Other Gods

Might a naive Bible-reader be forgiven for supposing that, when Isaiah says that the "gods" of the nations are "nothing", he is denying their existence? But wait!  Enter the Watchtower Society -- why, he called them 'gods', didn't he? There it is -- proof positive that 'there are many gods', just like the Watchtower teaches!

Is a 'fake rose' a rose?

There's an old conundrum, 'Is a fake rose a rose?'.  Noting that a 'fake rose' is called a 'rose', Jehovah's Witnesses botanists obligingly add a new species to the genus, the 'plastic rose'.  Except a 'fake rose' isn't really a rose at all! Words like 'fake', or the Bible's 'strange' and 'other', look on the surface like harmless adjectives, comparable to 'red' or 'pretty'.  But beneath the surface, they're voracious crocodiles, lethal black holes draining all the reality from the words they modify.  They are indeed privatives, taking away, not giving.  Just as a 'fake rose' is not really a rose, so a 'strange god' is not really a god, rather no god at all:

"Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit." (Jeremiah 2:11);

"And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them." (2 Kings 19:18);

"Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." (Galatians 4:8).

So the idols -- and all the gods of the peoples are idols -- are not an inferior rank of second-string gods, they are "no gods." And their future is not bright: "But the idols He shall utterly abolish...In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the LORD and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily." (Isaiah 2:18-21).

Worship Him, all you gods!

The gods of the nations are addressed affirmatively in scripture, even commanded to worship the living God: "Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, who boast themselves of idols; worship Him, all you gods." (Psalm 97:7). The gods of the nations do indeed bow down before the living God. How do they do so?

Many of the things blindly worshipped by the nations are real beings, but not one is a real god.  Idols are nothing in the world: "Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one." (1 Corinthians 8:4).

"For all the gods of the people are idols, but the LORD made the heavens." (Psalm 96:5).

At their lowest, the nations worship craft projects of wood and stone: "What you have in your mind shall never be, when you say, 'We will be like the Gentiles, like the families in other countries, serving wood and stone.'" (Ezekiel 20:32).  In spite of their numbing behavioral disabilities, even the idols of wood and stone worship Him, simply because it is God's good pleasure to make these deaf and dumb stocks and stones bow down to Him: "When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again." (1 Samuel 5:2-3).  These inert worshippers bow before the living God when they are carried helplessly off into captivity, unable to save the deluded souls who trusted in them: "Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast." (Isaiah 46:1).

Some of the gods worshipped by the nations are, not sticks and stones, but created beings of great magnitude and beauty, like the sun, moon, stars, planets. These real beings are not real gods, no more than is a lifeless idol. The sun is a creature of God, loyally attending to his post: "And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there was no day like that before or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel." (Joshua 10:14-15).

Apostates from the faith of Israel imported sun-worship into the very Temple itself:

"And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun." (Ezekiel 8:16);

"And he did away with the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the LORD..." (2 Kings 23:11).

Does the sun worship God? The Bible answer is, Yes! The sun itself worships God, along with every other created thing: "Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light!" (Psalm 148:2-3). If the sun's worshipful stance toward the living God is to be taken as proof of his deity, the Jehovah's Witnesses will be left with an odd lot of things in their pantheon, a mooing and lowing "Divine Council," because "cattle" also praise the LORD: "Beasts and all cattle; Creeping things and winged fowl..." (Psalm 148:10). Even little fishes in the deep blue sea worship God and the Lamb: "And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, 'To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.'" (Revelation 5:13). Hmmm...our pantheon is getting alarmingly crowded, and perhaps some kitty litter needs to be set out before it becomes fouled and the Health Department steps in. And wait a minute - since when is worshipping God a proof of one's own deity? Men worship God alongside the sun so futilely deified!

As to how the sun gives his testimony, it is by shining. All of creation, except for man and the fallen angels and demons, loyally serve God at the posts to which He has assigned them. They have fallen into futility through man's fall, inasmuch as their ordained purposes cannot be met, through no fault of their own: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21). They haven't minds to formulate praises, but neither did Paul pray with his conscious mind when He spoke in tongues: "For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified." (1 Corinthians 14:17). God accepts their testimony as they offer it.

Those who bowed to the sun, moon and stars were serving real things, but not real gods. It's the same with the Parsees, who worshipped fire, or the Romans who set up an altar to the god 'Mildew' in their city. 'Mildew' is no doubt a real, and pesky, natural phenomenon, but it is no god. Those who served empty idols like Baal and Astarte were serving nothing in the world. Their turning away from the living God left them at risk of demonic imposture.

