Other Gods? In My Monotheistic Bible?

Recently I have had some discussions on social media about the language of other “gods” in Deuteronomy 32. This was spurred by an essay by Rick Wadholm Jr. analyzing and critiquing Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm. At the same time, I was due to work through Heiser’s paper on monotheism.Heiser, “Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 18.1 (2008), pp. 1–30 In light of these discussions, it seemed good to me to try to clarify some of my thoughts around “monotheism” in Deuteronomy and Isaiah 40-48. The short story here is that I find Heiser’s argument a lot more compelling for Deuteronomy than I do for Isaiah 40-48. The long story is this rather long blogpost below. I’m still working my way through the vast literature on the problem of “monotheism” in the Bible as part of my ongoing research on ontological language in Isaiah 40-66, but what follows is an attempt to crystallize some of my thoughts so far.

The debate around “monotheism” can easily become about definitions. For the purposes of this essay, the demand of exclusive worship of one god is not enough to count as “monotheism,” rather one must go on to assert that only that one god exists. Also for the purposes of this essay, I will avoid capitalizing the word “god.” No impiety is meant by this – there is no uppercase/lowercase distinction in Hebrew, so this practice helps avoid prejudicing our interpretation of certain texts from the get-go. Also, while Heiser’s discussion of Psalm 82 is very interesting, I will leave it to the side for now, and focus on Heiser’s interpretation of Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah (= Isaiah 40-55).

Consider this trio of texts from Deuteronomy:

אַתָּה֙ הָרְאֵ֣תָ לָדַ֔עַת כִּ֥י יְהוָ֖ה ה֣וּא הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ין עֹ֖וד מִלְבַדֹּֽו׃
You have been shown that it is Yahweh who is the god, there is no other beside him.

וְיָדַעְתָּ֣ הַיֹּ֗ום וַהֲשֵׁבֹתָ֮ אֶל־לְבָבֶךָ֒ כִּ֤י יְהוָה֙ ה֣וּא הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם מִמַּ֔עַל וְעַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ מִתָּ֑חַת אֵ֖ין עֹֽוד׃
So know this day and keep it on your heart that it is Yahweh who is the god in heaven above and on earth below, there is no other.

רְא֣וּ׀ עַתָּ֗ה כִּ֣י אֲנִ֤י אֲנִי֙ ה֔וּא וְאֵ֥ין אֱלֹהִ֖ים עִמָּדִ֑י אֲנִ֧י אָמִ֣ית וַאֲחַיֶּ֗ה מָחַ֨צְתִּי֙ וַאֲנִ֣י אֶרְפָּ֔א וְאֵ֥ין מִיָּדִ֖י מַצִּֽיל׃
See now that it is I who am I, and there is no god with me. I kill, and make alive, I break and I heal, and there is none who can deliver from my hand.

These texts can be read as monotheistic statements, but Heiser interprets them otherwise. The two texts from Deuteronomy 4 merely assert that Yahweh is the god, a phrase which may communicate that he is the highest god or the exemplar case of deity. On this view, we might say, “There are gods and then there is the god.” The phrase “there is no other” would then exclusively assert of Yahweh only this title of “high god.” As for Deuteronomy 32:39, the statement that “there is no god with me” might be taken only to mean that there is no god who compares to Yahweh or is on his level, specifically in respect to his power to kill and make alive, etc.

Supporting this view is the observation that reference to other gods is made elsewhere in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 10:17 asserts, “it is Yahweh your god who is the god of the gods.” This seems to assume the existence of other gods, and simply assert Yahweh’s superiority over them. Note also the reference to other gods in Exodus 12:12 and 15:11, both in contexts affirming Yahweh’s superiority over them. On top of this, judicious text criticism restores a reference to the “sons of god” in Deuteronomy 32:8, as well as “gods” bowing down to Yahweh in Deuteronomy 32:43. In both cases, this is on the basis of the agreement of the Old Greek versions and the Dead Sea Scrolls – note also that Hebrews 1:6 cites the longer version of Deuteronomy 32:43 from the Old Greek. Heiser’s question is: if Deuteronomy affirms the existence of other gods in some places, how can we interpret seemingly exclusive statements to deny the existence of gods in other places? Perhaps we need to take a second look at what these exclusive statements really mean. One way to harmonize these texts is to understand the exclusive statements in Deuteronomy 4:35, 39 and 32:39 as ascribing an exclusively high and exalted status to Yahweh, but without exclusively reserving divinity to him alone.

