Is Christianity “Strict Monotheism”?  🔗 **Source:** [Is Christianity “Strict Monotheism”?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=WZomcxjtr-o&is=tbgBKvQTUOm_V_iB) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [biblical-monotheism, divine-plurality, deutero-isaiah, early-christology, trinity-doctrine, rhetorical-scope] > author: Dan McClellan > source: Dan McClellan (YouTube) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZomcxjtr-o > date created: 2026-09-26 16:20 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Is Christianity "strict monotheism"? > ## 🧭 Table of contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning styles assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO analysis](#️-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > - [🔄 Refactor appendix](#-refactor-appendix--is-christianity-strict-monotheism) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Dan McClellan (PhD, biblical scholar, "data over dogma" framing) published a 42-minute response video on 2026-09-25 reacting to a clipped street-style debate. In the clip, one debater asserts "Christianity is strict monotheism" and cites Isaiah 43:10, 44:6, 44:8 and 45; a second debater denies it, points to the Dead Sea Scrolls text of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and says Jews of Jesus's day were monotheists only "because they were apostates." Neither debater is named in the transcript. McClellan pauses the clip roughly every two minutes to rebut the first debater and, at 00:33:20, 00:39:08 and 00:42:03, to fault the second debater's articulation while agreeing with his conclusion. > - **The claim.** No text in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament asserts strict philosophical monotheism (the denial that any god other than Adonai exists). The "there is no other besides me" formulas in Deutero-Isaiah and Deuteronomy assert Adonai's exclusive relationship with Israel and his incomparability to rivals whose existence the audience took for granted. The Trinitarian framework of three consubstantial persons in one ousia postdates the New Testament by at least a century (late 2nd century CE at the earliest, more defensibly 3rd and 4th). > - **The method.** Read each "no other" statement inside its rhetorical scope, setting and goals. Test the reading against internal controls: the same formula in the mouth of personified Babylon (Isaiah 47:8-10) and Nineveh (Zephaniah 2:15), where nobody thinks it denies other cities exist; Deuteronomy 32:39 ("no god besides me") four verses before 32:43 ("worship him all you gods"); the Hebrew verb yatsar ("form with the hands") in Isaiah 43:10, which targets manufactured divine images rather than gods as such. > - **Why it matters.** For Courtney's exegesis and doctrinal-lineage notes, the video supplies a dated bibliography (1956 to a forthcoming 2026 volume) showing the "rhetoric, not ontology" reading is a 70-year scholarly position, and it adds a word-history datum: "monotheism" was coined around 1660 by Henry More and defined in dictionaries as "the doctrine of the Unitarians" until Webster's 1828. > - **Key stakeholders.** McClellan; the two unnamed debaters; the scholars he cites (Paula Fredriksen, Nathan MacDonald, Michael Heiser, Ulrich Mauser, Peter Hayman, Saul Olyan, P. A. H. de Boer, a contributor to the C. J. Labuschagne festschrift); Brown University, where he co-organized the conference behind *The Meanings and Ends of Monotheism*; the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, where he hopes to have the volume. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** McClellan is promoting his own book (*The Bible Says So*, read aloud from 00:20:14 to 00:30:28) and a forthcoming edited volume containing his paper; both are disclosed on screen but not framed as a conflict. The Deuteronomy 32:8-9 argument is, by his own admission at 00:39:08, "still very interpretive" and possibly not the majority reading. The strongest scholarly defense of early Christian monotheism (the "Christological monotheism" position associated in the literature with Richard Bauckham and Larry Hurtado, which the transcript never names) goes unengaged because the clip's debater never raised it. > - **Bottom line.** The rhetorical-scope reading of Deutero-Isaiah is well supported by the internal controls McClellan shows on screen and by the dated bibliography he cites; the debater's four Isaiah proof-texts do not carry the weight placed on them. The wider claims (no monotheism anywhere in the Bible, none in late antiquity, the New Testament calls Jesus divine but only twice God) rest on positions he defends elsewhere and flags here as contested. > ## 📖 Main content > **The setup and the three positions.** The clip opens mid-argument at 00:00:00. Debater A says Christianity is strict monotheism. Debater B says a hard monotheist should be a Muslim, because Christians have a Jesus who says he is God, a Father who says he is God, and a "same essence" fix "the Bible never teaches." McClellan's response has two prongs. First, the Trinitarian conceptual framework (three consubstantial, co-equal, co-eternal persons comprising one ousia) did not exist when the New Testament was written, so it cannot serve as the hermeneutic for reading Jesus's relationship to God in those texts (00:00:45). Second, and in his view stronger, the identification of Jesus as God in the New Testament is "kind of muddy": at best two of the latest passages, one in 2 Peter and one in Titus, call Jesus God, while the New Testament as a whole calls him divine (00:01:28). He then pivots to what he treats as the decisive point: the Bible, including the New Testament, acknowledges other gods from beginning to end (00:02:10). > **John 10 as evidence for divine plurality in the New Testament.