BibleProject - Origin of Spiritual Beings & Mini Q+R - God E4

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

Starting point is 00:00:17 and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Starting point is 00:00:39 Hey, this is John and Tim, and you're listening to the Bible Project Podcast. Today, on this episode, we were're listening to the Bible Project Podcast today on this episode. We were originally going to do a question and response episode about the last three God episodes. Correct. And as we sat down to do it, Tim said, hey, actually we recorded that episode 10 months ago. And I've got some new thoughts that I think would be helpful. That's right. So this episode is actually going to be us talking through.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Yeah, things that I've learned and want to put out there about more things about the Divine Council and the other Divine Beings that rule under God's authority. Specifically, we're going to spend a lot of time looking at Genesis one and the origin of the celestial beings of the divine council and then also salmating to then in the last 10 15 minutes or so we'll answer some questions and explore this whole complex topic even more. So thanks for joining us. Here we go. Are you ready to talk about God? I think I'm ready to respond. To respond to questions. We are in the beginning of a series walking through God. Yes. The identity of God in the Bible. Yep. And we just had three episodes looking at the word Elohim and then looking at the divine council. Is that the third one though? That was the third one. So it was about, we started with the

Starting point is 00:02:14 word Elohim, how it can refer to the singular chief Elohim, a creator of heaven on earth whose name chief Elohim, a creator of heaven and earth whose name in the Old Testament is Yahweh, God of Israel. However, the word can also refer to other divine beings that populate the biblical world. And that's usually translated in English with a lowercase G gods. But the main takeaways were that in the biblical world view there are many Elohim There is one chief Elohim who made all of the others and all of creation. Yeah, but that doesn't mean those other Elohim Aren't Elohim they are and then it was about the meaning of the word means and habitat of the Non-physical realm. Yeah, and we talked about that probably the most direct translation of Elohim to help make sense that is spiritual being. Yeah, spiritual being.

Starting point is 00:03:11 Yeah, that's right. Because when you say God, it has all this baggage. Correct. Although Elohim is translated most often as God. When it refers to the God of Israel. And when it, but also, Oh, and it refers, that's right. That's right. Yeah. And it refers to the gods of Israel. And when it's but also the way. Oh, and it refers, that's right, that's right. And it refers to the gods of other nations or other spiritual beings.

Starting point is 00:03:29 Yeah, and then you get verses like God is the God of God. Yeah, Yahweh is the God of gods. He is the one Elohim over the many other Elohim. Yeah. All right, mind bender number one. That's right. Then the second episode. Second was when the Bible said, when biblical authors use phrases like there is no other God

Starting point is 00:03:46 Beside yeah, what did they all way what they mean is no other Elohim compares to Yahweh not that there isn't any other They're not saying that other Elohim don't exist because the same biblical authors like Paul or Moses will then In other passages talk about the reality of these other Elohim So yeah, so these Elohim. So, yeah. So, these Elohim go by various titles in the Old Testament and the New Testament. They can be called Elohim, which gets translated as lowercase G gods. They're also sometimes called the sons of Elohim, members of the class of Elohim, lesser divine beings.

Starting point is 00:04:23 They can be called the heavenly host, the heavenly army. They can be called the holy ones, or the congregation or council of God. They're appointed delegates of how God runs the world. That's what episode three was all about. Episode three was all about the divine council. Yeah. And oh God rules the world with delegated authority. Yeah. Yeah. My vendor number three. So we did those three episodes and that just begs a ton of questions.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Yeah. So many cans of fascinating worms. Fascinated cans of worms. Cans of worms. Multiple cans. Multiple cans of fascinating worms. So I want to crawl out. So here's one dynamic that maybe some listeners have picked up. If you hear us making

Starting point is 00:05:11 any time references in any of those episodes, then actually the rest of the God series, there's something that we haven't quite done yet up to this point. John and I, we had these conversations, we're sitting right now in this moment. Right now it's 2018. It's August 7th, 2018. Yeah, you'll listen to this in real time. That's right. This Q&R episode is yeah, August 2018 it'll get released within a week. All of the God conversations happened 10 months ago in October 27th past Tim and John had those conversations. So this is this is just the inevitability of like being a lifelong learner and like a bookworm on control Bookworm

Starting point is 00:05:51 I'm constantly learning and refining my ideas and that's what humans do. Well, it's can we do so you've listened to these three episodes Totally Present you and you're going oh, I actually... 2018 Tim has listened back to 2017 Tim and be going like, oh, well, that's okay, but really you should say it this way. Or, well, actually, here's the bigger context, or you're not using that word and precisely the way I've learned more about. So anyway, there's all kinds of little modifications. Yeah, that you wish...

Starting point is 00:06:22 I want to make to my cast self. And actually, a lot of the questions that will respond to relate to things that I've been churning. So in that episode, I think I had said October 2017, it was earlier that year in 2017 that I had realized that I was ignoring these things. Ignoring this whole layer of the biblical storyline. So I'm now over a year and a half into that journey and I've been reading a lot and reflecting a lot and so much discovery. It's uncannoured to me how much of the Bible still feels like fresh territory, no matter how many times I read it. So there's a few things I just want to say to frame especially the last episode three about the Divine Council.

Starting point is 00:07:04 So one thing that I didn't talk about, because I didn't really, I hadn't reflected on it, was where any mention of the creation of the divine counsel or the sons of God or other spiritual beings, where they mentioned, because that's interesting. Like their origin story? Yeah, their origin story.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Yeah. When are they made? Yeah. Because in any of the passages we talked about, they're just there. They're just there. Yeah. And even when humans are created, they're there. They're the let us make human in our image. Actually, we have a question about this. Yeah. But all preview of it. Yeah, because I think that's referring to the divine counsel. You think that's the way to the divine counsel.

Starting point is 00:07:40 Correct. So in other words, they've already they already exist and by Genesis 6 the sons of Elohim are there. Where am I supposed to have seen where they are created? Right. So here is something the significance of it just sunk in like recently. Is that in Genesis 1 we've talked about the literary design of Genesis 1 you get the opening opening, exposition, God created everything. The uncreated state was a state of chaos, and then God begins to speak, right? So there's 10 acts of speaking divided up into two panels of three days each.

Starting point is 00:08:17 Days one through three, days four through six. And there's 10 different acts of speaking. And within them, there's 10 acts of speaking and eight acts of making and seven pronouncements of good did Genesis one. It's unbelievable. It's, it's, it's, people have noticed this. The uncreated state is called Wild and Waste or Tohu of Vo-Vohu. Tohu means unordered or chaotic. Vohu means uninhabited or empty. Day is one through three, address the Tohu, create order. So where there's only darkness, now there's light and dark, an ordered pattern of time. Counteracting the Tohu. Correct. Where there's light and dark in ordered pattern of time. Counteracting the Tohu. Correct.