The idolators left themselves open to demonic imposture, though there is not any one-to-one correspondence between pagan gods and demons, as if there were a demon named 'Athena' who had the characteristics her worshippers ascribed to her: "They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately..." (Deuteronomy 32:17).  Rather, those who unwittingly served demons would have started back in horror had they realized what they were worshipping. Demons are unclean spirits, no gods. Demonic possession is very real, and is a feature of pagan religion to this very day; years ago I saw a video of a voodoo service which was quite scary, as the worshippers did indeed seem to be possessed by...nothing you would ever want to know about, certainly no god.

The reason there cannot be any demon named 'Baal' with the suite of characteristics his worshippers ascribed to him, is because those characteristics are already spoken for: the living God is the rider on the storm. Paul said that the Gentiles had an intimation of deity: "...because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts..." (Romans 1:21) - which they perverted with their own vain imaginings, parcelling out God's own attributes to a host of fictions.

The majesty and terror of the storm gives a legitimate intimation of God's presence and might: "The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: The God of glory thunders. The LORD is over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful, the voice of the LORD is majestic. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; Yes, the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon." (Psalm 29:3-5). The things of nature speak of Him, by their beauty and order. Intelligibility implies intelligence - and as these things are not themselves intelligent, there must be an intelligence behind them which brought them into being. The pagans did not miss that insight absolutely, but rather they divided it up inappropriately, multiplying 'gods' in the process. This is how you arrive at "many gods": "And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD." (1 Kings 20:28). One 'god' for the hills, another for the plains, one-potato-two-potato, etc...next thing you now you have a pantheon, complete with storm-god Baal.

The polytheists who worshipped Baal saw in the storm with its majesty and terror one god, in the sun in its brightness another, in the earth with its bounty another god, etc. The point isn't that there is a real plurality of demons or fallen angels, as if there really were a storm-demon and a sun-demon, but that the One God brings all these wonders about: "The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people...For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine." (Psalm 50:1-11). It's all His. The pagans began with a true intimation of deity, but lost it as their wandering imaginations pluralized it into a pantheon.

The pagans hymned their fictitious 'storm-god' with titles properly belonging to the living God: "And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire." (Psalm 18:10-13). The pagans took a legitimate intimation of God's presence in the terror and majesty of the storm and splintered it into a pantheon filled with phantasmal shapes and empty imaginations: "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." (Romans 1:19-23).

Thus their worship was taken captive by demonic impersonators: "But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." (1 Corinthians 10:20). The reason for this isn't because the storms arise at the behest of a demon storm-god: i.e., that Baal really does exist and really does have the attributes his blinded worshippers ascribed to him; rather, it is God who holds the storm-cloud in His hand. Nor is the sun a demon, a 'god' gone bad; though the Aztecs; intending to worship the sun, committed the foulest crimes imaginable, ripping out the still-beating hearts from unwilling human victims to offer in sacrifice. Had you asked the Aztecs who or what it was they intended to worship, they'd have pointed to the sun - our sun, the very same placid disk we see in the sky. It was demons who hissed this plan of worship in their ears, because, like the Samaritans, the pagans did not know what they worshipped: "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." (John 4:22).

But there is no 'sun-demon' up there; the sun is a "very good" creation of God. So far from being a party to their crimes, the sun, in its brightness and constancy, serves in the Bible as an emblem of God: "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." (Malachi 4:2); "Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,...(Luke 1:78).

Pagan theologians actively questioned how worship of their gods had originated, proposing rival theories. The anthropomorphized sky-beings they had inherited from the poets seemed to be sui generis, a species unto themselves, but there were hints they had started out as something else, before they were overlaid by story and fable. One theory was that the gods started out as features of the natural world, Demeter as the grain crop, Dionysos as wine, etc. Certainly some gods are no more than features of the natural world, supplied with a name and a personality, like Gaia, the Earth -- and, yes, the earth does exist...but she is no god! Another theory was that the gods had started life as men. When you trace earthly dynasties back to their roots, you tend to bump up against a god, the first king of that nation. Men have often proclaimed themselves to be gods as did the Roman Emperors like Caligula and Domitian. And yes, men do exist. The poets of the Renaissance revived the pagan gods under the guise of poetic personifications, considering 'Venus' to be 'Love,' 'Mars' to be 'War,' etc. And yes, Love and War are real things...but not real gods.

