Commenting
on Joseph Smith’s statement that “The head God called together the Gods and sat
in grand council to bring forth the world,” James R. White wrote:
Every LDS person who embraces these words as
true must realize how they sound to the ears of an orthodox Christian. God
calling a council of the gods? Concocting a plan to create the world and people
it? Such words are so far removed from historical Christian belief that many
struggle to react properly to them. (James R. White, Is the Mormon My Brother? Discerning the Differences between Mormonism
and Christianity [2d ed.; Birmingham, Ala.: Solid Ground Christian Books,
2008], 73)
One must wonder if 1 Kgs 22:19-23, where God concocts a plan with the
divine council, is part of the Bible he uses? I will quote from the 1995 NASB
which he is rather fond of:
Micaiah said,
"Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His
throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His
left. "The LORD said, 'Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at
Ramoth-gilead?' And one said this while another said that. "Then a spirit
came forward and stood before the LORD and said, 'I will entice him.' "The
LORD said to him, 'How?' And he said, 'I will go out and be a deceiving spirit
in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then He said, 'You are to entice him and
also prevail. Go and do so.' "Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a
deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has
proclaimed disaster against you."
John Peter Lange,
in his A Commentary on the Holy
Scriptures Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical with Special Reference to
Ministers and Students, who himself would agree with White on various
issues, not just Trinitarianism, admitted that this council resolved a
then-open question:
The only question which still remained open
was as to the way in which his fall should be brought about. “Who is able to
delude Ahab, so that he may march against Ramoth to his own destruction?”
Furthermore,
Yahweh presiding among the “hosts” is evidence in favour of the plurality of
the gods concept.
Yahweh Sabaoth
Besides the widespread invectives against the worship of the Baals and of the Asherahs, the frequent use of the term “Yahweh Sabaoth” to designate the head god of Israel and Judah presupposes a panethon (see Tryggve N.D. Mettinger, “Yahweh Zebaoth,” DDD, 923). Yahweh of Hoss led armies (Sabaoth) of heavenly soldiers, since the term “Sabaoth” is found besides references to the divine council:
Who in the clouds ranks like Yahweh? Who among the sons of gods is like Yahweh, a God feared in the council of the council of the holy ones, great and awesome above all that are around him? Yahweh God of hosts, who is as mighty as Yah? (Ps. 89.7-9 [Eng. 6-8])
The heavenly host was the original referent for the pantheon. The Hebrew Bible stresses Yahweh’s primacy, while recognizing the occurrence of other gods. For instance, Micaiah’s vision in 1 Kgs 22.19 depicts Yahweh “sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him.” The presence of these other gods is necessary to uphold Yahweh’s supremacy. Before Yahweh could be conceived of as alone, he first had to be viewed as the greatest. Hence the Hebrew Bible is riddled with polytheistic presuppositions (for instance Gen. 1.26; 3.22; Exod. 15.11; Deut. 32:8-9; Job 1.6; 2.1; Ps. 82; Jer. 23.18 and Zech 14.5).
