Our
Present Age
and how it will end
Chapter 1 –The Divine Counsel
Modern Christianity does not
teach anything about the Divine Council of gods that rule over the Universe. According
to Dr. Michael Heiser in his paper, “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and
Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature” (2004), the term “Divine Council”
is correctly defined as follows:
“DIVINE COUNCIL - A term used by Hebrew Bible
scholars for the heavenly host, the assembly of divine beings who administer
the affairs of the cosmos under Yahweh, the God of Israel. All ancient Mediterranean cultures had some
conception of a divine council, including Israel.”
(http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DivineCouncilLBD.pdf)
The Divine Council Bible is
referenced many times in the Bible, as in Psalm 82. (Note: both the
words God and gods in this verse were translated from the Hebrew word Elohiym).
Psalm 82:1 God [Elohiym] has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods [Elohiym] he holds judgment.
If it is true that a Divine Council of gods has been judging and ruling over the Universe under the authority of Jehovah, then we could also understand the Divine Council of gods as being one and the same as “Elohiym” of Genesis Chapter 1.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God [Elohiym H430] created the heaven and the earth.
The word “Elohiym” found throughout the Bible was translated as the following words in the King James Bible: “Rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods”. According to Dr. Heiser, the term “Elohiym” is not speaking of a range of attributes associated with only God, but rather that the term refers to a being’s plane of existence; meaning that any being who lives in the invisible spiritual dimension can be referred to as an “elohiym”. Therefore, as evidenced in 1 Samuel 28, even a ghost can be referred to as an “elohiym”. In the passage below, Saul makes a request of a medium who calls forth a spirit from the dead.
1 Samuel 28:7-13 Then Saul said to his servants, "Find me a woman who is a medium; that I may go to her and inquire of her." And his servants said to him, "In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En Dor." So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, "Please conduct a seance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you." Then the woman said to him, "Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?" And Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, "As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing." Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" And he said, "Bring up Samuel for me." When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, "Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!" And the king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What did you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I saw a spirit [elohiym] ascending out of the earth."
Dr. Heiser states the following regarding the attributes of Yahweh as an elohiym:
“Yahweh is inherently distinct and superior to all other gods. Yahweh is an elohiym (a god), but no other elohiym (gods) are Yahweh. As the High God shares attributes with us as his creatures, so lesser elohiym may share some of His qualities. The former concern is probably the one that most readers find more tricky: How can Yahweh be part of the class of elohiym and still be “species unique”? Answering this question is actually not difficult, but it requires two adjustments in your thinking: (1) that elohiym as a term does not speak of a range of attributes with which we would only associate Yahweh; and (2) that the term refers only to a being’s proper plane of existence. The second consideration is crucial, in that it is the key to sorting out how various beings can be described as elohim and yet only one Yahweh exists.
(http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf)
According to Dr. Heiser, the Divine Council as described in the Bible is more clearly written about in the ancient Sumerian tablets, and Heiser states:
“Most Bible translations show that Israel believed in an assembly of heavenly host under the authority of Yahweh. Modern translations do not show clearly that this assembly is similar to pantheons of ancient Near Eastern cultures. A close reading of the Hebrew text and comparisons with other ancient non-biblical texts from Canaan demonstrate this similarity…The clearest example is the cuneiform literature from Ras Shamra (Ugarit), discovered in the late 1920s.”
“Many of the Ugaritic tablets describe a council of gods in words and phrases that are conceptually and linguistically parallel to the Hebrew Bible. The Ugaritic divine council was led by El, the same word used in the Hebrew Bible for deity and as the proper name for the God of Israel (e.g., Isa 40:18; 43:12). References to the “council of El” include: pḫr ʾilm (assembly “of El” or “of the gods”; KTU 1.47:29, 1.118:28, 1.148:9); pḫr bn ʾilm (assembly “of the sons of El” or “of the gods”; Michael S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, John D. Barry and Lazarus Wentz, eds. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
According to Dr. Heiser, the Elohiym of Psalm 82 are one and the same beings as the Anunnaki, who in Psalm 82 are being judged and condemned for being “bad judges”.
Psalm 82:1 God stands in the congregation of EL; He judges among the gods. 2 How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked? Selah 3 Defend the poor and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked. 5 They do not know, nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are unstable. 6 I said, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. 7 But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit all nations.