So some of the things the nations blindly worshipped actually do exist. But not a one is really a god. There is after all only One!:

"The elders in Rome were asked, 'If your God takes no pleasure in the worship of idols, why does He not destroy them?'

"They replied, 'If men had worshipped the things which the world does not need, He would certainly have destroyed them. But they worship the sun, moon, stars and planets. Is He to destroy His world because of the fools?'" (Abodah Zarah, 54b., quoted p. 188, The Wisdom of Israel, edited Lewis Browne).

Counterfeit Bills

If you have five counterfeit hundred dollar bills in your cash drawer, then how much money have you got in your cash drawer? Five hundred dollars...or none?

If you have one hundred false gods in your pantheon, then how many gods have you got?

These two passages begin by addressing a human ruler who had acclaimed himself a 'god,' the prince of Tyre and the king of Babylon respectively. They they pull away the curtain to reveal the power behind the throne, the genius advisor who had himself done...exactly the same thing! Created to serve and praise in heaven, Satan decided he would rather reign on earth than serve in heaven. Though no more a god by nature than the all-too-human prince of Tyre or king of Babylon, now mouldering unburied, he grabbed the same title by the same route...and like them, found sycophants willing to call him what he blasphemously called himself.

Not among the people of God, though. Christians willingly died rather than own the Roman Emperor Domitian as the 'God and Lord' he claimed himself to be. Why? Because they knew there was only One -- and it wasn't Domitian, any more than it's Satan! There was no race of gods formed after God: "Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." (Isaiah 43:10).

What kind of 'god' is Satan? A false god! Does the Watchtower claim, if I do not join them in hymning Satan's real deity, I'm denying he exists? Let me make haste to say Satan is a real being...but he is not a real god, no more than the prince of Tyre and the king of Babylon vainly imagined themselves to be. The Watchtower Society are not the first he has convinced of his real deity; he has followers aplenty: both men and demons, the powers of the air, follow in his train: "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:..." (Ephesians 2:2). But hail him as god all they will, all demons and men his children, that will not make him a god in truth, no more than will worshipping king Nebuchadnezzar make him what he madly claimed to be.

This is why Satan's sin was the sin of pride or presumption: "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil." (1 Timothy 3:6). A real angel, he lifted himself up to be a god, which he was not nor ever could be. His self-promotion was not a minor glitch in the Watchtower's hierarchy of gods, with one of the lesser ones raising himself a notch or two above his proper place in the ranks...but there is no hierarchy of gods, there's only One, and Satan is no more He than is Domitian or Caligula nor any other creature who exalts himself as God.

Moses

The Bible teaches that there are many things called God: "For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, and indeed there are many gods and many lords..." (1 Corinthians 8:5). However, there is only one thing which can truly be God, because there is only one God: "Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else besides Him..." (Mark 12:32). Since there is only one God, all the other things called God must be "so-called" either falsely or in some imperfect sense, by analogy, for example, as when Moses is said to be God to Aaron: "And you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and it shall come about that he shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be as God to him." (Exodus 4:15-16).

The Jehovah's Witnesses take that "you shall be as God to him" to mean Moses must be a god in truth, added into the god-census to produce the forbidden count: namely, more than one. But Moses is not said to be a God without qualification, and thus is not counted as such; rather, he stands to Aaron in the same relation as God stands to His prophets: Moses speaks through Aaron, his spokesman, just as God speaks through His mouth-pieces the prophets. So you wouldn't count Moses in the god-census because he is only like God in a certain respect, he is not properly categorized as a god.

Some ambitious heretic might apply Watchtower-style reasoning to the Bible and say, 'The Bible teaches that there is a race of cloud-people, who look like you and me but whose bodies are comprised of water vapor. If you don't believe that there is such a race of cloud-people, you don't believe the Bible.' Bible-believers scoff, 'the Bible knows of no race of cloud-people, what are you talking about?' And then they'd pull out the 'cloud-people' proof-text, Jude 1:12: "These men are...clouds without water, carried along by winds..." They'd demand to know, 'Do you believe the Bible or not? Are there really men who are "clouds", or is the Bible a lie?'

But it's not true that the alternatives are, either a.) there are men who actually are 'properly described' as clouds, as they claim there are many 'properly described' as gods, or b.) the Bible's a lie. That would be like saying, if the poet says, 'My love is a red, red rose,' then either the beloved is properly categorized as a rose, and would be counted as such by the horticulturist listing the roses in the garden should she happen to be sitting on a garden bench - or else the poet is lying. But he's only saying she is like a red, red rose in some respect, say beauty, not that she is in very fact properly categorized as a rose rather than a human being.