** McClellan reads the accusation in John 10 as "you, being a human, make yourself divine," and Jesus's defense as an appeal to scripture's own practice of calling humans gods (00:02:10). He says the author of John is drawing on a soteriology of theosis or deification and on scripture's recognition of other gods, and he groups "powers and principalities and thrones" as beings the texts recognize as gods (00:02:56). The recommended reading is Paula Fredriksen's 2022 Harvard Theological Review paper on Philo, Herod, Paul and "the many gods of ancient Jewish monotheism"; auto-captions render her surname "Friedrison." > **The Deutero-Isaiah proof-texts and the rhetorical-scope argument.** Debater A cites Isaiah 43:10, 44:6, 44:8 and 45 (00:03:40). McClellan grants that the conventional scholarly view for decades located the threshold of strict monotheism in Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55, a late-exilic or post-exilic composition), then says that since the 1950s, and increasingly since the late 20th century, scholars have argued the texts assert the necessity of Adonai's exclusive relationship with Israel rather than denying other gods (00:03:40 to 00:04:24). His analogy: someone shown a table of dozens of dishes who says "I want it all" is referring to the food in the room, not every food in the universe; the rhetorical setting bounds the universal (00:04:24 to 00:05:09). > He then walks each passage. Isaiah 43:10 ("before me no god was formed") uses the verbal root yatsar, forming with the hands, the same verb used for making pottery and divine images, so the denial targets the manufactured images in Babylon, not gods elsewhere (00:05:51 to 00:06:35). He adds that treating images as the gods themselves would misrepresent how divine images functioned. Isaiah 43:11 ("besides me there is no savior") sits beside texts in Nehemiah and, he believes, Obadiah that speak of plural saviors and other anointed figures, so "no savior" is scoped too (00:07:20). Isaiah 43:12 reads in Hebrew "not some strange It is. It is Christianity is strict monotheism. Strict monotheism. >> All right, let's see it. >> Well, depends. Christianity actually, no. If you want to be a hard monotheist, a religion, you should be you should be a Muslim because they believe in one God. So, >> and this guy behind me, I think, believes in one God. So you guys use you say you're a hard monotheist, but then you have Jesus who says he is God and then he's a person and then you have the father who says he is a god and he's a person and then to fix that you say they are of the same essence or being the Bible never teaches >> but when you so I would say two things here first I think it is perfectly legitimate to point out that the conceptual framework of the trinity mainly the notion that three conssubstantial co-equal and co-eternal persons comprise the single essence usia or being of God just didn't exist prior to at the absolute earliest the late 2nd century CE but more defensively the 3rd and then the 4th centuries CE when the text of the New Testament were being written no such philosophical framework or conceptual lens existed period it is never articulated anywhere And so you can hardly appeal to that as the hermeneutic for understanding the representation of Jesus's relationship to God in the New Testament. That's just not an available lens for understanding how the New Testament authors were presenting the relationship of Jesus to God. But I don't think that's the strongest argument against the claim that Christianity in the New Testament is monotheistic because that relies on the identification of Jesus as God. And that's kind of muddy in the New Testament. I think at best maybe you've got two of the latest passages in the entire New Testament, one in Second Peter, one in Titus that refer to Jesus as God. I think the New Testament refers to Jesus as divine. And so if you want to go that route, I think that's more plausible. However, the other thing that you could point out is that the Bible, including the New Testament, acknowledges the existence of other gods from beginning to end. In fact, in the Gospel of John, that's a central rhetorical point of Jesus's defense of his own divinity in chapter 10 because they accuse him saying, "You being a human, make yourself divine." And that is how that accusation should be interpreted and translated. And what's Jesus's defense? The very scriptures themselves, the inviable scriptures that you cannot annull call humans gods. The defense is the scriptures identify humans as gods. So why are you hassling me for saying I am the son of God? Now the main point there is really that the author of the gospel of John appeals to esoteriology of theosis of divonization of deification but it's also appealing to the scriptures recognition of the existence of other gods and we can look at a bunch of other passages in the Hebrew Bible as well as references to these powers and principalities and thrones and all this kind of stuff that occupy the spiritual world that are recognized as gods. And on this I would highly recommend Paula Friedrison's 2022 Harvard theological review paper Philo Herod Paul and the many gods of ancient Jewish monotheism. >> You look in the Old Testament Isaiah 43:10, Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 44:8, and Isaiah 45 are trying. So as one must when they want to try to jin up a sense of strict philosophical monotheism in the Bible this individual is appealing to dudero Isaiah and it's been the conventional wisdom within the scholarship for a long time that that is where we cross the threshold into strict philosophical monotheism. The Judeian authors of the late exilic and post-exilic period finally achieve the denial of the existence of other gods. However, starting in the 50s and more and more since the end of the 20th century, scholars are acknowledging that if we allow these texts to operate on their own terms, if we allow them to set the