In Psalm 82, we see that Elohiym is standing in the congregation of EL, and He is passing judgment upon the Anunnaki who have judged unjustly, and favored the wicked. He is declaring here that although they are the sons of the Most High, they are going to experience a type of death which will cause them to become classified as fallen angels. The Most High God and Jehovah are two different entities, which can be clearly seen in Deut 32:8-9.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam; He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
As you can see, it is the Most High God who is dividing the nations their inheritance, it is the Most High God who is separating the sons of Adam, it is the Most High God who is setting the boundaries of the children of Israel, it is the Most High God who is giving Jehovah his portion, which is Jacob’s lot, which is Israel (which is the reason why Jacob’s name was changed to Israel); a lot signifying a region, or country. Therefore we can be absolutely certain that it was the Most High God who was doing the "allotting" of entire countries (or regions) to the gods who belonged to the Divine Council, of which Baal was one and was allotted the region of Canaan.
Baal was known to the Semitic people as Hadad, god of thunderstorms and the Lord of Heaven. He was known for being Lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, and was also referred to as EL. In Dr. Heiser’s paper on the Divine Council, he explains that Baal served as co-regent of EL, despite being under EL’s authority; in it he writes:
“The Divine Abode and Meeting Place of the Divine Council:
At Ugarit, the council of El and its gods met on a mountain or lush garden. These descriptions are actually the same place. The abode of El was at the “source of the two rivers” in the “midst of the fountains of the double-deep”. El and his “assembled congregation” met to issue divine decrees from the “tents of El” and his “tent shrine”.This description of gods living and meeting in “tents” or “tabernacles” is common at Ugarit. The Ugaritic god Baal, the deity who oversaw the council for El, held meetings on Mount Ṣpn.”
“The top tier consisted of El and his wife Athirat (Asherah). The second tier was the domain of their royal family (“sons of El”; “princes”). One member of this second tier, Baal, served as the co-regent of El. Despite being under El’s authority, he was called “most high”. A third tier was for “craftsman deities,” while the fourth and lowest tier was reserved for the messengers (angels), essentially servants or staff.”
“There is solid evidence in the Hebrew Bible for a three-tiered council. In the divine council of Israelite religion, Yahweh was the supreme authority over a divine bureaucracy that included a second (beney elim elohim, also called the “sons of God) tier of lesser (beney ha'elohim, or beney elohim) or “sons of the Most High” (beney elyon). It may be significant that these “sons of God” are never clearly referred to as angels in the Hebrew Bible, as that word denoted the lowest tier of the Canaanite council, and thus a third tier in the Israelite version. Still, [angels] at Ugarit were considered gods, despite their subordinate role. It is possible that angels (mal'akhim) are referred to as “elohim” in the Hebrew Bible. In Israel’s divine council, the highest tier is different from the Canaanites’ conception. Instead of El and Baal, his vice-regent, Yahweh occupied both slots in a sort of binitarian godhead. Yahweh is described in the Hebrew Bible by means of titles and abilities that both El and Baal have in Canaanite literature—these two were conceptually fused in Yahweh. This literary and theological device shows Yahweh superior to the two main divine authority figures in wider Canaanite religion. The way Yahweh filled the positions both of supreme ruler and vice-regent is also shown by His occasional visible appearances.”
As explained by Dr. Heiser in the excerpt above, Yahweh, the God of Israel, filled the positions both of supreme ruler and vice-regent. Before I ever came across Dr. Heiser's writings, I had also arrived at the same understanding: that Satan (Baal) was and is still the co-regent of Jehovah and rules the world as "the god of this age”, as stated by the Apostle Paul.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
Samuel Noah Kramer, who translated many Sumerian tablets, wrote a paper entitled: “A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.” [1944, revised 1961]. In it he wrote:
“Enlil, the air-god, now unites with his mother Ki, the earth-goddess. It is from this union but with considerable help from Enki, the water-god, that the vegetable and animal life is produced on earth. Man, on the other hand, seems to be the product of the combined efforts of the goddess Nammu, the primeval sea; of the goddess Ninmah, who may perhaps be identified with Ki, the mother earth; and finally of the water-god Enki. Just what is involved in this particular combination-and there is every reason to believe that in view of the more or less superficial data of the times, there was good logic behind it and not mere playful fantasy.”
