Does the Bible say there are other gods?
We all have watershed moments in life, critical turning points where, from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same. One such moment in my own life came when I rediscovered the word elohim. It was in church on a Sunday morning while still in graduate school. I was chatting with a friend who, like me, was working on a PhD in Hebrew studies, killing a few minutes before the service started. I don’t recall much of the conversation, though I’m sure it was something about Old Testament theology. But I’ll never forget how it ended. My friend handed me his Hebrew Bible, open to Psalm 82. He said simply, “Here, read that . . . look at it closely.” The first verse hit me like a bolt of lightning: God [elohim] stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods [elohim] I’ve indicated the Hebrew wording that caught my eye and put my heart in my throat. The word elohim occurs twice in this short verse. Other than the covenant name, Yahweh, it’s the most common wor...