terms of their rhetorical scope, the rhetorical setting, the rhetorical goals, we see that they're not actually denying that other gods exist. They're making an assertion about the necessity of God's exclusive relationship with Israel. And a good way to think about this would be to imagine that someone brings you into a room and there's a table that is set and there are dozens of different kinds of foods all over the table and the person says, "What would you like to eat?" And you say, "I want it all. I want everything. I'm not going to leave anything untouched." Now, the rhetorical scope of your statement is obviously set by the circumstances. you are within a room and there is a bunch of food before you. Obviously, you're referring to the existing circumstances. You're not saying, "I'm going to eat absolutely all food that exists anywhere in the universe because of the rhetorical scope, setting, and goals." And we have to think about this when we're thinking about what these authors were trying to get across. And when we look at these passages, what we're going to see is that they're always talking about the fact that Adonai, the God of Israel, is the only God that's going to be there for them. As evinced by the fact that Adonai is the only God that has saved them in the past. And so the other gods are not going to be there for them. The only God with which Israel can have a legitimate relationship is Adoni. That's the rhetorical scope and setting that we should be using to understand what's going on here. But we have appeals to Isaiah 43:44 and 45. Let's take a look at those passages first. Isaiah 43:10. I'm also going to give you 11 and 12. You are my witnesses, says Adonai. And my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me, no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. And it should be pointed out that formed here is the verbal root yatsar, which actually means to literally form with one's hands. This is a verbal root that is used to refer to the production of divine images using clay to make pottery or idols, divine images. So the reference here is not to the existence of other gods elsewhere in the universe. It's to the existence of other gods that are created using clay and people's hands. So really what it's saying is that the divine images that are all around you in Babylon are not actual gods. They're just divine images. It's not to say that they don't index or refer to other gods that exist elsewhere in the universe. That would be a remarkably naive misrepresentation of the nature and function of divine images. Moving on, verse 11. I I am Adoni and besides me there is no savior. the same language as the besides me there is no god. However, we have elsewhere in Nehemiah uh in Oadiah I believe we have references to plural saviors and there are other individuals who are referred to as savior even as messiah even as the anointed one uh there are other individuals who are referred to that way. So obviously this text is not saying that there are no other saviors anywhere in the universe. What it is saying is within the specific rhetorical setting and scope of Deuteriah, I don't see any other saviors in the room. I'm the only one here for you. Now, moving on. Verse 12. I am the one who declared and saved and proclaimed, not some strange god among you. You are my witnesses, says Adonai. And I am God. And the word God doesn't appear in the phrase strange God in the Hebrew. It just says stranger, not some stranger among you. But most scholars agree it's talking about other gods, strange gods, gods that are not a part of this relationship. And so we can see we're very clearly talking about Israel and Adoni and their relationship. Nobody comes between us. There is no one else around. Not anywhere in the universe, but around our relationship. Now, let's move on to Isaiah 44:es 6-8. Thus says Adonai, the king of Israel and his redeemer, Adonai of hosts, I am the first and I am the last. Besides me, there is no God. So, we're going to go into more detail about this, but just like that there is no savior. This is not saying anywhere else in the universe. This is saying within the scope set by the rhetorical setting who is like me, let them proclaim it. Let them declare and set it forth before me. who has announced from of old the things to come. Let them tell us what is yet to be. Do not fear or be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses. Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock. I know not one. Again, this is talking to Israel saying, "Hey, it's you and me. There's nobody else here. I don't see anybody else. You must be talking to me." This is not saying nobody else exists anywhere in the universe. It's talking about the specific rhetorical setting. Isaiah 45:4-7. For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel, my chosen, I call you by your name. I give you a title, though you do not know me. I am Adonai and there is no other besides me. There is no God. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is no one besides me. I am Adoni and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wheel and create woe. I Adon and I do all these things. So that seems pretty definitive if you're not thinking hard about the rhetorical setting, the rhetorical scope, the rhetorical goals. But we have repeated over and over and over again. I am and there is no other. But there's a reason that people appeal to Deuteronomy. Let's take a look. Deuteronomy 4:33-36. Has any people ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire as you have heard and lived? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as Adoni, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes. To you it was shown so that you would acknowledge that Adonai is God. There is no other besides him. from heaven. He made you hear his voice to discipline you on earth. He showed you his great fire while you heard his words coming out of the fire. Rhetorically, the point is very clearly to say, look, we got this special thing going on here. Is there anyone else who has this special thing going on here? No, there's no one. So, rhetorically, the setting is the relationship between Adonai and Israel. Let's look at Deuteronomy 4:37-39. And because he loved your ancestors, he chose your descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves to bring you in, giving you their land for a possession as it is still today. So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. There is no other. But elsewhere in Deuteronomy 4, we have references to other gods. Verse 19, "And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Adonai, your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven." This is an illusion to Deuteronomy 32:8 and9, where the gods were allotted to the other nations. And this is what Deuteronomy repeatedly says. Don't worship other gods and don't worship me the way the other nations worship their gods. And here those gods are astralized and God is over them. God is the one who distributed them to the nations. In other words, the text is saying, hey, those are gods for the other nations to worship, not for you to worship. Why? Because we got this special thing going on here. And then verse 20, but Adonai has taken you and brought you out of the iron smelter out of Egypt to become a people of his very own possession as you are now. We've got this special thing. You are my special possession. You are unique to me. Don't look at them. Don't look at them. Look at me. There's no one else around me. That doesn't mean they don't exist. It means don't pay attention to them. It's just you and me now. And we've got something very similar in Deuteronomy 32:39. See now that I, even I am he. There is no God besides me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and no one can deliver from my hand. Now, what's most interesting about this is just a few verses later in verse 43, we have, "Praise, O heavens, his people. Worship him all you gods, for he will avenge the blood of his children and take vengeance on his adversaries. who will repay those who hate him and cleanse the land for his people. So there's a reason people don't appeal to Deuteronomy to try to demonstrate monotheism. It's because Deuteronomy repeatedly refers to other gods. Dudero Isaiah doesn't do so as clearly. So the exact same rhetoric that we find in Deuteronomy once we remove the references to the other gods or at least mostly feels like it's a lot more monotheistic. But the rhetoric is likely doing the same thing in Deuteronomy that it is doing in Isaiah. Removing the clearest references to other gods doesn't necessarily alter there's no other god beside me from meaning there are other gods to mean no actually it turns out there aren't any other gods. So the rhetoric's probably doing similar things between Deuteronomy and Deuter Isaiah. What's going on here? These verses from Isaiah 47 should help clarify a little bit. I'm looking at verses 8-10. Now therefore, hear this, you lover of pleasures who sit securely, who say in your heart, "I am, and there is no one besides me. I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children." Both these things shall come upon you in a moment, in one day. The loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchancements. You felt secure in your wickedness. You said, "No one sees me." Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray. And you said in your heart, "I am and there is no one besides me." So this is very similar language to what we have elsewhere in the same collection of dudero Isaiah. But here this rhetoric is being put in the mouth of the personified Babylon who is saying, "I am and there is no other besides me." And rhetorically, they're not saying no other cities exist. That doesn't make sense of the rhetoric. Rhetorically, what the personified Babylon is saying is, "I'm the only one that matters to my people. I am the only one that counts." So, it's not the only one that exists, it's the only one that counts. And we see the same thing put into the mouth of the personified Nineveh in Zephaniah 2:15. Is this the exaltant city that lived secure, that said to itself, "I am, and there is no one else." What a desolation it has become, a lair for wild animals. Everyone who passes by it hisses and shakes the fist. Again, the rhetoric doesn't mean no other cities exist. The rhetoric means I'm the best. No other cities matter specifically to my constituents, to my people, to my inhabitants. So even within duterro Isaiah we have a clarification that this rhetoric is not intended to deny the existence of other gods. This rhetoric is intended to deny the significance of other gods to the people of Israel. It's basically asserting that exclusive relationship. I'm the only one that matters. Again, don't look at them. Look at me. We're the only ones here right now. There's no one else with me. There's no one else in our circumstances. It's just you and me now. And the scholarship has been saying this for a long time. And we can start with Nathan McDonald's wonderful Deuteronomy and the meaning of monotheism. It originally published in 2003. I believe this is the second edition from 2012. And you have in the middle of the page here translation and significance of miladau or a ode. there is no other besides me or something like that. You can read this text if you want to see the discussion of what's going on in Deuteronomy. But I want to highlight this closing paragraph about this there is no other besides me language. In no case is the existence of other deities denied though Adonai is affirmed to be unique. Each statement however functions in a different way. The statements in Deuteronomy 4 are the culmination of an argument based on the experience of