"Sons of God" in Deuteronomy 32:8-9

[Uber Genius]

I thought the "divine council", among other passages, meant for a while they were henotheistic.

No.

Although commonly misrepresented by Prof. Of Religious Studies that way and maybe Wikepedia.

"The divine council in the Hebrew Bible is a symbolic ruling body consisting of God as the supreme monarch and various supernatural attendants. According to Patrick Miller, the divine council is one of the central cosmological symbols in the Hebrew Bible. That is, it is one of the Bible’s ways of describing how God maintains order in the the Creation. Working through innumerable hosts of angelic servants, God creates and rules the physical universe, as well as the world of men."

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/divinecouncil-ch2.pdf

The Sons of God are depicted differently then their Near East predecessors. Instead of being produced by Athirat, the mother goddess and consort to El (Asherah), they are created beings who God grants a role in administering his world.

The thesis is predicated on similarity in certain numerical features such as the 70 Sons found in Akkadian legend as well as Gen 10. However. Hebrew scholars have commented for over 2000 years, that OT authors used the references in other cultures works to modify and deride their competitors not as a seed-bed to develop a new religion. Language scholars and OT textual critics seem to figure this out quickly once the exegesis is done. Religious historians never do this type of analysis (typically).

 

[Uber Genius]

Canaanites but they had parallel sources of knowledge. Since all nations are descent of Noah,

This is my view as well.

Things on earth paralleling things in the Heavenly realm is common.

While this is certainly true, I would need more evidence that we are to read the passage allegorically. The text doesn't seem to suggest that Noah had 70 sons are, "descendents of men."

I would need to see a couple causal connections. Firstly an account of Sheol being governed in a mirror fashion to earth. Why would these "men" have the types of power they have and no other men have after they die? I can get an account of the rebellious divine council members from Enoch, but I would like to see a scholar defended your thesis, do you have a reference?

 

[Uber Genius]

Has he covered the source of the post-flood Nephilim in any of his writings?

Here are the bibliographical references from chapter 23 of Hesier's book, "The Unseen Realm,"

Brian Doak, The Last of the Rephaim: Conquest and Cataclysm in the Heroic Ages of
Ancient Israel, Ilex Series 7 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013)


Claus Westermann,Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994)


David F. Siemens Jr., “Some Relatively Non-Technical Problems with Flood Geology,” Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 44.3 (1992): 169–74


Davis Young and Ralph Searley, The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008)


Additional Bibliography

There are a number of resources that deal with ancient Second Temple Jewish material about Noah and the Flood that readers may find of interest. Several of them touch on specific content items in this chapter.


Pieter W. Van der Horst, “Bitenosh’s [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] (1QapGen 2: 9-15),” Journal for the Study of Judaism 43, no. 4-5 (2012): 613-628


Ronald V. Huggins, “Noah and the Giants: A Response to John C. Reeves.” Journal of Biblical Literature (1995): 103-110


John C. Reeves, “Utnapishtim in the Book of Giants?” Journal of Biblical Literature (1993): 110-115


Matthew Goff, “Gilgamesh the Giant: The Qumran Book of Giants’ Appropriation of Gilgamesh Motifs.” Dead Sea Discoveries 16, no. 2 (2009): 221-253


Helge S. Kvanvig, “Gen 6, 1-4 as an antediluvian event,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 16, no. 1 (2002): 79-112


Wayne Baxter, “Noachic Traditions and the Book of Noah,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 15, no. 3 (2006): 179-194


Michael E. Stone, “The Book (s) Attributed to Noah,” Dead Sea Discoveries 13:1 (2006): 4-23


Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary. Edited by Martin Hengel and Peter Schäfer. Vol. 63. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997


Jeremy Daniel Lyon, “The Qumran Interpretation of the Genesis Flood,” Ph.D. dissertation, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2014

For in-depth discussion see:

http://www.moreunseenrealm.com/?page_id=87

 

[Yahu_]

I read Amar Annus' 'Origin of Watchers' yesterday. The only reference to the source of post-flood nephilim is a legend of Og riding on top of Noah's ark but that is in direct opposition to scripture that states that all other life on land died in the flood.

It mentions the four major post-flood apkallus but doesn't go indepth but later talks about the 'divine rivers' and how the 'gods' came out of the waters. Waters in Hebrew are references to people and rivers are 'mighty waters'. The four 'rivers' of Eden were the mighty waters that were the 'divine rivers'. They are the 'gardeners', 'ben Elohyim' that watered the garden in Eden. They were not among the Watchers that fell into error and were still around post-flood. Adad (Euphrates) is one of the names of the leader among them by one of his pagan titles. Those four 'ben elohyim' helped to imprison the Watchers on the side of Yah so are not in Tartarus with the rest of the Watchers.

It was Adad (the thunderer) and Shamash (sun god) that were the adjudicators, ie Satans! Adad is the father of Shamash, the cockatrice of the OT that as the fruit/child/offspring the 'fiery flying serpent'. It was the cockatrice that followed after the 'serpents root'. Adad is the Canaanite Shachar as in Lucifer ben Shachar, the father of Lucifer, 'shining-one' a latin sun god epithet.