Jude is, likewise, saying that these false teachers are like clouds without water. Just as the farmer in a dry and thirsty land, looking up expectantly to the skies, is disappointed when the lowering storm clouds break up and are scattered without rain, so the people who fell for these false teachers' claims when they rolled into town were disappointed when the false teachers rolled out of town, leaving people's pocketbooks lighter, the great spiritual experiences they promised not having materialized. They promised something that they did not deliver -- that's how they were "clouds without water," not because there is a race of cloud-people made up of water vapor.

Similarly, Moses is like a God to Aaron, and later to Pharaoh; he is not counted as a God.

El

In all languages, words have a range of meanings, not one constant 'essential' meaning. A word with its various shades of meaning has been likened to a family portrait: "And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc., etc., overlap and cross-cross in the same way." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Some of the Old Testament words translated 'god' have a range of meaning differing from the English word 'god' or the Greek word 'theos.' 'El,' for example, can at times mean 'power' or 'might': "It is in the power ['el' 0410] of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad." (Genesis 31:29). 'El' is sometimes translated as 'power,' as for instance in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, "And the Lord cried out, saying, My power, (my) power, you have abandoned me." (Peter 5:5).

The correct response to this situation is, not that 'the early Hebrews identified everybody's hand as a god, thus counting as many gods as there are hands,' but rather that 'el' has a range of meanings differing from that of the English word 'god' or the Greek word 'theos,' because we don't in English say 'the god of my hand,' when we mean the 'power' or 'might' of my hand. The English word 'god' does not mean 'power' or 'might' but refers to a specific category of being. 'Elohim' is more specific. The KJV translates 'elohim' like so:

AV-God 2346, god 244, judge 5, GOD 1, goddess 2, great 2, mighty 2, angels 1, exceeding 1, God-ward + 04136 1, godly 1; 2606

Amongst the thousands of 'true god/false gods', a gleam glints in the eyes of the Jehovah's Witnesses at the KJV's five 'judges.' Could this be the longed-for way around Thomas' confession, "Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:28)?

From the fact that there are many "judges" -- Judge Judy, Judge Wapner, Judge Scalia -- no conclusion follows as to how many "gods" there are in the world. A word must be used in one signification, not equivocally, for a valid syllogism: "It is clearly conclusive that there can be only one God. If there were many gods this name would be given them either univocally or equivocally. If equivocally, it is useless to continue the discussion, for there is nothing to prevent others from using the word 'god' for what we call a stone....Consequently, a number of gods is impossible." (Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, c.15). To say, 'there are many judges, therefore there must also be many gods,' is false; this is the fallacy of equivocation.

Stars

One of the odder entrants in the Watchtower pantheon are 'stars,' reputed by some amongst the Gentiles to be gods: "And beware, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven." (Deuteronomy 4:19).

The proof-text for 'star-gods' is this: "The stars fought from heaven, from their courses they fought against Sisera..." (Judges 5:20). One wonders whether the brook 'Kishon' must be a god as well, as it bravely did its bit in the battle, too: "The torrent of Kishon swept them away, the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon." (Judges 5:21).

All of nature is in God's hands, the sun, moon, stars, rolling tide, even the sparrow that falls from heaven. He may deploy these, His creatures, as He chooses to work His will. If He had wished to annihilate Sisera's armies with a Tunguska-magnitude asteroid crash from the heavens, who could stand in His way? (For purposes of ancient astronomy, 'stars' include 'wandering stars', our planets, 'fixed stars', who now lay exclusive claim to the title 'star', plus meteorites, etc. The title 'fixed', in the Ptolemaic system, means those stars whose positions relative one to another is constant, which is not true of the 'wandering' planets.) In Egypt in 1911 a falling meteorite killed a dog.

It seems doubtful that magnitude happened on the battle-field, because if it had, people would not have come away telling stories about somebody bashing somebody's brains out with a tent-peg. The military victory was won, by the LORD, in the usual fashion, by the "edge of the sword": "And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet." (Judges 4:15). So however the stars did their bit, it was in a quieter, less obtrusive fashion, perhaps by alarming the enemy hosts with a 'nova,' a new thing in the heavens.

As to how they fought, the text does not say, because there is no blow-by-blow account of the battle. One can only speculate that it was something along the lines of a meteor shower, comet, or nova. They fought from their courses - no 'sky-gods' descended. The sun and moon have also done their bit for Israel's military success: "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, and O moon in the valley of Aijalon." (Joshua 10:12).

