Is Psalm 82 about gods or humans?

Psalm 82 a reference to gods or to humans hey everybody I'm Dan mclen a scholar of the Bible and religion increasing public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combating the spread of misinformation about the same let's take a look at a question this reads who are the other gods in Psalm 82 Jesus quotes this claiming humans are meant I understand it to mean other Divine beings so we have two different readings that we need to address the first is what was most likely intended by the original author and understood by the original audiences of Psalm 82 and then we've got the author of John's reading which is coming several centuries later Psalm 82 was likely originally written in the late exilic or post exilic period and it is trying to solve the problem of the Judah sites not being able to directly worshiped adoniah the god of Israel because they're located outside the land of Israel because in this time period every nation was ruled over by its own Patron deity who had sovereignty in that region and perview over that nation and so the Judah sites being outside of Israel in Exile don't have access to their deity and the solution of Psalm 82 is to have adoni as the head of the Divine Council uh put all the gods of the Nations on trial condemn them for negligence for allowing the uh Cosmic and social justice to be so thoroughly rocked by the Exile that they are condemned to mortality and this basically deposes them from their seats on the divine Council and then the psalmist in the very last verse says Rise up oh God you will inherit All Nations the idea being the seats on the Divine Council now sit empty the nations of the Earth are left without their Patron deities you take over direct rule of the Nations themselves and in this way Adonai becomes God over all the nations of the earth and that facilitates their access on the part of the Judah sites who are in Babylon now by the time of the composition of the Book of John in the late 1 Century CE this Reading had fallen by the wayside the gods of the nations are still around because Israel's scriptural Heritage still makes frequent reference to them uh but they've been renegotiated as Angels but understanding Psalm 82 as a reference to Angels is Complicated by other discussions regarding Genesis 6 for instance are these angels the Benet Elohim that come down and mate with human women can Angels one be disobedient can they too have sexual compatibility with humans these were ongoing debates and there were different answers that were arrived that but one answer was that no Angels can't do that these must be humans and so if the Ben Elohim in Genesis 6 are humans maybe the Elohim the Benet Elon the sons of the most high from Psalm 82 are also humans and if they are humans what humans are they well we have a reading that is found scattered around early Rabbi literature that sees the gods of Psalm 82 as the Israelites at SI upon reception of the law they are freed from the power of the Angel of Death they are rendered Immortal they are basically gods and so this is why Jesus says at Psalm 82 says of those to whom the word of God came you are Gods the idea being they received the word of God in the form of the law of Moses they became Gods but then upon sinning with the golden calf you have the sentencing that is passed in Psalm 882 you will die like any man you will fall like any Prince and so what Jesus is saying is the word of God came to the Israelites at SI and the scriptures themselves which cannot be violated cannot be ignored called them Gods so how much more worthy of the title deity God is that very word itself made flesh and brought into the world and so this is countering the accusation that Jesus is committing blasphemy by referring to himself as a deity so it's a different reading of Psalm 82 from the original originally it was a reference to the gods of the Nations being deposed so that Adon andai could take over rule over all the nations of the earth and give the Judah sites in Exile access to worship them uh By the time of the composition of the Gospel of John it had changed to uh being read as a reference to the Israelites at Sinai

Channel: Dan McClellan

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Id: 6jTPn6IyMBg

Length: 4min 29sec (269 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 02 2023