Truth Unites - Is Dan McClellan Right? No Monotheism in the Bible?

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Gavin Ortlund interacts with Dan McClellan's video about monotheism in the Bible. Dan's video: https://youtu.be/i6sD4Mc2-m8?si=wwxz07H5N_OlcHvcMatthew Lynch's Article: Matthew Lynch, “Mapping Monotheism: Modes of Monotheistic Rhetoric in the Hebrew Bible,” Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014), 47-68.Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/pagan-monotheism-in-late-antiquity-9780199248018?cc=us&lang=en&Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Dan McClellan argues that there is no monotheism anywhere in the Bible. There is no monotheism anywhere in the Bible. Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. I'm a scholar of the Bible and religion. And the Bible acknowledges the existence of numerous other gods from beginning to end. And so to the degree you understand monotheism to be the belief that no other gods exist, it is thoroughly post-biblical. Dan applies this to the entire Bible, including the later portions of Isaiah, And the New Testament, you can see on his thumbnail the reference to Deutero Isaiah, that's like Isaiah 40 to 55 somewhere.

I can't remember exactly where you cut it off. I think it's 40 to 55. Now, Dan is aware of verses that are often taken as affirming monotheism, for example, in Isaiah 44, 45, 46 chapters like these, where you have the God of Israel repeatedly saying things like, besides me there is no Savior, beside me, there is no God, is there a God beside me, I am the Lord and there is no other, and so on and so forth. We'll work through some of these passages a little bit. These are 10 examples you can see on the screen there, and those are all just from those four chapters alone, starting back in Chapter 43 of Isaiah. We find similar language in Deuteronomy, where you'll find, I'll put up three examples on the screen. You can see references to there being none beside God or none other than him, this kind of language, this language of negation. But Dan makes the point, and by the way, don't be disrespectful in the comments, and don't be dismissive of this point. This is a tricky argument here that is, I think, has some truth. it, the argument he's making is that this rhetoric is also used of other personified wicked entities like wicked cities like Babylon right there in the same portion of Isaiah, where they're saying, I am and there is no other. And therefore, Dan is following a tradition of scholarship that goes back to James Barr,

that interprets this not as the denial of ontological existence for other deities, but a statement of superiority over them. I'll put up, I'll let him say it in his own words. What we have in Deutero Isaiah is rhetoric that insists, Adonai is the only God that matters to the Israelites or the Judahites. And it's just like how I think about the Denver Broncos. There are no other real NFL teams. Certainly not the Raiders, they are nothing. They are less than nothing. They're not a real team. That's the exact same kind of rhetoric that we see being used in Deutero, Isaiah, where the author still refers to the other gods of the divine counsel to the host of heaven that is marshaled out by Adonai and none is missing.

But I think it will be helpful here for onlookers if we try to get more clarity about the terminology, both of monotheism but then also the English word God or gods and then the Hebrew word Elohim, which is usually translated God or Gods. Now in this video I want to propose that the Bible speaks of other gods primarily in two ways. So when you have language of other gods in the scripture, we're focused most of the on the Old Testament, then we'll get to the new. It usually means one of two things. Number one, foreign idols that the text makes clear don't actually exist, or the text implies that, I'll work through that, or spiritual beings that are traditionally called in Christian theology

angels and demons. So those are the two primary usages for the other gods in the Bible. Now there are others as well. For example, you can find human beings called God, or Elohim, like Samuel is called Elohim by the Witch of Endor when speaking to Saul. You also find the word Elohim used in some other ways, like for divine attributes. But in any definition of the word Elohim, the relation of the God of Israel to all other Elohim is nothing like the relationship of the Broncos and the Raiders. The Broncos and the Raiders are both football teams. One might be better than the other, but it didn't create the other, and it doesn't enjoy the kind of

absolute supremacy that the God of Israel has over all other gods. That's as the scripture portrays. So really, whether you call this monotheism is a matter of terminology. Because we can speak of other gods if by that you just mean angels and demons and so forth. It's true that the Bible, in other words, put it like this. The Bible doesn't have like a philosophical monotheism, but in less technical language it has what amounts to a monotheism. That's the case I want to make here. For example, you basically have one entity that made everything else and is absolutely supreme over everything else, including the host of heaven, who he created and who worship him, as we can see in Nehemiah 9-6, and as we will see as we go. So let's work through this. First, let's talk about cases where the biblical language speaks of other gods, but makes clear or implies that they're not real. The biblical text has a range of different rhetorical strategies for expressing the unreality or the ontological non-existence of other entities, sometimes called gods.

