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David E. Bokovoy
Review of Michael S. Heiser. Youve Seen One Elohim, Youve Seen Them All? A Critique
of Mormonisms Apologetic Use of Psalm 82, presented at the 58th annual meeting
of the Evangelical Theological Society in Washington DC on 16November 2006, now
appearing in this number of the FARMS Review, pages 22166.
To date, the most exhaustive study of the biblical view of the divine
council by a Latter-day Saint is Daniel C. Petersons Ye Are Gods:
Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Human-
kind. Peterson provides an impressive analysis of LDS theology and
Jesuss use of Psalm 82 in the Gospel of John. For Peterson, the Latter-
day Saint doctrine regarding the divine nature of humanity provides
a strong interpretive crux for understanding Jesuss use of the council
text: God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of
the gods he holds judgment (Psalm 82:1 New Revised Standard Ver-
. Martti Nissinen, Prophets and the Divine Council, in Kein Land fr sich allein:
Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palstina und Ebirnari fr Manfred Weippert
zum 65. Geburtstag (Vandenhoeck: Universittsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 2002), 4.
. William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient
Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 29495, 297.
. Daniel C. Peterson, Ye Are Gods: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the
Divine Nature of Humankind, in The Disciple as Scholar: Essays on Scripture and the
Ancient World in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed. StephenD. Ricks, DonaldW.
Parry, and AndrewH. Hedges (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 471594. See DavidE. Boko-
voy, Heavenly Councils in the Old Testament and Modern Revelation, Religious Educa-
tor (forthcoming).
Heiser, Mormonisms Use of Psalm 82 (Bokovoy) 269
sion, NRSV). Recently, however, Petersons essay has drawn the atten-
tion of Michael Heiser, an evangelical Bible scholar who specializes
in the Israelite view concerning the divine council. In his critique of
Peterson, Heiser takes exception to his analysis of Psalm 82. As a spe-
cialist in biblical council imagery, Heiser attempts to correct what he
perceives as certain flaws in the LDS understanding and use of Psalm
82 (p.222 above). Heiser raises several important issues worthy of
careful consideration. The following essay is not an exhaustive treat-
ment of or response to the issues raised in Heisers critique. Instead, it
will provide a general response to Heisers claims, particularly those
claims that apply both to LDS thought and to Psalm 82.
testimony that all blessings that were ordained for man by the coun-
cil of heaven were on conditions of obedience to the law thereof.
The Book of Abraham refers to the intelligences that were organized
before the world was (Abraham 3:22). In this council setting, God
stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good
(Abraham 3:23). According to the Prophet, every man who has a call-
ing to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that
very purpose in the grand council of heaven. Though the concept
may seem odd to some Christians, these teachings are not completely
absent in the Bible.
The notion of God assigning members of his council to assume
important positions of administrative responsibility appears in its ear-
liest form in Deuteronomy 32:8: When the Most High apportioned
the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of
the peoples according to the number of the gods (Deuteronomy 32:8
NRSV). For Latter-day Saints, who at least in part associate the coun-
cil with humanity, a seemingly parallel notion appears in the council
story featured in the Book of Abraham:
And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood
in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers;
for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they
were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them;
thou wast chosen before thou wast born. (Abraham 3:23)
Parker argued that verses one and five in Psalm 82 served as nar-
rative introductions to Yahwehs council address delivered before his
father Elyon, the head of the council. In his analysis, Parker convinc-
ingly illustrates that Yahweh would have originally appeared in Psalm
82 as merely one of the assembled participants of deities. Having
thought that the members of the council were all gods (and therefore
justand immortal), Yahweh now recognizes that, being incorrigi-
bly unjust, they will perish like mortals, fall like some human poten-
tate.21 Parkers analysis of Psalm 82 works well with Petersons claim
that the text reflects the story of the grand council from the Books of
Abraham and Moses.
In an important part of his critique concerning these issues,
Heiser argues against the theory endorsed by biblical scholars such as
Parker and Mark S. Smith that, in its earliest stages, Israelite religion
originally perceived Yahweh as a son of El. In terms of an evaluation
of the separateness of El and Yahweh, writes Heiser, Latter-day Saint
scholars have too blithely accepted the positions of Smith, Parker, and
Barker. All is not nearly as tidy as they propose (p.234). Heiser, for
example, maintains that rather than a separate divine father, the Elyon
or God Most High presented in Deuteronomy 32:89 is none other
than Yahweh himself. In this proposal, Heisers view stands in direct
contrast to Mark Smith, who argues that early on, Yahweh is under-
stood as Israels god in distinction to El. Deuteronomy 32:89 casts
Yahweh in the role of one of the sons of El, here called >elyn. ... This
passage presents an order in which each deity received its own nation.