Ancient armies were easily spooked by portents. Here a brave soldier counsels retreat...because an bird suffered a mishap struggling with its prey: "While they were busy stripping the armour from these heroes, the youths who were led on by Polydamas and Hector (and these were the greater part and the most valiant of those that were trying to break through the wall and fire the ships) were still standing by the trench, uncertain what they should do; for they had seen a sign from heaven when they had essayed to cross it - a soaring eagle that flew skirting the left wing of their host, with a monstrous blood-red snake in its talons still alive and struggling to escape. The snake was still bent on revenge, wriggling and twisting itself backwards till it struck the bird that held it, on the neck and breast; whereon the bird being in pain, let it fall, dropping it into the middle of the host, and then flew down the wind with a sharp cry. The Trojans were struck with terror when they saw the snake, portent of aegis-bearing Jove, writhing in the midst of them, and Polydamas went up to Hector and said, 'Hector, at our councils of war you are ever given to rebuke me, even when I speak wisely, as though it were not well, forsooth, that one of the people should cross your will either in the field or at the council board; you would have them support you always: nevertheless I will say what I think will be best; let us not now go on to fight the Danaans at their ships, for I know what will happen if this soaring eagle which skirted the left wing of our with a monstrous blood-red snake in its talons (the snake being still alive) was really sent as an omen to the Trojans on their essaying to cross the trench. The eagle let go her hold; she did not succeed in taking it home to her little ones, and so will it be - with ourselves; even though by a mighty effort we break through the gates and wall of the Achaeans, and they give way before us, still we shall not return in good order by the way we came, but shall leave many a man behind us whom the Achaeans will do to death in defense of their ships. Thus would any seer who was expert in these matters, and was trusted by the people, read the portent.'" (Homer, Iliad, Book XII).

By contrast to pagan armies, those who put their trust in the LORD were not easiliy spooked. Josephus retells the story of a pagan army standing around waiting...for a bird to tell them which way to go: "As I was myself going to the Red Sea, there followed us a man, whose name was Mosollam; he was one of the Jewish horsemen who conducted us; he was a person of great courage, of a strong body, and by all allowed to be the most skillful archer that was either among the Greeks or barbarians. Now this man, as people were in great numbers passing along the road, and a certain augur was observing an augury by a bird, and requiring them all to stand still, inquired what they staid for. Hereupon the augur showed him the bird from whence he took his augury, and told him that if the bird staid where he was, they ought all to stand still; but that if he got up, and flew onward, they must go forward; but that if he flew backward, they must retire again. Mosollam made no reply, but drew his bow, and shot at the bird, and hit him, and killed him; and as the augur and some others were very angry, and wished imprecations upon him, he answered them thus: Why are you so mad as to take this most unhappy bird into your hands? for how can this bird give us any true information concerning our march, who could not foresee how to save himself? for had he been able to foreknow what was future, he would not have come to this place, but would have been afraid lest Mosollam the Jew should shoot at him, and kill him.'" (Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, Book 1).

So the Jew Mosollam was unimpressed with the bird's hesitation. And doesn't it make more sense for the army to advance or retreat based on its military interest, rather than to rely on the generalship of a bird. Deborah's army was perhaps also unimpressed with the portent in the heavens, but the pagan army facing was scared witless, because the pagans took such things as portents of doom. So the stars did their bit in the battle; the military advantage went to Israel.

The stars' contribution is paired with the brook Kishon's activity, which was no doubt not poetical but prosaic, perhaps the torrent over-flowing its normal course, impeding the movements of the enemy army. In parallel, I would not expect the stars fighting in their courses was 'poetic language' but something that actually happened. However, there is such language in the Bible; atheists who wish to discredit the Bible seize upon expressions like, "Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains sing together for joy..." (Psalm 98:8).

Skeptics trumpet, 'Rivers don't have hands to clap!' But English poets say the same kind of thing. It carries the dreadful name of the 'pathetic fallacy.' Things that wouldn't ordinariliy be expected to express feelings and emotions do so, like "The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign." (Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard). The owl isn't actually complaining, nor does the moon care a whole lot whether people on earth are out and about at night. The feelings are the poets'; they do it because it 'works.' Or, "Dim moon-eyes fishes near Gaze at the gilded gear And query: 'What does this vaingloriousness down here?'" (The Convergence of the Twain, Lines on the loss of the 'Titanic', Thomas Hardy). Fish are not noted for their inquisitiveness, nor for moralizing about "vaingloriousness." It's the poet who is struck by the incongruity of the glittery apparition from another world that has settled down in the fishes' mud. One of the services humankind can perform for our less vocal fellow creatures is to give them a voice. Like I said, I doubt this is a case in point, but one thing of which I am sure: no 'star-gods' put in an appearance on the battle-field...because there ain't any.