Of course, another way to harmonize these texts is to note that this language of other gods is only used for the purposes of asserting Yahweh’s superiority over them. If we insist on reading the exclusive language in Deuteronomy as a claim that Yahweh is the only divinity who exists, then perhaps the language of “other gods” is simply a form of rhetorical execration – the other gods are mentioned only to demote them.

Against this, Heiser might reply that language of other gods does not show up simply for the purposes of buttressing the exaltation of Yahweh. Rather, Deuteronomy 32:8, 43, alongside Genesis 6:1-4, maps out a guiding role for the sons of god in the affairs and sins of the nations. No biblical “angelology” would then be complete without mentioning them, and we would have to grapple with the fact that these figures about whom Scripture does have a positive teaching are referred to as “gods” in the Scriptures.

Rather than pursue this argument further, I will just observe that I think Heiser has a point about Deuteronomy here. However, I am much less convinced by his attempt to dispatch monotheistic langauge in Isaiah 40-48. I will turn then to that corpus. For those interested in pursuing the issue of monotheistic language in Deuteronomy further, I will note that Nathan MacDonald has a book on the subject aligned with Heiser’s argument, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism (2012).

Isaiah 40-48 contain several important examples of purported monotheistic language. As we approach this corpus, we should begin by affirming that there is more than one supernatural being hanging around the wider corpus of Isaiah 40-55. Heiser is very helpful in pointing this out. There is the heavenly host, whom Yahweh calls by name (40:5; 45:12). Moreover, Heiser is right to follow those scholars who see a lot of implicit evidence for the divine council in this corpus. There is also the cosmic monster Rahab (Isaiah 51:9). Finally, the Babylonian gods Bel and Nebo are named in a polemic against them (46:1). All of these might be called “gods” by Israel’s neighbors – indeed, there is more than one place in the Hebrew Bible where the divine council are referred to as “gods.” Is this case closed then? Since there are other gods on the loose in Isaiah 40-55, in what sense can it be “monotheist?”

The complicating factor is that these entities are not referred to as “gods” in this corpus. The only significant exception here is the idol-making passage in Isaiah 44:10-20, and this is arguably ironic, adopting the viewpoint of an idol-maker for the purposes of criticizing the practice. On top of that, there are expressions that sure seem to deny the existence of other gods, such as “except for me there is no god” (Isaiah 45:5). Indeed, even Olyan concedes that these heavenly beings are not considered to be ˀĕlōhîm in Isaiah 40-55, in a paper much cited by the contemporary line of research critical of the “monotheism” label.Saul Olyan, “Is Isaiah 40–55 Really Monotheistic?”, JANER 12 (2012), pp.190-201 Olyan concludes that “the uniqueness of Second Isaiah’s ideology and the usefulness of the term monotheism to describe it appear increasingly to be in doubt,” but on the very same page we read: “Though the members of the host continue to exist as individual, heavenly beings who possess volition, serve Yhwh, and are even summoned by name according to 40:26, they are no longer classified as אלהים, a term now reserved for Yhwh alone.” Olyan helpfully adds that they are also never referred to as qədōšîm, “holy ones,” an alternative term for these figures.

A typical way to characterize this theme in Isaiah 40-55 is to say that while the existence of other heavenly beings are accepted, they are demoted from the status of “gods.” But Heiser wants to challenge this. Properly understood, he claims, these chapters are no different than Deuteronomy 4 and 32. They contain an exalted rhetoric about Yahweh’s uniqueness, but they accept the existence of other gods. Before getting to the central point of Heiser’s argument, however, I want to say something about how expressions of incomparability and exclusivity in Isaiah 40-48 compare to other similar statements from Israel’s neighbors.

Statements of divine incomparability and exclusivity are plentifully attested in texts from ancient West Asia and North Africa. By the way, we should distinguish statements of incomparability such as “there is none like you” from statements of exclusivity such as “there is none beside you” – on this, see the study by LabuschagneLabuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament, 1966. These expressions often co-occur, but they don’t necessarily mean the same thing. Many recent publications on monotheism conflate them, or just assume statements of exclusivity are reducible to the meaning of statements of incomparability.

In what follows, I will focus on statements of exclusivity, since these are most relevant to the claim of monotheism. The argument here goes that it is typical in texts from Israel’s world for the worshippers to describe their gods in exclusive terms. But these texts clearly come from a context where multiple gods are acknowledged, even sometimes in the same texts where exclusive terminology is used. Thus, the exclusive language is hyperbolic or rhetorical. So why shouldn’t we also take such language as merely rhetorical when we come across it in Isaiah 40-48?

