Troublesome Topic: WAS ISRAEL MONOTHEISTIC OR NOT?

If a good Israelites was anything, he was monotheistic. That was one of the defining characteristics which separated them from the other religions around them. Monotheism was one of the key building blocks of Judaism. Sometimes the Jews paid a high price for holding fast to their belief that there was only one true God (Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego come to mind, although God spared them from being killed or hurt).

The definition of monotheism is that there is only one God; no other gods exist.

That is different from a belief system that acknowledges that other gods exist, but consistently chooses to follow only one god because all the other gods are seen in a negative light; that is called monolatry. It has also been described as following one supreme God who always remains superior, while acknowledging that other inferior gods exist. In contrast, henotheism acknowledges the existence of other gods, sees them in a relatively positive light,but chooses to worship only one of them anyway. Some sources say that a henotheist may change which god is worshipped as the primary god, and that everyone is free to choose which god is their primary god. If you are like me, you have never heard or read of monolatry or henotheism before. That is because the people of Israel were monotheistic.

Everyone on the planet who knows anything about the Jews knows that a good Jew is a monotheist. But Heiser said everyone is wrong. He tried to swim against an immense flow of evidence to make the claim that the Israelites were henotheists or monolatrist’s (although he never used either of those terms that I know of).

Passages which explain that there were demons behind those false gods, in order to occasionally present demonstrations of power, are key to the monotheism of the Jews. Heiser dealt with those passages but turned them around so they supposedly say that other gods also exist and are part of the divine council as well as the demons that are often behind the idol worship. In other words, Heiser incorporated so much pagan mythology into his teaching about the Bible that he made the claim that an additional category exists – there is God, there are angels and demons, but, according to Heiser, there are also other gods, some loyal to the Creator and some disloyal to Him.

Not only did Heiser conveniently ignore Israel’s monotheism, he said the opposite. For instance, on page 39 of The Unseen Realm Heiser wrote that the Israelites would have readily seen the plural use of the name Elohim as referring to the council of gods. In other places he said something similar about the Jews knowing that a council of gods existed; he believed the Israelite worldview had to include a council of gods. 

But that is impossible because they were called to be monotheistic. Twice a day they recited the Shema which emphasized that “the Lord is One”, which they took to mean the only one.

On page 339 Heiser wrote, “the shema of Deuteronomy 6:4, the theological creed of Israel, was worded in such a way that the existence of other gods was not denied (‘the Lord our God is one’).” The problem with that statement is that the people of Israel interpreted that verse to reinforce monotheism – there is only one God. Therefore, they did not see it as Heiser did until after they had been influenced by the religions of the Babylonians during the exile and then the Greeks (Hellenists) during the intertestamental period. Those influences are obvious in the second temple Jewish writings, including the books of Enoch, which were not Biblical but pagan in origin. The Second Temple writings sound different from the rest of the Bible because they are different – they present a totally different worldview. Yet they are the very writings Heiser relied on continually.

Isaiah 44:20 says, “Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” ESV

Likewise, the Israelites would have rejected Heiser’s statements about two Yahwehs seen on pages 146-148, 250-251, and a footnote on page 120.

For Michael Heiser to ignore or explain away the monotheism of the ancient Israelites should be a huge red flag to every reader.

Heiser did not even mention the following passages which clearly state there is only one God:  Dt 32:39, Is 45:21. Heiser mentioned the following verses but did not clearly deal with the monotheism they teach:  Dt 4:35, 39, I Cor 8:4

THE MIDRASH AND MONTHEISM

The Midrash is a Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) and it includes explanations and interpretations of Hebrew texts. It actively develops and solidifies monotheism.

THE TALMUD AND MONOTHEISM

The Talmud is a collection of discussions on Jewish Law. It actively rejects the existence and worship of pagan deities, emphasizing that God is the only true and ultimate source of all things. 

I mention these to show that the Jewish people have always seen themselves as monotheists. True and loyal Jews never accepted even the possibility of other gods existing.

For Michael Heiser to claim over and over again that the ancient Jews would have held the same worldview that he proposed in his book, The Unseen Realm, and understood all the implications of a council of gods, was preposterous! It would have been seen, and is still seen, as a huge offense to God-fearing Jews.

ALL OTHER GODS WERE FOREIGN GODS

Hieser was not concerned by the prohibitions against “foreign gods” because he said that the loyal members of the divine council were not “foreign” but friendly. However, due to the monotheistic worldview of the people of Israel, they considered all other gods to be foreign gods. They got their monotheistic mentality from God’s dealings with them and from the Law. Therefore, by working backwards we can deduce that God saw all other gods as foreign gods as well.

Notice that the Bible forbids polytheism and promotes monotheism, but does not even mention anything in between the two. Heiser’s claim about a council of gods is mostly an attempt at injecting pagan thinking into the Bible.

Heiser claimed to be taking us back to the ancient Jewish worldview, which was the worldview of the Old Testament, but in reality, he rejected their interpretation of the issues he discussed, monotheism being a case in point. He superimposed his own worldview overtop of theirs, then put their name on it as if it was theirs from the beginning.

The next lesson is MY CRITIQUE OF HEISER’S THEORY OF A COUNCIL OF GODS.