by Brian Godawa
We know that this pole was not merely a passive image sitting there in the temple complex because during the reforms of Josiah, 2 Kings states that Josiah took out sacred garments woven for the asherah in the temple as well as “vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven” and burned them outside Jerusalem in the Kidron valley (2 Kings 23:4, 7). These sacred vessels in the temple were paraphernalia used in cultic practices of active polytheistic worship.
But I want to draw your attention to the fact that there were not merely cultic vessels for Asherah in the temple, but for Baal as well. This means that by the time of Josiah, Nehushtan, Asherah, and Baal had all been worshipped for years in the Jerusalem temple along with Yahweh.
Susan Ackerman goes so far as to say that “it was the norm in the southern kingdom in the ninth century, the eighth century, and the seventh century to worship both Yahweh and Asherah in the state temple in Jerusalem. The zeal of the reformer kings, Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah, to remove the Asherah cult was the exception.”[33]
It doesn’t matter how much lip service one gives to Yahweh, if you have sacred images of an animal and a goddess along with cultic implements for three gods that you actively serve in your sole temple for decades, your priests are serving more than one god. It is fair to say that the Jewish priests were not monotheists with occasional polytheist episodes. Rather, they were polytheists with occasional monotheist episodes. It’s easy to see why Yahweh grew so angry at them to the point of exiling them into the hands of their pagan lovers’ gods. They were sharing Yahweh’s house in Jerusalem with the goddess Asherah, as well as Baal, and Nehushtan.
The People
Much of the Old Testament was written by the educated scribal or royal class. So it tends to focus on the actions of rulers, judges, and kings. It doesn’t really describe the life of common folk outside of those who make an important impact on the redemptive history of Israel. Archaeological finds in recent years have helped fill in the blanks of the common Jewish family in the Promised Land. And that common life was quite polytheistic indeed.
Archaeologist William Dever uncovers Israelite folk religion based on both the Bible and archaeological finds. He argues that the folk religion of the commoner “in the streets” was often very distinct from the religious cult of the ruling class in the palace or temple. This would make sense when you consider they didn’t have mass communication. Uneducated farmers and shepherds out in the wilderness would carry on their folk religion with little distraction from directives by the priesthood miles away in Jerusalem.
I will address most of these elements in individual chapters as they arise. But here is Dever’s brief summary list of the activities of Israelite folk religion:
A list of proscribed activities would be long and complex, mostly derived from the Deuteronomistic and prophetic writings, but it could be summed up as follows.
1. Frequenting local shrines (bâmôt)
2. Setting up standing stones (massëbôt)
3. Making of images of various deities
4. Venerating the goddesses
5. Burning incense
6. Baking cakes for the “Queen of Heaven” [Astarte]
7. Making vows
8. “Weeping for Tammuz” [a Babylonian deity]
9. Performing rituals having to do with childbirth and children
10. Holding marzëah feasts [cult of the dead]
11. Conducting funerary rites; “feeding the dead”
12. Making pilgrimages to holy places and saints’ festivals
13. Engaging in various aspects of astral and solar worship
14. Divining and “magic,” except by priests
15. Sacrificing children (?)
All these things, mostly discussed above, are condemned by the male writers of the Hebrew Bible as “idolatrous,” that is, non-Yahwistic. But their inclusion implies that the majority of people, not just an easily ignored minority, were doing them — and, I would argue, principally doing them in a family context where women played a highly significant role. I have also argued that all this was part of “Yahwism,” at least until the 7th century B.C. attempts at reform.[34]
Dever is a critical scholar and an unbeliever. But he also avoids both extremes of Minimalism and Maximalism. Minimalism seeks only to cynically disprove the Bible with archaeology while Maximalism seeks only to naïvely prove the Bible with archaeology. Both extremes tend to be close-minded to counter-factual evidence. So despite his secular bias, Dever remains a respectable voice in biblical archaeology. And that archaeology has uncovered many examples of all these artifacts of folk religion in manifold locations throughout the land of ancient Israel.[35]
Here is where all the difference lies. Critical scholars. because of their presupposition of anti-supernaturalism (there is no supernatural), interpret these facts within an evolutionary framework constructed to conclude that the monotheist religion of Israel evolved out of polytheism. They refuse to allow the possibility that there is a God who speaks and interacts in history with humanity. Therefore, they conclude before even looking at the evidence that monotheism was artificially thrust upon the people by priests and rulers, not God. In other words, monotheism evolved out of polytheism. After all, if there is no God who speaks into history, then all claims of him doing so are by definition lies of those in power used to manipulate the masses or the common man. Natural evolution, not supernatural revolution is their interpretive paradigm.
