Heiser-The-Facade - Sparkling Eyes

"This ought to be good," Melissa muttered, just loud enough to be heard. Brianignored her."My dissertation was entitled `The Divine Council in the He-brew Bible andIntertestamental Jewish Literature. ' I'm sure the term `divine council' is new to you, sowe'll start there. Andrew ..." Brian paused, sliding his Bible to the priest, "could you beready with the passages we'll touch on? We'll start in Psalm 82." The priest nodded."The divine council is an ancient concept in the world of the near and middle east,much older than the biblical text. The major civilizations of remote antiquity—theSumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hittites—all believed in the existenceof a council of gods who ran the cosmos and the affairs of earth–hence the term `divinecouncil.' Other less well known peoples, such as the Phoenicians, the Moabites, and mostnotably the civilization at Ugarit—located in what is now Syria—also believed in such acouncil. The Ugaritic religion is especially important to the discussion, since elements oftheir worship—for instance, Baal worship—are not only referred to in the Hebrew Bible,but are adapted by biblical writers.""Are you saying that the Old Testament Hebrews adopted Canaanite religion?"asked Neil, somewhat surprised. "I know that many Israelites were condemned for doingthat, but it sounds to me like you're saying Hebrew religion borrowed some things frompagans.""The word `borrowed' isn't quite accurate," Brian explained. "I'm referring to theprophets themselves incorporating phrases from Canaanite and Ugaritic religious textsinto their own writings—the Hebrew Bible.""Oh," he mumbled, dumbfounded."So much for `every word proceeding from the mouth of God,"' jeered Melissa."Quite the contrary," Brian corrected her with an annoyed stare. "No orthodoxtheologians have denied or do deny that the biblical writers used sources for theircompositions. Most of the literary adaptation I'm talking about here had a specific,polemic purpose.""Meaning what?" asked Mark."The biblical writers—the prophets and psalmists mostly—were fond of usingtexts that claimed something about a Canaanite god and then editing it so that what theyproduced would extol the virtues of Yahweh, the God of Israel. For example, inDeuteronomy 33:26 and Psalm 68:4 God is described as `riding on the clouds'—aphrase taken word-for-word from Ugaritic religious texts that describe Baal. The biblicalwriters appropriate such texts that describe Baal as master of the heavens and rewordthem to `correct' the theology—as if to say, `no, you dunderheads, it's Yahweh whocontrols the heavens, not Baal.' It's actually quite clever.""Now, you said most of the times this occurs the writers correct the theology. Itake it that this isn't always the case," wondered Deidre."Rightat times what you have instead of a theological polemic is actually ashared religious belief, and the classic example is the divine council. Andrew, why don'tyou read Psalm 82:1 and point out the relevant Hebrew terms."The priest nodded and put on his reading glasses. "Okay . . . Verse One says`God—and the word there is elohim, used for God's name—God stands in the divinecouncil; he judges among the gods'—among the elohim—the same word as earlier in theverse."179