Starting point is 00:09:06 Where there's just chaotic, undulating chaos waters. Now there's waters separated from waters so that dry land can emerge. Where there's un-inhabitable dry land, vegetation, and life emerges. So it's addressing Tohu. Then Vohu. The environment.

Starting point is 00:09:22 The Vohu, yeah, the environment, we might say. What day is 4 through 6 is address the vohu, the uninhabited. Oh yeah, it puts all the creatures in. Yeah, and it goes in the same order. It creates inhabitants for the sky. The sky. We'll talk about this. It creates inhabitants for the waters of the fish and the sea creatures and then inhabitants

Starting point is 00:09:44 for the dry land. Yeah. Now let's talk about those inhabitants of the heavens. The sky creatures? Yeah, in other words, so you go light and dark, waters from the waters, and then waters draw back so dry land can appear. The water from the waters is creating the sky. It's creating the space for the sky. the water is above, the face of them is the blue dome about this. Yeah, if this is the first time you've thought about this. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:10 Sorry. We're going to have a whole conversation on this come out. Yeah. But maybe it's, I don't think it's come out yet. The three-tiered cosmology of the Bible. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:20 That there's this idea of the rakia. I see fascinating worms crawling out of me. Yeah. There's even more cans right now. Worms sprouting into new worms. The ancient way to think about how the world was ordered was that we live here on land. Above us is a dome.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Look around, it kind of feels like you're in a snow globe of sorts. And the sky is actually a solid structure that holds back the waters. That was their understanding and it was all the rakia. So the first day of creation separating the chaotic waters into two was basically creating the second day. Oh second day.

Starting point is 00:10:58 Yes, sorry. Was creating that space for something to emerge. Something to happen. That's right. It's all chaotic waters. And now there's waters above. Correct. And water in the rockier.

Starting point is 00:11:09 And what we would think of is the clouds. Yeah, that's right. Like float against the face of the rockier. And so the bird, then God, then on its corresponding day in the second panel, and day five. He's inhabiting God's space. Yeah, or yeah, he shapes and creates inhabitants So birds fly against the face of the rakia this guy dumb

Starting point is 00:11:30 Against the face of the waters above fish are in the waters below wait that all happens on day two That happened two and three I mean I start five to six Four and five let's start over Okay, day one. Day one. Light and dark. It's the order of time. Instead of chaotic darkness, time. Right? Light and dark. Day two. Waters from the waters create space for something. It's not just chaotic waters, it's now their space.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Day three, dry land appears from the waters. You go back up. Day four, the great light and the small light and the stars. So are the inhabitants of the light and dark realm. Day five is the sky flyers and the water swimmers. They're both in there, day six. Day six, the inhabitants of the dry land. So it's two panels, each consisting of three days, and you can

Starting point is 00:12:26 just see each one matches the other. The first one matches the Tohu. Correct. The Unformed, and the second one is the Unfilled. Yeah, Unenhabited. Now, let's focus in on day four. On day four, God says something that matches what He said on day one. God, day one began, let there be light. God says something that matches what he said on day one. Day one began, let there be light. Yehi or. On day four, God says, let there be lights. Yehi ma'or wrote. Lights.

Starting point is 00:12:54 So or is the word for light. Ma'or is the word for more than one light. More than one light. Let there be lights in the rakia. So embed them in the rakia of the heavens, heavens to separate day from night. Now that's interesting because on day one God separated light from darkness and God called God separates. But now he's created something, the lights, something, and that thing is now doing the thing that God did, separating. Now, it's the thing that's separating.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Okay, then we go on. Let the lights be signs, and for, I'm reading the New American Standard, seasons, for days and for years. So the word sign, this is so fascinating. So the word sign is the biblical word for simple. Okay. So when God's talking to Moses in the burning bush and he says, listen, you're going to go rescue the people and bring them out of here. And Moses is like, what? No way. And God says, this is going to be the sign that I'm telling you the truth. You're going to stand right here in

Starting point is 00:14:02 this very spot before fire and flames with all of the people. And then you'll know that I was telling you the truth. And the Hebrew would just oat. A sign is a physical something real that happens, but that is itself only a pointer. It's a partial reality that points to some ultimate reality. So this is a concept that the lights in the skies are symbols that point to something greater and even more real than themselves. 1 個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個個 So the first thing you pointed out was that in day one God already separated light from darkness. God had already separated, he called the light day and he called the darkness night. Now from what I understand about the world

Starting point is 00:15:25 Light comes from yes son the son Yes, whether that be our son correct, which is very close to us Yeah, and is a big flaming ball in the sky so huge or The thousands and hundreds of thousands are millions millions billions other, of other sons, class A, B, C, and D stars. I think we've got a D star. Isn't ours a class D? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, medium. It's a me, yeah, yeah, we have a mediocre star, but I like it. It sustains my life. It's great for me. Yeah, I don't need to upgrade. But there's all these other stars in the sky. Correct. And light comes from that.

Starting point is 00:16:02 Yeah. So when God says he creates light from darkness, he's not creating light as I understand light. It's not creating photons. It's not creating photons. Nope. He's creating something different. Yeah. And you say it's time. It's the idea of time itself. It's the idea of the structure of reality somewhere. Yeah. So yeah, biblical authors don't have at all the same concept of the physical universe that we do. And we make a gigantic mistake when we try and use our conception of the material universe. But that's all I can do. And find its origins. No, no, you can respect, you can get on a plane and go to Paris and not get off the plane

Starting point is 00:16:40 speaking English and asking where the McDonald's is. Although they have one there. It's called cultural imperialism. No, you can. You can go to the other. Sure. Unfortunately. So, no, what you do is you love your neighbor as yourself. And you learn the way. I learn a different way of seeing the world.

Starting point is 00:17:00 Eat a baguette. Different language. Yeah. You have some cheese for breakfast. Totally. Yeah. That's it. But the first thing I need to acknowledge is that this is the way I understand the world. Different languages. You have some cheese for breakfast. Totally. That's it. But the first thing I need to acknowledge is that this is the way I understand the world. That's right. Yes, that's right. And notice the difference.

Starting point is 00:17:11 No, it's the difference. So, in this narrative world, there can be ordered time and light apart from the existence of the object that we think is light. So the source of light. Dude, this is so profound. Okay. Yeah. We think that the sun is the source of light.

Starting point is 00:17:31 It is. And it is. It is. From what I understand of light. However, within a Theistic worldview, if you believe that there is a beautiful mind who's the ultimate generator of life and light and order. You also believe that there is something even greater than the light of which the light is simply a symbol or a sign.

Starting point is 00:17:56 Within the Seistic World View, the sun is a secondary cause of light. And I think that's what's going on here. Now, it's also true that in that time, and probably even still today, in some places, you'd actually look at the stars and the sun, you'd think of them as gods. Oh, hold on, we're not getting there. We'll get there in a second.