Furthermore, they think that uncovering ubiquitous polytheism in Israel somehow debunks the Bible. This is another function of prejudicial bias. As scholar Benjamin Sommer points out,
It is important to emphasize that the biblical texts largely portray the Israelites as polytheists, because many modern scholars somehow assume that the biblical texts must have said that Israelites were monotheists. A depressingly large amount of scholarly writing on this subject consists of an attempt to debunk the Bible by demonstrating something the Bible itself asserts – indeed, something the Bible repeatedly emphasizes: that Israelites before the exile worshipped many gods.[36]
On the other hand, some Maximalists get freaked out because the picture of such deeply-rooted widespread polytheism in Israel doesn’t fit the paradigm of Jewish monotheism they’ve been taught to accept. It makes them fear that the secularists and Minimalists may be right with their revisionary history and therefore their faith is in vain. So these believers deny or try to ignore the facts to protect their own bias and presuppositions.
But this fear is unnecessary. There is a third way of understanding between these two extremes. We can acknowledge the fact that during these centuries, Israelites claimed monotheism of a kind (some scholars call it more accurately, monolatry), but were practical polytheists in disobedience to Yahweh. Kings, priests, and common men were all infected by this evil at different levels. And of course, there were no doubt many individuals or pockets of people who were true to Yahweh. In the story of Elijah and Jezebel, we are told that there were seven thousand who did not bow the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).
Acknowledging mass apostasy in Israel for centuries is not the same as claiming monotheism evolved out of polytheism. It simply reinforces the doctrine of Original Sin. Because of the Fall in the Garden, human nature is bent toward evil, not good. So of course if there is a God who is there and is not silent, then he would have to be constantly pulling his chosen people away from their inherent nature toward polytheism. That’s supernatural revolution, not natural evolution.
This also makes the prophets and their extreme language of condemnation of Israel and Judah that much more spiritually meaningful. It means that God really was so frustrated with the depth of apostasy in his own people that he had to choose individual spokesmen to Israel (prophets) in order to get his message to them. And that polytheism was so ingrained in the people’s nature that they wouldn’t get rid of it and because of it, would ultimately be carried away into exile. The promises of Messiah drawing the twelve tribes back
under Yahweh are for a distant future. For now, the Jews lived, moved, and breathed in idolatrous polytheism.
That is the picture I tried to capture in my Jezebel novel, an accurate portrayal of the kind of religious world in which kings, priests, and commoners lived and worshipped.
The Watchers
I explained in the Note to the Reader at the beginning of Jezebel that I employ the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, or divine council motif, as a fantasy element to tell the supernatural side of the story of Jezebel and Elijah. The basic premise is that there is a spiritual world of principalities and powers whose stories are linked to earthly rulers.
Deuteronomy 32 tells the story of Israel and how she had come to be God’s chosen nation. Moses begins by glorifying God and then telling them to “remember the days of old.”
Deuteronomy 32:8–9:
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
But the Lord’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
The context of this passage is the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11 when mankind was divided. Rebellious humanity sought divinity in unified rebellion, so God separated them by confusing their tongues, which divided them into the seventy nations (of Gentiles) described in Genesis 10 and their ownership of those bordered lands as the “inheritance” of those peoples.
But inheritance works in heaven as it is on earth. The people of Jacob (Israel) would become Yahweh’s allotted inheritance while the other seventy Gentile nations were the allotted inheritance of the Sons of God.
So who were these Sons of God who ruled over the Gentile nations (Psalm 82:1-8)? Some believe they were human rulers. Others argue for their identities as supernatural principalities and powers. I am in the second camp. In my Psalm 82 book, I prove why they can’t be humans and must be heavenly creatures.
The phrase “Sons of God” is a technical term that means divine beings from God’s heavenly throne court (Job 1:6; 38:7), and they are referred to with many different titles. They are sometimes called “heavenly host” (Isaiah 24:21-22[37]), sometimes called “holy ones” (Deuteronomy 33:2-3[38]), sometimes called “the divine council” (Psalm 82:1[39]), sometimes called “Watchers” (Daniel 4:13, 17, 23), and sometimes called “gods” or elohim in the Hebrew (Deuteronomy 32: 17, 43; Psalm 82:1; 58:1-2). Yes, you read that last one correctly. God’s Word calls these beings gods.
But fear not. That isn’t polytheism. The word “god” in this sense is a synonym for “heavenly being” or “divine being” whose realm is that of the spiritual. It doesn’t mean uncreated beings who are all-powerful and all-knowing. Yahweh alone is that God. Yahweh is the God of gods (Deuteronomy 10:17; Psalm 136:2). He created the other elohim (“gods”). These “gods” are created angelic beings who are most precisely referred to as Sons of God.
The narrative is this. Before the Flood, some of these heavenly Sons of God rebelled against Yahweh and left their divine dwelling to come to earth (Jude 6), where they violated Yahweh’s holy separation and mated with human women (Genesis 6:1-4). This was not a racial separation, but a spiritual one. Their corrupt hybrid seed were called “nephilim” (giants), and their effect on humanity included such corruption and violence on the earth that Yahweh sent the Flood to wipe everyone out and start over again with Noah and his family.
