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- [00:01]
A
Hello, everyone. Mono Gonzales here in studio. And we're going to be discussing the Bible and specifically some very interesting passages about Psalm 82. Are there gods? Are there other gods? Are we polytheistic? What exactly does Psalm 82 mean and how does it relate to Jesus claim? So stick around.
- [00:21]
B
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- [00:56]
A
Doug here we are. Welcome again.
- [00:58]
C
Yeah, this one could be more exciting than even the last episode.
- [01:01]
A
Even the last one. Yes. We were doing some programs here. And again, just for those that might not have seen, the previous segment is the battle for the Bible's truth. Genesis 6. Jesus and the second century plot to deny the Messiah. And so let's kind of jump in in the sense of you have Genesis 6, maybe give people a background there and then how that filled. Kind of how that. We'll talk about how that flows into Psalm 82.
- [01:30]
C
Yeah. Genesis 6 is that famous story, four verses that everybody's like, what do you do with this, these four verses? And you know, kind of our part of the world is like, well, it's pretty obvious. Every. Everybody in the world knew exactly what it meant. That's why the Bible only needs to spend four verses on it. Everybody was in agreement that you have these sons of God that, see these daughters of men are beautiful. And then they have these children called the Nephilim. And so the sons of God. This becomes the first of about 10 times that this phrase is used in the Old Testament to refer to heavenly beings, angels, if you want to call them that. It's fine. Sometimes they're called gods. We'll get into that in Psalm 82. I know, but something happened in the second century where there was a curse that was placed on anybody. This was cursed by a guy named Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai who called them sons of nobles. And he said, cursed is anyone who calls them sons of God. So this is wild. I don't even know what to do with this to this day. I wrote a whole book on it, literally their own. They did not change the text on this one. Yeah, their text still says sons of God. And yet you place a curse on somebody for calling Them what the Bible calls them. So he said, no, no, they're not sons of God. They're sons of nobles. They're sons of rulers. They're humans. They're humans, fully human. And this becomes the origin of this human view that then kind of morphs into what a lot of Christians know as the Sethite view that came into the church around 350 A.D. i suppose that's super important.
- [03:09]
A
So you come to Genesis 6 to get. And you can see this today. If you go out and say, what's Genesis 6? Most churches, they take the Sethie view. And so this is sad because maybe before we get into some of the other is. It's just when they take the Sethi view, going back to later church history, when I would say, like you said, fourth century or so, they're de. Supernaturalizing the Bible. They're just like, why would we. We believe in a supernatural Bible? Of all people, we should. So the motive there, do you think they followed along kind of where the Jews started this?
- [03:40]
C
I don't think they did it deliberately. I don't think there was anything nefarious about this. Even though the first fathers that really talk about it are utterly mocking the older view.
- [03:51]
A
But the angelic view, the angelic view,
- [03:53]
C
which is wild because the older view was in vogue only like 40 years before that. And it was the only known view for the entire history of the church before that. I have like 20 different church fathers that all held the angel view and they mock them. So something happened within a very short span of just a couple, three decades to completely radically change the supernatural view in the church to this Sethite view. I think it has its own origins to what happened in the second century with the rabbis, where they deliberately changed the interpretation of the text because of somebody called the Son of God, who is Jesus. And if you can eliminate any concept that the sons of God in the Old Testament are heavenly beings, then all of a sudden Jesus claimed to be the son of God becomes irrelevant. Who cares?
- [04:49]
A
Who cares? And so maybe explain that. And this is where we come into really the connection of Psalm 82, because Psalm 82 is quoted by Jesus in John 10. It's a very challenging verse, or at least it has been. Talk about then that background to how does Psalm 82 come to play and maybe talk about the different potential interpretations that people have of that.