Let’s consider some examples of this sort of language to help us evaluate this claim, starting in Egypt with some excerpts from hymns of praise to Amun-Re (cited from Assmann, Sonnenhymn in thebanischen Gräbern (1983):

[nṯr]-wꜤ nn-ky ḥr-ḫw⸗f
...sole [god] without another except him...

nn-ḥrj-ḫw⸗f jwtj-snnw⸗f
...who there is none except him, without equal...

It would be easy to take these as “monotheistic” statements that Amun-Re is the only god who exists. In fact, though, Egyptologists who study these expressions across many attestations do not take them this way. Instead, these expressions affirm that the god in question is unique. The god is “sole” in the sense that no other god is quite like them. Of course, one could affirm this of multiple gods – each of them has particular attributes and powers which distinguish them from the other gods. Even in the case of a phrase like “there is none except him,” we find that the entity negated is either implied or referred to with a vague phrase like “other.” The quality negated is left vague (unless it is specified by a modifying clause). It might be inferred from context, though in many cases it seems best to say that what is negated is simply the god’s individuality – there is nobody quite like them. Again, this could be true of multiple gods at the same time. Please do note though that this phrase, “sole god without another except for him,” is also used in the Great Amarna hymn. Perhaps it means something stronger in a context where people are going around hacking away the name of Amun or the plural term “gods” out of temples? This at least highlights the importance of context for interpreting the phrase.

What we don’t find – at least, I have not found an example, even at Amarna – is an analogous phrase with a generic term for deity within the scope of the negation – “there is no god except for you.” This would be to say that the god praised was the only one of whom deity could be affirmed – not what the worshipper is trying to say! Note that we do find phrases like “there is no god like you” or “there is no god who is your equal.” These expressions affirm that the god praised is in some way unique, such that no other god is comparable to them or equatable to them in some respect. These expressions can consistently be ascribed to multiple gods because the bare term “god” here is not functioning as the thing negated, rather, what is negated is the term “god” together with the modifying clause beginning with “like” or “who is...” These phrases only deny the existence of a god matching the description in the modifying clause.

We can cite many similar examples from Mesopotamia, like the following Babylonian penitential psalm:

ela kâti ilim muštēšeru ul iši
Besides you there is no god who sets right

Here, we do find within the scope of the exceptive preposition a generic term for deity (ilim). But this noun is modified by a participle. Thus it is not deity per se which is attributed exclusively to the god praised – he is not the only god, but the only “god who sets right.” So, the specific quality of restoring the penitent and giving them justice is exclusively ascribed to the god. Note however that this may still be hyperbole. Would it be the considered opinion of the worshipper that no other god is able to help the penitent out of a jam? Probably not. Hyperbole remains a wildcard in the prayers of worshippers, which cannot be discounted simply by a close grammatical reading of the expressions used. At the same time, I know of no example of a Mesopotamian text which simply asserts “there is no god besides you” – or at least, I have not found an example. Of course, as with Egyptian sources, expressions such as “there is no god like you” or “there is no god equal to you” are a different matter, and mean something else.

By way of comparison, let’s turn to a text from the Hebrew Bible:

כִּ֤י מִ֣י אֱ֭לֹוהַּ מִבַּלְעֲדֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וּמִ֥י צ֝֗וּר זוּלָתִ֥י אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ׃
For who is god (ˀĕlôah) apart from Yahweh? And who is a Rock except for our god?

At first sight, this looks like the kind of monotheistic statement we are looking for. These are rhetorical questions, with an expected answer of “no,” so they function like a negative clause of the form “there is no…” So in that case, what would be negated? For the first rhetorical question, the term negated would be ˀĕlôah, “god.” So it would seem that here we have an exclusive attribution of deity to Yahweh. However, ˀĕlôah might be understood here not as a generic term for deity but as a divine name – the clause would then say that Yahweh is the only one who can be identified with Eloah. In that case this rhetorical question would only exclude other deities from being identified with Eloah, not from being gods per se. I’m not sure I find this interpretation particularly convincing in the context of the psalm, but it is possible. And such an interpretation works even better on the second rhetorical question. To say that “Rock” is a divine name exclusively applicable to Yahweh may be to say no more than that he alone among the gods fully exemplifies the attributes associated with this title. To reiterate, if we take ˀĕlôah as a generic term for deity, we have here something (I have) not found anywhere in the texts of Israel’s neighbors: an exclusive attribution of deity to Yahweh. But if we want to let those other comparative texts drive our reading, we do have the option of taking it as a divine name, and escaping from the appearance of an exceptional monotheism here.

