THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN LATE CANONICAL AND NON-CANONICAL SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH LITERATURE by Michael S. Heiser A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of The requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Hebrew and Semitic Studies) at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2004 Copyright by Michael S. Heiser 2004 All Rights Reserved THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN LATE CANONICAL AND NON-CANONICAL SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH LITERATURE Table of Contents Abstract Abbreviations Chapter One: Introduction to the Study . 1 1.1 Previous Divine Council Scholarship and the Need for This Study 1.2 Divine Plurality in Late Canonical Texts and Assumptions About Israelite Monotheism 1.3 The Problem of Divine Plurality in Second Temple Non-Canonical Jewish Literature 1.4 Comments on Metaphor and Divine Imagery 1.5 Overview of Ensuing Chapters Chapter Two: The Divine Council of Pre-Exilic Israelite Religion as the Backdrop for Divine Plurality in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Texts . 34 2.1 Terminology for the Divine Council 2.2 The Meeting Place of the Divine Council 2.3 The Members of the Divine Council 2.4 The Structure and Operation of the Divine Council’s Bureaucracy 2.5 The Status and Role of the Vice-Regent 2.6 Interpretation of Divine Hypostases and the Vice-Regent in Second Temple Texts Chapter Three: Assumptions of Exilic Redaction and the Progression From Polytheism to Monotheism: The Argument from Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82 . 68 3.1 Text-Historical Assumptions and Late Israelite Religion 3.2 The Argument for Exilic Alteration or Elimination of the Divine Council 3.3 Psalm 82: Yahweh-El or Yahweh and El? 3.4 The Relationship of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 to Psalm 82 3.5 Summation Chapter Four: The Divine Council and Monolatry in Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah . 90 4.1 Deuteronomy: Monotheism or Monolatry? 4.2 Deutero-Isaiah: Monotheism or Monolatry? 4.3 Summation Chapter Five: The Divine Council in Exilic and Early Post-Exilic Canonical Texts . 122 5.1 Divine Plurality and Divine Council Motifs in Late Psalms 5.2 Divine Plurality and Council Activity in the Book of Job 5.3 The Divine Council Scene of Zechariah 3:1-7 5.4 Divine Council Terms and Motifs Elsewhere in Zechariah 5.5 Summation Chapter Six: The Divine Council in the Book of Daniel . 152 6.1 Preview and Approach 6.2 The Divine Council Meeting in Daniel 7 6.3 Divine Plurality, the “Princes” of Daniel, and Yahweh’s Vice-Regent 6.4 Summation Chapter Seven: The Divine Council in the Qumran Sectarian Literature . 183 7.1 Terminology for the Divine Council 7.2 The Meeting Place of the Divine Council 7.3 The Members of the Divine Council 7.4 The Divine Vice-Regent of the Council 7.5 Summation Chapter Eight: The Divine Council in Non-Sectarian Literature from Qumran and Other Non-Canonical Second Temple Period Literature . 225 8.1 Overview of the Primary Issues 8.2 The Divine Council and Second Tier Council Members 8.3 References to the Divine Council and the Worldview of Deuteronomy 4 and 32 8.4 Evidence for an Exalted Divine Vice Regent 8.5 Jewish Speculations on the Identity of the Divine Vice Regent 8.6 Summation Conclusion . 258 Bibliography . 260 Index . 285 ABSTRACT THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN LATE CANONICAL AND NON-CANONICAL SECOND TEMPLE JEWISH LITERATURE Michael S. Heiser Under the supervision of Professor Michael V. Fox At the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biblical scholarship has reached a consensus with respect to the presence of a divine assembly of gods in Israel’s faith. Prior to the sixth century B.C.E., Israelite religion underwent an evolution from an initial polytheism to a firm monolatry, where the other gods of the divine council were tolerated but not worshipped. The religious crisis of Israel’s early sixth century B.C.E. exile prompted the scribes to obscure the council in the canonical texts and compose new material declaring that Yahweh had punished Israel for her sins, brought her out of bondage, and put the other gods to death. This historical turnabout and its literary response marked the birth of true monotheism in Israel, where no other gods existed except Yahweh. This reconstruction is plagued by numerous difficulties. There are hundreds of references to other gods in a divine council in exilic and post-exilic canonical texts and the non-canonical writings of Judaism’s Second Temple period. The context for these references disallows the conclusion that the writers are speaking of idols or of the beliefs of pagans. Rather, they reflect the worldview of late Israelite religion and Second Temple Judaism. This worldview included the belief in a deified vice-regent who ruled the