Eerst ter referentie een paar andere, Engelse vertalingen:
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;Psalm 82 - The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition)
in the midst of the gods he holds judgement:
6 I say, ‘You are gods,
children of the Most High, all of you;
7 nevertheless, you shall die like mortals,
and fall like any prince.’
1 God presides in the great assembly;Psalm 82 (New International Version)
he gives judgment among the "gods":
6 "I said, 'You are "gods";
you are all sons of the Most High.'
7 But you will die like mere men;
you will fall like every other ruler."
1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty;Psalm 82 (King James Version)
he judgeth among the gods.
6 I have said, Ye are gods;
and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men,
and fall like one of the princes.
1 -- A Psalm of Asaph.Psalm 82 (Young's Literal Translation)
God hath stood in the company of God, In the midst God doth judge.
6 I -- I have said, `Gods ye [are],
And sons of the Most High -- all of you,
7 But as man ye die,
and as one of the heads ye fall,
Michael S. Heiser van de University of Wisconsin-Madison zegt:
"God speaks to the other elohim [='goden']. (...) Verse 7, the next verse, confirms this interpretation, since it says that these gods to whom God was speaking would "die like men" – if they were already men, this makes no sense."
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/dc101Psalm82John10.pdf
Elders zegt hij:
"First, the fact that the (elohim) in 6a are called (bene elyon) is a strong argument to their divine nature, for (elyon) is a completely transparent title for deity, both in Hebrew and Ugaritic. The word refers only to God / El in the Bible and Ugaritic religious texts.7 The point here is that the phrase "sons of Elyon" in Canaanite (Ugaritic) material always refers to gods / divine beings. Hence the identical phrasing in biblical Hebrew, whose closest "linguistic cousin" is Ugaritic, would require a comparative understanding. Anyone in ancient Palestine who heard or read the phrase "sons of the Most High" would know instantly that divine beings was the referent.
Second, the terms and themes in this psalm are also present in Ugaritic literature. Elyo4n, princes / shining ones, and gods are all present in the Ugaritic poem “the Gracious Gods,” and it is quite telling that the notion in Psalm 82:7 of the (elohim) “falling” like “one of the Shining Ones” is found “in a specific episode of Canaanite mythology, in which the fall of one of the "sons of the princes" of the heavenly council was depicted."
http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/Psalm_82_overview.pdf
Een andere bron over het belang van Ugaritische teksten:
"The ancient Canaanite city-state of Ugarit is of utmost importance for those who study the Old Testament. The literature of the city and the theology contained therein go a very long way in helping us to understand the meaning of various Biblical passages as well as aiding us in deciphering difficult Hebrew words. Ugarit was at its political, religious and economic height around the 12th century BCE and thus its period of greatness corresponds with the entry of Israel into Canaan.
Why should people interested in the Old Testament want to know about this city and its inhabitants? Simply because when we listen to their voices we hear echoes of the Old Testament itself. Several of the Psalms were simply adapted from Ugaritic sources; the story of the flood has a near mirror image in Ugaritic literature; and the language of the Bible is greatly illuminated by the language of Ugarit. For instance, look at M. Dahood’s brilliant commentary on the Psalms in the Anchor Bible series for the necessity of Ugaritic for accurate Biblical exegesis."
(...)
"There is one Ugaritic text which seems to indicate that among the inhabitants of Ugarit, Yahweh was viewed as another son of El. KTU 1.1 IV 14 says: sm . bny . yw . ilt . [Meaning:] “The name of the son of god [El], Yahweh.” This text seems to show that Yahweh was known at Ugarit, though not as the Lord but as one of the many sons of El. (...) [Some] Psalms were most likely originally Ugaritic or Canaanite hymns to El which were simply adopted by Israel (...). In 1 Kings 22:19-22 we read of Yahweh meeting with his heavenly council. This is the very description of heaven which one finds in the Ugaritic texts. For in those texts the “sons of god” are the sons of El."
http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm
"This four-tiered model of the divine family and council apparently went through a number of changes in early Israel. In the earliest stage, it would appear that Yahweh was one of these seventy children, each of whom was the patron deity of the seventy nations. This idea appears behind the Dead Sea Scrolls reading and the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32:8-9. In this passage, El is the head of the divine family, and each member of the divine family receives a nation of hi s own: Israel is the portion of Yahweh. The Masoretic Text, evidently uncomfortable with the polytheism expressed in the phrase "according to the number of the divine sons," altered the reading to "according to the number of the children of Israel" (also thought to be seventy). Psalm 82 also presents the god El presiding in a divine assembly at which Yahweh stands up and makes his accusation against the other gods. Here the text shows the older religious worldview which the passage is denouncing.