What about when we turn to Isaiah 40-48? Consider the following phrases:

וּמִבַּלְעָדַ֖י אֵ֥ין אֱלֹהִֽים
...and apart from me there is no god.

הֲיֵ֤שׁ אֱלֹ֨והַּ֙ מִבַּלְעָדַ֔י
Is there a god (ˀĕlôah) apart from me?...

זוּלָתִ֖י אֵ֣ין אֱלֹהִ֑ים
...except for me there is no god.

וְאֵֽין־עֹ֤וד אֱלֹהִים֙ מִבַּלְעָדַ֔י
...there is no other god apart from me…

Here we have not one, but four examples of phrases where a generic term for deity is exclusively ascribed to Yahweh. Of course, questions can be raised about ˀĕlôah in Isaiah 44:8, similar to the questions raised about Psalm 18:32 – in fact, the following words in Isaiah 44:8 (“and there is no Rock…”) allow us to identify 44:8 as an allusion to Psalm 18:32. But the other three examples have ˀĕlōhîm, “god,” which raises no such issues.

These phrases are distinctly unlike anything else in ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian sources. One always wants to be cautious making such a claim – I have not read everything, and if anyone can supply a counter-example I have missed, I would be very interested to see it and adjust my argument as necessary. Still, it will not do to identify this sort of expression with other expressions of incomparability or exclusivity from Israel’s world. These expressions in Isaiah 40-48 bear a superficial similarity to expressions like “apart from you there is no god who…” or “apart from you there is no one who…”, but they are saying something different. It does not follow from the fact that such expressions may use similar exceptive terms that they are making the same claim – one has to look at the actual content that is being excepted!

For this reason, I am unconvinced by the argument sometimes made from expressions of incomparability and exclusivity among Israel’s neighbors. This argument would claim that, since expression of incomparability and exclusivity need not imply exclusive deity in the texts of Israel’s neighbors, we should not take them to imply exclusive deity in Israel’s texts. But the problem is that these texts are not really comparable. This argument often begins from expressions such as “there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9) or “there is no other” (45:5, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22; 46:9), which are easy to parallel in ancient West Asian and North African texts. Then the argument goes that we ought to extend the parallel from these expressions to those expressions which are without parallel. But why not start from the expressions which are without parallel, and then interpret “there is none like me” or “there is no other” in this light? After all, “there is none like me” and “there is no other” are vague statements whose meaning is dependent on context clues about what is actually being compared or excluded.

These remarkable statements in Isaiah 40-48 provide an opportunity to employ that crucial principle of comparative studies: don’t only discuss the similarities between your text and a cognate text, discuss the differences as well. Too many recent arguments against “monotheism” in Isaiah 40-55 rely on bald parallelomania on this point. Until such time as some scholar produces a real parallel for these expressions, no account will be convincing which does not face up to their exceptionality.

However, this is not Heiser’s argument, so let’s return to that. Rather than focusing on parallels from Israel’s world, Heiser argues that expressions of incomparability and exlusiveness in Isaiah 40-48 are “either identical or nearly identical to those found in Deut 4:35, 39 and 32:12, 39.”Heiser, “Monotheism,” p.16 Since some of the phraseology is identical, other phraseology which is not identical must nevertheless mean roughly the same thing, Heiser argues. In Isaiah 45:21 the word zûlātî, “except for me,” is used in parallel to mibbalˤāday, “apart from me.” Moreover, in this occurrence mibbalˤāday is combined with ˀên-ˤôd, “there is no other.” This phrase ˀên-ˤôd, “there is no other,” is the key term from Deuteronomy 4:35. Therefore “except for me” in Isaiah 45:21 can’t be saying any more than “there is no other” in Deuteronomy 4:35. By a transitive property of parallelism, the meaning of each member of each pair is equated, so that they all must mean roughly the same thing. This is confused, and a bad principle. Just because two phrases are parallel, it don’t hence follow that they have to mean the same thing. In Hebrew poetry, even well-balanced parallel phrases usually have differences of meaning, whether slight or great. And anyway, taking “there is no other” from Deuteronomy 4:35 and adding “god apart from me” to it, as Isaiah 45:21 does, certainly changes the meaning!

