Too often, we believe our view is right when it is not, and through fear of our view being "corrupted," we defend and hold on to what we think we know as if it's the "gospel truth." There is much more for all of us to learn about the gospel. Are we strong enough to change our views to fit the truth revealed through biblical Prophets as we better come to understand them, or do we persist in seeking to wrest the meaning of the scriptures to fit what scholars and non-authoritative leaders tell us we are to believe? Are we old bottles that cannot contain fresh, strong wine? In other words, do we read the scriptures to validate our beliefs, or do we read the scriptures to form valid beliefs? Is doctrine decided by committee such as the Nicene Creed, which we then use to interpret scripture? Or should we go to the scripture instead of man's learning to determine truth?

While I agree with the author that the cultural perspectives of the writers of the ancient books indeed influenced their understanding, beliefs, and expression, and therefore their writings, and while I believe they did not have a perfect understanding of truth (and neither do we), I disagree with the notion that they were so far off from the truth as to misunderstand something so fundamental as the nature of deity. The Prophets did not misunderstand God, even if the followers did. They did not write doctrine based on their opinions unless they expressly stated it to be opinionative, such as the case of Paul who sometimes spoke on matters prefaced by an explicit statement that he was speaking his own thoughts on the matter, not the revealed will of God. For instance, he had a sore view of marriage.
He must have gotten burned. He did this when speaking about this topic or that topic, and other Prophets did too. But never did they put forth doctrine boldly, and multiple prophets at that, unless they had it revealed to them. I would suggest that the nature of deity, and our relationship to deity, is the foundation for all the gospel truths and teachings, old and new testament alike, and not something to get wrong if you are a Prophet. Get that nature and relationship wrong, and we do not understand God, do not understand ourselves, and everything that follows goes awry. The law and the prophets all hinge upon what? Loving God and our fellow man. If we don't understand God and our fellowmen, we can't even rightly live the first two great commandments. Prophets would not misspeak about the nature of God (or the existence of gods), not in the new and not in the old testaments. There is a better way for these scriptures to be reconciled rather than discount the old testament Prophets.

Polytheism and connected principles were directly referenced or alluded to by David, Moses, Christ, Stephen, and others. Not just old testament Prophets. And, if misunderstanding of the ancients were counted as scripture, then we lower the value of scripture to a book of evolving opinions, rather than a book of the writings of divinely inspired men. Yes, their words are "human" and therefore imperfect, but to suggest that a doctrinal bias founded in heathen practices corrupted the old testament and is to blame for any reference to polytheism is to suggest that gross error. Rather, I state that a Prophet, imperfect though he may be, is God's chosen servant to lead us, and if he were to get it so wrong doctrinally, then either God would remove him from his station as Prophet, or else he's not listening to God in the first place and therefore couldn't be acting as a Prophet. He would therefore be just a man, getting it right some of the time via lucky guesses. No different than me, if I were to write a book and call it holy. No, the ancient writers of the old testament were inspired of God, had imperfect words, but the concepts they portrayed were fundamentally correct, including their views of multiple gods, or they wouldn't have included that bit so frequently. It is the concensus of Prophets, who have the authority to reveal scripture, that multiple Gods do exist, but that we worship one as our Father, and Him only.

The writer of the article is using "petito principii," in that he's not reconciling the two "opposing" scriptures with each other, but rather he is adjusting them both to match his belief on a particular doctrine. He subscribes to a trinitarian view, or One God in Three Forms. His argument is, roughly stated, "I start with the assumption that trinity view is correct, and therefore these scriptures must be reconciled according to that view, and if they do not reconcile, there has to be an explanation." He feels that the most likely one is that the ancient writers misunderstood, because the scriptures are so blatant in the old testament that there are many Gods that it would be quite a stretch to make those words mean that there is one God only. He can't change these scriptures enough through sophistry to match trinitarian views that he is left with the other option of writing them off as opinion. He at least did right in recognizing that a scripture as clear as those old testament scriptures needs to be taken at face value. He misstepped when presuming that it was the old testament Prophets who were in error, rather than the Nicene creed, of whom none were Prophets.

