Was the Old Testament Polytheistic? - McClellan on Yahweh's Evolution

Did the Old Testament Originally Have Multiple Gods?

A conversation between Alex O'Connor (Cosmic Skeptic) and Dr. Dan McClellan exploring the textual evidence for polytheism in the Hebrew Bible, how "monotheistic" passages actually functioned as rhetorical loyalty language, and how later scribes edited out references to other gods.

The Bible Is Not in Chronological Order

Genesis 1 (creation in 7 days) is actually a later text. Genesis 2-3 (Adam and Eve, the garden) is earlier. The oldest passages in the Hebrew Bible are fragments of poetry, not narrative. Historical narrative prose in Hebrew didn't begin until around the mid-9th century BCE.

The earliest fragments include:

The Song of Deborah (Judges 5): "The stars fought in their courses against Sisera." The stars are depicted as an army of gods, the "host of heaven," which is the military arm of the divine council.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9: An early poetic fragment embedded within a later composition.

Deuteronomy 32:8-9: The Smoking Gun

"When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God."

This passage describes the Most High (Elyon) dividing nations among his divine sons. Yahweh receives Israel as his portion. This means Yahweh is one god among many, a local deity assigned one nation by a higher god.

The textual evidence is almost a slam dunk:

The Masoretic Text (~1000 CE) reads "sons of Israel" (edited to remove polytheism)
The Septuagint (~3rd century BCE, 1000 years earlier) reads "angels of God" (but the Septuagint translators habitually changed "sons of God" to "angels")
Some Septuagint and Latin manuscripts preserve "sons of God"
A Dead Sea Scrolls fragment (discovered 1960s) confirms the original Hebrew read "sons of gods"

Three independent textual traditions converge on the same original reading. Later scribes deliberately changed it.

Deuteronomy 32:43: "Worship Him, All You Gods"

The same pattern repeats. The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve: "Worship him, all you gods." The King James Version (based on the Masoretic text) has this edited out entirely. The Septuagint preserves TWO versions side by side, one closer to the original polytheistic reading, one closer to the edited Masoretic text. Even ancient scribes were uncomfortable with these references and tried to edit them out.

"I Am God and There Is No Other" - What Does It Actually Mean?

Christians point to passages like Deuteronomy 32:39 ("I am he; there is no god besides me") as proof of monotheism. But scholar Nathan McDonald (Cambridge) shows this language is rhetorical, not ontological.

The same Hebrew construction appears elsewhere with clearly limited scope:

A man in a tent asked "Do you have a sword?" says "There is none." This doesn't mean swords don't exist universally. It means there isn't one here.
Isaiah 47: God rebukes Babylon, quoting them: "You said in your heart, 'I am, and there is none besides me.'" Babylon obviously doesn't believe it is literally the only nation. It's arrogance, not ontology.
Zephaniah: Nineveh or Moab says the same thing. "I am, and there is no other." Again, not denying other nations exist.

The Song of Solomon parallel (6:8-9): The lover says there are many maidens and concubines everywhere, but then declares "my dove is one." This is almost identical language to the Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord (Hebrew: יְהֹוָה, YHWH, “Jehovah, the Lord”) your God, the Lord is one." The Song of Songs clearly doesn't mean "my dove is the only woman who exists." It means "she is the only one for me." It's about an exclusive relationship, not the non-existence of others.

McClellan's point: every time "I am and there is no other" appears in the Hebrew Bible, it's in the context of telling Israel "I'm the one who saves you, I'm the one who delivers you. Don't look anywhere else." It's loyalty language, not a metaphysical claim about the non-existence of other gods.

The Idol Polemic: 2 Kings 19

Gavin Ortlund points to 2 Kings 19:18: the gods of other nations "were not gods but the work of men's hands, wood and stone." Isn't this denying other gods exist?

McClellan's response: this is rhetorical mockery, not sincere theology. When Sennacherib destroyed nations and their gods couldn't save them, it fits the rhetoric to say "those gods were just wood and stone." It's denigration, not ontological denial.

The proof this is rhetoric and not belief:

Genesis 31: Laban calls the teraphim (household idols) "my gods." But then in v.53, Laban swears by "the God of Nahor" (his deity), which is clearly not the stolen idol. The god and the idol are separate things.
Paul in the New Testament: Says "an idol is nothing in the world" but ALSO says "when they worship idols, they're actually worshiping demons, gods they did not know." The idols are nothing, but what the idols represent are still something.

The Timeline of Yahweh's Evolution

Earliest period: Yahweh is one god among many in a divine council, assigned Israel as his territory by the Most High (Elyon)
Middle period: Yahweh becomes the most important god for Israel, exclusive loyalty demanded ("no other gods before me"), but other gods acknowledged as real
Post-exilic period (after ~539 BCE): Yahweh is universalized as God over all the earth, "I am and there is no other" rhetoric intensifies
Later editing: Scribes change "sons of God" to "sons of Israel," "gods" to "angels," removing polytheistic traces from the text

Key Takeaway

The biblical text is rhetoric, not a metaphysical manifesto. Too many people read it as "here is what I believe about the nature of reality." It was written to achieve purposes: build loyalty, mock enemies, strengthen identity. Understanding it as rhetoric, not as a statement of ontological beliefs, resolves the apparent contradictions between passages that acknowledge other gods and passages that seem to deny them.

Source

Alex O'Connor (Cosmic Skeptic) conversation with Dr. Dan McClellan on the evolution of Yahweh and polytheism in the Hebrew Bible.