Israel was the nation that Yahweh received.22
The present form of Deuteronomy seems to support Heisers argu-
ment. Rather than a separate deity, Elyon and Yahweh might appear
as a single reference to the head God of the council. In addition to the
divine allotment depicted in Deuteronomy 32:8, the idea of a series of
minor deities that Yahweh had assigned to govern the various nations
appears in Deuteronomy 4:1920. These verses, which discuss the
21. Parker, Beginning of the Reign of God, 53940.
22. Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient
Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 32.
Heiser, Mormonisms Use of Psalm 82 (Bokovoy) 275
LDS scholars have good reason to accept the historical views of schol-
ars such as Parker and Smith.
Even within LDS theology, God the Father stands out as ontologically
unique inasmuch as he created the spirits of all humanity. Modern
revelation describes God with the words from eternity to eternity He
is the same, and His years never fail (D&C 76:4).
that Enlils descent to Hades may indicate that the high god in Meso-
potamian mythology was originally sentenced to death.45 As noted
by James Ackerman in his dissertation concerning Psalm 82, these
types of judgment scenes in which the council determines that gods
will die like mortals carry important implications for interpreting the
cultural background for the biblical text.46 Contrary to Heisers inter-
pretation, none of these stories indicate that the dying gods were of a
different species or order than the gods who issued the sentence.
Near Eastern traditions often place considerable emphasis on the
dying-god motif.47 In no sense, however, are these dying godseven
when resurrectedsomehow depicted as a lesser species. Heisers con-
fusion concerning the implications of a biblical statement that God
issued a judgment of death to the deities of the divine council illus-
trates the fundamental need for biblical scholars to pursue Assyriol-
ogy in connection with their efforts to interpret the Hebrew Bible.
Also contrary to Heisers suggestion, the punishment meted out
to usurpers in Near Eastern council stories never indicates that the
criminals derived from some sort of exceptional species. The story
of Athtar from ancient Canaan, for instance, presents the tradition
of Athtars descent to the underworld following the deitys ascension
to the throne of Baal. The details involved in Athtars story contain
important thematic elements depicted in ancient Near Eastern stories
of cosmic revolt. Athtar seems to share some semblance with Baals
mortal enemy Mot or Death into whom Baal himself descends.
Hence, Hugh Page notes that Athtars descent to the underworld
... implies that on some level Athtar has placed himself in proxim-
ity to or relationship with the only god that Baal proves incapable
45. Thorkild Jacobsen, An Ancient Mesopotamian Trial for Homicide, in Toward
the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture, ed. Wil-
liam L. Moran (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 207; first published in
Studia Biblica et Orientalia, vol. 3 of Analecta Biblica et Orientalia XII (Rome: Pontificio
Istituto Biblico, 1959), 13050.
46. See James S. Ackerman, An Exegetical Study of Psalm 82 (PhD diss., Harvard
University, 1966), 18693.
47. For a recent survey of the issue, which includes a survey of previous assessments,
see Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection: Dying and Rising Gods in the
Ancient Near East (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001).
286 The FARMS Review 19/1 (2007)
The fact that Athtar, the Strong, experienced a type of death in which
he ruled over the underworld following his descent from Baals
throne does not suggest that Athtar was a being species-unique from
the other deities, any more than Inanna or Ishtar, the Mesopotamian
goddesses who experienced a type of death in the underworld, were of
a different species than the gods Ea, Enki, Marduk, and so forth.
48. Hugh R. Page Jr., The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of Its Reflexes in Ugaritic
and Biblical Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 92; Pages views concerning the Athtar myth
have been criticized by Gregorio del Olmo Lete, In Search of the Canaanite Lucifer,
Aula Orientalis 19 (2001): 12532.
Heiser, Mormonisms Use of Psalm 82 (Bokovoy) 287
Holding the position most honored among the gods did not estab-
lish Arinna as species-unique. Arinna was simply the god before
whom, from the authors perspective, the other gods would regularly
49. Richard J. Clifford, Phoenician Religion, Bulletin of the American Schools of
Oriental Research 279 (1990): 57.
50. As cited in Itamar Singer, Hittite Prayers (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,
2002), 51.
288 The FARMS Review 19/1 (2007)
fall down.51 For the ancients, the Near Eastern view of the divine
court clearly reflected or were expressed in terms of earthly reality.
Therefore, just as the high king before whom other humans paid hom-
age was still a human being, so the god to whom other deities paid
homage was still a god, matching in species. For biblical authors, Yah-
weh stood at the head of the hierarchy in Israelite thought. Yahweh
was unique as the God of gods, but he was not unique in his divinity.