Stars are creatures: "Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created." (Psalm 148:3-5). No creature is God; the true and living God is the Creator: "And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:..." (Acts 14:15). Ergo, stars are not gods.

The pagans did not worship unknown mythological 'star-gods' who have mysteriously disappeared for the past three millenia. They worshipped the very stars themselves, the same ones that we see in the sky (the planets only visible by telescope, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, they did not know). How they arrived at the conclusion the stars were gods controlling the world is by bad theology chasing bad science. First comes good science: ancient peoples noticed that the changing face of the night-time sky correlates with seasonal changes. Different constellations rise above the horizon at different times of year, as the earth with tilted axis orbits the sun. In the absence of a reliable written calendar, these risings and settings precisely time important events of the agricultural year, like planting and harvest. This is just as God ordained: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:..." (Genesis 1:14).

Here is good science: "Pleiades rising in the dawning sky, Harvest is nigh. Pleiades setting in the waning night, Plowing is right. Forty days and nights in the turning year They disappear. When they shine again in the morning shade, Sharpen your blade." (Hesiod, Works and Days, 430-436). So long as the farmer is timing his activities by the rising and setting of the Pleiades he's doing right, in that latitude. If the farmer should start saying, 'the Pleiades by their occult virtue ripen the crops,' then he's advanced to doing bad science, reasoning 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc.' If he then goes on to bow himself down before the Pleiades, hymning them, 'O gracious Pleiades, thank you for the bountiful harvest,' he's advanced to doing bad theology, and false, idolatrous worship.

The pagan Greeks did bad meteorology, believing that Sirius, the Dog-Star, prominent in the night sky during the hottest days of summer, actually caused the 'Dog-Days' of summer by exercising some baleful influence upon the earth. This is not accurate; while there is an invariant association between (a) and (b) -- Sirius, the Dog-Star, is invariably sighted in that position during the hottest days of summer in that latitude - there is no causal nexus, rather both (a) Sirius, and (b), the arrival of hot weather, are caused by (c), the earth's travels about the sun with tilted axis.

The ancient Babylonians took this logic all the way to full-fledged bad religion, basing their entire theological system on the premise that the stars, by their various conjunctions, determined every event upon the earth. Thus the stars were the high gods who determined the fates. And their stars were our stars, not hitherto unknown mythological beings; the Babylonians left exquisitely detailed records of their star-sightings: "The archives of the great cities of Mesopotamia were kept on baked clay tablets which have preserved legibly to this day a mass of records whose very existence had been quite unsuspected...one group of tablets turned up written in long columns, and headed with the names of Gods -- which were also names of heavenly bodies. Deciphering these tablets has called for extreme ingenuity, but it has eventually become clear that they correspond very closely to the records of our own Nautical Almanac Office...These tablets comprise planetary observations, tables predicting the motions and eclipses of the Moon, 'procedure-texts' setting out the arithmetical steps to be taken when calculating 'ephemerides' (daily positions of the planets), and a mass of similar material." (The Fabric of the Heavens, Toulmin and Goodfield, pp. 24-25). These were the gods of the Babylonians -- the planets.

There are still people to this very day who believe the stars control human destiny, like Nancy Reagan. But rational folks should realize the Bible authors were right after all: these created beings, battalions in the heavenly armies, do not by their conjunctions force the living God's hand, nor do they even control human destiny. So how is it possible that our modern-day polytheists want to make the stars into gods, reversing two thousand years of science which has fully confirmed the Bible's teaching that they are not gods?

Prince of Tyre

When men of the present day wish to deify themselves, they say 'I am God.' No other word is needed, no other word will do. Some time ago Dr. Elissa Ely published a column in the Boston Globe reporting on a hospital patient whose presenting complaint was 'I am God.' Here is another:

'Yahweh ben Yahweh is the Grand Master of the Celestial Lodge, Architect of the Universe, and the Blessed and only Potentate. He is here to set the captives free and to cause them that are bound to stand perpendicular on the square of righteousness. For behold, one greater than Solomon is here!
(quoted from web-site, http://yahwehbenyahweh.com/index02.htm)

Maybe it's a comfort to Mr. Yahweh, formerly known as Hulon Mitchell, Jr., to reflect, in jail, on his exalted status as the Blessed and only Potentate, I don't know. But self-deification is not a pecularity of ancient times, there are still men who claim to be God.