“Upon the separation of heaven and earth, it was, as might have been expected, the heaven-god An who carried off heaven, but it was the air-god Enlil who carried off the earth. Among the crucial points not stated or implied in this passage are the following:
1. Were heaven and earth conceived as created, and if so, by whom?
2. What was the shape of heaven and earth as conceived by the Sumerians?
3. Who separated heaven from earth?
Fortunately, the answers to these three questions can be gleaned from several other Sumerian texts dating from our period. Thus:
1. In a tablet which gives a list of the Sumerian gods,{xr. 41} the goddess Nammu, written with the ideogram for "sea," is described as "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth." Heaven and earth were therefore conceived by the Sumerians as the created products of the primeval sea.
2. The myth "Cattle and Grain" (see {pr. 53}), which describes the birth in heaven of the spirits of cattle and grain, who were then sent down to earth to bring prosperity to mankind, begins with the following two lines:
‘After on the mountain of heaven and earth, An had caused the Anunnaki to be born.’
“It is not unreasonable to assume, therefore, that heaven and earth united were conceived as a mountain whose base was the bottom of the earth and whose peak was the top of the heaven. If now we sum up the cosmogonic or creation concepts of the Sumerians, evolved to explain the origin of the universe, they may be stated as follows:
1. First was the primeval sea. Nothing is said of its origin or birth, and it is not unlikely that the Sumerians conceived it as having existed eternally.
2. The primeval sea begot the cosmic mountain consisting of heaven and earth united.
3. Conceived as gods in human form, An (heaven) was the male and Ki (earth) was the female. From their union was begotten the air-god Enlil.”
“It is both Enlil and Enki, that is, both the air-god and the water-god, who send Labar, the cattle-god, and Ashnan, the grain-goddess, from heaven to earth in order to make abundant its cattle and grain.”
( ** The 93 page study by Samuel Noah Kramer from which the excerpts above were quoted, can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge)
The references made in this chapter all support the argument that we are not ruled by One God, but that even the Bible refers to a pantheon of gods who belong to a Divine Council. We are taught there exists a Most High God who divided the regions of the world and allotted them as an inheritance to the Anunnaki, who are His legitimate sons, and this is why Satan rules over the world as the coregent of Jehovah. The data also shows how the Creation story found in the Sumerian tablets harmonizes perfectly with the Creation account of Genesis 1, in that both accounts teach that in the beginning all that existed was the spirit of gods (Elohiym) that were moving over the face of a chaotic mass of waters void of the light. From that first “Age” of the heavens and the earth, when the “good light” first began to shine into and separate from the darkness that existed there, we can say that there already existed a vast kingdom of darkness. Thus the Bible and the Sumerian tablets both teach that it was from those primordial chaotic waters from which all the known deities evolved, each generation of God becoming more powerful than its previous existence. We have also learned that both the Sumerians and the Hebrews knew of the existence of a Divine Council of gods, the sons of the Most High, who came together in agreement and sat as judges in what Psalm 82 refers to as the Divine Council (which in Hebrew is בַּעֲדַת־ “ba-a-dat el”, which means “the congregation of el”). However, according to Psalm 82, we can also know that there came a day when some of the gods who belonged to the Divine Council were also judged and indicted, and condemned to live in the Underworld, “the world of the dead”, where they would experience mortality like other mortals.
Psalm 82:1 God [Elohiym] has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods [Elohiym] he holds judgment.
If it is true that a Divine Council of gods has been judging and ruling over the Universe under the authority of Jehovah, then we could also understand the Divine Council of gods as being one and the same as “Elohiym” of Genesis Chapter 1.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God [Elohiym H430] created the heaven and the earth.
The word “Elohiym” found throughout the Bible was translated as the following words in the King James Bible: “Rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods”. According to Dr. Heiser, the term “Elohiym” is not speaking of a range of attributes associated with only God, but rather that the term refers to a being’s plane of existence; meaning that any being who lives in the invisible spiritual dimension can be referred to as an “elohiym”. Therefore, as evidenced in 1 Samuel 28, even a ghost can be referred to as an “elohiym”. In the passage below, Saul makes a request of a medium who calls forth a spirit from the dead.
1 Samuel 28:7-13 Then Saul said to his servants, "Find me a woman who is a medium; that I may go to her and inquire of her." And his servants said to him, "In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at En Dor." So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, "Please conduct a seance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you." Then the woman said to him, "Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?" And Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, "As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing." Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" And he said, "Bring up Samuel for me." When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, "Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!" And the king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What did you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I saw a spirit [elohiym] ascending out of the earth."
