YHWH, Among Other Gods

I need a quick teaser to catch your attention here. So, let me ask you: when was the last time you learned so much that you started to question whether or not you actually know anything for certain? Well, let me tell you about one of the first times this happened to me.

There was a time when the breadth and depth of my knowledge got the better of me. It made me arrogant, and condescending. I hope I am no longer that person. At least, since I bent my knee, I have been trying not to be that person. For one thing, I realize I am not the only one in this world who has been gifted with unique intelligence. Others are just as smart as I am, it is just that this fact no longer threatens me. Instead, I find other intelligent people to be very alluring. I guess, with humility comes the desire to learn what others can teach us. Still, I have learned enough to know that the Lord has still made me unique. I know He makes all of us unique, but He makes a few of us different in a way that is not as common as it once was. Most people have areas of interest in their lives that they like to study. Some of us even become a bit of an expert in these areas and, if we are dedicated enough, we might even manage to earn our living in them. But there are a few of us who study so many different things to such a level that there is very little of which we are not aware. In fact, a friend of mine once made a quip to this affect about me. He said that I had, “learned more and more about less and less that, now, I know everything about nothing.” My friend may have been correct; I do not really know. But there is one thing I know for sure, and that is I have learned enough to question everything, and to consider possibilities I would have once rejected as impossible. This post is about one of the things I once rejected, but now embrace: that YHWH is the highest God among many gods, and that these other gods are not only real and dangerous, but that their existence has been recorded outside of Scripture.

While I am no better at predicting the future than anyone else, I can look back on my life and see how YHWH was guiding me. There was a time in my life when He used my training as a philosopher to help me research the founding of this nation. The Lord took my desire to learn, and my ability to think critically, then He guided me in my research. First, leading me to books He knew would speak to me, and pique my interest to investigate further. Eventually, the Lord lead me to read the Founders, themselves — in their own words and handwriting. That was how I discovered just how faithful our Founding Fathers were. Not only were they believers, but the majority of them were more devout than anyone I can think of in this world today, possibly even more so than the late Billy Graham. So it was that the Lord later repeated this process in leading me to study Scripture. It started with prophecy, where He used another of the gifts He gave me to capture my attention. This time, it was my ability to catch contractions and logical inconsistency. This is how I discovered that a great deal of what we hear about prophecy is not in the Scriptures, it is the invention of Man. This lead me to the next book, and then the next until it finally lead me to one of the most important books I have ever read outside of the Bible: “The Unseen Realm,” by Dr. Michael Heiser.

Thanks to Dr. Heiser, for the first time, my eyes were opened to the Ancient Near East (ANE) worldview. Among the many aspects of how the ancients saw the world was their belief in the existence of many gods. More than this was the revelation that Scripture actually acknowledges the existence of these gods. All my life, I was taught that the Bible teaches there is only one God, and His name is YHWH. So, imagine my surprise when it was absolutely proven to me that the Bible not only acknowledges other gods, but it even names many of them by their proper names!

I have tried to explain this to others, but non-believers scoff at me, and most believers reject me as a heretic the moment I tell them that the Bible mentions these other gods. Now, I understand the attitude of non-believers, but I do not understand why professed believers would be so adverse to questioning the Scriptures to determine if what I am saying is actually true. If they did, they would discover that the issue is not that there are other gods like YHWH, but that there are other beings who live in the same realm as He does. You see, the Hebrew word we translate as god, el or elohim, does not really mean the same thing as the English word, god. Rather, ‘el’ more accurately describes where a being resides, not what it is. In this case, ‘el’ refers to beings that reside in the heavenly or spiritual realm. However, this is not the point; it is merely a stumbling block over which many trip and from which they cannot get up so they can see the point. The point is, Scripture teaches us that these ‘gods’ are real, many of them are dangerous, and they have power and authority over Men. What’s more, once you understand who and what you are looking for, you will find evidence of these ‘gods’ outside of the Bible.

These ‘lesser gods’ are mentioned directly and indirectly many times in the Bible. The catch is, we do not have the ANE worldview, so we do not see them in Scripture. Psalm 82 is a very good example of this. In this Psalm, YHWH is condemning the spiritual beings of His holy (i.e. heavenly) court for rebelling. YHWH had given them authority over their own nation, to teach the Men of that nation to worship Him. Instead, each of these lesser gods (i.e. sons of YHWH) taught the Men under their authority to worship them, and not YHWH. This is why they are being condemned to die a physical death, like human beings. Each of these sons of God were given their own nation to rule over by YHWH. The story is found in Gen 11:1-9, and affirmed in Deut 32:8-9. Once you understand what you are looking for, you will find many references to these lesser gods, and to their authority over other nations. You will also start to realize that this sets the stage for one of the larger back-stories in Scripture: the spiritual struggle between YWHW and the rebellious gods is played out in the story of the struggle between YHWH’s Nation, Israel, and the rest of the nations of the world. In fact, there are many passages in Scripture that can only be properly understood when viewed in these terms. I urge you to read Dr. Heiser’s book for all the details, especially if you are a believer. It is well worth your time.