Israel at Egypt and Sinai. They are a call to Israel to recognize and acknowledge that Adonai is unique and thus the only god for them. The consequence of this recognition is that other gods should not be worshiped. In the first commandment, this is expressed as an absolute prohibition. Finally, in the schma, Adonai's uniqueness for Israel is the basis of the command for wholehearted devotion to Adonai, the theme of Deuteronomy 6 through11. So at least that rhetoric in Deuteronomy is not denying the existence of other gods but is just asserting the exclusive relationship between Adonai and Israel. And then we can go to Mike Heiser's 2008 bulletin for biblical research paper monotheism polytheism monolatry or henotheism toward an assessment of divine plurality in the Hebrew Bible which more directly discusses dudero Isaiah as we can see here toward the bottom. uh it is against this backdrop and the larger scope of Deuteronomy that Isaiah's none besides me statements must be understood and you can read that whole argument if you like but I would like to highlight the concluding paragraph. Finally, Hebrew syntax aside, if one reads the denial statements in Deuteria, it is not difficult to discern upon what basis the denial language occurs. Is the language concerned with making the point that Adonai is the only God who exists? Or is the text intending something else? In Isaiah 43:10-12, it is Adonai's claim to be alone in his pre-existence, his ability to save, and his national deliverance. In Isaiah 44:6-8, the focus is on certain attributes of Adonai. In the text from Isaiah 45, there are various obvious comparisons between Adonai's deeds, justice, salvation, and deliverance of his children, and the impotence of the other gods. All these passages are transparently concerned with comparing Adonai to other gods, not comparing Adonai to beings that do not exist. That would be empty praise indeed. And I'm going to return to that. But briefly, let's take a look at studies in Deuteronomy in honor of CJ Labushin on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Van Reon has a paper called the use of Deuteronomy 32:39 in monotheistic controversies in rabbitic literature that begins with some interesting comments as far as the belief in one god is concerned. Deuteronomy is not concerned with a theoretical monotheism, but rather gives a confession of faith. The monotheism of Deuteronomy emerged from the struggle against idolatry. Moreover, the decline of Israel is attributed to the following of other gods. The existence of other gods is not denied, however, only their power and significance for Israel. Deuteronomy stresses the incomparability of Adoni or the uniqueness of Adoni for Israel. And then the Bible says, so what we get right and wrong about scriptures most controversial issues by me. Let's read a few pages from that. Nothing compares to you. When most devotional readers of the Bible hear that scholars believe the Bible recognizes the existence of other gods, the first and frequently only stop on their nuisa, which is a fancy way to refer to Isaiah 40-55, widely believed to be a post- exilic addition to Isaiah. These chapters are quite emphatic about the impetence and irrelevance of the gods of the nations. And they use a few different pieces of rhetoric to get this across. The most common has Adonai asserting that he is God or Adoni or I am he. And then crucially there is no other or there is no one besides me. And then we've got our Isaiah 44 45 and 46 passages. According to the traditional reading, this means there are no other gods apart from or besides Adoni. There are multiple problems with this reading. Now to begin, while it's subtle, the author of Duderro Isaiah does refer to the gods of the divine council. Isaiah 40:25-26 tells the audience to look up to the sky and rhetorically asks who it is who marshals the celestial bodies to their ranks. The unspoken answer is obviously Adoni. This evokes the imagery of the gods as Adonai's celestial host or army. In perhaps one of the oldest passages in the Hebrew Bible, Judges 5:20, the stars are gods who fight against Cicora from their courses in the heavens. Isaiah 45:12 similarly identifies Adonai as the one who stretched out the heavens and commands their host. Deuteronomy 4:19 discussed above similarly refers to the sun, moon, stars, and all the host of heaven as the gods of the nations that the hearer looks up to the heavens to see. Next, the author of Dudero, Isaiah puts very similar rhetoric in the mouths of the personified Babylon. In Isaiah 47:8 and 10, Babylon declares, "I am, and there is no one besides me." The personified Nineveh says the same in Zephaniah 2:15. It really doesn't make sense to interpret this as the cities claiming to be the only cities in existence. The rhetoric only really lands if we understand the authors to have these cities declaring themselves to be the only cities that matter to their people. In other words, the Hebrew phrases translated besides me don't mean anywhere in all the universe apart from me, but something more like next to me here within the rhetorical scope that has been established by the context. In the case of the cities, the context would be the extent of their geographic and demographic sovereignty. The context of these statements in Deuteria is Adonai's deliverance of Israel. This is why the terms redeemer and savior are used in such close connection. Adonai is basically telling Israel they better not give credit for their deliverance to any other god but him. And this is precisely what we read in Isaiah 43:12. I am the one who decreed and delivered and declared, not some stranger among you. Most translations render the Hebrew word for stranger as strange god. The point is not to say no other gods exist. It's to say that no other gods matter. There's an additional dimension of dudero Isaiah's rhetoric that confirms this. Dudero Isaiah repeatedly uses the rhetoric of incomparability. Nobody compares to Adonai. Isaiah 46:9 makes this pretty clear with some poetic parallelism. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me. Saying there is no other doesn't deny other gods exist. It just asserts that Adonai is so far above all of the other gods. Similar rhetoric is found in several other places like Exodus 15:11 which rhetorically asks, "Who is like you, Adoni, among the gods?" Psalm 29 calls on the children of gods, Benalem, to ascribe glory and strength to Adonai. Adonai is the God of gods in Psalm 84:7 and a great king over all gods in Psalm 95:3. Adoniah is said to be exalted over all gods in Psalm 97:9 and revered over all gods in Psalm 96:4 and 1st Chronicles 16:25. Psalm 89:6 rhetorically asks, "Who can be compared to Adonai among the children of gods?" Benalem repeatedly crowing that Adonai is exalted as a god and a king over all the other gods isn't that big a flex if your audience thinks the other gods are non-existent figments of pagan imaginations. The reason this rhetoric is effective is precisely because the audience understood the other gods to exist and because it actually means something to insist Adonai towers so far above the patron deities of the gigantic empires next door that they can be dismissed as powerless and inconsequential. The more exalted the power and significance of the denigrated deities, the more powerful the rhetoric of incomparability. Boasting about being exalted as king and god over figments of other people's imaginations is utterly impotent rhetoric. The rhetoric of incomparability was increasingly critical though as Judahites/judeans found themselves on the business end of larger empires whose deities had an awful lot more capital in the marketplace of worship. If their ethnic identity was to survive, they needed to represent their deity not just as competitive, but as incontestable. They didn't just need pros on the field. They needed an Elway, Davis, McCaffrey, sharp lineup with a Schlareth and an Elum thrown in and a Shanahan stalking the sidelines. And I'm calling back to how I started the chapter pointing out that saying no other gods exist is like saying the Raiders aren't a real football team. And as a Broncos fan, I have said that many times in the past. It doesn't mean they don't exist. It doesn't mean they actually are not an NFL team. It means I'm mocking them. It means I'm saying they're so insignificant they don't even really count. Moving on. While some scholars might draw a sharp line between exclusivity and incomparability, I would suggest they're just different flavors of the same rhetoric. Both of these senses are also found in the much older literature of proudly polytheistic ancient southwest Asian societies. For instance, the great Cairo hymn of praise to Aman Ree composed between 2,00 and 1500 B.CE. says to Aman Ree, you are the sole one who made all that exists. One alone who made that which is it also praises Aman Ree as unique one like whom among the gods unique king like whom among the gods and creator and maker of all that exists. A hymn to the Mesopotamian moon deity sin begins, "Oh Lord, chief of the gods who alone is exalted on earth and in heaven." It later continues, "King of kings, exalted, whose decrees none rival, no god is like unto thy divinity." Even though Bal was defeated in battle multiple times and was subordinate to the high god L, the rhetoric of incomparability is used in yuggaritic literature to praise him. Our king is mightiest ball, our ruler with none above him. The rhetoric of exclusivity and of incomparability is just rhetoric and it's pretty common rhetoric. Finally, while Deuteria is frequently held up as the threshold of a strict philosophical monotheism, it's not the only place where this rhetoric is found. We see it in the book of Deuteronomy as well, but scholars tend not to point to that book as the threshold of monotheism. Why not? Because the texts that use that rhetoric also explicitly acknowledge the other gods. For instance, Deuteronomy 32:39 has adon I declare, see now that I I am he and there is no other god with me. That sounds just as definitive as dudero Isaiah. But in addition to what we have in verses 8 and 9, verse 43 goes on to say, worship him all you gods. So this there is no other rhetoric can be used in close connection with the explicit acknowledgement of other gods. It's just rhetoric. And this is not the new fangled claim of some heretical Mormon. This has been going on for a long time. For instance, from 1956, Dbor's second Isaiah's message denies that second Isaiah is denying the existence of other gods. From 1991, Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Olrich Mouser's One God Alone, a pillar of biblical theology does the same. Also from 1991, Peter Haymon's phenomenally influential journal of Jewish studies article, monotheism, a misused word in Jewish studies. The answer, yes, it is a misused word. Saul Oolon's 2012, Isaiah 40:55 really monotheistic argues against the interpretation of these passages as strict philosophical monotheism. And then finally, I helped organize a conference a couple years ago at Brown University with Saul Olon and other friends that was focused on the fact that we don't really have monotheism in the Bible. And this is the publication that is resulting from that conference, the meanings and ends of monotheism. And this is a collection of a bunch of different papers talking about how there's no monotheism in the Bible and even in late antiquity after the Bible depending on how we understand the concept of monotheism. And this book should be out by the end of the year. Anybody who knows what the Society of Biblical Literature is and might be attending the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, we will hopefully have at least one copy