Some of this rhetoric comes in the context of their destruction or death. For example, in 2nd Kings 19, we read that the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands. wood and stone, therefore they were destroyed. So the logic here is these gods, gods, are actually not gods. They're just wood and stone, and therefore they can be destroyed. Similarly, in Second Chronicles 32, the servants of Sinaccarib are faulted because they speak about the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men's hands. So the logic here is you can't talk about the God of Israel, like you talk about these other gods because they're the work of men's hands.

Another way to describe the unreality or non-existence of the idols of the nations is to emphasize their utter impotence to act or to perceive. So, for example, Psalm 115 has this powerful contrast that our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he wants, but their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands, They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see. They have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell. They have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat. Now to say that an entity is mute, blind, deaf, unfeeling, immobile, and silent, if you categorize, if you list up all those different descriptions from Psalm 115,

is a rhetorical way of saying it's not real. Psalm 115 is not saying, well, Dagon and Marduk and Moloch and Bail are out there, they just have all these handicaps. This is a rhetorical way of saying what Second King's 19 said and Second Chronicles 32 said, that these are the gods that are not gods. They're the work of men's hands. Human beings made them, but they're not real. And this contrast between the God of Israel, who can show up and act and do things, versus other pagan deities who are mute and deaf and blind,

is dramatized in the Old Testament narrative, famous example. this is kind of a motif all throughout the story of Israel. But a famous example is the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Bail in 1st Kings 18, where you can see how Elijah frames it in verse 24. It's not about which is the stronger deity, like the Broncos might defeat the Raiders in a game by scoring more points than them. The question is simply, who is God? And you can see the response of the people after the fire falls from heaven,

that it's the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. It's not that Elijah summons a God. greater amount of fire than the prophets of bail, it's that the prophets of bail have no fire. And so when they're dancing around the altar, Elijah is mocking them, as I've underlined and read here, saying, well, maybe he's going to the bathroom, maybe he's traveling, maybe he's asleep. And this sounds kind of like Psalm 115 and the rhetoric here about the idols of the nations being blind and deaf. Twice the text states what I emboldened here in green, but there was no voice and no one answered. The point of the narrative seems to legitimize the Israelites' reaction

that the Lord is God because Bail can't hear you. No one's paying attention to the prophets of Bail. In the language of Psalm 115, he's deaf and mute. So it doesn't seem like Bail is simply the inferior deity. It seems like he's not capable of agency, which implies his non-existence. It seems like what we're dealing with here is the same thing as in Second Kings 1918, the gods that are not gods. So when we get to these famous negation texts in Deuteronomy and Isaiah that say there is no other or there is none beside me and so forth, it seems unlikely that this would be only rhetorical trash talk, like the Broncos saying there's no team like us or the Raiders are nothing or something like that. Rather, these passages are best interpreted in light of this contrast we've noted between the God of Israel who can actually do things and these other so-called gods who can't do anything. because they're not real. After all, in these chapters of Isaiah, we find the same theme that idols are nothing, as in Isaiah 414. They're just the work of human beings. They're what you can create,

therefore they can't save you. And idols are profitable for nothing, as in Isaiah 44-10. Similarly, in Deuteronomy 4, the whole rationale for the uniqueness of Yahweh is to show that these other deities haven't done these miracles. Did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out in the midst of the fire as you have heard and still live? Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord or God did for you in Egypt before your eyes, to you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God there is no other besides him. Now I do agree with Dan that the emphasis of this biblical