Starting point is 00:18:14 OK. That's a whole other thing. It's a whole other thing. Yeah, so the sun's the big light. And actually, it registers here. There's a big light, the great light, and then there's the lesser light. And these lights are all called symbols or signs of what?

Starting point is 00:18:32 What's the greater reality to which they point? And I think here, we're getting into how the literary design of Genesis makes theological statements that for the biblical authors, these objects in the sky are themselves only reflectors and symbols of the ultimate source of light. There's something beyond the sun more powerful than the sun that actually gave the sun its being. And that is the true source of light. And when we use the word light now, we're not using it. Yeah. We're using it.

Starting point is 00:19:09 Literally as photons. Yeah, we're using it in a theological sense. Don't let me convince you of this. Okay. Let another biblical author who meditated deeply on Genesis chapter one, the poet who wrote Psalm 36. Psalm 36. Psalm 36. Hmm. Psalm 36 as a whole has a lot going on. I'm just gonna want to look at the center bit here

Starting point is 00:19:29 in verses five through nine. Okay. It begins your loving kindness. Oh, Yahweh extends up to the heavens. The sky and the dome up there. Yep. Yep. It reaches up to the skies.

Starting point is 00:19:44 Mm-hmm. Your righteousness, character that drives you to maintain right relationships with your covenant partners. It's like, it's steady like the mountains of God. Your justice or your judgments are like the deep below. Did you see the three-tiered universe right there? Yep see it. Sky, land, and the DC. Every part of creation is sustained and ordered by God's stability, His faithfulness, His justice. It's profound. How precious to me is your loving,

Starting point is 00:20:19 your loyal covenant love, O God. So not only does it order creation, but it's meaningful to me, because the children, the sons of men, sons of Adam, can take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of your house, and you give them to drink from the river of your Eden's. That's the word Eden right there. For with you is the fountain of life by your light, we see light. This is a poetic meditation on God's character derived from the structure of the universe in Genesis and the universe. I look around at the mountains and the sky and the waters and Behind all of this is some stabilizing force. That is good. Correct. And that is yeah, yeah

Starting point is 00:21:13 Yeah, such that this poet can see it's of the cosmos as a temple in the shadow of your wings Your house is the temple in the shadow of your wings is to be in God's presence. Yeah, the wings of the Cherubim, that's right. Yeah, the wings of the Cherubim, the abundance of your house, it's as if all of creation is the sacred temple sustained by God's covenant loyalty. And that last line there, we use the fountain of life, the river that goes out of Eden

Starting point is 00:21:44 and waters everything and then by your light we see light by your light we see light and you're like wait no I see light by the light of the sun to which the poet would say no no no the sun is just a symbol to the ultimate source of light okay how would you define the light in a theological sense? Oh, in Genesis 1 it's night and day, which aren't things, that's not creating a thing on day one. God's ordering time, because it's precisely the ordering of time that makes our life possible. Is that how a Hebrew thinker, ancient Hebrew thinker would talk about it as ordering time? That's maybe more of a way that we can start to think about it possibly.

Starting point is 00:22:29 Oh God, I'm not talking about time in terms of like the four-dimensional fabric of the universe. I'm not talking about time as alternating periods of light and dark. The light is when I'm out and about. And from that light, stuff grows out of the ground that keeps my whole community. That's literal. That's literal light and dark. Yeah. And you know what's crazy? Right. In addition, that light, it just always comes. Yeah. Every day. Every day. Yeah. Right.

Starting point is 00:22:59 Think you're you're loving kindness, O Lord. That stability, like the mountains of God. That light always comes. Now, there's always night, but the night is always ended by the day. So there's a pattern, there's a pattern of dark and then light from the sun coming and going. Correct. But that's day five.

Starting point is 00:23:20 This day one. Well, day and night. Put the literal sun. Okay, that's right. That's the same. So when the big light and the lesser light are placed in the sky, they are placed there,

Starting point is 00:23:32 and it says, as symbols, as signs. So in their mind, there already was a day and a night. No, no, this isn't about chronology. The structure of the days, and the way that each one is paired with the other, days one and three go together as a combined theological statement about, yes, the sun is the thing that I see that brings light, but theologically, my conviction is that the order represented and the life and abundance

Starting point is 00:24:04 that comes from the sun is just a pointer to the ultimate source of that order. I just don't have any mental picture or any way to hold on to this idea of theological light. Well, here, let's do it in the new creation, because John the visionary in the revelation picks up on this. When he says in the new creation, there will be no sun. There's no sun or moon or

Starting point is 00:24:26 God is light right yeah the one sitting on the throne and the lamb provide light So what he's doing there is he's just going back to He's riffing on this he's riffing on this exact thing. That's right. Yeah, so that's interesting. This conception of the Sun, Moon, and stars as distinct entities that do what God did on day one. On day one, God separates. But now, God says, let there be these things that are signs and symbols. They point to me and they mark the seasons of the years. And God, verse 16, God made the two great lights, the bigger light, to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. So I think the point here is that what's happening here on day four is God appointing entities that will rule on his behalf in the heavens.

Starting point is 00:25:27 Because of that word rule is there. Because of the word rule, and that corresponds precisely to the entities he's going to create to rule on the land, which are, and what they are is the divine image of physical representation of the divine. So the word to talk about the Sun Moon and stars as representatives of God's rule is the word sign or symbol. And in verse 14, there's four things that the light to do. They are four symbols. They are four seasons. Or literally, this is the word for Israel's feast days. They mark Passover, Sabbath, so on. They bring order, they create order. They're to mark the days and the years.

Starting point is 00:26:10 So the first thing is, tells you is that they're symbols. They represent God. And then in a similar way, the humans represent God on the land. And this is the conception of God's delegated authority. He's delegated authority to entities in the heavens. He's delegated his authority to entities on the land. Wow, so I've never seen this before in Genesis 1. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:35 And it's not that obvious, or is it obvious? Well, again, the Bible's Jewish meditation literature. Yeah. So it assumes that you already know what stars are connected to. Yeah. It's that it's going to be developed throughout the whole storyline of the Bible. Right. That the stars that participate in the rule, God's rule, they rule, right?

Starting point is 00:26:57 The Sun, Moon, and stars, they rule in the heavens. That's going to get developed as a whole category of beings in the biblical story. And I be says, govern, but that's the word rule. It's the word rule. It's the same thing that humans were told to do. Ah, that's right. It's technically a different verb. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's a verb, a verb, a mishal. It's the verb that Cain is told to do to the sin crouching like an animal, but you can rule it. And it's a standard word for royal rule. Okay. But yeah, only two things rule in God's world, in Genesis 1.