So eager is Heiser to relate Deuteronomy 4:35 to these expressions that he makes a basic error of asserting that the preposition used in Deuteronomy 4:35 (milbaddô, “beside him”) is the same one used in Isaiah 43:11; 44:6, 8; 45:21 (mibbalˤāday, “except for me”) – they are in fact different terms. In fact, the language of exclusivity that appears in Isaiah 40-48 is not picked up from Deuteronomy 4, but from Psalm 18:32 (which does have the same preposition mibbalˤāday, “except for me”). A comparison with Isaiah 44:8 makes the parallel especially clear. Nor is this the only parallel to be drawn with the Psalter – the comparison verb ˤ-r-k (Isaiah 40:18) is applied to God elsewhere only in Psalm 40:6 and 89:7, and the comparison verb d-m-h (Isaiah 40:18, 25; 46:5) is applied to God elsewhere only in Psalm 50:21 and 89:7. The other comparison verbs used in Isaiah 40-48, š-w-h (Isaiah 40:25; 46:5) and m-š-l (Isaiah 46:5), are used for Yahweh only here, and though they are used for comparison generally in poetic, prophetic, and late books, they are not so used in the Pentateuch. Thus the majority of the lexical stock the prophet draws on to express Yahweh’s incomparability and uniqueness is not from Deuteronomy but from elsewhere, primarily the Psalms. As important as texts like Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32 undoubtedly are to Isaiah 40-48, it would be a mistake to center Pentateuchal expressions of incomparability – all of which simply use the k- preposition – in our account of this corpus, which only uses such constructions twice (Isaiah 44:7; 46:9). Simply put, the claim that Isaiah 40-48 is dependent on Deuteronomy 32 for this theme is an oversimplification. The actual nature of the intertextualities is more complicated and heavily involves certain Psalms.

But what about ˀên-ˤôd, “there is no other?” This quite plausibly is an allusion to Deuteronomy 4:35, and is used seven times in Isaiah 40-48, plus two more if we include the analogous construction ˀapsî ˤôd. But consider how these allusions work. If the prophet is interpreting Deuteronomy 4:35 in Isaiah 45:21, then he is doing so in conjunction with Psalm 18:32. And we know that the prophet takes ˀĕlôah in Psalm 18:32 as a generic term for deity, for in 44:6, 8; 45:21 it has been swapped out for ˀĕlōhîm. Thus, we can detect that in the prophet’s opinion, Psalm 18:32 attributes deity to Yahweh to the exclusion of all others – i.e., unlike some contemporary scholars, the prophet reads Psalm 18:32 monotheistically (or isn’t it Yahweh speaking through him who reads the text this way?). But then, if he conflates this language with Deuteronomy 4:35 in Isaiah 45:21 (“there is no other” + “god apart from me”), does it not also seem likely that he reads Deuteronomy 4:35 as attributing deity to Yahweh to the exclusion of all others? A comparison of the relevant phrases from the two texts brings home the point:

יְהוָ֖ה ה֣וּא הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ין עֹ֖וד מִלְבַדֹּֽו
It is Yahweh who is the god, there is no other beside him

אֲנִ֤י יְהוָה֙ וְאֵֽין־עֹ֤וד אֱלֹהִים֙ מִבַּלְעָדַ֔י
I am Yahweh, and there is no other god apart from me

Replacing milbaddô with mibbalˤāday, and placing ˀĕlōhîm, “god,” within the scope of the negator conforms the expression to Psalm 18:32. It goes farther than that, though. We saw above that ˀĕlōhîm has the definite article in Deuteronomy 4:35, allowing the interpretation that Yahweh is only arrogating the title of “the god” (the highest god? exemplar god? most divine god?), but not denying the existence of many (indefinite) gods. But this ambiguity is lacking in Isaiah 45:21. Furthermore, moving ˀĕlōhîm within the scope of the negator makes it clear that it is deity precisely that is being denied to any other than Yahweh. Rather than simply repeating Deuteronomy, the Isaiah 45:21 allows a “monotheistic” reading of Psalm 18 to drive a “monotheistic” reading of Deuteronomy 4:35.