- [05:16]
C
Okay, so Psalm 82 is very short. It's only eight verses long. There's really three. I mean, the whole thing is power packed with meaning, even when Jesus quotes it. But he's quoting verse six in John 10. I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Who is the I, who are the sons of God the most High? We know who the most high is. That's. We would call him God the Father. He actually appears in another Son of God text, which is Deuteronomy 32, verse 7, which is the one that started me on the whole project of even looking into this in the first place. So Jesus quotes this. I said, you are gods. And the way that that's been taken by almost everybody since this. Well, in the church, I don't know when, but since the 2nd century with Jews is they take it as human rulers. And so. And this doesn't even make sense because it's like, okay, so you're telling me that Jesus is calling the Pharisees gods. So how does this help his problem? Because they want to kill him for blasphemy. And so he's effectively saying, look, you're a God, I'm a God. Can't we just go get along? Right. Like the Mars attacks President, you know, and he says, little people. Can't we all just.
- [06:34]
A
You're misunderstanding me.
- [06:35]
C
No, no, that doesn't even make sense. He's referencing. You have to go back and read the whole Psalm. The first verse says God has taken his place. And this is from the ESV in the Divine council. Literally, it's the Bedat El, the council of El. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. So verse six, I said you are gods, refers back to in the midst of the gods, he holds judgment in verse one. Well, if you go and read like your new American Standard, it won't say in the midst of the gods, it will say, in the midst of the congregation of rulers, he judges, like the synagogue of rabbis or something like that. Okay, well, that doesn't even make sense because verse 6 says. It doesn't say, I called you rulers, it says, I called you gods. So that means that the original reading was God's. And what happens is that the Hebrew in this case didn't change the text like they did in. In Deuteronomy 32, 8, where they literally changed Elohim to Israel. Not even close. In Hebrew.
- [07:45]
A
And the Dead Sea Scrolls show that that is not the case.
- [07:47]
C
Yes, yes. They changed the interpretation of what an Elohim is. And created out of nothing. This idea that an Elohim, a God, can be a human. That didn't even exist in the first century. Nobody thought that. And so now it becomes an interpretation that people have just run with and they don't even stop to question it. The logic of what Jesus is trying to tell these people.
- [08:11]
A
Yeah, that's really the key is what Jesus, especially in John chapter 10, is. I and the Father are one, the Father's in me. I mean, these are like. And it says there, you know, he says, what work? What work do you. What work? You're trying to kill me. They go, well, not for a work, right, but because you being a man, make yourself equal with God.
- [08:28]
C
They understood clearly exactly what he was doing.
- [08:30]
A
And he quotes Psalm 82 to defeat.
- [08:32]
C
And they understood that the works he was doing were part of the vindication that he is a God, not just a God because he's claiming to be the Son of God, like we talked about last time, the only begotten. And well, how does the works fit into that? Well, if you read verses two through four, it says, how long will you judge unjustly? Show partiality to the wicked, give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and destitute, rescue the weak and needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked? What has Jesus been doing for three and a half years? All of that, all of that, because that is the job of a God of the divine council in Psalm 82. The rest of the psalm is how these entities, these angels, did not do that. And so God judges them and they're going to die like men. It doesn't make sense to judge somebody to die like a man if he's already a man.
- [09:24]
A
It doesn't make any sense. And the question that obviously as you're watching this is, oh, are we, do we believe in multiple gods? Is that what we're saying? Well, we're going to answer that question when we come back right now. Please take an opportunity to look and to see how to get our magazine again, which is going to keep you updated on all things happening in our world. Take a listen
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- [11:53]
A
Well, again, welcome back. We were talking to Doug Van Dorn and before the break we were talking about know it sounds to me, Doug, that the way you're talking that you believe in multiple gods. Here I thought we only believe in one God. So maybe explain that's a big hindrance for people.
- [12:06]
C
It's huge hindrance.
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A
So explain how that's not what the text is saying. Even you know, the word Elohim, etc. You know, talk about that, how that is not what Jesus is saying.