Starting point is 00:27:29 Humans. The humans over the land, and the sun moon and stars in the heavens. And their symbols, get that's key word. Symbol of the stars are a symbol in the same way that the humans are in image of divine. Okay. Humans represent the divine's Yahweh's authority on earth. We are symbol of his, of him in some way. Yeah, reflection.

Starting point is 00:27:56 Reflection. Yeah. And we are material beings made of dirt, out of the dirt, the Adam. And in the same way, there is a spiritual, non-physical reality, not made of dirt. Yeah, it's made of whatever. Whatever you look up in the sky. It's a different realm. Yeah, it's a different realm. The sky realm, the heavens.

Starting point is 00:28:23 Yeah, you know, nowadays we feel like we kind of rule the skies. Yeah, we understand we have astrophysicists, we have rockets and satellites. Sure. And we get it. But back in that day, you look up and you're like, what? Yeah, yeah, that's another that's another realm. I can't go there. I don't understand it. And it's above me. And it's above me. We've talked about this. And so this idea of the heavens, this other realm. And they shine. The thing that they do is shine and move in these patterns. Yeah. Yeah. I remember we're back to Psalm 36. By your light, we see light.

Starting point is 00:28:59 So they are symbols and as much as they are, they're reflectors. Their light is simply a borrowed light that points to the ultimate source of light. So you've got neighbors, neighboring civilizations, who will then look at one of these lights that are moving in a very unique way and go, okay, we're gonna worship that thing.

Starting point is 00:29:16 Yeah, that is above us. That's right. And it's ordering things. And if I give my allegiance to that, God, and if I make my legions to that God, which is the star, and if I make my decisions based on timing of my farming decisions, and timing of my decisions elsewhere in life

Starting point is 00:29:34 by the communication given to me, by its movements in the sky, I will be following that being's will. That's just a common way to understand the world. That still is today for many people. Yeah. Sure, we still order our calendars based off of. Oh, but I'm talking more about astrology.

Starting point is 00:29:52 We begin to interpret the movements of the stars as communicating. Oh, sure. Some kind of transcendent divine will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's astral worship. Yeah, so your neighbors think that. You're Cain and I at Babylonian neighbors. And so you as a follower of the one true Elohim,

Starting point is 00:30:10 the Elohim above Elohim, Yahweh Elohim, you have this understanding of, yeah, there is something there. That's the son of Elohim. It's a member of the divine class up there. There is something spiritual going on. Yeah. And I will grant that, that's obvious to all of us.

Starting point is 00:30:27 But to me, there's a greater, there's an uncreated being. Correct. And that's just reflecting. Correct. Him and his authority. Yeah. And his glory, his glory, light and brilliance. And so don't worship that. Yeah. His glory. His bright light and brilliance. And so don't worship that. Yeah. Worship the God who created all of that. But it is a symbol. Correct.

Starting point is 00:30:50 And so there it's opening the world, the spirit world. The spirit world, if we want to use spirit world or spirit realm, if we want to use the language of dimensions. Sure. But in the biblical imagination, the spiritual dimension is packaged in language of vertical spatial imagery of the heavenly realm. You can look up and see the spiritual. The heaven lays. Look up and see the spiritual. But just like with God's presence, he rules above the heavens of the heavens.

Starting point is 00:31:18 Yeah. But he also rules here on earth. The heavens are a mirror image of what's happening here on earth. So I can go to the temple. It's all the spirit world. Right, and so it's even the even the land realm itself is permeated in the veil between the heaven and earth is thin and porous in the biblical story. And that's what the vertical 2D drawing, you know, of heaven and earth doesn't get you. But this is really significant because stars and the other Elohim that God created,

Starting point is 00:31:53 they're one and the same throughout the biblical story. So in Job, chapter 38, there's a poetic line where God's talking about, you know, where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? And then God says, you know, when I about, you know, where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? And then God says, you know, when I was, you know, making reference back to Genesis 1, as a time when, this is Job 38, verse 7, when the morning stars sang together, when the sons of God shouted for joy. And morning stars is the stars that hang on the longest. Yeah, totally.

Starting point is 00:32:23 Like the brightest stars. That's right. Yeah. Which are usually the longest. Yeah, totally. Like the brightest stars. That's right. Yeah. Which are usually the planets, right? The most important of these, what you think of as spiritual beings, which are something spiritual behind these. Correct.

Starting point is 00:32:35 They're symbols, and it's using the same word, morning stars and angels. Suns of God. Suns of God. Yeah, the point is, the point is, the point is parallel lines, the morning stars are parallel to the suns of God. Suns of God. Yeah, the point is in poetic parallel lines. The morning stars are parallel to the suns of God. They're all shouting for joy. They're symbols. To say that back in creation, the stars shouted for joy. It's a poetic way of reflecting on how

Starting point is 00:32:58 they how their light is a symbol for the ultimate source of light and life. We're in the same realm of Psalm 19. The skies declare the glory of Elohim. The rakia declares the work of his hands, and then it goes on, the whole poem is about the sun, how the sun, and it's like regular movements from one horizon to the other, is an act of praise. It's the same mindset here, same mindset. And the Egyptians worship this then. I think it rules the universe and their lives. But it's just a pointer. It's a symbol. Because here's the thing, we think of stars as balls of gas, like the ball of glass that

Starting point is 00:33:41 we're closest to. But if you're an ancient God's revealing Himself through Scripture here, through ancient authors and their ancient conception of the universe. And so you look up, the thing moves, it shines. What are those things? They shine and they're moving. And then some of them move in weirder patterns.

Starting point is 00:33:59 Some of them are like regular 24-7. Some of them are kind of on. Anyhow, this is really important. So did they or did they not think they were spearheading? I think the biblical authors are acknowledging and participating in this understanding that they are divine beings. So biblical author, but the sky and say that's the spearhead being of that. That's right. Whereas the Canaanite would say, yeah, that's like...

Starting point is 00:34:23 That's my spearhead being. Yes, my spearhead being. When in Israel I would would say, yeah, that's like... That's my spirit being. That's my spirit being. That's my spirit being. And in Israel, I would just say, no, no, no. It's a created being just like me. It's a symbol of God's glory, just like I am an image of God's glory and rule here on Earth. Okay, but now fast forward, 2000, 5000 years. Yeah, that's right.

Starting point is 00:34:40 And it's not a spirit being. Correct. It's a flaming ball of gas. That seems to be the case. That seems to be the case. It seems to be the case. No one's ever actually gone to one. We can only infer from our own. The one that's closest to us.