there at the annual meeting. That is our goal. So when we look at Duderro Isaiah, which people constantly appeal to, and we try to actually understand it on its own terms in its original setting, we don't find strict philosophical monotheism. What we find is rhetoric that is used to insist on an exclusive relationship between Adoni and Adonai's people. It's not no other gods exist. It's don't look at the other gods. They don't matter. I'm the only one that is here for you. >> To say that the Trinity is taught in the Old Testament because we can go through each one of those verses, but each one of those verses show strict monotheism. >> Strict monotheism is not found in any of those verses. And as I have argued and will continue to argue, there's no strict monotheism anywhere in the Bible at all. >> Do you are you joking? >> What is think that the Old Testament writers were hard monotheists? You really believe that? >> Anything about the Old Testament? I'm sorry. This is appalling to me that somebody would say that the Old Testament authors were hard monotheists. That's why. >> So what author you think Moses was not monotheistic? No, but I'm But you just made a statement. >> Well, listen. If you look at the earliest texts that we have, say of okay, yes, let's take Deuteronomy. Did Moses write Deuteronomy? >> Do you have any evidence for that at all? >> This is what the Jews have said. This is what tradition. So, you don't know for sure. >> I think this is a good point to raise that it's just tradition. You don't know for sure. Because frequently when scholars bring up objections to conservative dogmas, what conservative dogmatists will say in response is, "You can't prove that. You don't know for sure. Uh even though most of conservative dogmatism is based on tradition based on dogma. That's the nature of dogmas. And there are things that people don't really know for sure. They just firmly believe because they are incentivized to believe by their identity politics and by the traditions of which they are a part. So in Deuteronomy in the would you accept the Dead Sea Scrolls as authoritative or helping us understand the earliest tradition shows that scripture has been okay continuously. >> Okay. So what do you do with the Dead Sea Scroll in Deuteronomy 32:es 8 and 9 where it separates the most high God from his son Yahweh? What do you do with that? >> So we'll get into more details about Deuteronomy 328 and 9 in a moment. But this individual, I don't think knows what's actually in 4Q Deuteronomy J because it only fragmentarily preserves verse 8 of Deuteronomy 32. And really its main contribution to the argument here is its preservation of a reference to the Ben Elohim at the very end of verse 8 instead of what we have in the Maseretic text which is Ben Israel. So it's not sons of Israel, it's sons of God. And we actually already thought that this was the reading because the Septuagent refers to the angels of God. And a lot of scholars have pointed out, hey, the Septuagent translators didn't like rendering sons of God in many places where they found it. They rendered instead angels of God or something like that. And so the theory already existed that Deuteronomy 32:8 originally ended with a reference to the number of the sons of God. And the discovery of 4Q Deuteronomy J simply confirmed that yes, there was an existing Hebrew manuscript tradition that ended that verse with Ben Elohim. Although I think the argument is strong that it actually ended Ben rather than Ben Elohim. that actually makes it easier to understand the transcription error that gave rise to Ben Israel L. And for a good discussion of that, I would highly recommend this paper. >> It separates the most high God from his son Yahweh. And what's type of separation? >> It says that the most high God gave jurisdiction over his sons and one of his sons name was Yahweh and he gave jurisdiction to him over Israel. >> Okay. >> So, what I'm trying to say is just fact check me on this. I don't think this individual is articulating it particularly well and I don't think it's the most effective way to demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible does not assert a strict monotheism. But I would agree that Deuteronomy 32:8 and9 distinguishes Adoni from Eljon. At least the original version of the tradition. And I'm not referring to what is preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm referring to the tradition as it existed before it was incorporated into Deuteronomy 32. Now, here are three of the verses. I'm including verse 7 because this has something to do with how we interpret this. Verse 7 begins, "Remember the days of old. Consider the years long past. Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High aortioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods, which is the way the NRSVE renders Ben Elohim, children or sons of God. Adonai's own portion was his people, Jacob, his allotted share or his share of the inheritance would be a more literal way to translate that. Now, I include verse 7 because you can see, "Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you." We're supposed to be remembering the days of old, the years long past. Something that this translation does not do well, and most translations don't do well, is put verses 8 and 9 in quotation marks, but they should be in quotation marks because they are reported speech, quoted speech. Verse 7 ends, "And they will tell you." And in the Hebrew, that is the verb ammar and then the uh a direct object marker. This construction occurs well over a hundred times throughout the Hebrew Bible. And literally every single time it occurs. What comes immediately after, if the subject of the verb doesn't come after, is reported speech, is quoted speech. This would be the only time that what followed after and they will tell you or he will tell you or he told you or