewhere in contexts reer-
ring specifically to God the Father
Te absence o the article thereore does not prove the Mormon
interpretation Te absence o the article may point to indefiniteness
when the subject complement is the lemma θεός (especially when it is
plural) but it can also point to a specific definite entity Building an
interpretation on this argument is a poor strategyReturning now to the quotation the human lt ĕlōhicircm view derives
rom two assumptions brought to the text (1) that it is required by the
impossibility o there being other lt ĕlōhicircm because o Judeo-Christian
monotheism and (2) that the phrase to whom the word o God came
reers to the Jews who received the law at Sinaimdashthat is the Phariseesrsquo
oreathers Tis paper has already dispensed with the first assump-
tion so we will move to the latter
I would suggest that what first needs to be done is to comes to
terms with what is meant by ldquothe word o Godrdquo and who it is that
receives that word in Psalm 826ndash7
74 Te search is accomplished via the Openextorg syntactically tagged Greek New
estament database in the Libronix platorm developed by Logos Bible Sofware Belling-
ham Washington Te search query asks or all clauses where the predicator o the clause
can be any finite verbs except εἰμί where the subject complement is the lexeme θεός with no definite article present Any clause component can intervene between these two
elements Other than John 1033 the ollowing hits are yielded by the query Acts 529
Galatians 48 9 1 Tessalonians 19 41 2 Tessalonians 18 itus 38 Hebrews 914 It
is incoherent within the immediate and broader context o the book in which each hit
occurs to translate θεός as ldquoa godrdquo
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4547
264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4547
264 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
6 I said ldquoyou are gods sons o the Most High all o yourdquo
7 Tereore you shall die as humans do and you shall all asone o the princes
Te speaker (ldquoIrdquo) in the passage is the God o Israel the God
who is standing in the council in Psalm 821 among the lt ĕlōhicircm God
announces that the lt ĕlōhicircm o the council are his sons but because o
their corruption (vv 2ndash5) they will lose their immortality I believe
that Jesus was reerring to this utterance when he quoted the psalm
not the Jewish nation receiving the law at Sinai or the revelation thatwould become the Old estament o illustrate the difference in the
views
able 4 Interpretations of the Word of God
Common Interpretation
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are human
My view
Jesusrsquos strategy assumes
lt ĕlōhicircm are divine
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = revela-
tion rom God at Sinai or the entire O
Te ldquoword o God that camerdquo = the
utterance itsel in Psalm 826 ndash the
pronouncement rom God
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
Jews at Sinai or the Jews generally
ldquoto whom the word o God camerdquo = the
lt ĕlōhicircm o the divine council in 821
Result the Jews are the ldquosons o the
Most Highrdquo and lt ĕlōhicircm so Jesus can
call himsel an lt ĕlōhicircm as well
Result Te Jews are not lt ĕlōhicircm and
Jesus reminds his enemies that their
scriptures say there are other lt ĕlōhicircm who are divine sons
Nowhere in Psalm 82 do we have any hint o the Mosaic law Sinai
a Jewish nation or the canonical revelation given to the Jews Every
element in the commonly held view must be inserted into the pas-
sage My view is that Jesus who just said he and the Father were one
is quoting Psalm 826 in deense o his divine nature reminding his
Jewish audience that there were in act other lt ĕlōhicircm besides the God
o Israel and those lt ĕlōhicircm were his sons Because he calls himsel the
son o God in the next breath this at the very least puts him in the
class o the sons o the Most High o Psalm 826mdashdivine lt ĕlōhicircm
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4647
M983151983154983149983151983150983145983155983149rsquo983155 U983155983141 983151983142 P983155983137983148983149 983096983090 (H983141983145983155983141983154) bull 265
I this were all that was written by John in his Gospel about the
divine Sonship o Jesus there would at best be a stalemate with Latter-day Saint scholars about the ontological nature o Jesus He would be
one o the lt ĕlōhicircm seen one seen them all But we all know that is not
the sum total o what John says about Jesusrsquos Sonship I would suggest
that the statement o John 1036 be viewed in tandem with Jesusrsquos own
declaration in Johnrsquos Gospel that he was the μονογενής Son It is well
established o course that this term does not derive rom μόνος +
γεννάω (ldquoonly begottenrdquo) but rom μόνος + γένος (ldquoonly kind oneo a kind uniquerdquo) As Fitzmyer points out
Tat unique is the actual meaning o μονογενής can be
seen in Heb 1117 where it is used o Isaac whom Abraham
was ready to sacrifice even though God had promised Abra-
ham abundant descendants Te word here means only (son)
o his kind ie the only son o the promise (Gen 2112) Abra-ham in act had already begotten Ishmael through Hagar
(Gen 163 1722ndash25) and later had six other sons by Keturah
(Gen 251)
We are lef then with a situation How can Jesus be the unique son
o God and yet there be abundant testimony to many heavenly sons o
God in the Hebrew Bible Te answer is straightorwardmdashthis Son is
one with the Father He is utterly unique Jesus is the coregent lt ĕlōhicircm
and no other lt ĕlōhicircm can say that Putting all the Johannine discourse
together and taking the quotation in context o Jesusrsquos claim to one-
ness with the Father makes this a powerul witness to the act that
Jesus was o the same essence as the Father Te Jewish authorities got
the message too One wonders why i the Mormon view is correctmdash
that Jesus was just claiming to be one o many species-equal lt ĕlōhicircm
because o the divine imagemdashthe Jews charged him with blasphemy
75 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider eds Exegetical Dictionary o the New esta-ment trans John W Medendorp (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 1990) 2440
76 Balz and Schneider Exegetical Dictionary 2440 emphasis is Fitzmyerrsquos
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
8112019 YoursquoVe Seen One Elohim
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullyouve-seen-one-elohim 4747
266 bull 983144983141 FARMS R983141983158983145983141983159 983089983097983089 (983090983088983088983095)
Conclusion
I am under no delusion that this paper will persuade Latter-daySaints to abandon or adjust their viewpoint I also expect that many
evangelicals will balk at embracing my arguments Ironically both
sides may take solace in mutually disagreeing with me Tat would be
fine What is more important in my mind is to clearly articulate the
text and to contextualize the Hebrew Bible on its own terms I leave
the Spirit to work in each heart as he sees fit
حبط ضاع فشل غلطة توقف فج ة
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