Starting point is 00:34:53 From mass. That also nobody has gone. We know all this from mass. Yeah, totally. And observation from all of us. But here's the thing. Is that we're back to the conversation we had about heaven and earth, where God dwells in the heavens,

Starting point is 00:35:06 who's thrown us above the heavens. So the structure of the cosmos can be provided with language to talk about God's majesty and rule. But here's about the biblical story, those things are going to be down here too. Some of those divine beings are going to like humans. Yeah, and like be down here Right, so so while we would go you know fast forward We would say those are flaming balls of gas Well, we couldn't then say is then so the spirit world doesn't actually exist correct. Yeah, just like just oh, you know It was all driven with up through the atmosphere and he didn't see God. Yeah, just like what yeah, he's not up here Yeah, he's not up here. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:45 Now, that's taking the imagery that the biblical authors use and equating the imagery with the reality to which it points. And I understand this is difficult for moderns. Oh yeah, so. Difficult for me. Yeah, so as a modern thinker, I would go, okay, I would use the word symbol then. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:03 And it'd be, oh, okay, well then it's a symbol of a And it'd be, okay, well then, it's a symbol of a greater reality. And so when you talk about Moses being at the burning bush and God says, I'm gonna give you a symbol, there's gonna be something that actually really happens, but it's pointing to something greater. That's right. And so I can go, okay, so these stars,

Starting point is 00:36:20 they are just flaming balls of gas, but they're pointing to something greater. But that's not how Genesis 1 is using the word simple, because the biblical authors actually just really would just go, no, that's a spear being. I think that's the case. So what do they mean by simple? A reality that is itself a lesser realization of a more ultimate and greater reality to which it points.

Starting point is 00:36:41 So they would think there's a greater reality to which it points. So they would think there's a greater reality to which it points. Yeah, totally. And that greater reality can come to earth sometimes in some ways that we don't understand. And would the Canaanite neighbor agree? Yeah, there's a greater reality. Be on the ethics. Yeah, I think so.

Starting point is 00:36:59 Yeah, except I think the point, the disagreement that a Canaanite or Babylonian to have is that that thing rules me. At least by how they treat it, they bow down to it, they offer sacrifices, they let that thing guide all the decisions of their lives, to which in Israel I would say, no, no, there's a beautiful mind and heart.

Starting point is 00:37:22 Created that thing, that thing just serves the purpose. And that thing does govern and rule. It has. Not me. Correct. Because I also rule. Correct. We both are in some way. In fact, the whole point of Genesis 1 is that humans are made to be the ultimate symbol of the divine.

Starting point is 00:37:42 Or actually, symbol doesn't even image, image where the heavenly entities are on our oat, oat oat, their symbols, humans are the seldom, their physical embodiments of the divine. And they are like the divine beings in some ways. Let us make human and our image. make human in our image, God's speaking to his divine council, that's at his feet in the throne room. But at the same time, those heavenly beings are also in some way meant to serve the humans, because the humans rule over the land, they rule over the fish, and they rule over the birds. They rule over the fish. Yeah, and they rule over the birds Like the birds that's that should be the that should be the territory of the sky and you would think oh, I would think the Like the Sunmoon stars govern those because they go up there

Starting point is 00:38:40 So there's so as you're reading Genesis one you should kind of be tripping out that yes In fact, this is kind of the Salma of thing. Did psalm 8 is making this exact point. Yeah, it's just like what is going on here, that these terrestrial dirt bags of people have God's divine image. They're not as important. They don't get to float around in the sky and shine. Totally, that's what he says. When he says you made this is psalm 8.

Starting point is 00:39:02 Yeah. So look what he says here, this is Salmate. When I consider the skies, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars. Pretty impressive. That you've appointed. Yeah. What is human that you even think about him?

Starting point is 00:39:15 Yeah. Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, right? And the son of humanity that you care for him, yet you made him a bit lesser than Elohim. Yeah. Than the divine beings. We're not divine beings in the sense that we're not floating around in the spirit world. However, yet, this next line, you have given him a crown of glory and majesty.

Starting point is 00:39:39 And remember that Psalm 8 opens and closes with a statement of, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So God's ultimate creator of all things, and his majesty is displayed all throughout the earth, but these puny little dirt bags, God has crowned them with divine majesty and glory. It's a reflection on Genesis 1. So humans are given a status that doesn't correspond to their appearance. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:14 And the sun moon and stars apparently are not given a status corresponding to their appearance. They're important, but they don't rule. They're not as important as they look. Yeah. And humans are as important as they look. And humans are more important than they look. Yeah, that's right. So once you internalize this, the moment you get all the way back, episode three of the God series, the moment that God says,

Starting point is 00:40:36 listen, you're going to realize, you're going to go into Canaan, they're worshiping the Sun, Moon, and stars. And remember that you may not remember the line. This was a part of the handing over to the sons of God. Thing here, we've got hands over the nations. Deuteronomy 4.19. He just said, don't make any idols of any fish, human, animal. Okay.

Starting point is 00:41:00 And deuteronomy 4.19. Don't lift up your eyes to the skies and see the sun, the moon, or the stars in the order of Genesis 1. The hosts of heaven, don't lift your eyes up there. It's combining those two ideas again. Stars are the- The spun moon and stars are the heavenly army. Divine beings. Yep.

Starting point is 00:41:22 And don't be drawn away to worship and serve them. Those are the ones Yahweh your God has allotted or assigned to the peoples under the whole heaven. And then that brought us to Deuteronomy 32, which talked about when God scattered or divided out the nations. He assigned to them them sons of God, but Israel, he took for himself. Genesis 1 is really important,

Starting point is 00:41:49 and I didn't, it wasn't factoring into my thinking a year ago, when we were thinking about this. And so once you map onto that, the things that we did trace, the divine rebellion, that mirrors the human rebellion, it makes a whole lot more sense.

Starting point is 00:42:04 There's a couple other key passages that we don't have to talk about right now, but they're fascinating. I do think... Well, Genesis 6, the sons of God, Rebellion, I think is a mere... It meant to be offered in literary design of Genesis 1 to 11. It's a mere image of the humans trying to attain eternal life through their own knowing of good and evil. Okay.

Starting point is 00:42:26 Genesis 3. Yep, it's a rebellion. Genesis 3 and then 4 with Cain and then Lamek is the... Human rebellion. The earth 3 rebellion. Genesis 6 comes and tells us about the sons of God and the heavenly... Violating their order, trying, I think, in context.

Starting point is 00:42:42 It's trying to restore immortality to humanity, but through a underhanded way by violating the divine order. And the biblical text that reflects back on this story and explores it is another Psalm, Psalm 82, in which God takes his stand amidst the sons of Elohim. Okay. Salm 82. Let's go there. So Salm 82 versus one. Very nice and short.

Starting point is 00:43:11 Yeah, totally. So God takes his stand in the council of L, in the divine council. The divine council. And Abyss has great assembly. Yeah, the divine, so the word great is the word, it's one of these Hebrew words for L,

Starting point is 00:43:24 divine being. L. L, so the word great is the word, it's one of these Hebrew words for Eloh, divine being. L. L. So the short form. And L meaning the singular chief God. So the phrase divine counsel is actually a biblical phrase. It occurs right here in Psalm 82. The counsel of L.

