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Psalm 82 and John 10


TAO

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Hello there MD&Ders, there was a thread in the social hall posted by my friend, mjr522, which I thought could do some good discussion wise over here, so I posted it over here because most people won't notice it there.

Mods, I apologize if it creates a hassle creating a duplicate thread, but yah... it was just such a good question that I thought it deserved to be over here. If you did not like that i did this, feel free to close it =).

Best Wishes, TAO

And now, on to his question =D.

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While reading this evening, I had a few questions come up that I hope someone can help me find the answers to. This first one should be easy, I think:

In John 10:34 Jesus says, " Is in not written in your law, 'I said, Ye are gods'?". I assume, and I think it's generally agreed that he is quoting Psalm 82. The question is: what did "the Law" consist of to Jews at this time. I guess I'm surprised by his reference to a Psalm as part of the Law. Did all scripture fit under the term Law for them?

Now, more on this passage and Psalm 82: While trying to investigate this passage, I found a few papers and discussions on Psalm 82. I'll happily admit that I haven't been super thorough in reading these discussions and papers (I've only spent about an hour), so if the answer to my question is, "Go read some more," then I'll do that (a little direction would be appreciated). If however, this portion of the topic hasn't been addressed elsewhere, I'd like to hear some thoughts on it.

Jesus is using Psalm 82:6 (or some missing scripture that says the same thing...) as a defense against the accusation that he has committed blasphemy. His argument appears to be something like, "If what you yourselves view as infallible scripture identifies those 'unto whom the word of God came' as gods themselves, why can't I be one?"

I've always previously read "unto whom the word of God came" as meaning "people who accept the scriptures" or just viewed the passage as some generic statement that "all people are gods". But, in light of what I've read on Psalm 82, it seems like those "unto whom the word of God came" is referring to the reprobate gods of other nations. But, if this is the case, Jesus' response doesn't seem to be as good of a defense. Was Jesus (knowingly) using this passage out of context? Was he so far removed from the setting in which this Psalm was composed that he didn't understand what it was? Do we misunderstand the Psalm? Was Jesus quoting something entirely different?

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Technically, in Psalms it is referring to other Gods of other nations, like you said.

From the other thread...

I am not so sure this correct. Some have speculated it is Israel that is barging in on the Ugartic assembly of gods under El showing Israel's supremacy over those gods. Another assumption is that the phrase ????? ??? (adat el or

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From the other thread...

I am not so sure this correct. Some have speculated it is Israel that is barging in on the Ugartic assembly of gods under El showing Israel's supremacy over those gods. Another assumption is that the phrase ????? ??? (adat el or

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I have to ask this without derailing the thread, but is that your cat as your avatar? I love it.

Nah, it's not my cat... my cat is more grey and stuff.

I grabbed the avy from someone else actually... they were just storing it in their photobucket, and showed it to me, and I was like 0.o that is cool, and so I use it now (paint-manipulated it a bit though). I could give you a link if you would like to use it somewhere =D.

But yah... hehe... I wish it were my cat... perhaps I'll get one of my cat sometime =).

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Here's a little something I once wrote on the subject:

http://maxwellinstit...d=46&chapid=258

I got through about half of this and had to do some other things. I'll keep working on it this evening...hope to finish it. So far it's very interesting and appears that it will answer my questions, though it hasn't quite yet. I once read a long article by a Calvinist that kept promising that it was finally going to demonstrate that free will and determinism were compatible. I got to the end and the conclusion was, "It's a mystery." I was a little disappointed.

One thing though that I still wonder about. Here's a quote from the article that discusses the idea of a Psalm being part of the Law: "Strictly speaking, of course, this is not entirely accurate, if the term law is taken to refer, as it often does, solely to the Pentateuch. For the passage is actually to be found in Psalm 82:6, which would place it not in the Law or the Prophets, but in the Writings (Hebrew ket

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Okay. I finished the first article--it took me a while longer than I had anticipated it would, but it was worth the extra time. I feel like the article not only gave me a good answer to my question, but also taught me a lot of other things. I'll get to reading the other links that were posted next.

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It may or may not interest others here, but I was notified today that a paper proposal I submitted to the Latter-day Saints and the Bible section of the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature was accepted for presentation. My paper is entitled "Psalm 82 in the Contemporary Latter-day Saint Tradition." I will mainly be discussing Dan's paper on Psalm 82 and the traditional LDS reading of the psalm in light of John 10. I will suggest that the contexts of John 10 and Psalm 82 are illuminated more by allowing the differences between the two interpretations to stand, rather than by attempting to reconcile them.

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It may or may not interest others here, but I was notified today that a paper proposal I submitted to the Latter-day Saints and the Bible section of the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature was accepted for presentation. My paper is entitled "Psalm 82 in the Contemporary Latter-day Saint Tradition." I will mainly be discussing Dan's paper on Psalm 82 and the traditional LDS reading of the psalm in light of John 10. I will suggest that the contexts of John 10 and Psalm 82 are illuminated more by allowing the differences between the two interpretations to stand, rather than by attempting to reconcile them.

I assume this will be presented in Nov. at SBL Convention in San Francisco? Hope so, because I want to go.

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I assume this will be presented in Nov. at SBL Convention in San Francisco? Hope so, because I want to go.

That's the one. I'll also be presenting another paper on Psalm 82 in the Book of Psalms section. I won't know which day I'll be presenting for a couple more months.

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I usually put them on my blog before I actually present, unless there's a chance they might be published.

And of course, like everyone here who has a blog, you put a link to it in your signature, right?

Oh, wait, I guess you don't...

Well?

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