Those four apkallus were the four representatives of Yah on earth in mirror to the four beasts about the throne of Yah in Heaven. Only one problem, they fell into error of having children post flood and we have the four angels bound at the Euphrates that get let out in Revelation.

Revelation even names the 'king of the abyss' as Apollyon (the destroyer) and we have in the past Satan cast down 'as lightning' while Adad (the thunderer) is the god of lightnting an ajudicatior (satan). And of course Adad in the Greek is Zeus. Mot the Canaanite god of death is Hades and Yam the god of the sea is Poseidon in the Greek pantheon.

We even have the 'seat of Satan' referenced in Revelation is the 'alter of Zeus' in the Berlin museum. And lets not forget that in the Greek myths, the Olympians were in opposition to the Titans and helped bind them in Tartarus. We also have one of the four post-flood apkallus is 2/3s apkallus. This isn't a reference to being only partly divine but of lesser status, ie female, ie Hera.

 

[Yahu_]

While this is certainly true, I would need more evidence that we are to read the passage allegorically. The text doesn't seem to suggest that Noah had 70 sons are, "descendents of men."

Beni 'sons of ' actually means 'descent of'. Noah certainly had 70 nations derived from his living great-grandsons. Remember Noah lived 300 years after the flood. He was still around to see his great-grandsons father nations. To be "elohyim" is to be in a position of spiritual authority. A father is the spiritual head of his house over his children. The nations are just the clan of children of a single founding father.

Are you suggesting that Yah appoints angels over us? Or are the angels servants under the dominion that Yah gave to mankind in Eden? Man has dominion on earth, not angels.

 

[Uber Genius]

To be "elohyim" is to be in a position of spiritual authority. A father is the spiritual head of his house over his children.

No.

Wide lexical range as Dr. Heiser covers in depth in the material.

The disembodied spirit of the prophet Samuel is described as "Elohim."

Man has dominion on earth, not angels

So this is what we are discussing.

If the Sons of God are in authority over the 70 nations then. Gabriel fighting the prince of Persia and requiring the help of the angel Michael as recorded in the Book of Daniel, makes a lot of sense.

Are you suggesting that Yah appoints angels over us? Or are the angels servants under the dominion that Yah gave to mankind in Eden?

BOTH!

You read Anas but not the material that was central to justifying the Sons of God inference? Strange.

The material I provided defines the concept of a divine council and its limits.

Are you aware that believers are going to be part of a divine council as well?

 

[Yahu_]

No.

Are you aware that believers are going to be part of a divine council as well?

We will replace it as part of the 'new heavens'. The 'new heavens' and 'new earth' are references to authority structures, not a new physical heaven and a new physical earth. The authority of 'heavens and earth' are common themes in the ancient mindset, ie Anunki (heavens -Anu and earth- ki in Summerian).

The demonic realm now holds the realm of air, as in 'prince of the powers of the air'. This is the 2nd heaven, the realm of the sky or air that the angels had to battle through to get to earth.

 

[benelchi]

"8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders[a] of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.[b]
9 But the Lord's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage." (Deut. 32:8,9)

Just who were these Sons of God anyways?

The most complete scholarly discussion of the "Sons of God," comes from Michael S. Heiser, scholar in residence at Logos Bible Software. He is a biblical languages scholar and also makes a compelling case for the Second Temple literature (written between 523BCE-70CE) being central to the context. If one were to read 1 Enoch 6 and 8 (which was included in the Septuagint) one gets a detailed description of the sin of the watchers, nephilim referred to in Gen. 6, and the judgement of the 200 Watchers, and 70 Sons of God.

Far from being poly or henotheistic, these 70 would be considered angelic in nature. They are created and share in certain governing duties on a divine council. They were NOT supposed to be worshipped ever. They are not children or offspring. They govern humans not create humans to serve the gods as in other polytheistic religions. If we are going to get at the context we are going to need to understand how people 2000 years ago thought about Enoch's account.

Paul, Peter, Jude all quote from the Enochian account. As do several early church fathers. I'm not arguing for canonicity here, just context of how Second Temple Jews would have seen the nations handed over to 70 sons of God who had rebelled. This is a judgement. Luke 10 has Jesus sending out the 70 (mistranslated 72 in some versions).

The link above will give you the context for Gen 10 and an entirely different context than most modern Christians.

Your research should also include psalm 82, 89, Deut 4, Deut 32, 1 Kings 22:19-23 (cf. II Chron. 18:18-22) 1 Cor 11, 2 Peter, Jude.

http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf

Once you have done the research the New Testament references to Christians as "adopted sons of God," will make more sense. The message of the kingdom of God as rule and reign expanding to take back power from the 70 nations by destroying Satan's kingdom, will make more sense.

If you just take a college religion class, or a Wikipedia shortcut well...good luck at getting any closer to what the original audience would have understood these passages to mean.

Since most texts i.e. the Hebrew, Aramaic Targums, Syriac, etc... simply read "sons of Israel" why would we assume the LXX reading of "angels of God" is better?