I ask, was the doctrine of the trinity (meaning God being one God in three persons) ever that explicit in the Bible, old or new testament? It never teaches such a thing explicitly in all of scripture. At best, we can take a metaphorical unity described as "oneness" to literally mean one. That's as close as any scripture gets to literally only one God. But if that's not the right interpretation, then the Godhead itself is polytheistic. The Nicene Creed, on the matter of the trinity, is man's interpretation.
It is believed to have been canonized in the Nicene creed, as if man has authority to denote doctrine by committee rather than revelation. I prefer to stick with the revelations of bonified Prophets, which I will refer to as the basis of my argument positing Henotheism. Henotheism is a word I didn't know until I read this article (thank you writer!). It is the belief that there are many Gods, but that one of them that is distinct and worshipped. This would fit with the concept of the Godhead being three separate beings, which seems more likely in the allusions of the scriptures than They being truly One being. I know that there are some scriptures that are poetic, metaphorical, and some that are face value. Saying there are many gods sounds like there are many gods. I do not see how it could mean that One god splits himself into many. Saying that the Gods are One could either mean that they are literally one being, or it could be poetically describing a perfect unity of purpose, attributes, will, power, etc. In other words, they are all perfect, and in perfect harmony with each other. This is consistent with the concept of unity implied during Christ's intercessory prayer, that we can become one with Him as He is one with the Father. I do not believe we morph into His very being...we remain distinctly separate beings, but take on His attributes of perfection if we let Him mold us into the beings we were born to become. If we are to say that God is literally One being manifested three ways, or else three beings in one, then we must say that Christ meant we will join that oneness. It seems so much more natural that this be a oneness of unity in purpose and attributes rather than a literal oneness. Earthly things are patterned after spiritual things. Though I am not literally becoming morphed into my own father, I am becoming more like him, and even in greater unity with him as I progress to behave more like the man he already has become.

As an extension of the existence of many gods, new testament and old testament scriptures expound on our potential and relationship to deity as the Father's spiritual offspring. For instance, the psalmist not only states there are many gods, but that we are gods. "I have said, ye are gods." And, in the new testament (Romans), "The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ if it so be that we suffer with him." And the Savior Himself stated "Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect," obviously not suggesting that we click our heals together and achieve perfection now, but that we accept the Savior's offer to make us perfect in a process of purification and repentance, applying His atoning sacrifice in our behalf, that we may in due time become perfect, even as the Father. Even as the Father. Not my words, Christ's. And if we are perfect, in Christ, can we deny the power of God? Has God ever given a commandment impossible to follow? Therefore, we can become perfect, as He is, thanks to His plan and His Son. And us doing so signifies that any who the Son fully redeems become as God in glory and perfection, and are therefore gods. Though they never replace God the Father, they work His work in the eternities, thus bringing added glory to God the Father. The Son achieved this all on His own, by His own rights. We do not. We go through the Son if we wish to be exalted and be where He is.

While most modern Christians consider the view I just stated as blasphemy, I ask: why would it be blasphemy? Because He is so much better than we are? Isn't that why He came to save us? I agree that He is so much higher than we are, so much that the thought is shocking at first to consider becoming like Him.
But, would you argue that the Son's sacrifice just isn't powerful enough to accomplish such a feat? Or would you argue that we aren't God's children, per se, but just a creation that are cleverly meant to look like Him, but not grow up like Him, or have any real biological or spiritual connection? Are we His pets, then? If we are to not to be joint heirs with Christ, why then did Paul teach the Romans that we are to be? Did Paul give any qualifications in what that means? No, he only qualified what it takes to get there, that we must "suffer with Him." The Son was accused of blasphemy for claiming He was the Son of God in the flesh, and yet He was. If it is truth, it is not blasphemous. If I seek to exalt myself, I am blasphemous. If I seek to accept Christ seeking to exalt me, I am getting in line with His mission. We are sullied through our own sins, we needed redeeming, and Christ volunteered to save us conditioned on our faith, repentance, acceptance, and obedience to Him. I believe He can do all that He promised to do for us, and present us back to the Father...but He can't do it if we refuse Him.

