Notwithstanding their commitment to
Trinitarian dogma, Matt Foreman and Doug Van Dorn, both Reformed Baptists,
argued against translating elohim in Psa 82:6 as “human judges” and
instead, favoured “gods." They wrote that:
But,
sometimes the translation is rendered as “judges” (NAS) instead of “gods” . . .
this “human rulers” interpretation fails to account for how the judgement is
that, “You will die like men” (vs. 7). It is a tautology to tell men that they
are going to die like men. However, there is a parallel in Revelation. “The
devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where
the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night
forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).
It is sometimes
assumed that the term “Elohim” refers to human judges. Of the over 2,600
occurrences of the word in the OT, no one questions that the vast majority of
them refer to either God or deities like Baal. Nevertheless, this did not stop
the famed Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1907) from having as [its] first
definition “ruler, judges.” The lexicon gives only eight verses to support this
claim (Ex 21:6; 22:7-8; 1Sa 2:25; Jdg. 5:8; Ps 82:1, 6; 138:1), even though all
of them have some kind of supernatural attestation in the manuscripts (God,
gods, or angels). In other words, none of them are clearly “human.” Given this,
there is good reason (as some scholars have argued) to believe that Elohim
never refers to living humans anywhere in the entire Bible (humans are not
gods!), which is why newer lexicons such as HALOT and TWOT don’t even offer
human judges as a possibility (Cyrus H. Gordon, “’elohim in Its Reputed Meaning
of Rulers, Judges,” Journal of Biblical Literature 54 [1935]:139-44).
For these reasons, unless a person has a preconceived bias against the
possibility of this translation of the most natural interpretation is that of
the ESV. This song is talking about a heavenly divine council scene with
heavenly beings identified as “sons of the Most High” being judged for their
wicked rule on earth. (Matt Foreman and Doug Van Dorn, The Angel of the
Lord: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Study [Dacono, Colo.: Waters
of Creation Publishing, 2020], 171-72)
With respect to the Exodus texts, David P. Wright, in his book, Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 254-58, refuted the claim that אלהים in Exo 21:6, 13 and 22:8-9 (vv. 7-8 in the Hebrew) are human judges; instead, he argues that God/deity is in view. I have scanned these pages and put them up online for a handy reference for those interested (PDF here). Indeed, many modern translations (e.g., NRSV; 1985 JPS Tanakh) has “God” in these texts, not “[human] judges.”