At this point, we may briefly survey the other uses of “there is no other.” The expression “I am Yahweh and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:5, 6, 18) communicates Yahweh’s personal uniqueness in a way easily paralleled from the texts of Israel’s neighbors, and there is no need to insist that this expressions on its own says anything about whether Yahweh is the only god. The expression “I am god (ˀēl) and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22; 46:9) may imply that Yahweh is the only god, since deity is the relevant term of comparison outside the exclusive clause. But we must take seriously the claim of MacDonaldNathan MacDonald, “Monotheism and Isaiah, in Interpreting Isaiah, ed. Firth and Williamson (2009), p. 49; Klaus Koch, "Ugaritic polytheism and Hebrew monotheism in Isaiah 40-55," in The God of Israel, ed. Gordon (2007), pp. 218, 221 – following Koch – that ˀēl here means “highest god,” (as at Ugarit), though the interchange of ˀĕlôah and ˀĕlōhîm observed above makes this seem less plausible to me.

The use of the related expression apsî ˤôd, “there is no other,” in Isaiah 47:8, 10 is frequently used as a counter-example to monotheist readings of Isaiah 40-48. These are the words of Babylon personified: “I am, and there is no other.” Heiser argues: “The claim is not that she is the only city in the world but that she has no rival.”Heiser, “Monotheism,” p.5 If Babylon’s speech read, “I am, and there is no other city,” or even “I am a city, and there is no other,” this would make a good counter-example against a monotheist reading of “there is no other god besides me.” But as I observed before, “there is no other” is a vague term which needs the context to provide what is excluded. I feel the need to stop and underline this point, since Heiser is neither the first nor the last scholar to repeat this non-sequitur. Babylon is not the only city that exists – but who would construe the exclusivity claim here that way in the first place? Why would anyone ever think that cityhood was the relevant predicate being denied here? Again, the expression “there is no other god” would be analagous to “there is no other city,” not to a bare claim, “there is no other.” If “there is no other city” stood in the text here, then the fact that other cities do exist would be good evidence that exclusivity expressions generally are hyperbolic. But that is not the claim being made – rather, scholars have tried to force a parallel meaning here where an important difference in the meaning should have been observed. The exclusivity expression here is actually more analagous to “I am Yahweh, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:5, 6, 18) than to the phrase “there is no other god apart from me” (Isaiah 45:21). Note that the parallel term here (ˤôd) is actually not the key term for “there is no god apart from me” where it appears in the corpus – that is rather mibbalˤāday, with its link to Psalm 18:32. Isaiah 44:6, 8; 45:6 use mibbalˤāday without ˤôd, and only 45:21 joins both terms. It is thus a huge stretch to make Isaiah 47:8, 10 determinative of the meaning of the whole set of expressions, while at the same time ignoring the contribution made by the inclusion of the predicate “god” within the scope of the negation. The simple expression “there is no other” used in 47:8, 10 is much more vague, and like “I am Yahweh, and there is no other,” this need mean no more than that Babylon is unique on the basis of some predicate determined by the context.

But we need to be more precise than this. Actually, the claim is not that “she has no rival” – the claim is that Babylon is an eternal city which will last forever, without ever falling victim to disaster. This is abundantly clear from context, especially Babylon’s other words: “I will be (ˀehyeh) queen forever” (v.7). The use of ˀehyeh, “I am/I will be,” is likely significant, an appropriation of the ontological meaning of Yahweh’s divine name. We have little choice but to take the first clause of “I am, and there is no other” as a hyparctic construction asserting existence (there is no “to be” verb nor existential particle in this clause, just the bare pronoun). Incidentally, the fact that a pronoun in a zero construction is used here to communicate existence provides some of the strongest evidence (against the claims of many scholars) that the similar phrase ˀănî hûˀ, “it is I,” (used of Yahweh in 41:4; 43:10, 13, 25; 46:4; 48:12; 51:12; 52:6) can also have an ontological meaning (like the analogous construction in Bohairic Coptic) – but this is a tangent. Interested readers may consult the excursus at 5.12 in my dissertation. The upshot here is that Babylon’s claim of eternal existence, to the exclusion of others, offends Yahweh and becomes the cause of her judgment. Therefore, the use of the expression here has little bearing on its meaning in other contexts when read closely. Babylon is not claiming to be the only city, she is claiming to be the only eternal city.