From a biblical perspective, Yahweh even shared this divinity with
humanity.
able emphasis upon the deified dead in the Hebrew Bible and the early
Christian teaching regarding deification.54 Heiser, notwithstanding
Petersons evidence, rejects the idea that a genus equation of God and
humankind appears in the Bible.
For his criticisms of Petersons views, Heiser places considerable
weight on the notion that the concept of the image of God does not
advance the idea that there is a genus equation of God and human-
kind or that God was once a man (p.224). On some levels, Heisers
point concerning the word tzelem, or image, in Genesis 1:2627
is correct. Concerning this controversial term, Marc Z. Brettler has
recently explained:
These lines from the tale of Sargon, the gardener whom the goddess Ishtar
loved, seem to provide an especially significant parallel with the biblical
view presented in the story of Eden. In the words of Nicholas Wyatt: the
man in his garden is a symbolic allusion to the king in his sanctuary.63
One of the important connections between humanitys enthrone-
ment in the garden and later biblical traditions includes the anointing
of an Israelite king in 1Kings 1:2840 at the Gihon Spring; a river
named Gihon was one of the four rivers that flowed out of Eden and
round the land of Cush (Genesis 2:13). Significantly, the only other
explicit reference to the Garden of Eden in the Hebrew Bible appears
in a context that addresses the link between kingship and divinity (see
Ezekiel 28:213).64
Concerning the attestation of biblical rituals that may preserve
actual religious rites wherein Israelite kings assumed divinity, Wyatt
argues that
Like the account in Genesis, the lesser gods of the divine council in
Atrahasis were gardeners who did the laborious task of caring for the
canals, trees, and waterways that sustained the higher gods of the
67. For additional examples of Yahweh portrayed in the role of gardener, see Num-
bers 24:6; Psalm 104:16; Isaiah 44:14.
68. Altrahasis II.39 16, translation in BenjaminR. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthol-
ogy of Akkadian Literature (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 1993), 1:159.
Heiser, Mormonisms Use of Psalm 82 (Bokovoy) 295
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the
most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
(Psalm 82:67)
(Judges 13:36). In his critique, Heiser draws attention to the fact that
the word angel or mal<k in the Bible is a purely functional term and
not a species term (p.241). Therefore, this heavenly messenger in
Judges 13 is not an angel in the traditional way interpreted by Western
readers, but rather a divine messenger sent from the heavenly realm.
It is only after this man of God ascended to heaven in a fiery flame
that Manoah recognized that he had seen a god (Judges 13:22). In his
analysis of the account, Brettler states that
when Manoahs wife speaks to her husband, she notes (v. 6),
The man of God has come to me; ... the idiom [come to]
is also used in clear sexual contexts, so this may also be trans-
lated: The man of God slept with me. Through this double
entendre put in the mouth of the clever wife of Manoah, a
double entendre that her dim-witted husband is too stupid to
understand, the audience is told of the true father of the boy
to be born.72
Among the issues that sustain Petersons claim that Old Testa-
ment authors viewed humans as theomorphic are biblical references
to prophetic interaction with the council. Due to the administrative
role assumed by the council, the Old Testament frequently depicts
biblical prophets interacting with the council and receiving commis-
sions from God to function as his representatives.75 Peterson does
well, therefore, to draw attention to this phenomenon in his analysis,
since the fact that prophets functioned as part of the council strongly
supports Petersons claim that a blurring of the distinction between
mortal human beings and angels, [and] between mortal human
beings and gods appears in biblical and other ancient references to
the council.76 The book of Amos declares that God will do noth-
ing, but he revealeth his secret [sd] unto his servants the prophets
(Amos 3:7). Though translated as secret in the King James Version
of the Bible, the noun sd, in this instance, refers to Gods divine
council.77 Generally speaking, the word sd, translated both coun-
cil and counsel, is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to a group or to
that which transpires within a given group. When used to signify a
group, it is used with reference both to humankind (e.g., Ezek 13:9)
and to the divine realm (e.g., Ps 89:8).78 Jeremiah referred to a true
prophet as one who had participated in Gods sd through the acts of
seeing and hearing (Jeremiah 23:18). By participating in the council,
75. See, for example, Edwin C. Kingsbury, The Prophets and the Council of Yah-
weh, Journal of Biblical Literature 83/3 (1964): 27986; Martti Nissinen, Prophets and
the Divine Council, in Kein Land fr sich allein, 419.
76. Peterson, Ye Are Gods, 509.
77. For an introduction to this Old Testament tradition in relationship to the Book
of Mormon, see JohnW. Welch, The Calling of a Prophet, in The Book of Mormon: First
Nephi, the Doctrinal Foundation, ed. MonteS. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT:
BYU Religious Studies Center, 1988), 3554.
