Monday, November 14, 2022

K. L. Noll on the Bible's Affirmation of the Ontological Existence of Plural Gods

  

On rare occasions, a so-called intolerant henotheism was imposed. In this case, worship of lesser gods was prohibited, and the patron god alone received worship. Some researchers call this intolerant henotheism a monolatry, which means ‘worship of only one’. Many portions of the Bible express monolatry. For example, when Yahweh declares that he is a jealous god who banishes all other gods from his presence, the author of this commandment does not deny that other gods exist but prohibits worship of them (Deut. 5.7-10). Likewise, when Micah announces that other kingdoms will walk ‘each in the name of its god’, but Israel will walk in the name of Yahweh, Micha does not deny other gods might be real (Mic. 4.5). In the New Testament, John of Patmos believes in the existence of an angel and desires to worship this messenger god, but the angel insists on monolatry (Rev. 19.9-10; 22.8-9). The apostle Paul presumes that the gods of the Roman people exist, but he judges them to be evil gods rather than good gods (1 Cor. 10.20-21) and insists that Christians should affirm monolatry (1 Cor. 8.5-6).

 

Many Jews and Christians today believe that the Bible expresses monotheism, but this is not correct unless one defines monotheism to include any number of minor supernatural agents. Angels, demons and minor supernatural beings are abundant in the Bible (Gen. 3.24; Lev. 16.6-10; Judg. 13.3; Isa. 6.2-3; 27.1; Zech. 3.1-5, to name a few). Genuine monotheism, defined as denial of all supernatural agents but one, occurs only here and there in a handful of biblical verses (e.g. Deut. 4.35; Isa. 45.5). More commonly, the Bible assumes that its god is a patron who rules over a pantheon of lesser supernatural agents (e.g. Deut. 10.17; Ps. 29.1). Biblical storytellers who had no interest in (or perhaps no knowledge of) a monotheistic doctrine wrote about other gods without embarrassment (e.g. Judg. 11.24). The Jewish Bible offers a representative example of a conventional ancient Near Eastern patron-god henotheism. (K. L. Noll, “The Patron God in the Ancient Near East,” in Patronage in Ancient Palestine and in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, ed. Emanuel Pfoh [The Social World of Biblical Antiquity—Second Series 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2022], 45-46)