gods at the behest of the high God. So transparent was this divine vice regency that Second Temple Jewish authors wrote of a deified second power in heaven. The rhetoric of Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah that there are no other gods besides Yahweh fails as proof of the consensus view, since the same language is used in monolatrous pre- exilic texts and fails to account for the plethora of references to other gods in late Jewish writings. This dissertation calls the consensus view of the development of monotheism in Israel into question by demonstrating that belief in a divine council survived the exile. As a result, this dissertation posits that the survival of Israel’s pre-exilic divine council has greater explanatory power than the consensus view of the development of monotheism with respect to divine plurality in late canonical and non-canonical Second Temple period texts. Abbreviations ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums AnOr Analecta Orientalia ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BEATAJ Beitrage zur Erforschun des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentum BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Bib Biblica BibOr Biblica et orientalia BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands Library BRev Bible Review BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series ConBNT Coniectanea Biblica: New Testament Series ConBOT Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series COS The Context of Scripture DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible DJD Discoveries in the Judean Desert DULAT Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition ER Encyclopedia of Religion ETL Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FOTL Forms of the Old Testament Literature HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament HO Handbuch der Orientalistik HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs HTR Harvard Theological Review HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual IEJ Israel Exploration Journal JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JJS Journal of Jewish Studies JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies JR Journal of Religion JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series JSS Journal of Semitic Studies JTS Journal of Theological Studies KAI Kanaanaische und aramaische Inschriften KTU The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU2) NovT Novum Testamentum NTS New Testament Studies OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis OLP Orientalia lovaniensia periodica Or Orientalia OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Charlesworth) OTS Old Testament Studies OtSt Oudtestamentische Studien PTMS Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series RB Revue Biblique RevQ Revue de Qumran SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series SBLSCS Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers SEL Studi epigrafici e linguistici SJLA Studies in the Judaism of Late Antiquity SJT Southwestern Journal of Theology SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series TGUOS Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society TSAJ Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum UBL Ugaritisch-biblische Literatur UF Ugarit Forschungen VT Vetus Testamentum VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements WBC Word Biblical Commentary WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZTK Zeitschrift fürTheologie und Kirche Chapter One Introduction to the Study 1.1 Previous Divine Council Scholarship and the Parameters of this Study The discovery of the tablets of ancient Ugarit in 1929 and their subsequent translation marked a watershed in the study of the religious worldview of the Hebrew Bible. One of the most significant revelations produced by the comparative investigation of the religion of ancient Israel and Ugarit was that the Hebrew Bible contained tantalizing hints of a pantheon. The "divine assembly" or "divine council" soon became a focus of biblical scholars, beginning in 1939 with J. Morgenstern’s lengthy article on Psalm 82, likely the clearest biblical attestation to an Israelite divine assembly.1 During the 1940s and 1950s, prominent studies emerged examining the striking and unmistakable correspondences between the god of Israel and two of Ugarit's most important deities, El and Baal.2 The seminal work on the divine council as a motif throughout the Hebrew Bible, however, was a 1944 article by H. Wheeler Robinson.3 Robinson's early study was followed in the next two decades by detailed analyses of the council and its members by a number of scholars.4 The first book-length study of the divine council was published in 1980,5 and was followed by significant works detailing various 1 J. Morgenstern, "The Mythological Background of Psalm 82," HUCA 14 (1939): 29-126.