78. Callender, Adam in Myth and History, 144.
300 The FARMS Review 19/1 (2007)
The pattern witnessed in Isaiah 6 reflects the general trend for council
stories in the ancient Near East witnessed in texts like Enuma Elish
and Abraham 3.88 For Latter-day Saints, Isaiahs story, therefore, pro-
vides an impressive type of Jesus Christ, who volunteered in the pre-
mortal council to serve as the Savior of the world with the declaration
84. Moshe Weinfeld, Ancient Near Eastern Patterns in Prophetic Literature, Vetus
Testamentum 27/2 (1977): 18081.
85. Weinfeld, Ancient Near Eastern Patterns, 18081.
86. See, for example, Gregory Y. Glazov, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening
of the Mouth in Biblical Prophecy (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 11163.
87. Hurowitz, Isaiahs Impure Lips, 54.
88. See David E. Bokovoy, The Calling of Isaiah, in Covenants, Prophecies, and
Hymns of the Old Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 12839.
302 The FARMS Review 19/1 (2007)
there are other [elohim] who are divine sons (p.264). This claim, how-
ever, does little to refute Petersons basic argument: it does not seem
that Jesus citation of a metaphorical use of the term god, as applied
to human beings, would go very far toward justifying his ascription
to himself of literal divinity.95 For both Peterson and Heiser, Jesuss
response relies upon a literal rendering of elohim as gods. The dif-
ference between the two studies lies in Heisers confusion concern-
ing Yahweh as a being species-unique and humanity functioning as
divine members of the assembly.
And the day [of atonem]ent is the end of the tenth jubilee in
which atonement will be made for all the sons of [God] and
for the men of the lot of Melchizedek. [And on the heights]
he will decla[re in their] favour according to their lots; for it
is the time of the year of grace for Melchizedek, to exa[lt in
the tri]al the holy ones of God through the rule of judgment,
as is written about him in the songs of David, who said: Ps
97. John J. Collins, Powers in Heaven: God, Gods, and Angels in the Dead Sea
Scrolls, in Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Robert A. Kugler
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 2324.
98. As translated in Florentino Garca Martnez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The
Qumran Texts in English, trans. Wilfred G.E. Watson (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 118; for an
analysis of the issue, see Morton Smith, Ascent to the Heavens and Deification in 4QMa,
in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference
in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. LawrenceH. Schiffman (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 18199.
Heiser, Mormonisms Use of Psalm 82 (Bokovoy) 307
Since the text refers to the sons of God and the men of the lot
of Melchizedek, interpreters should take seriously the possibility that
this Dead Sea Scroll passage refers to an exalted human Melchizedek
after the order of 4Q491 11responsible for the judgment invoked in
Psalm 82. At minimum, 11Q Melchizedek provides strong evidence
for an early Jewish trend toward linking Psalm 82 with human beings.
Even John Collins (who contrary to this proposal suggests that there is
no indication that the Melchizedek of the Melchizedek Scroll was ever
a mortal man) states:
In the view of the midrash, the Most High God is El. Elohim
is a lesser deity, an angel, if you prefer. But the striking thing
about this passage is that the term Elohim, which is usually
understood to refer to the Most High in the biblical psalm,
now refers to a lesser heavenly being. There are at least two
divine powers in heaven, even if one of them is clearly subor-
dinate to the other.100
You stood at Mount Sinai and said, All that the Lord hath spo-
ken will we do, and obey (Exod. 24:7), (whereupon) I said:
Ye are godlike beings (Ps. 82:6); but when you said to the
(golden) calf, This is thy god, O Israel (Exod. 32:4), I said to
you, Nevertheless, ye shall die like men (Ps. 82:7).102
7. but you shall surely die like the sons of men, and fall like
one of the princes.
8. Arise, O Lord, judge all the inhabitants of the earth, for
you shall take possession of all the nations.105
his master will bring him to the judges, and he will bring him
to the door or to the doorposts; and his master will pierce his
ear with an awl, and he will be a slave to him, enslaved forever.
(Targum Neofiti on Exodus 21:6)109
And the sons of the judges saw that the daughters of the sons of
man were beautiful in appearance and they took wives for them-
selves from among whomsoever they chose. (Genesis 6:2)110
Conclusion
The biblical view of the divine council of deities has assumed a
fundamental role in biblical scholarship. Textual and archaeological
discoveries made in recent years carry important implications for the
way Bible-believing Christians understand their own theology in rela-
tion to Israelite beliefs. As Latter-day Saints, we owe a debt of gratitude
to Michael Heiser for his important contributions in furthering this
important discussion. Even in his critique of the LDS use of Psalm 82
and John 10, Heiser raises important issues worthy of careful consid-
eration. Ultimately, no matter which opinions regarding these texts
hold sway, clearly the Latter-day Saint position regarding humanity
and the divine council of deities is much more biblical-like than many
have supposed.