Translation
for even if it be that there are ____ called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many gods and many lords (see comment below),
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
for even if it is true that there are entities which are thought of and referred to as gods, whether they are perceived to reside in the heavens, or whether they are men here on earth that command their subjects to worship them as if they are gods, and we know there are indeed many entities that are thought of as gods and many leaders that lord it over their subjects in that way,
Footnotes
1
In footnote number 8 on page 339 of Unseen Realm, Heiser berates the translators of some popular versions of the Bible that render I Cor 8:5, (the part about many gods and many lords) with quotation marks around “gods” and “lords.” His argument is that they are wrong in doing so because “the Greek manuscripts have no such punctuation.” Of course they had no such punctuation! They had no punctuation whatsoever! Therefore, there is no indication of the end of one sentence and the beginning of another one. Furthermore, until about the 9th or 10th century, all the words in Greek manuscripts were crammed together with no spaces between the words; no spaces between sentences either. Sometimes they were all Capital letters, and sometimes there were all minuscules. As an example, do the letters GODISNOWHERE intend to say, “God is now here,” or “God is nowhere”? Because there was no punctuation whatsoever, translators must try to determine what was being said, and what was intended by it. In order to communicate that Paul seems to be calling those entities supposed gods and supposed lords, many translators put them in quotes for the sake of the modern reader. No translator is ever intending to communicate that the Greek version had quotations around those words.
MANY GODS AND MANY LORDS REFERS TO THE ERRONEOUS BELIEFS OF OTHER RELIGIONS
Because of what precedes the statement about many gods and many lords, this must mean that there are many entities that people think of as god and many human leaders (lords) who demand to be called gods or demigods. Notice how the verse begins – “even if it be that there are ____ called gods”. There are a few options for how the blank can be filled in; “even if it be that there are so- called gods,” “even if it be that there are entities called gods,” ‘even if it be that there are beings that are called gods,” “even if it be that there are things called gods.” You get the idea. The fact that he says they are “called gods” means they are not really gods, they are just called gods.
Michael Heiser takes this to mean that there are indeed other gods that have supernatural powers. In so doing he rejects several aspects of the context of this verse, the consistent message of the whole Bible, and the most natural meaning of this statement. He would disagree with my statement about the whole Bible because he has reinterpreted all the pertinent passages to point the direction he wants them to point.