C.S. Lewis believed in what he called the "deification of man," and that it is not "idealogical gas" to believe we become gods (a view he took at one time, eventually abandoning it for the more common Christian view that we don't truly become like God in attributes, resurrection, perfection, godhood). I think he abandoned the doctrine out of fear, not faith. He was afraid perhaps of committing what Satan did, seeking to excel and attain the highest glory, for which he was cast down to the sides of the pit. Big difference between how Satan went about his attempt and how we do are to do it if we wish to succeed. Satan sought God's honor, he wanted to excel God in dominion. We can become like Him, but will never exceed His existence as God. Satan exalted himself, and was therefore cast down. Christ humbled Himself fully, submitting to the Father, who then exalted Him. We must fully humble ourselves, losing our very lives if called upon to do so, that we may find our lives. By so humbling ourselves, God then exalts us through His Son. And if this is true, it brings us again to the existence of many gods. All who accept Christ fully will become joint heirs with Christ, and share in all that God has. Therefore, there are many gods, because Christ succeeds at what He set out to do (save all who were, are, or will be willing to accept the terms of His salvation).

So, why then do the scriptures say there is but one God? Who do we worship? The Father. We do not worship any of the other beings, God's children, who He saves. We worship our Father. We are only concerned with the one God who is our Father. Think of it like this...there are many fathers in the world. But I have just one dad, and he's the one I honor and pay attention to, and obey. I only call him my dad, my father. So it is spiritually. Our Father is our God, and the other gods, though they would be spiritual relatives, are not the gods whom we worship. We are commanded to worship only the Father.

If this reconciliation of all of the scriptures about the nature of God is not true, then what do we become? If not gods, where do we end up? What do we end up doing?

And if it's not true....then why so much talk in the old testament of many gods? And why so much talk in the new testament of achieving perfection, i.e becoming gods? And why would this be such a bad thing if it were true? Shocking, mind-blowing, yes. "But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

It's not a "scar" on Christianity to recognize and accept that the bible teaches these things. It's also not right to downplay them or otherwise discount them as mistakes of Prophetic writings. Rather, a true Christian will embrace all truth, adding truth unto truth, expanding the understanding he or she has, until one day, he or she possesses all truth, and that truth makes him or her free. Or, we shut down our minds, and reject truth, until we know less and less concerning the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

The source of all truth is God. When uncertain, pray about it. Study His word, and ask Him what it means. Don't take my word for it...rather, see if what I say makes sense, and then pray about it to get confirmation or to be told otherwise...but set aside your bias or it will interfere with the process of inspiration. We must submit our will to His. Also, don't take a non-authoritative pastor's advice about these doctrines either. Who made a degree the means whereby men and women can state spiritual truths with authority? Is that how Christ taught not as the scribes? Did Christ get His learning from the professors of the day? Or was it revealed to Him by the Spirit?

"Therefore the Lord Himself giveth to you a sign, Lo, the Virgin is conceiving, And is bringing forth a son, And hath called his name Immanuel." – Isaiah 7.14. (Young's Literal Translation)

ARE YAHWEH & EL THE SAME GOD OR DIFFERENT GODS?

(GENESIS 14:22, 17:1, 21:33; EXODUS 6:2-3; PSALM 82:1 vs DEUTERONOMY 32:8-9; PSALM 29:1, 89:6-8)

Recent archaeological, biblical, and extra-biblical research has led scholars working in the area of the origins of Israelite religion to assert rather boldly and
confidently that the original god of Israel was in fact the Canaanite deity El.1
Just exactly how has this come about you ask?

First, the name Israel is not a Yahwistic name. El is the name of the deity invoked in the name Israel, which translates:

“May El persevere.”2

This suggests that El was seen as the chief god in the formative years of Israel’s
religious practices. In fact, the etiological story explaining the origin of
the name Israel occurs in Genesis 35:9-15, where Jacob obtains this name through the blessing of El Shaddai, that is “El of the Mountain.”