By some point in the late monarchy, it is evident that the god El was identified with Yahweh (...). In this form, the religious devotion to Yahweh casts him in the role of the Divine King ruling over all the other deities. This religious outlook appears, for example, in Psalm 29:2, where the "sons of God" or really divine sons or children are called upon to worship Yahweh, the Divine King. The Temple, with its various expressions of polytheism, also assumed that this place was Yahweh's palace which was populated by those under his power." http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/MSmith_BiblicalMonotheism.htm
"We have considered some of the many cases where the New Testament authors found it necessary to follow the LXX [Septuagint] over the Hebrew Old Testament. Says Richard F. Smith, "at times the LXX is cited [in the New Testament] in support of Christian doctrines precisely because the Hebrew text does not support the doctrines in question" (in Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy 2:511).
Further proof that variant readings affect important passages comes from Deuteronomy 32:8-9. In the MT, as it is translated in the KJV, the passage reads as follows:
When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD's [Yahweh's] portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.However, it has long been known from the Septuagint, and more recently from the Dead Sea Scrolls, that the phrase "according to the number of the children of Israel" used to read "according to the number of the sons of God." In the RSV, which takes into account the confirming evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the passage reads like this:
When the Most High [El Elyon] gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the LoRffs [Yahweh's] portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.The significance of this variation is that in ancient times the term "sons of God" frequently referred to members of a divine assembly of gods. The ancient Hebrews believed in a divine council of deities headed by the supreme father-god El (also called Elohim or E1 Elyon), and they often referred to the members of this council as "the sons of God ." There is considerable disagreement among scholars over the council's composition, but there is no serious question that a belief in a divine assembly of heavenly deities was an important doctrine in ancient Hebrew theology (Eissfeldt; Mullen; Hayman; Morgenstern; Hanson 39; Clifford; Ackerman; Ackroyd; Seaich 1983:9-23).
By changing "the sons of God" to "the children of Israel," someone was deliberately trying to eliminate the reference to the divine council.
The LXX and Dead Sea Scroll versions of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 portray Yahweh as separate from El and as a member of the divine assembly subordinate to Him. As Niels Lemche says, "the Greek version apparently ranges Yahweh among the sons of the Most High, that is, treats him as a member of the pantheon of gods who are subordinate to the supreme God, El Elyon" (226, emphasis added). According to Harvard University's Paul Hanson,
This verse no doubt preserves early Israel's view of her place within the family of nations. The high god "Elyon" originally apportioned the nations to the members of the divine assembly .... Israel was allotted to Yahweh (39). As the RSV puts it, Israel was Yahweh's "allotted inheritance," given (or "allotted") to Him by His Father, El.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint prove that in the original Hebrew of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Yahweh was portrayed as a member of the divine council under El. Therefore, those who subsequently tampered with the Hebrew text were probably Yahweh-only editors who wanted to erase the original distinction between E1 and Yahweh and to depict Yahweh as the one and only God."
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bible_inerrant_griffith.htm
Psalm 89 (herziene statenvertaling) is interessant in deze context, machtige vorsten worden hier geassocieerd met de hemel in een tijd waarin er geen concept van een hemels hiernamaals bestond:
6 Daarom looft de hemel Uw wonderen, HEERE,
ook prijst men Uw trouw in de gemeente van de heiligen.
7 Want wie kan in de hemel met de HEERE gemeten worden?
Wie is de HEERE gelijk onder de machtige vorsten?
8 God is zeer geducht in de raad van de heiligen
en ontzagwekkend boven allen die rondom Hem zijn.
Uit The Oxford Companion To World Mythology (David Leeming, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 118):
"It seems almost certain that the God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the 'God of Abraham'...If El was the high god of Abraham - Elohim, the prototype of Yahveh - Asherah was his wife, and there are archeological indications that she was perceived as such before she was in effect 'divorced' in the context of emerging Judaism of the seventh century B.C.E. (See 2 Kings 23:15)
Nog meer relevante informatie (o.a. over Ugarit) hier:
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/ugarit.htm
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israelite_religion.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(god)#.C4.92l_in_the_Tanakh
Interessante link in dit verband: http://www.nbv.nl/index.php?id=266#c2244