Dr. Heiser states the following regarding the attributes of Yahweh as an elohiym:
“Yahweh is inherently distinct and superior to all other gods. Yahweh is an elohiym (a god), but no other elohiym (gods) are Yahweh. As the High God shares attributes with us as his creatures, so lesser elohiym may share some of His qualities. The former concern is probably the one that most readers find more tricky: How can Yahweh be part of the class of elohiym and still be “species unique”? Answering this question is actually not difficult, but it requires two adjustments in your thinking: (1) that elohiym as a term does not speak of a range of attributes with which we would only associate Yahweh; and (2) that the term refers only to a being’s proper plane of existence. The second consideration is crucial, in that it is the key to sorting out how various beings can be described as elohim and yet only one Yahweh exists.
(http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf)
According to Dr. Heiser, the Divine Council as described in the Bible is more clearly written about in the ancient Sumerian tablets, and Heiser states:
“Most Bible translations show that Israel believed in an assembly of heavenly host under the authority of Yahweh. Modern translations do not show clearly that this assembly is similar to pantheons of ancient Near Eastern cultures. A close reading of the Hebrew text and comparisons with other ancient non-biblical texts from Canaan demonstrate this similarity…The clearest example is the cuneiform literature from Ras Shamra (Ugarit), discovered in the late 1920s.”
“Many of the Ugaritic tablets describe a council of gods in words and phrases that are conceptually and linguistically parallel to the Hebrew Bible. The Ugaritic divine council was led by El, the same word used in the Hebrew Bible for deity and as the proper name for the God of Israel (e.g., Isa 40:18; 43:12). References to the “council of El” include: pḫr ʾilm (assembly “of El” or “of the gods”; KTU 1.47:29, 1.118:28, 1.148:9); pḫr bn ʾilm (assembly “of the sons of El” or “of the gods”; Michael S. Heiser, “Divine Council,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, John D. Barry and Lazarus Wentz, eds. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
According to Dr. Heiser, the Elohiym of Psalm 82 are one and the same beings as the Anunnaki, who in Psalm 82 are being judged and condemned for being “bad judges”.
Psalm 82:1 God stands in the congregation of EL; He judges among the gods. 2 How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked? Selah 3 Defend the poor and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked. 5 They do not know, nor do they understand; they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are unstable. 6 I said, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. 7 But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit all nations.
In Psalm 82, we see that Elohiym is standing in the congregation of EL, and He is passing judgment upon the Anunnaki who have judged unjustly, and favored the wicked. He is declaring here that although they are the sons of the Most High, they are going to experience a type of death which will cause them to become classified as fallen angels. The Most High God and Jehovah are two different entities, which can be clearly seen in Deut 32:8-9.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam; He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
As you can see, it is the Most High God who is dividing the nations their inheritance, it is the Most High God who is separating the sons of Adam, it is the Most High God who is setting the boundaries of the children of Israel, it is the Most High God who is giving Jehovah his portion, which is Jacob’s lot, which is Israel (which is the reason why Jacob’s name was changed to Israel); a lot signifying a region, or country. Therefore we can be absolutely certain that it was the Most High God who was doing the "allotting" of entire countries (or regions) to the gods who belonged to the Divine Council, of which Baal was one and was allotted the region of Canaan.
Baal was known to the Semitic people as Hadad, god of thunderstorms and the Lord of Heaven. He was known for being Lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, and was also referred to as EL. In Dr. Heiser’s paper on the Divine Council, he explains that Baal served as co-regent of EL, despite being under EL’s authority; in it he writes:
“The Divine Abode and Meeting Place of the Divine Council:
At Ugarit, the council of El and its gods met on a mountain or lush garden. These descriptions are actually the same place. The abode of El was at the “source of the two rivers” in the “midst of the fountains of the double-deep”. El and his “assembled congregation” met to issue divine decrees from the “tents of El” and his “tent shrine”.This description of gods living and meeting in “tents” or “tabernacles” is common at Ugarit. The Ugaritic god Baal, the deity who oversaw the council for El, held meetings on Mount Ṣpn.”