Second, there exist numerous parallels and similarities between descriptions and cultic terminology used for El in the Canaanite texts and those used for Yahweh
in the biblical sources (see below). At some point, it is ascertained, the cultic worship of Yahweh must have absorbed that of El, through which means Yahweh assimilated both the imagery and epithets once used of El.

Finally, there is strong confirmation of this assimilation in the biblical record
itself. In the oldest literary traditions of the Pentateuch, it is El who regularly appears and not Yahweh, or Yahweh as El! The patriarchal narratives identify El as the deity to whom many of the early patriarchal shrines and altars were built. For example, we are informed in Genesis 33:20 that Jacob builds an altar in the old cultic center of the north, Shechem, and dedicates it to “El, god of Israel” (’el ’elohe yišra’el ). There is no ambiguity in the Hebrew here: ’el must be translated as a proper name, El.3

Who was El? And why is he even mentioned in the Bible in the first place, let alone as the god of Israel in the older literary traditions of Genesis?

Our knowledge of El predominantly comes from an invaluable corpus of tablets
discovered in 1929 in the ancient city of Ugarit, a major city-state of the second millennium BC located on the northern coast of Syria, modern day Ras Shamra.4
The Ugaritic tablets are the best available witness to Canaanite religion and
religious practices, and thus also “to the background from which the religion
of Israel emerged, and to the Canaanite beliefs that it shared, adopted, compromised with, and sometimes rejected.”5
The Ugaritic literature depicts El as the sovereign deity of the Canaanite pantheon. He is frequently referred to as “Father of the gods,” “the eternal
King,” and “Creator of all living beings.” El’s other epithets include: “El the Kind, the Compassionate,” “the Bull,” “the Ageless One,” and “the Father of Years.” He is depicted as bearded, and residing in a tent or a tabernacle, whose throne rests on Cherubim. He is the god of blessings and of covenants.

Many of these epithets and images later become assimilated to Yahweh. For example, Yahweh is often depicted as bearded, as King of the gods, as Compassionate, and as residing in a tent, whose throne, like that of El, rests on Cherubim. There are, in addition to this, numerous El epithets in various strains of biblical tradition—epithets that through a process of assimilation and adoption later become associated with Yahweh. We have already encountered El Shaddai, “El of the Mountain.” Like Yahweh who is associated with the mountain of Sinai and later in eschatological traditions with Zion, so too El resides on a mountain. Other patriarchal narratives attest the use of El Olam, “El the Eternal” to whom Abraham plants and worships a tree at Beersheba, El Elyon, “El the Most High,” the god of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-24), and El Roi, “El who sees” (Gen 16:13).

These various El epithets are associated with different shrines: El Shaddai with Bethel, El the Most High, the creator of the heavens and the earth, with Jerusalem, El the Eternal with Beersheba, El who sees with Beerlahai-roi, and El the god
of Israel with Shechem.6
Many of these shrines and altars to El were established by the patriarchs
themselves (e.g., Gen 21:33, 28:18, 33:20, 35:14). It has also been suggested
that the name Yahweh might have originally been a cultic epithet of El! The
etymology of Yahweh, yhwh, is still unclear, but one proposal is to see it as the causitive imperfect of the Canaanite-Proto-Hebrew verb hwy, “to be.”5

It is propable therefore, as many commentators have contended, that the early
Israelites actually worshiped El through his epithet ‘Yahweh.’ This process of
assimilation is usually presented the other way around in the biblical literature: Yahweh is worshiped through the epithets of El: Shaddai, Olam, and Elyon.

Contrary to these biblical traditions that suggest assimilation between Yahweh and El, there are other passages that seem to indicate that Yahweh was a separate and independent deity within El’s council. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is one of those rare
biblical passages that seemingly preserves a vestige of an earlier period in
proto-Israelite religion where El and Yahweh were still depicted as separate deities: Yahweh was merely one of the gods of El’s council! This tradition undeniably comes from older Canaanite lore.

When the Most High (’elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated humanity, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the
number of divine beings. For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted
heritage.

