Of all beliefs in Christianity, the very idea of other deities existing beside God is the axiom of heresy. There is absolutely zero tolerance for such a belief, even in the most liberal of Christian sects. However when we read the Old Testament honestly, we have to deal with a thorny problem, the Old Testament does make references to other gods.

The Divine Council

One of the more perplexing texts is Psalm 82 which begins;

“God has taken His place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgement.” – Psalm 82:1

Next time you want to stump your Bible teacher/professor, read this text to them. Lest you think I am taking anything out of context let’s go down a few verses;

“I said, you are all gods, sons of the Most High, all of you, nevertheless like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” – Psalm 82:6-7

Confused yet? Admittedly, for those of us raised with a conservative evangelical worldview passages like Psalm 82 are baffling. Nevertheless, there is an answer, and it isn’t as hard as you might think. The key to understanding this strange reference, is by revamping our traditional understanding of the Old Testament, and in particular, an enigmatic group of entities collectively known as The Watchers.

The Watchers – Mysterious Spiritual Entities

The key to understanding what the Bible is saying by discussing gods is to understand The Watchers. Something that Sunday School neglected to explain to the rest of us. I want to mention, everything I am going to say is a gross oversimplification of a fascinating topic.

The Watchers are mentioned in more detail with extra-biblical texts such as The Book of Enoch, but even in our Protestant canon they are still mentioned. The best place to find such references is the Book of Daniel. Especially in Chapter 4 where King Nebuchadnezzar is being cursed to have the mind of a beast for seven years. If you asked most people they would say that God cursed King Nebuchadnezzar, but this is actually not quite true.

“I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold a Watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.” – Daniel 4:13

After pronouncing judgement upon King Nebuchadnezzar we read;

“The sentence is by the decree of the Watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets it over the lowliest of men.” – Daniel 4:17

There are other references, but for brevity’s sake, Daniel chapter 4 is sufficient to establish a picture of these supernatural beings. So what are we dealing with here?

Legends of the Fall

Again the primary sources of explanation for the Watchers comes from extra-Biblical texts. The Watchers are basically spiritual governors over specific areas of the world. hence the name, Watchers. Nt only do they keep an eye on the affairs of men, but as texts like the above, they seem to have authority to intervene in the world as well.

In Genesis chapter 6 we read about the sons of God decide to fall from heaven and co-habit with human women. The result of this unholy union is the monstrous Nephilim that I already covered here. But who are these ‘sons of God’? These are the Watchers, powerful spiritual beings given a directive from God they ended up defying, and having cursed themselves, as well as their entire bloodline.

Alright, now what happened to these Watchers after they fell? This is a question truly worth consideration. As far as we are aware, the Watchers are immortal beings. Now if that is so, then where did they end up? While I cannot give clear and concrete answers, Biblical scholars have pointed out the strong possibility that the Watchers decided to assume the character of pagan deities. This truly is intriguing, it would mean that ancient Babylonian, Egyptian and Sumerian deities were actually the fallen Watchers, masquerading as Dagon, Horus, Osiris or what have you.

Again I haven’t yet found a concrete Biblical text to support this idea, so for now I classify this as an interesting possibility. I would like to point out one more text:

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements, I am the Lord.” – Exodus 12:12

This occurs just as God is preparing to unleash the final plague against Egypt, but what is revelatory is when God mentions that these plagues are judgements against the gods of Egypt. Even more interesting is that each plague God sent to Egypt, such as frogs, and the Nile turning into blood, actually corresponded to a specific Egyptian deity. What God was doing was dismantling the pagan deities of Egypt, one at a time. Fiction author Brian Godawa portrays this as an epic spiritual battle in his book, “Moses: Against the gods of Egypt”. This is a radically different take than what we witnessed in popular films like “The Ten Commandments” or “The Prince of Egypt”. Based off such texts it is plausible to assume that the fallen Watchers later took the form of pagan deities, attempting to subvert the authority and worship of God, and failing miserably at it.

Ancient Aliens or Ancient Spirits?

I recently watched several seasons of “Ancient Aliens”. I thought it was great sci-fi. If you’ve never seen the show, “Ancient Aliens” is a pseudo-documentary series based on the idea that over the course of history alien entities interfered in the affairs of men. I thought it was pretty entertaining stuff, even though the vast majority of the show is based of poor conjectures and shoddy research. The series would never have existed were it not for a famous book published in the sixties called “Chariots of the gods”, by Erich von Daniken. “Chariots of the gods” popularized not only the idea that Earth had been visited by aliens in the past, but that aliens may have had something to do with our origins. Leading the way for future hacks like Zechariah Sitchin. Although the ideas propagated by Erich von Daniken and ‘Ancient Aliens’ are taken to ridiculous extremes, there is a (small) grain of truth to it. Especially when we look at it from the viewpoint of the Old Testament.

According to the extra-Biblical text ‘The Book of Enoch’, it was written that fallen Watchers came down to man and taught them all kinds of unrighteousness, from sorcery to astrology. This sounds remarkably close to the whole ‘ancient astronauts’ theory. For the purpose of brevity, this article can’t go over ancient megalithic structures and the surprising way that many pagan myths overlap through the centuries. The main point to focus on here is that there is a basis for such ideas. I admit that on the internet some people go a little too far with these ideas and delve into some serious weirdness. Putting kooky conspiracy theories aside, the point of this series was to take a look at the idea of monsters and gods in the Old Testament. It’s been an attempt to flesh out the Old Testament a little more. Hey, I never heard of this in Sunday School.

Truth Really Is Stranger Than We Realize

Overall, what this means is that we have drastically misunderstood many parts of the Old Testament. We have been hesitant to embrace anything in the Bible that seems ‘weird’ or even ‘odd’. It’s almost as if we have this box we think the Bible should fit in, and if there is anything that seems to contradict our box, then we try to squeeze the Bible into our little box and make it all fit. Ridiculous as this may seem, we’re all guilt of doing it. That’s been the point of this series. Trying to embrace that the Bible for what it is and not what we want it to be.