Unfortunately, after the Flood humanity once again united in evil while building the Tower of Babel, a symbol of idolatrous worship of false gods. So Yahweh confused their tongues and divided them into the seventy nations. Since mankind wouldn’t stop worshipping false gods, the living God gave them over to their lusts (Romans 1:24, 26, 28) and placed them under the authority of the fallen Sons of God whom they worshipped. Fallen spiritual rulers for fallen humanity (Psalm 82:1-7). It’s as if God said to humanity, “Okay, if you refuse to stop worshipping false gods, then I will give you over to them and see how you like them ruling over you.”
Deuteronomy 32 hints at a spiritual reality behind the false gods of the nations, calling them “demons” (Deuteronomy 32:17; also Psalm 106:37-38). The Apostle Paul later ascribes demonic reality to false gods as well (1 Corinthians 10:20; 8:4-6). The New Testament continues this ancient notion that spiritual principalities and powers lay behind earthly powers (Ephesians 6:12; 3:10). The two were inextricably linked in historic events. As Jesus indicated, whatever happened in heaven also happened on earth (Matthew 6:10). Earthly kingdoms in conflict are intimately connected to heavenly powers in conflict.[40]
When earthly rulers battle on earth, the Bible describes the host of heaven battling with them in spiritual unity. In Daniel 10, hostilities between Greece and Persia is accompanied by the battle of heavenly Watchers over those nations (described as spiritual “princes”).
Daniel 10:13, 20-21:
The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia. …Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. 21 But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.”
When Sisera fought with Israel, the earthly kings and heavenly authorities (stars or host of heaven) are described interchangeably in unity.[41]
Judges 5:19–20:
“The kings came, they fought; then fought the kings of Canaan…From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.
When God punishes earthly rulers, he punishes them along with the heavenly rulers (“host of heaven”) above and behind them.
Isaiah 24:21–22:
On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.[42]
This notion of territorial archons or spiritual rulers is biblical and carries over into intertestamental literature such as the Book of Enoch and others.[43] It is one of the foundational storylines of this series, Chronicles of the Watchers, as well as Chronicles of the Nephilim and Chronicles of the Apocalypse.
In the Bible, the term “Watchers” only appears in Daniel 4, where a Watcher, also called a “holy one,” came down from heaven to proclaim to Daniel the “decree of the Watchers” that Nebuchadnezzar would go mad like a beast (Daniel 4:13-17, 23). Though the Watchers of Daniel 4 are not specifically equated with the “princes” over the kingdoms of the nations in Daniel 10, they are considered by ancient Jews to be synonyms. The Watchers over the nations were the princes or principalities of those nations.
Two examples of how the ancient Jews interpreted Deuteronomy 32:8-9 illustrate this notion of territorial principalities watching over nations.
Jubilees 15:31-32:
(There are) many nations and many people, and they all belong to him, but over all of them he caused spirits to rule so that they might lead them astray from following him. But over Israel he did not cause any angel or spirit to rule because he alone is their ruler and he will protect them.
Targum Jonathan, Deuteronomy 32, Section LIII:
When the Most High made allotment of the world unto the nations which proceeded from the sons of Noach [Noah], in the separation of the writings and languages of the children of men at the time of the division, He cast the lot among the seventy angels, the princes of the nations with whom is the revelation to oversee the city.[44]
But it is the book of 1 Enoch that uses the term “Watchers” most commonly of these territorial princes or angels or spirits or holy ones. The Sons of God of Genesis 6 are called Watchers all throughout 1 Enoch.[45] And those Sons of God are described in the Old Testament as Yahweh’s heaven
ly host that surround him in his divine council.
Job describes the Sons of God as divine beings who were heavenly host present at the creation (Job 38:4-7) and who gathered around Yahweh, along with the satan, to council with him and perform his decrees (Job 1:6-7; 2:1-6). 1 Kings 22:19-23 depicts these same “host of heaven” as spirits surrounding Yahweh who do his bidding. Psalm 82 and 89 describes the assembly of heavenly host as his “divine council” of “gods,” “holy ones,” and “Sons of the Most High” (82:6), in other words, Sons of God.
All these terms are used synonymously for the divine beings of God’s heavenly host, the Sons of God to whom Deuteronomy 32:8 declared were allotted the nations for an inheritance to watch over (territorial powers).
So the Bible says that there is demonic reality to false gods. But since those Sons of God who were territorial authorities over the nations were spiritually fallen Watchers, that makes them demonic or evil in essence. So what if they were the actual demonic beings behind the false gods of the ancient world? What if the fallen Sons of God were masquerading as the gods of the nations in order to keep humanity enslaved in idolatry to their authority? That would affirm the biblical stories of earthly events with heavenly events occurring in synchronization.
That is the biblical premise of the Chronicles of the Watchers. The pagan gods like Baal, Astarte, Asherah, and others, are actually fallen Sons of God, Watchers of the nations, crafting false identities and narratives as gods of the nations that are connected and reflected in the earthly events of human history and its rulers. For a detailed biblical defense of this interpretation see my booklet Psalm 82: The Divine Council of the Gods, the Judgment of the Watchers and the Inheritance of the Nations. (paid link)