language is of negation, is on the power of the deity. But that has implications for ontological questions, particularly because this language of I am and there is no other, is associated with specific powers like predicting the future, and apparently, dare, dare I say it, eternality. For example, in Isaiah, it's the God of Israel, who is the one who can see the future because no God before me was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and beside me there is no Savior. I am the first and the last. Besides me, there is no God. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning. So I'm trying to read through these passages. I hope I'm not reiterating things in an annoying way here, but the point is that

besides me there is no other language is associated here with these specific claims. that there was none before me and none after me. You see, this is not a claim that the Denver Broncos could make over another football team. The Denver Broncos didn't exist before and after all the other football teams, but the God of Israel can say, before me, no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. Now, Dan brings up that foreign cities like Babylon can also say, I am and there is no other. And that's true. But also, you look at what immediately happens to Babylon after she says this, and that's judgment.

that's the whole point of this chapter is judgment and doom on Babylon. So Babylon can say in her heart, I am and there is no other, but she's just wrong. It's just a false assertion. And the fact that an evil entity can ape this language doesn't deprive it of its monotheistic implications. So point so far is that not in all, but in many cases, the gods referenced in the Old Testament are not real. They don't actually exist. They're gods that are not gods. Now, in other cases, the word gods refers to real entities.

However, these entities are created by the God of Israel and are radically subservient to him. In many cases, it's clear that these entities are what Christians have traditionally called angels and demons. And therefore, these beings don't really threaten monotheism proper. Again, here is just a matter of terminology, if you call them gods or not. But in the scripture, we do seem to have the word Elohim used for angels. A clear example of this seems to be in Psalm 8.5. Most translations speak of heavenly beings or angels for Elohim here. That's how the Septuagint takes it.

And that's many other traditional interpretations like Syriac and Aramaic translations, for example. And again, in the Bible, angels are created by God. We saw that in Nehemiah 9. They're also subservient to God and obedient to God, as we see in Psalm 103. And as we see in Psalm 91 where God gives commands to his angels, we also see angels worshiping the God of Israel. We saw that in Nehemiah 9. We see that in other texts like Psalm 148.2.

Similarly, we have demons called Elohim in the Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 3217. I'll just read this. They sacrifice to demons that were no gods. To gods, that's the word Elohim, they had never known. Now I basically just agree with what Dan says about this passage. Now when you go to the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 3217, there is an appositional clause where it says to Shedim, which traditionally is translated demons and not to God, comma, that is, to gods, they did not know. So appositionally, the Shadim are identified as Elohim as gods.

Appositionally is a grammatical term. It just means two words or phrases or clauses that have the same referent. So in other words, in this verse, it just means the gods and the demons are the same entity, not two different things. Yeah, you know, put the verse back up and you can see there. In other words, it's like if you said, I said hello to my friend John, the words friend and John are talking about the same person, so also with Elohim and demons in Deuteronomy 3217.

So demons are called Elohim, and as Dan mentions elsewhere in his video, this same understanding is in the New Testament where Paul teaches that pagan sacrifices are actually to demons. So for that reason and for others, the Bible does seem to regard demonic powers as lying behind the false gods of the nations. So that even if, say, Queen Jezebel is not conceptualizing, what she thinks in her mind about who Bail is is not necessarily accurate from the biblical perspective, that doesn't mean that there's no real entity at work in Bayalite religion. What that amounts to is that basically, insofar as there are other gods in the Old Testament that are real, these are sometimes just references to what Christians call angels and demons.