Thus, a close examination of exclusive expressions in Isaiah 40-48 does not support Heiser’s attempt to make them say the same thing as Deuteronomy. But I do want to entertain one final worry here: we are looking very closely at these expressions, but if we look at them all in context, might it not turn out that they are merely hyperbolic or rhetorical after all? It is difficult to dispel this objection without doing a close reading of each of these expressions in context, which I won’t take the time to do here. It would be a matter of figuring out how these claims fit in the logic of the prophet’s argument. The view that these statements are mere rhetoric does face a hurdle in leaping from the hyperbole of hymn and prayer into the genre of prophetic argument. However, I have argued in my dissertation that being and non-being are not a simple binary in Isaiah 40-66 (or indeed, in many texts from ancient West Asia and North Africa). I discovered multiple kinds of nothingness being predicated of entities in this corpus which were not simple non-existence. In fact, the prophet does apply nothingness language to the other “gods” in a metaphorical sense in 41:24. It is just that he also goes further than this to claim that they are not gods at all.

To be brief, I would observe the general fact that in Isaiah 40-55, terms for deity really are restricted to Yahweh, except where the viewpoint of an idol-maker is active. At times, this is even awkward, as in the oracle in 41:21-29, where the addressees are summoned without being directly named. But they are of course the other “gods,” a fact that becomes clear with the challenge, “Tell what is to come afterwards, that we may know that you are gods” (v.23). The point is that the addressees – who again, are not even addressed as “gods” – are not in fact able to predict the future, which by the logic of v.23 implies very straightforwardly that they are not gods. Note also that it is not the images which are being denied the status of gods here, but the gods themselves – they are in fact distinguished from their images in 41:29.

Isaiah 43:10 is also much discussed in this connection – “You are my witnesses – oracle of Yahweh – and my servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and believe in me and understand that it is I; before me no god formed, and after me none will come to be.” The fact that the coming into being of the gods is in view here confirms an ontological reading of “it is I,” which in this context should be understood as “I am” or “I exist.” Some argue that “gods” here refers specifically to idols, since the verb y‑ṣ‑r “to form” is used in the idol fabrication passagesSchaper, “Divine Images, Iconophobia and Monotheism in Isaiah 40 – 66,” in Continuity and Discontinuity, ed. Gertz et al. (2014), pp. 147-8. But y‑ṣ‑r is also used in other contexts, particulary in cosmogonic contexts (44:24; 45:7, 18). I agree with those commentators who see theogony as the background here. In Egyptian contexts, it is quite conventional to hear of Amun-Re that he was the first god who came into existence, with no god coming into existence before him. But then of course, the other gods do come into existence after him. The difference here is that Yahweh does not come into existence, he just exists. And what’s more, his existence is not followed by a train of other gods coming into existence. The phrase, “after me none will come to be” is a bit tricky – is the verse saying that after Yahweh ceases to exist no other gods will arise? Better to see the “after” as relative to Yahweh’s present existence – it won’t be supplemented by the genesis of other gods. Of course, if no gods come into existence before or after Yahweh, this implies that no other gods come into existence at all. For more discussion, see the excursus at 5.12 in my dissertation.

Ok, so suppose we concede that Isaiah 40-55 advocates monotheism – Yahweh is the only god who exists. What then? We still have some pretty big questions. First of all, Deuteronomy 32 is a very important text for Isaiah 40-55, maybe the most important – there are many allusions to it. Yet if Heiser is right about the text criticism (and I think he is), the prophet likely knows a version of Deuteronomy 32 with the gods still in it. For that matter, he may well be aware of the same sort of language in Psalm 8, 82, and 86. If he considered these texts in some way sacred or authoritative, how did he understand his relationship to them on this issue where he seems to change the rules of the game? This is so far as I can tell an unanswerable question.

But surely once the prophet of Isaiah 40-55 has established “monotheism,” everyone else will play by the rules going forward, right? And yet we find that the gods-talk does not stop. We find it in Psalm 95, 96, 97, 135, 136, and 138. The phrase “God of gods” occurs multiple times in Daniel, and not just on the lips of Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Daniel 11:36). The Old Greek translation sometimes re-labels these “gods” as “angels” (cf. Psalm 8:6; 97:7; 138:1) but often not (cf. Psalm 82:6; 86:8; 95:3; 96:4-5; 135:5; 136:2). And as Heiser rightly points out, this sort of language is common in Second Temple Jewish sources, especially at Qumran.Heiser, “Monotheism,” p.3

One reason for this is undoubtedly that texts like Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32 are still hanging around exerting an influence. This language is traditional, so it must be ok to keep using it. In this connection, note the allusion to Deutereonomy 32:43 – the longer version – in Psalm 97:7. But then Isaiah 40-55 was also in play. One wonders how these two were put together? How might those who considered both Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah 40-55 authoritative deal with the apparent contradiction?

