13 July 2023
We serve the God of the Hebrew people.
There was ever only one Creator God in the Bible. That's monotheism. The difference is that we understand how the Hebrew leadership also believed that God had created a significant number of non-human beings with far more power than mere angels to serve in His court. You can't miss that in the Book of Revelation with the scene in God's court and the elders and so forth. John certainly believed it. And yet, we just don't carry that picture around with us when reading the rest of the Bible.
That's what makes Heiser's work so earthshaking. He brings out the unnoticed threads of this image throughout Scripture. In some of the comments on this blog, we have discussed how English is descriptive, but that it also demands that a mind expect and rely on that pedantic approach. If something is not explicitly mentioned, you are taught to assume it is excluded. Thus, legal documents chase a thousand rabbits to nail down exactly what is required in sufficient different scenarios that the law might cover. Hebrew is quite the opposite, assuming that you are paying attention and chasing the implications on your own. You bring the wealth of expression with you, so that written Hebrew need only make the slightest allusions to create a whole presentation.
Thus, the concept of a heavenly divine council is presumed across the board, and unless you have the presence of mind to keep it in play, you'll miss important clues and cues in the narrative. Heiser addresses this on the companion website (scroll down to item 6).
Most evangelicals think they know what Jesus meant in John 10:22-39 when He was debating some Pharisees about His declaration of divinity. In verse 34 He refers to a quote from Psalm 82. This psalm is the key passage that drove Heiser on this journey in the first place. In the psalm, God is standing in the midst of His divine council and berating them for how they lead the human governments. There is far too much neglect of the needy. This is a major issue with what God expects of human governments, and these spirit beings are falling down on the job. It's the same as an emperor brow-beating his satraps.
Thus, God Himself says to them in 82:6-7: "You are gods, my divine helpers. This is not how you are supposed to act! I'm going to crush you like mortals." They knew what God required of them. Elsewhere, we are told that Jehovah had an Heir who, while a separate person in His own right, also bore the Creator's identity. In order to get this across, this Heir is often called "the Word of Jehovah". Reread the first few verses of John's Gospel. In Hebrew thinking, God's Word was His Living Will, His divine moral intention. The divine council knew the Word from previous encounters; they knew what their Lord required.
Jesus raises this image to the Pharisees' memory: "Remember that divine council of powerful beings?" They were berated for not obeying the will of God. They were faulted for not prodding the human rulers in their charge to make things the way God wanted them. How often had Jesus castigated the Pharisees for refusing to take care of the needy among their own kind, their Covenant family? That was flatly commanded in Moses. John didn't just dream up the first few verses of his Gospel; it was a common image among Jews: The Word of God was His living will. Jesus took care of the downtrodden Jewish people, just as His Father clearly demanded.
All of this is inherent in what few words Jesus said to the Pharisees. Look at what Jesus has been doing up to this point. Was that not the will of God? Did not Jesus act as the Word of God? Unlike free will agents with circumscribed power to match their responsibilities, Jesus was the clearest expression of Jehovah's will. Was this not the divine moral character of God Himself? What more proof did Jesus need to support His claim to be One with the Father?
His whole argument was that He performed His Father's will.
And here, in English language writing, it's necessary to spell it all out like that because it's not our habit of mind to even notice the rather obvious clear statement of reality in Psalm 82. I would suggest that most English Bible translators have been just as irresponsible with their calling as the divine council in that psalm. They did not pursue the message of the Bible as a whole, but tried to make it fit their preconceived western notions of what the Bible is supposed to say.
As Heiser notes repeatedly, he didn't make this up. The notion of the divine council as a Hebrew concept was already well established by previous scholars; Philo of Alexandria mentions it (he was some 15 years older than Christ). It's even reflected in the pagan literature of the Ancient Near East. Furthermore, it's reflected in how most human rulers ran their own domains.
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