And these are created beings that don't compromise God's uniqueness and supremacy. Now, this is one possible way to read Psalm 82, which says God has taken his place in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. Because even here, God brings these other gods to death, as you can see on the screen later on in the Psalm. Now, this passage is interpreted differently, but the angelic interpretation of the divine counsel is obviously a theme that Michael Heiser has developed. And I wondered if Dan was drawing a bit from Heiser at points on his website where he talks about these topics, try to represent someone fairly and understand where they're coming from, so I read through his article on this on his website. He talks about how Heiser has the best

treatment available of the rhetorical function of these passages in Deutero-Isaiah that we've looked at, and also Deuteronomy, the negation texts, I think he's talking about there. But it's worth pointing out that Heiser pushes all this in a different direction, since he has a construal of the divine counsel that's more focused on angels and demons. So this, again, is just a matter of terminology. Heiser sees the word monotheism as a bit imprecise. Here's how he puts it. Yahweh was an Elohim, but no other Elohim was Yahweh and never was nor could be. This notion allows for the existence of other Elohim and is more precise than the terms polytheism

and Hennotheism. It is also more accurate than monotheism, though it preserves the element of that conception that is most important to traditional Judaism and Christianity. Yahweh's solitary otherness with respect to all that is in heaven and in earth. So far as I can tell, again, we're just talking about terms, whether we, how you define the term monotheism and how you define the term gods. Because Heiser goes on to point out that these other gods referenced in the Old Testament are not coexistent with God, they are not eternal, they were created by him, they are subservient

to him, and they worship him. So I think you can see this as a species of monotheism, just using the word God differently. Here's how Heiser puts it. The canonical writer believed the God of Israel alone was sovereign. and deserving of worship because his nature was unique pre-existence and his power was unquestionably superior, creator of all that is. So at the end of the day, the Old Testament portrays the God of Israel as absolutely supreme. It's not that he's just the only God that matters to us, like Broncos fans might feel about their team versus other teams or something like that.

And this is affirmed in many different ways, most of which we haven't even touched on here. There's a lot of other passages that are relevant. Genesis 1-1 is relevant because you have God creating the whole world. Heaven and earth are Amerism, meaning the whole world. And you have other passages we need to work through, like the divine name in Exodus 3 or the Shema in Deuteronomy 6. There's disputes about those we would need to get into. I'm just sort of flagging those here. I think what we've said hopefully is sufficient to make the point. If you want to see a good taxonomy of various different rhetorical ways that the Old Testament affirms its own kind of monotheism, see Matthew Lynch's article mapping monotheism modes of monotheistic rhetoric in the Hebrew Bible.

I'll try to remember to leave a description of that in the video description. If I forget, you can just Google it and find it. Real quick to finish, what about the New Testament? Dan quotes Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul himself may be quoting from the Corinthians letter. Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one, for although there may be so-called gods in heaven, or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords. Yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all

things and through whom we exist. And Dan once again takes us to probably mean that there's only one God that really matters, or only one God we care about. And he says, but for us there is only one God, the Father. And while this can be interpreted to mean only one God, we care about, and he says, but for us, one God exists, it's more likely what Paul intended is that for us, only one God really matters. We only care about one God. That is God the Father. But I think this overlooks the clause from whom are all things, which is immediately after which I've underlined here. Yet for us, there's only one God the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. Someone could say that the phrase all

things really only means they could try to qualify that in some way, like only physical things. But elsewhere, Paul speaks of spiritual beings as created through the sun, including, you know, rulers and authorities and so forth. So it doesn't sound like Paul thinks, you know, you've got lots of deities out there, but for us there's only one God that really matters. It seems like Paul thinks that the God of Jesus Christ is the God from whom are all things and for whom are all things, just like in Nehemiah 9-6, the god of Israel is the one who created all these other, quote-unquote, gods, because they worship him and he made them. For more on monotheism of the first-century Jewish context in which Christianity came about

and how the Christology of the New Testament relates to that, see Larry Hurtado or Richard Bacom. They have great treatment of that. And if you want to study of monotheism in pagan belief systems, check out this book. I'll put a link in the description for that one as well. For the purposes of this video, trying to be brief, sum it up as simple as possible, simplest possible way. Is monotheism in the Bible? Yeah.

There's one God from whom are all things and for whom are all things. It's just that we can also use the same word, namely God or Elohim, to describe some of the created beings that he made.