There are two points to take away from this passage. First, the passage presents an apparently older mythic theme that describes when the divine beings, that is
each deity in the divine counsel, were assigned and allotted their own nation. Israel was the nation that Yahweh received.

Second, Yahweh received his divine portion, Israel, through an action initiated
by the god El, here identifiable through his epithet “the Most High.” In other words, the passage depicts two gods: one, the Most High (El), is seen as assigning nations to the divine beings or gods (the Hebrew word is elohim, plural “gods”) in his council; the other, Yahweh, is depicted as receiving from the first god, the Most High, his particular allotment, namely the people of Israel. Similarly, in another older tradition now preserved in Numbers 21:29, the god Chemosh is assigned to the people of Moab.

Other biblical passages reaffirm this archaic view of Yahweh as a god in El’s
council. Psalm 82:1 speaks of the “assembly of El,” Psalm 29:1 enjoins “the
sons of El” to worship Yahweh, and Psalm 89:6-7 lists Yahweh among El’s divine
council.

Thus there seems to be ample evidence in the biblical record to support the claim that as Yahweh became the supreme national deity of the Israelites, he began to usurp the imagery, epithets, and old cultic centers of the god El. This process of
assimilation even morphed the linguistic meaning of the name El, which later
came to mean simply “god,” so that Yahweh was then directly identified as ’el—thus Joshua 22:22: “the god of gods is Yahweh” (’el ’elohim yhwh).

Noteworthy also is the fact that unlike the god Baal, there is no polemic in the Bible
against El, and all the old cultic centers of El, those in Jerusalem,
Shechem, and Beersheba, were later accredited to Yahweh. Since the large majority of patriarchal narratives that speak of shrines and altars to El are found in the northern kingdom, such as Bethel and Shechem, and, on the other hand, many biblical texts seem to accredit Yahweh’s origin to the southern Negeb, the current scholarly hypothesis is that the worship of El in the north and of Yahweh in
the south eventually merged. This thesis finds further support in the incident
of Jeroboam, who may have acted to reestablish the cult of Yahweh-El at Dan and
Bethel via his “golden bulls” (#155). In sum, the biblical literature, spanning
as it does hundreds of centuries of cultural and cultic traditions, preserves
divergent views, portraits, theologies, and origins of its god Yahweh. We will
come across others.

Footnotes

For a comprehensive treatment of the subject see: F. M. Cross, Canaanite
Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Harvard
University Press 1973); M. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and
the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Eerdmans 1990); and W. Dever,
Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
(Eerdmans 2008).↵

Other names formed with “el” include: Ishmael, Bethel, Penuel. As a further note, no name in Genesis contains the form of Yahweh, which later became the
dominant pattern in Israel in the 1st millennium bc. The first and earliest appearance of the name “Israel” comes from the Merneptah stela—an Egyptian victory stela commemorating the Syro-Palestinain conquest of pharaoh Merneptah in 1208 BCE. In the stela Israel is listed among the peoples of the land of Canaan.↵

The Hebrew ’el is often translated as “God.” Although like the Hebrew ’elohim, ’el can be translated as “god,” Hebraic philologists contend that a generic understanding of ’el as “god” is a rather late development in biblical Hebrew. More accurately, ’el without a definite article is to be rendered simply as “El,” the name of a pan-Canaanite (by this term I mean to include a proto-Israelite culture)
deity—a remnant of an older Israelite/Canaanite tradition to which a few biblical passages still attest. Mention of El is also found in Genesis 17:1, 28:3, 35:10, 48:3, 49:25. In later literary sources, and after Yahweh had adsorbed El’s attributes, ’el came to be understood simply as “god.”↵

Translations of the Ugaritic texts can be found in: C. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature: A Comprehensive Translation of the Poetic and Prose Texts (Pontifical Biblical Institute 1949); M. Coogan, ed., and tr., Stories from Ancient Canaan (Westminster
1978).↵

Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 65.↵

Taken and edited from an article by:

Dr. Steven DiMattei

It makes me profoundly thankful to know that divine providence has led us from worshiping a pantheon of warring deities to worshiping the one true God who became incarnate for our salvation in the person of Jesus Christ.

Well said Matt.