they said to you. It would be the only time that it was not reported speech in the entire Hebrew Bible. That's nonsensical. So what's going on here is verse 7 is saying, "Hey, look at this tradition we're pulling off the shelf from long ago. This is the tradition that came down from the elders." And this tradition says quote and then we have the quotation of the tradition which says Eljon divided up the nations according to the number of the children of God. And that number would be 70 because that's how many nations there were understood to be on the earth. And when we look in Ugaritic literature for instance that's how many ben Elohim that's how many children of God there were. And so the number is 70. Israel sometimes is included in that 70. Sometimes Israel is distinguished from that 70. But the text immediately goes on to say Adonai's portion was his people which refers to Israel. Jacob his share of the inheritance. You don't give an inheritance to yourself. You divide up an inheritance to others. And so on the surface, the simplest reading of this understands Elon to be a distinct superior deity to Adonai who is receiving as an inheritance sovereignty over the nation of Israel. And we see in the books of Samuel, for instance, Israel is referred to on a few different occasions as Adonai's inheritance. And so the idea here is that Adonai initially was among the Ben Elohim, was among the children of God, was a second tier deity subordinate to the northwest Semitic patriarchal high deity, normally L. And elsewhere you can see L identified with L Yon. Genesis 14 is a good example. And Adonai was almost certainly distinguished from LL Yon in the earliest literature. And if you go look in Genesis 14 where you have MelkiseDC interacting with Abraham, you might see in verse 22 an appositional reference to Adonai as Llon. And you might say, "Ha, see they identify Adonai as Llon in that concentration of references to Llon. However, that's also a secondary textual situation because originally Adonai was not in verse 22. At least that's what the majority of scholars conclude because uh the tetetrogrammaton is not in the Septuagent. The ancient Greek translation their source text did not have the name Adonai in verse 22. And the same is true of the quotation of that verse in the Genesis Apocryphon discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And I've discussed this many times in the past and the book I'm working on now will discuss this in significantly more detail. In fact, there will be a whole chapter dedicated to the original distinction of Adonai from L. And that will then talk about how they were conflated and why they were conflated. But while again I don't think this individual articulated this particularly clearly and I don't think Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is the best proof text for the existence of other gods in the Hebrew Bible because it is still very interpretive. It comes down to whether you agree this is distinguishing Adonai from Elon or not. And there are still scholars out there who suggest it does not distinguish the two deities. I agree with the particular reading of Deuteronomy 328 and9 as do a number of scholars out there. I don't know if it's the majority reading. I'm working on a large-scale state-of-the- survey right now which will hopefully give me very robust data regarding how many scholars think that because it is one of the questions on the survey. But it is a representative view if not a majority view. But again, not the best way to demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible is not monotheistic. >> Were all of the authors of the Old Testament hard monotheist? That's just an absurd thing to say. I don't think it's absurd. >> Were the Jews by the time Jesus came around monotheist? Yes. But it's because they were apostates. It's because they didn't understand their own scripture. You would agree with that? >> Uh I would not agree with the notion that Jewish folks were strict monotheists by the time that Jesus came around. And I wouldn't really call them apostates if they were. All tradition is inherited is negotiated with in light of existing circumstances and social and rhetorical and historical context and the goals for the future. So traditions are always going to evolve. Uh I would not say it's apostasy. I would say it's not monotheism yet. Monotheism is a post-biblical philosophical innovation. And the word actually isn't even coined until around 1660 with Henry Moore who himself acknowledged that there is a latitude to the sense of the word one that is allowable in the creeds. In other words, Christians are monotheists even if one is a little squishy when they talk about one God. And another thing I'd point out is that when monotheism began to be used more widely, the first dictionaries to ever include a definition for monotheism for almost a hundred years starting in the early 1700s and then all the way up to 1828 where we have Webster's uh dictionary of the English language. The word monotheism was always defined as the doctrine of the Unitarians. The idea that it referred to belief that only one god exists doesn't enter a dictionary until 1828. And I discuss this and more about the development of the concept of monotheism in my paper that is being included in the forthcoming edited volume, the meanings and ends of monotheism. But in short, uh this person I don't think is a great articulator of their arguments. I think they could do a much better job. And I disagree with the notion that the Jewish folks of Jesus's day or early Christians were monotheists, but it is true that the Hebrew Bible certainly does not deny the existence of other gods. And as I argue, the same is true of the New Testament. And the fit for this video has been the Avengers., Is Christianity “Strict Monotheism”?, Dan McClellan, 01m3f7v2wnghfrvatnqkacnhv1.