- [12:14]
C
Yeah, this is a hindrance even for people in my own reform circles. Like I was viciously attacked last fall, as you know, over this very topic. So the Bible in Old Testament and New Testament both affirm two things simultaneously. First of all, there is one and only one being that is God. Uncreated, omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing. He has no beginning, he has no end, he's the creator of all things. You know, all these things that we associate with a capital G O D, that's God. And the Old Testament, New Testament affirms that there's only one like that. However, it also affirms that there are other entities in the Old Testament called Elohim, which is what God is called, and in the New Testament called Theoi, which is what God is called Satan, is called the God of this world in second Corinthians 4. 4. So what are we supposed to do with that? Well, for the sake of making it easy for people, what I will tell people is that the God, if you substitute like the Greeks did in the Hebrew, in the Greek text of their translation, in the Septuagint, they put angel instead of God. And I think that was a way to soften the blow, to help people understand that this is not talking about entities that are on the same level of being, but nevertheless, they share something in common with him. And I think that the main thing that they share in common with him is that they rule. He's the Old Testament scholarship we use. God is the suzerain, and they are the vassal. He's the high king. And he has entrusted, just like he's entrusted kings on this earth, human kings, to rule in his stead and have dominion and carry it out for him over their little fiefdoms or whatever. The same thing is true in the heavenly realms, that they have some sort of a rule and authority. I mean, they're called authorities, powers, principalities. Every title they have in the New Testament is some sort of authority that they have given to them. And so that's really all that the word God in its etymology is trying to tell people. But our problem is that we've changed the word from its etymological use to. To now it always means the one and only God. And that's what God. That's what causes people so much trouble.
- [14:45]
A
Yeah, I remember teaching through this a while ago where I had some same thing. People were struggling, and it's like I was trying to encourage them. Get out of English for a moment. Because again, as Americans, we're so there's only one God. Everything else is false. But the word Elohim basically is spiritual being. I mean, which God's a spiritual being that demons are spiritual being. Fallen angels have spiritual being. Okay, so you're like, get outside of that. And in Hebrew, there's no capital letters. Right? In English, we do it by Greek.
- [15:14]
C
In Greek, there's none either.
- [15:15]
A
Yeah, so you're like, come on. But so as we come down here in the sense of so Jesus there is. Let's bring it back to him for a minute. So here in John 10, he's quoting Psalm 82, and what is his maybe transition for what was his point to those leadership? And then how then does it shift into the response of what you document as it relates to the rabbis and later church history? And the response in the first century, second century.
- [15:45]
C
Yeah. So this is the way I read it. The key verses, verse 34, John 10. Jesus answered them. Is it not written in your law? I said you are God's. We won't go into all the things that you could about where he's getting it from. We'll just simply say for sake of argument on TV that he's quoting Psalm 82. 6. And almost everybody agrees with that. I said you are gods. Jesus is not saying, I, Jesus said you are gods. Or, or the Old Testament said you Pharisees are God. That's not what he's saying. He's saying that there's a quotation in Psalm 82, 6 that calls somebody gods. Who are they? The people from verse one. Then it says, if he called them gods, who's them? This is the gods in the divine council to whom the word of God came. My reading of the word of God there is essentially himself, because this is John's gospel, that's the Logos. So when it says God takes his place in the divine council, who's God? It's the Logos. It's Jesus who takes his place in the divine council. And then the Father from there on out starts speaking. And the Father's the one who said, I called you guys gods and you didn't rule and do what you're supposed to do. And so therefore the last verse is the key. Arise, O God, the second figure, Jesus, and you will inherit all the nations, which is the promise of Psalm 2 to Jesus, the only begotten Son, by the way. And it's also the promise that's implicit in the Deuteronomy 32, 9 when Yahweh takes Israel as his inheritance. Psalm 82 comes along and says, if you ask me, I'll give the world your inheritance. And then Psalm 80, 82 is, you will have the world as your inheritance.
- [17:34]
A
We'll get them all.
- [17:35]
C
Yeah. And so Jesus is basically claiming, I'm the fulfillment of that and you're going to judge me because I'm calling myself a God. Look at the works. That's what they were judged for. Look at the works. And it just makes them all the more angry because they know what he's claiming and they just want to continue to kill him for blasphemy.