It's not the lexicographer's task to make all statements true by fiddling with definitions; some statements are blatantly and irremediably false, such as the late Wallace D. Fard's claim to deity: "On Wednesday morning, November 23, Fard was apprehended while leaving his hotel room at 1 West Jefferson Street. He had probably guessed that the arrest would come and did not resist the police officers who seized him. [...] According to police and press transcripts, Fard identified himself as the 'supreme being on earth' and claimed responsibility for starting the Nation of Islam, assisted by Ugan Ali, who was also arrested." ('An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad', Claude A. Clegg, III, Part One, Chapter 2, p. 31). Wallace D. Fard's principal devotee, Elijah Muhammad, was sold on his divinity: "In one meeting, he proclaimed, 'Fard is Allah, who came to save the dark people.' To shore up support, the teacher himself made appearances before Chicago converts to show them what God looked like in person." (op. cit., p. 25). Elijah Muhammad used to like to boast that, unlike the unseen 'spook God' of the Christians, his God was one you could go up to and shake hands with: Wallace D. Fard.

So men of the present day, when they make claims to Deity, say 'I am God'. They don't say 'I am Sasquatch' or 'I am Qumquat'; there's no other English word for a man who wishes to claim to be God to make use of. So there's no reason to conclude from similar claims made by would-be god-kings of antiquity that the English word 'god' means anything different from the Greek 'theos.' Men of the present day are sometimes reputed to be gods; you just need to take a walk on the wild side to find them. Their claims are no more valid than the same claim made by the prince of Tyre:

"Son of man, say to the leader of Tyre, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Because your heart is lifted up and you have said, 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas'; yet you are a man and not God...Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most ruthless of the nations. And they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, 'I am a god,' in the presence of your slayer, although you are a man and not God, in the hands of those who wound you?'" (Ezekiel 28:2-9).

Psalm 82

The law of Moses contains this startling injunction: "In any case of disputed ownership involving ox, donkey, sheep, clothing, or any other loss, of which one party says, 'This is mine,' the case of both parties shall come before God ['elohim']; the one whom God ['elohim'] condemns shall pay double to the other." (Exodus 22:9, NRSV).  How does God judge between the contesting parties?

Moses' law set forth evidentiary standards of due process which preclude any thought of judgment by lot or oracle: "One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15). Human judges judge the matter, upon careful inquiry: "If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him in wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry..." (Deuteronomy 19:16-18). Judgment was given to men, not to divine oracle:

"And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment." (Deuteronomy 17:9);

"Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled." (Deuteronomy 21:5).

So one realizes with a start that the 'elohim' who condemn the guilty of Exodus 22:9 are, constructively, human judges. Are they so-called because, as the King James Version and the Peshitta suppose, the word 'elohim' there properly means 'judges?' Or is it because God chooses to judge His people by their means, delivering His judgments through their mouths, as the lovely old hymn has it:

"Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing
Always, only, for my King,
Always, only, for my King."
(Frances R. Havergal)

God judges in the midst of His congregation, the judges: "Then he set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, 'Take heed to what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take care and do it, for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, no partiality, nor taking of bribes.'" (2 Chronicles 19:5-7).

"Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s." (Deuteronomy 1:16-17).

But sadly, men called to judge often fall short of their calling, leading to the situation described in Psalm 82. Why does Jesus raise Psalm 82 in His defense against the charge of blasphemy?:

"I said, Ye are gods."

Lower than the Angels

There are several instances in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, where 'elohim' is translated as 'angels.':

"Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols; worship him, all ye his angels." (Brenton Septuagint, Psalm 97:7).

The first thing to notice about this renderings is that it reduces the affected passage to a non-sequitur. Why would those who boast in "idols" be left ashamed, if "angels" worship the Lord? Whatever angels are, they surely are not "idols." One might as well say, 'Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols; worship him, all ye truck drivers,' because truck drivers are no more "idols" than are "angels."

Another: "I will give thee thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; and I will sing psalms to thee before the angels; for thou hast heard all the words of my mouth." (Brenton Septuagint, Psalm 138:1). Perhaps the translators thought they were putting a hedge around the Bible teaching of monotheism, by translating 'elohim' as 'angels' where there was any possibility the reader would take a reference to false gods as implying their reality.