Starting point is 00:43:37 Mm-hmm. So Elohim, God of Israel, stands in his counsel. Amid the Elohim, he renders judgment. So here you have it. This divine council scene. Oh wow, and I've He puts gods and perthicis here. Oh, oh with scare quotes. Yeah. Yeah. That's not helpful. He renders judgment among the quote-unquote gods. Yeah. So, no, the Elohim, the delegated spiritual beings, through which, yeah. So interesting how. Yeah, did. Translation is, yeah.

Starting point is 00:44:12 Let's see how many of you can just. All right. God takes a stand in his own congregation. Yeah, God's congregation. God's congregation. He judges in the midst of the rulers, the rulers. So they are interpreting the word Elohim to refer to human rulers.

Starting point is 00:44:27 Oh. Which is incorrect. To put it bluntly. How can I say this nicely? Yeah, that's just that there are some people who think that, those people sat on the transport board. This whole conversation about the spirit realm. We're fighting against a long tradition

Starting point is 00:44:54 of not appreciating it and then actually kind of reverse engineering translations to hide it away. There has been a long tradition, specifically in Christian Old Testament scholarship that I think hasn't been aware of the ancient cultural context. And so his over centuries been kind of screening. But I could totally understand it. I'm screening out this theme of our theology.

Starting point is 00:45:19 It helps me when they screen it out because as soon as we start talking about, I just get weirded out. I get uncomfortable. Totally. I'm really uncomfortable talking about the stars like spirit beings. I get it.

Starting point is 00:45:31 It's like, okay, now I'm involved in some weird religion that believes, what I mean to me it's like, let's get beyond that. It's like a modern world, we understand more. And I've gotten comfortable with spirituality that's really flattened out the spirit world. And there's one ultimate god. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:53 There's some bad ones, I don't know. Yeah. Jesus is the best. Well, even while honestly, even like the demon stuff and the Jesus stories, weirds me out. Yeah, totally. Even that. And it permeates the Jesus story.

Starting point is 00:46:06 Yeah. Beginning to end. I get it. Okay, here we are. Psalm 82. Psalm 82 is God confronting the sons of God. And he says, how long will you judge unjustly? You guys are ruling the world.

Starting point is 00:46:21 And remember, the human and divine realms are mirrors of each other. Remember in the book of Daniel, where Greece and Persia each have their own governing Elohim, and then Daniel prays, and so Yahweh spends his representatives, and these are beings in conflict. But their conflict mirrors the conflict that we see and participate in. That's really interesting. They're coupled. I think this is the way forward, at least for me, for thinking about this, is that it's the same analogy as God's presence in the temple. In a modern sense, because we don't see material reality as a vehicle for spiritual presence,

Starting point is 00:47:09 if you're Catholic you do. Totally, but that's exactly the point I'm going to make. So what I'm saying is a modern world, modern enlightenment world view. Yeah. The material, it's just atoms crashing into each other. Oh right, right, right. That's not how most humans have understood their experience of reality. For most of human history.

Starting point is 00:47:28 For the millennium. And even that's not how most humans on the planet today. Good. Seeds of material reality. Yeah. The book authors have a much more sophisticated view of the material and the non-material and how they are interrelated to each other. So Jacob, right, encounters God's glorious temple presence in the middle of a field in the night,

Starting point is 00:47:51 Ezekiel by the river in Babylon, and these are real experiences that these people are having. So for them, the physical and what we would call the spiritual aren't separated by physical distance. They permeate each other. This is the whole, all these debates throughout history about the sacraments, you know, in Protestant Catholic. It's all about this. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:17 It's about... I cover a tradition that wants to be a materialist at heart, but we'll grant certain spiritual things because it has to. Yeah, that's right. And so, the tradition tradition that's like, everything is coupled and such this, flattened down. Yeah, all the feasts of Israel participated in

Starting point is 00:48:35 when you go to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage feast. You're eating before the Lord, and did it on me. You go to Jerusalem, and you're eating before the Lord. You're having a meal. Yeah. In God's presence, not everybody like went to the temple. Like you go to Jerusalem, you go to the temple for an afternoon, but you'd go to your uncle's home there. And you're before the Lord.

Starting point is 00:48:55 Yeah. Well, I get that. You know, God is everywhere. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, if God is above all and through all and in all, yes, the Apostle Paul says, then there's something parallel to that about the spiritual realm. And so the point is that it's specifically connected with politics and power structures. Mm-hmm. That's what these beings are associated with. Yeah. The sons of God, power structures, when you see human power structures that are corrupt and like perpetually not working and instruments of evil and injustice, even despite their own best

Starting point is 00:49:32 intentions, the biblical authors, I think want us to see something more complex. This isn't just a structure of just some mean dudes. There's something underneath pushing this forward, correct, perpetuating the evil. Yeah, that's right. And that's the thing that Jesus saw himself confronting. Correct. Correct. So think about how Jesus would read,

Starting point is 00:49:55 he grew up on the Psalms. I think Jesus would be like, yeah, there's powers of darkness. That are working in and through the power structures in Rome and in Jerusalem of his day, and God is rendering his justice on them. Psalm 82 verse 3. God says to these corrupt rulers who express themselves through human power structures,

Starting point is 00:50:18 vindicate the weak and the orphan, do justice to the afflicted and the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them to the afflicted and the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. What are human power structures? What should they do? Yeah. So wait, so wait, so Psalm 82, God's talking you to the spirit realm. Correct. But then he's saying, hey guys, you're corrupt. Yep.

Starting point is 00:50:40 You're doing injustice. Yes. And how it's actually materializing, is it in the spirit realm, it's materializing? In the human realm. And specifically in governmental power structures. Those two things are just so coupled together in their mind that God can go and be like,

Starting point is 00:50:56 all right guys, here's the problem. The humans are in just, it's your problem. You're creating this problem. Correct. That's correct. That's right. Here. Let's keep going. Then the poet reflects on the sons of God or their response. He says they don't know they referring to the divine beings. The gods appointed. They don't know or they don't have understanding. They walk in darkness and

Starting point is 00:51:22 the foundations of the land are shaken. So, when humans reject in Genesis 1 to 11, when humans seize the knowing of good evil for themselves, the creative order is it? It introduces chaos. When that rebellion is mirrored in the divine realm, there's also chaos, the foundations that were the stability of creation is threatened by that specifically when you see acts of great injustice to the poor and the needy. And so the last stance of the poem is God rendering his judgment. So I said you all are Elohim, you all are sons of the

Starting point is 00:52:01 most high. This is God saying, listen I appointed you yeah to as with delegated authority But on the contrary now you will die like mortals and fall like one of the princes a rhizogod Judge the earth for you are the one who will inherit all of the nations Huh, so like in Deuteronomy where God's like I'm gonna inherit all of the nations. Huh. So like in Deuteronomy where God's like, I'm going to take care of you guys. Yep.