One of the things you will come to understand once you understand that these lesser gods are real and have authority over Men is that they are lurking behind many of the material things in this world that we do recognize. For example: in the book of Daniel, we learn that a beast is allegorical to a kingdom and.or its king. But a beast and its representative king also has a spiritual counterpart. In every case except that of Michael, who is Israel’s spiritual representative, every one of these spiritual counterparts is evil. In Daniel, we are told of the Prince of Persia, and of Greece, and of the Prince who is to come. All of these Princes are spiritual beings, lesser gods. These are also part of the Principalities mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. These spiritual beings are part of a greater, unseen spiritual war that has raged throughout time, and which continues today. And their presence is found all throughout the Scriptures. You just have to learn about the ANE worldview, and about the ANE Royal Family structure before you will start seeing it in the Bible. However, once you learn all this, you will also start to see it outside of Scripture!

In Gen 6:1-4, we learn that some of these lesser gods came to earth and took human women as wives. They then had children that were neither human, nor spiritual beings. They were half-breeds known as Nephilim. It is from these Nephilim that we get demons. Because their spirits could not go to heaven or Sheol when they died, they remained on earth, disembodied. But we know these Nephilim by another name. In the ancient world of myth, they are called ‘demigods.’ Yes, I am saying that these Nephilim/demigods — half man, half god — beings are found in the mythology of ancient times. And, yes, I am then saying that their parents, such as Zeus and Apollo, have real origins. They are just different names for the rebellious lesser gods who came to earth to take human wives. You see, most people tend to forget an aspect of the definition of ‘myth,’ and that is that myths are usually based in truth. All this means is that the many god and half-god stories of old are retellings of the Biblical stories, only they have been changed by the people of the different nations because those people were under the influence of rebellious, lesser gods who wanted the honor and glory that is rightly due to the One True God, YHWH: the God these lesser gods were supposed to teach their nation and its people to worship. Meaning, what we call ‘mythology‘ is really just a perversion of the history recorded in the Bible!

There is another aspect of the Nephilim story we should also consider. This one is hinted at in Scripture, but the story is actually found in I Enoch (which was considered to be Scripture in the time of Yeshua). According to I Enoch, the Nephilim taught men how to ‘pervert flesh’ (Genesis 6:12 ¹² And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth). This ‘corruption of the flesh’ is a reference to interbreeding of species — to the point that we would consider it to be genetic manipulation. This is the origin of your stories about half-man, half-goat and half-man, half-bull creatures. I Enoch suggests that the Nephilim were either creating these abominations, and/or teaching men to do so. And, while it may sound fanciful to our modern (and arrogant) ears, it is not that strange — especially in a world that admits to the creation of human-monkey embryos.

We like to think of ourselves as much more advanced than the ancients. We have our new god, ‘science,’ and he is so much more powerful than any god that has come before. How could the backward ancients possibly manage to understand all the things we know, let alone do any of it? Right? But then, can we build a pyramid without our modern technology? Can we move a 1,500 ton block of stone without our modern machines? Can we trace the heavens as accurately as the ancients without our modern computers? The ancients did all of this without any of our modern technology, so what would have stopped them from creating animal hybrids — especially if they had help from spiritual beings? After all, these are the same spiritual beings who are said to have taught man sorcery, astrology, weapons making and warfare.

I’ll close by asking you to consider that the Bible warns us this spiritual war is as real as the material war. We do not see it because our spiritual eyes have grown dim (i.e. blind). Prophecy tells us that we will be fighting spiritual beings in the end-times, right before the Messiah returns. And what was the Messiah warning us about when He said, “As in the days of Noah…???” True, on the surface, it appears that Yeshua was imply saying that He would catch everyone who does not follow Him by surprise when He returns. But do you think that is all His audience heard? Everything I have just explained is intimately connected to ‘the days of Noah.’ So, if the Messiah mentions ‘the days of Noah,’ do you not think that the rebellious angels, the Nephilim and the corruption of flesh would not have come to the mind of those listening to Yeshua? Personally, I think that would be like suggesting that ‘Luke, I am your father,’ would not bring the whole Star Wars saga to mind, even though we might only be talking about the one scene where Luke loses his hand. No, I think Yeshua knew exactly what His words would cause the people to think about, just like, if you know what to look for, you can see all of the tell-tale signs of the fallen angels, Nephilim and corruption of the flesh is present again in our world, today. Which is why I no longer reject the idea that this is all a bunch of mythology: because, when I have been told that the material world is just a reflection of the spiritual world, then I am told the details of the spiritual war going on around me, and finally, I see these things happening in the material world…

Well, let us just say that there really is no logical reason that all of this cannot be true. We just chose to reject it. Now, how well does that technique usually work out for the scantily clad teenager who keeps telling herself the monster is not standing right behind her? 🙂

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