The sheer quantity of further texts in favor of a native pantheon in the Hebrew Bible precludes a comprehensive presentation. Unproblematic hints that presuppose a heavenly realm populated by several or many deities can be found in the expression “God of gods” (Ps. 136.2-3). Even the expression “our god” in the charter of biblical monotheism, the Shema Israel, admits that other gods exist for other peoples. It insists that Yahweh is Israel’s only god, without negating the existence of other divinities for Israel’s neighbors. The occurrence of other gods is necessary, or the point made in Judg. 11.24 would fail. Addressing the Ammonite king, Jephthah asks: “Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that Yahweh our god has conquered for our benefit?” Jephthah’s understanding of monotheism implies that each kingdom venerates its own god. Monotheism in this case applies only to the level of individual kingdoms. As this view is reflected in the non-corrected version of Deut 32.9 [see this blog post], the writer does not present Jephthah as a less than orthodox follower of Mosaic monotheism, though Jephthah belongs to the ambiguous figures of the Book of Judges. This kind of territorial monotheism is deemed normative or at least sufficient to justify Israel’s presence in Canaan. That this kind of territorial monotheism clashes with universal monotheism is not considered problematic. (James S. Anderson, Monotheism and Yahweh’s Appropriation of Baal [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 617; London: T&T Clark, 2015], 24-25, comment in square brackets added)
Anderson referenced T.N.D. Mettinger’s entry, “Yahweh Zebaoth” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons. S Mettinger wrote the following about the term and how it assumes the ontological existence of other divinities:
. . . it should be noted that the root ṢB’ appears in contexts which draw upon both its royal and its celestial connotations. Like terrestrial kings, the heavenly monarch has a court and council. Among the Heb terms for the divine council we find precisely ṣābā’ (1 Kgs 22:19-23, Pss 103:19-22; 148:1-5; Dan 8:10-13). The fact that the Zebaoth designation occurs in passages in which the divine council plays a role corroborates this association. Ps 89:6-19 is an obvious case. Just as the Davidic king is the highest of the kings on earth (v 28), so Yahweh is the supreme monarch in the divine assembly (vv 6-9) and thus merits the designation Yahweh Zebaoth (v 9). Isa 6, with the Zebaoth designation in vv 3.5, is another example. Yahweh’s question “who will go for us?” (v 8) contains an allusion to the deliberations of the divine council. (Karel Van Der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. Van Her Horst, eds. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible [2d ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1999], 923).
Other evidences presented by Anderson for the ontological existence of (true) gods include the following:
Greater But Not Alone
When Exodus 18.11 claims that Yahweh is greater than all the gods (מכל יהווה גדול האלהים), it also implies the presence of these other deities besides Yahweh. The same applies to the claim that all gods bow down before Yahweh in Psalms 92.7. While the Hebrew grammar, especially in poetic contexts, cannot be evoked to assert that this statement envisages that the supremacy of Yahweh will be recognized in heaven in the future, Zech. 14.9 clearly understands that “Yahweh will be one” only on the day when “Yahweh will become king over all the earth.” As part of a prophetic oracle, the expression “on that day” (ביום ההוא) looks forward to a future accomplishment and the verb יהיה (he will become) is an unaccomplished form. Therefore, Zechariah 14 supports the view of an evolutionary process in which monotheism gradually evolved towards and understanding of Yahweh as a universalistic monotheism. (Anderson, Monotheism and Yahweh’s Appropriation of Baal, 26)
With respect to Gen 1:26-27, a “divine council” text, Anderson wrote:
Let Us Make!
The plural forms used for Elohim’s creative activity in Genesis 1:26a lean toward the native pantheon approach. Although Elohim is synonymous with Yahweh in the final form of the Hebrew Bible, the phrase, “Let us make” (נעשׂה) humankind in our image” (בצלמנו), according to our likeness (כדמותנו),” originally reflected the divine council or the mythology of the divine couple. Likeness to the divine includes the creation of humankind as a male and a female (verse 27). The divine as being male and female would reflect vestigial Asherah mythology where the consort has not been thoroughly excised from the text. The personification of Lady Wisdom in Prov. 3.13-18 has long been thought to have a connection with Asherah. When the pantheon collapsed, it was necessary to interpret these texts as representing wisdom personified rather than a goddess. This shift in understanding was necessary to be consistent with later monotheism. Nevertheless, a feminine dimension for Yahweh should stand out as a clue that Yahweh has appropriated the domain of his former consort, Asherah. Whether the third person plural suffixes in Genesis 1 signify Asherah in conjunction with God/Yahweh, or denotes the divine council, either way they reflect a plurality of gods. (Ibid., 26-27; for a discussion of this text and other texts [e.g., John 4:24; Acts 7:55-56] and how it relates to the corporeal nature of God, see Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment)
C.J. Labuschagne on the language of "incomparability" in the Old Testament and Literature of Surrounding Cultures and
Refuting Jeff Durbin on "Mormonism"