Starting point is 00:52:28 I've delegated authority to all these other angelic beings. They're rebelled. They're in rebellion. Just like humans are. These beings are in rebellion. And it's just a cluster now. Yeah. Because as both the heavenly and earthly realms

Starting point is 00:52:43 are in rebellion against the creator. So God's response is your days are numbered. Your days are numbered. Think of Genesis 6. The sons of God see the daughters of humans. They see that they're good and they take them. That's the fall. That's the fall language.

Starting point is 00:53:00 That's the fall pattern. Just like the woman. She sees that the fruit is good and she takes. So these divine beings are undergoing their own rebellion, matching the human rebellion. So they take them wise from wherever they choose, and they bear children. These children are associated in some way with violent warriors who fill the earth with violence, and God's response to them in Genesis 6 verse 3, he says, my spirit won't abide with humans forever. 120 years is all you got.

Starting point is 00:53:36 Yeah. So there's different ways to interpret that line, but the point is that it's God with drawing his life giving presence because of this act of the sons of God. And that's mirrored right here in Psalm 82. I appointed you to govern the heavenly realms. You broke that boundary and your days are numbered. So here in Psalm 82 is the assumption that I bring to it is the heavenly hosts, the sons of God, the Elohim, were eternal beings?

Starting point is 00:54:09 And now they're not going to be. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good, if this is specifically reflecting on the Genesis 6 episode, Genesis 6 and 11, which I think that it is. Oh, okay. Then I think it's specifically, it's similar, but humans were made to participate in God's eternal life That's true. Yeah, and their days are cut short because of their rebellion It's the same thing. It's a mirror image of Genesis 3 But just in the heavenly realm so there are other pathages

Starting point is 00:54:37 This helps make sense of all kinds of stuff in the book of Isaiah and Ezekiel I'm sorry. We should get we've been talking for like an hour and a half and we haven't done any question. Respawn. Well, yeah, here's what I think we should do. This was supposed to be a question response episode. Yeah. And it's turned into something else. Turned into another episode.

Starting point is 00:54:53 It turned into just another episode, God, part four. About what I've been learned in the last year. It's great. This is the episode about the origins of spirit realm and the connection between that and us. And that's having another reason. And now we've opened up a new Can of Words. So we'll do the Q&R episode next week. However, let's knock off a couple.

Starting point is 00:55:12 Yeah, deal. That's great. So cool. Yeah, cool. From North Wilkesboro. Wilkesboro, North Carolina. Hey Tim and John, my name's Cole Wright, and I'm from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

Starting point is 00:55:23 My question is in regard to the second podcast episode on God, where you discuss the idea of other Elohim. And so my question is kind of two part. So are the other Elohim timeless and uncreated like God? And if they aren't, does that mean that God created them? And would God create inferior Elohim that would oppose him? Yeah, Cole, great question. This discussion about the meaning of the word Elohim

Starting point is 00:55:52 and how it relates to our English word God. It's such a category, reconstructor. Yeah. So I totally get your question. So just to be crystal clear, the biblical authors, when they use the word Elohim to refer to the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, they believe there is only one timeless uncreated Elohim. It's Yahweh,

Starting point is 00:56:12 the God of Israel. They also believe there are other Elohim, but the word Elohim by itself doesn't mean timeless, uncreated. It just means an inhabitant of the spirit realm. So it does mean that God has appointed other beings that share in God's form of existence in a transcendent physical kind of way. But they aren't inferior, they're actually beautiful. They are sharing God's divine glory and light, just like humans are beautiful as an image of the divine. To answer just your last part of your question, that doesn't mean that God created them to oppose him. Actually, the opposite, the whole biblical storyline

Starting point is 00:56:53 is that God wants to partner with other beings to share. That's a big takeaway. And participate in the rule of creation. Something about the nature of God that's very sharing. He likes to share. He likes to share. that's very sharing. He likes to share. He likes to share. He wants to share. He wants to share.

Starting point is 00:57:08 He could just be like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna rule everything. But no, he like creates spirit beings that rule for him. And then he creates these terrestrial beings. Celestial beings. Celestial and the terrestrial. Celestial. God likes, God likes to share.

Starting point is 00:57:21 So the fundamental depiction of God is that God wants to share authority with others. That's Genesis 1, which opens up the possibility that those other creatures could not want to do God's will. In the same way for humans. Which is of course the whole biblical drama. Yeah. And our understanding. That's one way to frame the whole biblical genre, or triple drama, is that when you have a God who wants to delegate authority, what can go wrong? Ha ha ha ha. Answer. And.

Starting point is 00:57:53 And welcome to the Bible. Yeah, and just like the human condition. And welcome to the human condition. Yeah, anyway, good question. And I guess the celestial condition. Good question. All right, we got Brandon Christensen. Yep. Hey, John. Hey, we got Brandon Christensen.

Starting point is 00:58:05 Yep. Hey John, hey Tim, this is Brandon. Thanks again for all you do. I just wanted to ask when God says, let us make man an R image and our likeness. Who's the us he's referring to in Genesis 1? And that's it, thank you. Yeah Brandon, so we address that a couple times already but just to make it crystal clear

Starting point is 00:58:28 I think when we get to Genesis 1 26 when God says let us make the author intends that we'll understand he's talking to the host of heaven We've already picked up on the whole celestial being staff going on. That's correct And for the same reason that that plural we continue throughout the book of Genesis, when God expels the man and the woman from the garden, he says, let's, you know, send them out, less the human, send out their hand and take from the tree of life, and live forever, God says, they've become like one of us. Plural, knowing good and evil. When the tower of Babylon is built, and the people of Babylon

Starting point is 00:59:05 say, come, let us build a tower, and then God says, come, let us go down and confuse their language. Yeah, a lot of people in my tradition like to point at that and go, see, God is plural and point as a proof of the trinity. Oh, sure. Yeah, you can make that move. I just think you don't have any contextual clues that that's what's going on. And all of the contextual evidence in Genesis and in the rest of Hebrew Bible points to the divine council.

Starting point is 00:59:37 So the angels, the sons of God, aren't making humans. God says, let us make and then it says, and then God made it. Yeah. But he's there with them. He includes them. And he includes them. In the process. God loves to share.

Starting point is 00:59:51 You read a whole like business book about how God delegates authority. Yeah, totally. All right. Ivan. Hi, my name is Ivan. I'm from El Salvador. And I have a one question about the deity of Christ. Team speaking in the podcast about the Christ said that Jesus said that he was God in a very Jewish way.