- [17:53]
A
It's interesting too that if you were to juxtapose Jesus as a member of the council and then the other spiritual beings, gods of what they were supposed to do, I think another element there is Jesus saying, look, you're going to be upset with me. But look, I'm actually fulfilling all these. Those guys didn't fulfill. That should give you greater evidence that if there was somebody that showed up, right, that was claiming to be part of the divine council, you should look at Psalm 82 to say, are you doing A, B, C, and D? And he's like, I've just been doing these.
- [18:27]
C
Right, right.
- [18:27]
A
It's, it's, it's so fascinating. And of course, what's their response?
- [18:33]
C
They want to kill him. And that becomes that. I mean, that in John's Gospel is like a major moment, because from that point on out, there's like, there's no turning back. And I think that that same hatred and hostility that they were confronted with right there in Psalm 82 with Jesus went all the way into the second century. And these rabbis said, look, there's not that many of these places. If we can soften what it says, if we can change a word, if we can delete a phrase, if we can reinterpret, that's all it's going to take. Because this is a major claim that Jesus had. And if we take that away and then if we put a curse on people for, you know, trying to become Christians, then that'll solve our problem. And guess what? It did. Like, this was one of the most effective PR campaigns in the history of the world. They literally turn the Jewish religion that had room for something like a trinity in the first century into completely unitarian religion that has no longer has room for there to be a second divine figure of a Godhead who could come to earth as God and as man to die for our sins.
- [19:49]
A
And when you look at, like, even Jewish evangelism today, or you see other Jews that come to faith, they are coming in at a disadvantage because according to all the rabbinic discussions, and then when they do, they also will come back to some of the original texts and be like, no, there is room. We've been taught, and that's a struggle.
- [20:11]
C
You were telling me a story last night about. I think this is worth telling to everybody. A story about Isaiah 53.
- [20:20]
A
Yeah. I was doing archeology in Israel, and I was always evangelizing all my Jewish cohorts, students. And I was just. I said, hey, can you help me? I was learning Hebrew at the time. I had learned it a few years earlier, but you try to master it. And I went to somebody, I said, hey, can you help me go through this text? And I had the Hebrew Bible. I had him read Isaiah 53 first. He said he knew I was talking about Jesus. And he's like, I don't want to look at any Christian stuff. I said, no, no, no. Just here, can you help me?
- [20:49]
B
This.
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A
So he reads Isaiah 53 in Hebrew. We're reading it together, and then he throws it at me. And he says, I told you I didn't want to read any Christian stuff. And I said, well, this is the Tanakh, man. This is your Hebrew Bible. And he said, well, it sounds like Jesus. And I was like, doesn't it?
- [21:07]
C
And he.
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A
And then. But so here's the kicker. So he was so. He was so frustrated because he got concerned. He's like, man, this is in there. He goes, well, let's go talk to these other two girls who were Orthodox Jews. They were there in the archeology thing. So we go over there to them and we do the same thing. And they said, if this was true, our rabbis would have told us. So they submitted their eternal life, I mean, their soul, to whether the rabbis approved of this particular message. And as we know, this is what Doug is showing here, is that the rabbis in the second century, this is document. He documents it. Most beautiful thing I've ever seen as it relates to this story. And he shows how this is the case. So we're going to take a little break here where you can again see what Doug has done here. So take a listen.