This would be a curiosity and no more but for the fact that one of these 'elohim' = 'angels' translations may have found its way into the New Testament, in Hebrews 2:7, "You have made him a little lower than the angels...", a quote of Psalm 8:5, "For you have made him a little lower than the angels ['elohim']..." Does this quote by the inspired New Testament author validate the translation strategy as a whole?

In any given instance, one cannot be sure how the Hebrew text which served as the exemplar for the Septuagint read. It once was assumed that the Septuagint was a free translation of text identical to the later-established Masoretic text, and under this theory, well-intentioned translators from Origen onwards sought to 'correct' the Septuagint by conforming it to the Hebrew text as supplied by the Rabbis. But the discoveries at Qumran have made clear the Septuagint is not a free translation of the Masoretic text, but a literal translation of a distinct textual tradition. For example, "And thou shalt no more have the sun for a light by day, nor shall the rising of the moon lighten thy night; but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and God thy glory." (Brenton Septuagint, Isaiah 60:19). "The traditional [Masoretic] text here omits the phrase 'by night,' but it is attested by the Greek, Old Latin, and Aramaic versions as well as by the St. Mark's scroll." (Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 305)

To parallel the logic of employing Psalm 8:5 to establish an equation between 'elohim' and 'angels:' I say, the Bible teaches that 75 is the same number as 70. Because, Acts 7:14 says, "Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people." But Genesis 46:27, translated from the Masoretic text, says, "All the persons of the house of Jacob who went to Egypt were seventy." (Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5). But the Septuagint for Genesis 46:27, from which Stephen was likely quoting, says, "And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in the land of Egypt, were nine souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob who came with Joseph into Egypt, were seventy-five souls." (Brenton Septuagint). It is over-hasty to use this as proof that, in Bible arithmetic, 70=75, because it cannot be known whether the seventy were not translating from a Hebrew exemplar which, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, read seventy-five. In any case one cannot overturn a major Bible doctrine, monotheism, on the strength of a death-defying leap between languages like our equation 70=75, in the face of so many unknowns.

In some cases, the text upon which the Septuagint was based may more genuine. Flavius Josephus, who claimed to have access to the temple text, thought the law of Moses forbade abortion: "The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind; if any one, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean." (Josephus, Against Apion, Book 2, 25) But where is there any such provision in the law of Moses? In the Masoretic text, Exodus 21:22 implies payment of a fine for causing a miscarriage, which is not how a "murderer" is dealt with: "If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." (Exodus 21:22). Here it is: "And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman's husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation. But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life..." (Brenton Septuagint, Exodus 21:22-23) -- a completely different text. This was taken to forbid abortion of a fetus sufficiently developed to be visibly human.

So what led the Septuagint translators to understand Psalm 8:5 as they did? Did their text read 'sons of God' rather than just 'elohim'? Elsewhere, they translate 'sons of God' as 'angels': "And it came to pass on a day, that behold, the angels of God came to stand before the Lord, and the devil came with them." (Job 1:6, Brenton Septuagint).  One cannot know for sure, and it would be undesirable to discard a major Bible doctrine like monotheism based on a conjectural reconstruction of a text not at hand.

But here is the most noteworthy point. If it is the case that 'elohim' here means 'angels,' then in the judgment of the inspired author of Hebrews, it is not to be translated 'theoi' -- gods -- but rather 'angelloi.' So, far from proving that angels are ever called 'gods' in scripture, this instance proves that angels are not to be called gods ['theoi'], but only angels ['angelloi.'].

Bible teaching on angels does not naturally lead to the conclusion that angels are gods. Gods are not servants, and the angels are servants. Do a people judge their gods?: "Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?" (1 Corinthians 6:3).

"Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?" (Hebrews 1:14).

"To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven -- things which angels desire to look into." (1 Peter 1:12).

Before the gods

The Psalmist announced his intention to worship the LORD before the gods: "I will praise You with my whole heart, before the gods I will sing praises to You." (Psalm 138:1). Before what gods? With the greatest of naturalness, pagan peoples called their idols "gods": "Moroever you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with hands." (Acts 19:26). Perhaps the Psalm looks back to the time when David was in military service to the Philistines. No doubt his attendance was expected at religious ceremonies devoted to the pagan gods. What did he do there: mumble the obligatory praises to the idols? No, praise the living God! All the gods of the peoples are idols: "For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens." (1 Chronicles 16:26). Not 'some of the gods of the people are idols, others are powerful beings;' but "All the gods of the peoples are idols."