Starting point is 01:00:12 And in John 8, when he said to the Pharisees before Abraham, I am. I just had one question. I was looking the video about the word Lord in Dishima, and the word was Ehyeh. And I want to know if Jesus said before Abraham, Ehyeh. That means that only God can say that, because I'm thinking about that question and I'm actually believing in, I know the actually writings what made in Greek,

Starting point is 01:00:47 but they were team said that it's Greek thinking Hebrew, thinking how to make. So I just have the question, did Jesus said before Abraham, eh yeah, and everyone just freak out like everything else, like there's something that will lose in the in the translation. Or he say, ego, amy. I know the ego amy is just a translation, but what actually we think, Jesus said. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, it's true. Actually, you won't find a sentence in the New Testament. You won't find the sentence that says Jesus is God using the Greek word Thales. You will find Jesus, especially in the Gospel of John, actually another other as a Gospel's too, saying things like I am. Identifying himself with someone called I am and I am is a translation of the divine name, Yahweh or Echia.

Starting point is 01:01:45 So yes, the apostles want to identify Jesus, not just with a generic title God, they want to identify Jesus with Yahweh, the personal God of Israel. So that's a good example where they're using Hebrew categories even though they're writing in Greek. And they do it narratively too, where they'll depict Jesus as doing things

Starting point is 01:02:06 that in the Hebrew Bible only Yahweh does, forgiving sins or calming the waters, that kind of thing. These are Hebrew Bible-type ways of identifying someone with Yahweh. Okay, so we're in two more, John Osborne. Hi guys, this is John Osborne from Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'm loving the series about God and I'm finding it very challenging.

Starting point is 01:02:28 When you discuss the soul and the medium, you used her exclamation of calling Samuel Spirit and Elohim as evidence that Samuel Spirit was in the same class as the rest of the gods. I always read that more as her being surprised that she was actually seeing a spirit come to her. I'd always assumed the author was just telling us what she said, not agreeing with her declaration. Is there evidence in the text that I'm missing that shows that Samuel's spirit was in fact Elohim and not just a case of mistaken identity by the medium. And if Samuel's spirit is in fact in the Elohim class, then wouldn't that imply there's no real difference between humans and the rest of the Elohim's spiritual world

Starting point is 01:03:05 since we would all have some type of Elohim within us. Thanks for all you do. It's an encouragement in my faith and it helps me love Jesus more. Yeah, great question, John. The question is about when the spirit medium in 1 Samuel 28 calls Samuel's disembodied spirit and Elohim coming up out of the ground. What she just confused, maybe. What she just confused, so again, what was in her mind? And I have no idea. The point is that the author is depicting her

Starting point is 01:03:40 as looking at a deceased spirit being and using the Hebrew word Elohim to refer to that. This isn't the only time Elohim refers to the presence of a dead person. There's one occurrence of it in Isaiah, chapter 8, verse 19. And actually, I think it's a reference back to this story where Isaiah says, listen, you know, when Israel's lost in the darkness and people say to you, come, let's go to the mediums and the spiritists.

Starting point is 01:04:11 And then Isaiah says, should people consult Elohim on behalf of the living by going to the dead? He equates the Hebrew word Elohim with the dead spirits. Dead spirits. And it happens again in... Or spirits of the dead would be a bit essentially spirits of the dead yeah that's right and the Ruach is one of the terms that can refer to the Elohim the divine beings in the divine council oh really in the in first Kings 22 that

Starting point is 01:04:39 story of Makaya who's next to Ahab and, Hey, I want to get rid of A-Hab. How should I take him out? Yeah. And then one Ruaach, one spirit, one of the divine counsel, who's among the hosts of heaven, those are the two terms used, comes up and says, Hey, I'll be a deceitful spirit and a prophet and get him killed. And y'all, I says, Yeah, good idea, do that.

Starting point is 01:05:02 Wow. So, did we talk about that before? Rewach can refer to. I think a couple times, but Rewach is one of the words that can refer to these beginnings. So Rewach's a pretty flexible word. Ininvisible life presence. It's Liyah.

Starting point is 01:05:15 Yeah. Which can be inhuman, in an animal, in a spirit being. And God himself. And God himself. That's right. So the story within Samuel isn't the only case so my point isn't about what the medium thought she was experiencing my point is simply about the word Elohim in that context yeah matches a handful of other uses of Elohim to refer to

Starting point is 01:05:39 the presence of deceased spirits yeah all right last one Matt I'm Kansas City hello bible project you mentioned you don't think that there's a way to put the old deceased spirits. Yeah. All right, last one, Matt, I'm Kent City. Hello Bible Project. You mentioned you don't think that there's a way to put the Old Testament divine council vignettes into a coherent narrative, but as I was listening to your podcast, one of the explanations sounded to me like a clear and coherent narrative. Elohim rebelled before the fall of man, and later God gave man over to his rebellion by appointing over them,

Starting point is 01:06:05 Deuteronomy 32, the Elohim that they desired. This is also consistent with the point Paul makes in Romans 1. What do you see as the shortcomings of this harmonization? Yeah, Matt, that's a good observation. I think our hour of conversation, leading up to this, is for me a demonstration of, yeah, you're right. I can now see a much clearer narrative arc to the whole story of the spirit realm. And we didn't even talk about Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28. The ending of Isaiah 24 talks about the kings in the heights and the kings on the earth. So it matches powers and authorities in the heavenly realm. Matt, read the ending of Isaiah, chapter 24, it'll blow your mind.

Starting point is 01:06:49 So, yeah, there's a whole narrative here about a divine rebellion that mirrors the human rebellion and God in the story of Jesus is here to deal with both of those. And that's the drama played out in the Gospels, is that Jesus is confronting human and spiritual opponents and is victorious over both in the death and resurrection. Cool. Yeah. All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. Here's what I think we can do is throughout this whole God series, which is going to go for a long time, if you have a question, send it in. We'll keep collecting them.

Starting point is 01:07:27 If it's applicable to any specific episode, we might be able to plug it in on the episode, but we're gonna stop every so often and do Q and R. To do Q and R in series. Our episodes. And we have a bunch of questions here that are great. So next week, we'll do an actual Q&R episode and we'll just interact with questions.

Starting point is 01:07:47 Cool, I'm looking forward to it. Cheers. We believe in the Bible. Is a unified story. Is a unified story. That leads to Jesus. That leads to Jesus. We are crowdfunded.

Starting point is 01:08:00 We are crowdfunded. Project. Project. Find people like me. Five people like me. Five people like me. Fine free videos. Fine free videos. Study notes.

Starting point is 01:08:13 Study notes. And more. And more. At theBibleProject.com. At BibleProject.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC

BibleProject - Origin of Spiritual Beings & Mini Q+R - God E4

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