- [21:58]
B
Doug Van Dorn uncovers a controversy that strikes at the heart of biblical authority and the identity of Jesus Christ. In the centuries following Christ's resurrection, a fierce battle emerged over the interpretation and in some cases, the transmission of key Old Testament passages that point to the Messiah. As thousands of Jewish people embraced Jesus as the Promised Savior, opposition intensified among certain religious leaders. According to Doran's research, a small group of influential rabbis sought to counter the growing Christian movement by promoting textual readings that obscured some of the clearest messianic prophecies. Doug also explores another controversial battlefield in Scripture. Genesis 6. The passage plainly describes the sons of God and the Nephilim. Yet interpretations of these verses have divided scholars and Christians for generations. Were these angelic beings who crossed a forbidden boundary with humanity? Did their actions contribute to the corrupt that led to Noah's flood? Doug's new book, the Battle for the Bible's Genesis 6, Jesus and the second century plot to Deny the Messiah, is a must read. It's available from Prophecy Watchers for your gift of $35 or more. And it comes with two companion DVDs from Mondo Gonzalez. Rejecting Jesus and the Great a $40 value. Call the number you see on your screen 24. 7 or visit us at ProphecyWatchers TV. For our international friends, please note that additional shipping fees do apply and all prices listed are in US dollars. We also have Doug's fabulous book on the Genesis 6 rebellion. Giants and the Sons of the Gods is a 386 page masterpiece that covers this controversial subject, the Nephilim nightmare. Just ask for the Doug van Dorn Genesis 6 package and remember it comes with Mondo's two bonus CVD's that will explain why the Jewish people still reject Jesus today. We believe God still has a plan for Israel and the Jewish people. One day a remnant will recognize Jesus as Messiah and be restored according to his promises. But before that comes the Tribulation, the most devastating period in human history. That's why prophecy Washers exists to proclaim biblical truth, encourage believers, point people to Jesus and help as many people avoid that coming judgment through faith in Him. As a viewer supported ministry, we invite you to partner with us in taking this message of hope to homes around the world.
- [24:35]
A
Well, we are here with Doug and again I hope that you are at least encouraged. I hope that you are persuaded in many ways. So you know, in our last few minutes, you know the, it really does center around Jesus and the changes to the text. And we've talked about we can trust the text, but we don't want to be naive, maybe comment on that.
- [24:56]
C
People live their life thinking that, I don't know, I think they think a little bit wrongly about how God transmitted the inspired word of God. He allowed human people that make mistakes to copy his text, his holy word. He is able to overcome anything that we do to it. And the message is completely preserved. Like it's not like the rabbis might have thought that they were getting rid of like all ability of Christians to do a Christian's apologetics to their people, they weren't. There's plenty more that there in the Bible that they did not get rid of that Christians were using to show that Jesus is their Messiah. We have, you know, classic apologetic books that say there's 300 prophecies Jesus fulfilled and none of those are even up for debate with this because the Word has been preserved. But nevertheless there have been plots against God's Word to hide the truth of who its author is, the Word of Life, the Logos, the one who was with God and the one who is God.
- [26:06]
A
And this is why I think we see John 10. John 10 obviously comes after all the rest of the previous nine chapters in John's Gospel is the most overt. Starting with John 1:1. Right. About the deity of Jesus. Talk about that as well. You know, the clarity there.
- [26:24]
C
Yeah, there's so many things. That's his prologue. He starts off. That's why I think John 10, when he brings up the word of God came to them. This is John's Gospel. We know who the Word is from the first verse and then the 14th verse. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us for a while. There's all these words for this second person of the Trinity in the Old Testament, like glory, the glory of God, the name of God, the face of God, the arm of God, the presence of God. That are all terms that are being used in really wild ways that John is pushing us into seeing that Jesus is the fulfillment of every one of those. He does this in chapter after chapter after chapter. And if you know what you're looking at in the Old Testament, it becomes one of the most remarkable things that's ever been written.
- [27:20]
A
I find it fascinating that when you think about how John's Gospel is different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you know, John's writing this later in life. He said 50, 60 years to meditate on all these things and where the others were in a little bit earlier. And he's like, man, I really am starting to grasp who this person really, really, really is in fulfillment of everything. And so John's Gospel comes right out of the gate.
- [27:43]
C
Yeah.
- [27:44]
A
In ways that the others don't. Well, Doug, thank you for being here and thanks, everybody for watching today. Again, at the end of the day, what do we want? We want you to see Jesus in his fullness. Who he was predicted to be and who he actually is and was. He is the Messiah, the Son of God. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is the second person of what we understand as the Trinity. It's just phenomenal, but yet he's our Savior and we get to walk with him every single day. And he died for us because he loves us, and that's why we are here to share that message. So thanks for watching today, and we will catch you next time.
- [28:19]
B
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