One possible response would be to edit or delete portions of the text of Deuteronomy 32 which use god-language for the heavenly beings. If Heiser is right that the textual variance in Deuteronomy 32:8, 43 is the result of theologically motivated editing, this must have happened, possibly multiple times, given that there is more than one variant version of v.43. Heiser wants to date this edit late, around 100 AD, but I’m not sure this can account for the reading gaining enough authority to be included in the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is quite possibly much earlier, and it is worth asking whether the person(s) editing sacred texts to remove references to other gods should maybe count as “monotheists.” In any case, this editing attempt was either not very widespread or not broadly successful, since the other references to the gods in the Hebrew Bible survive without significant textual variance.

Another more moderate approach is to continue using the term “god” for other heavenly beings, but to qualify what this means. So Philo, who is happy so speak of the heavenly bodies as “manifest and visible gods” Philo, On the Creation of the World 7.27 or the Logos as a “god,” nevertheless considers only the one god to be “god in truth” (ὁ ἀληθείᾳ θεὸς), and explicitly tells us that the term “god” is figurative when applied to other beings – to be precise, he classifies it as catachresisPhilo, On Dreams I 227-230. The reader will be warned that more than one source in the recent line of “monotheism” research parades Philo’s “god” language for the Logos as evidence that he is not a monotheist – even with a citation to this paragraph in On Dreams – without ever telling the reader about the qualifications Philo makes on his use of the language in the very same paragraph. With all the ink spilled on “monotheism,” we are apparently not yet beyond a selective presentation of the evidence. Philo also polemicizes against “the belief in many gods (πολύθεος),”Philo, On the Decalogue 65 a text also sometimes left uncited by those who like to tell us that “monotheism” is a 17th century coinage, without reflecting on the fact that the term “polytheism” has a much older history.

Similarly, Paul can refer to “the god of this world,” (2 Corinthians 4:4), but when he describes other gods as “called gods” in 1 Corinthians 8:5, this sounds to me like a hedge indicating Paul is using this language in a figurative way. In Galatians 4:8 he uses the expression “those not being gods by nature” – again, this seems like a significant qualification.

The strategy here seems to be to keep using the language of Deutereonomy 32, but with qualifications. In fact, it seems quite likely that this is how Philo or Paul might understand the language of other gods in Deuteronomy 32 – just because they are called “gods” does not mean they are really gods (i.e., gods “in truth” or “by nature”). In other words, Deuteronomy 32 is being read in the light of Isaiah 40-48. That said, they both seem comfortable deploying this god language without qualifying it every time. They are not quite in the position in many churches today, where other supernatural beings must only be referred to as angels or demons (except when commenting upon biblical texts which refer to them as “gods,” and perhaps not even then!).

One would like to know more than we do about how readers between Isaiah 40-55 and the first century AD dealt with the same problem. Unfortunately we don’t really have much commentary on the Bible from before this period which could directly shed light on the question. Returning to the Psalms, it does seem like the use of “god” language in Psalm 96:4-5 and Psalm 97:7 is juxtaposed with affirmations that the gods of the nations are mere ˀĕlîlîm, “vanities,” and this seems like it could be some kind of hedge that tells us something about what the authors were doing when they repeated the language of Deuteronomy 32. And again, some but not all translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek convert “gods” into “angels.” At the same time, it is quite in order to observe the evidence from Elephantine and elsewhere that many Jews were still worshipping Yahweh in combination with other deities, like Khnum or Anat. Presumably they had their own way to explain the consistency of what they were doing with whatever holy texts they accepted. We may add to this the amply attested fascination with powerful angelic figures throughout the Second Temple context, which does not all fit easily into “monotheistic” categories. It seems to me that there are a lot of questions still to be explored about how this works across the Second Temple context (Wadholm helpfully reminds us in his blog that Second Temple Judaism is not a monolith). I wonder if there are more examples of qualification or hedging to be discovered, which could give hints as to whether others before Philo felt the same pressure to clarify that these figures were not truly “gods.”

In any case, scholars like Heiser who are skeptical of the “monotheism” label need to be more careful to do justice to the exceptional nature of Isaiah 40-48, as set forth here. The statements of exclusivity in this corpus remain real problem texts for his claims about monotheism.