“The top tier consisted of El and his wife Athirat (Asherah). The second tier was the domain of their royal family (“sons of El”; “princes”). One member of this second tier, Baal, served as the co-regent of El. Despite being under El’s authority, he was called “most high”. A third tier was for “craftsman deities,” while the fourth and lowest tier was reserved for the messengers (angels), essentially servants or staff.”
“There is solid evidence in the Hebrew Bible for a three-tiered council. In the divine council of Israelite religion, Yahweh was the supreme authority over a divine bureaucracy that included a second (beney elim elohim, also called the “sons of God) tier of lesser (beney ha'elohim, or beney elohim) or “sons of the Most High” (beney elyon). It may be significant that these “sons of God” are never clearly referred to as angels in the Hebrew Bible, as that word denoted the lowest tier of the Canaanite council, and thus a third tier in the Israelite version. Still, [angels] at Ugarit were considered gods, despite their subordinate role. It is possible that angels (mal'akhim) are referred to as “elohim” in the Hebrew Bible. In Israel’s divine council, the highest tier is different from the Canaanites’ conception. Instead of El and Baal, his vice-regent, Yahweh occupied both slots in a sort of binitarian godhead. Yahweh is described in the Hebrew Bible by means of titles and abilities that both El and Baal have in Canaanite literature—these two were conceptually fused in Yahweh. This literary and theological device shows Yahweh superior to the two main divine authority figures in wider Canaanite religion. The way Yahweh filled the positions both of supreme ruler and vice-regent is also shown by His occasional visible appearances.”
As explained by Dr. Heiser in the excerpt above, Yahweh, the God of Israel, filled the positions both of supreme ruler and vice-regent. Before I ever came across Dr. Heiser's writings, I had also arrived at the same understanding: that Satan (Baal) was and is still the co-regent of Jehovah and rules the world as "the god of this age”, as stated by the Apostle Paul.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
Samuel Noah Kramer, who translated many Sumerian tablets, wrote a paper entitled: “A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.” [1944, revised 1961]. In it he wrote:
“Enlil, the air-god, now unites with his mother Ki, the earth-goddess. It is from this union but with considerable help from Enki, the water-god, that the vegetable and animal life is produced on earth. Man, on the other hand, seems to be the product of the combined efforts of the goddess Nammu, the primeval sea; of the goddess Ninmah, who may perhaps be identified with Ki, the mother earth; and finally of the water-god Enki. Just what is involved in this particular combination-and there is every reason to believe that in view of the more or less superficial data of the times, there was good logic behind it and not mere playful fantasy.”
“Upon the separation of heaven and earth, it was, as might have been expected, the heaven-god An who carried off heaven, but it was the air-god Enlil who carried off the earth. Among the crucial points not stated or implied in this passage are the following:
1. Were heaven and earth conceived as created, and if so, by whom?
2. What was the shape of heaven and earth as conceived by the Sumerians?
3. Who separated heaven from earth?
Fortunately, the answers to these three questions can be gleaned from several other Sumerian texts dating from our period. Thus:
1. In a tablet which gives a list of the Sumerian gods,{xr. 41} the goddess Nammu, written with the ideogram for "sea," is described as "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth." Heaven and earth were therefore conceived by the Sumerians as the created products of the primeval sea.
2. The myth "Cattle and Grain" (see {pr. 53}), which describes the birth in heaven of the spirits of cattle and grain, who were then sent down to earth to bring prosperity to mankind, begins with the following two lines:
‘After on the mountain of heaven and earth, An had caused the Anunnaki to be born.’
“It is not unreasonable to assume, therefore, that heaven and earth united were conceived as a mountain whose base was the bottom of the earth and whose peak was the top of the heaven. If now we sum up the cosmogonic or creation concepts of the Sumerians, evolved to explain the origin of the universe, they may be stated as follows:
1. First was the primeval sea. Nothing is said of its origin or birth, and it is not unlikely that the Sumerians conceived it as having existed eternally.
2. The primeval sea begot the cosmic mountain consisting of heaven and earth united.
3. Conceived as gods in human form, An (heaven) was the male and Ki (earth) was the female. From their union was begotten the air-god Enlil.”
“It is both Enlil and Enki, that is, both the air-god and the water-god, who send Labar, the cattle-god, and Ashnan, the grain-goddess, from heaven to earth in order to make abundant its cattle and grain.”
( ** The 93 page study by Samuel Noah Kramer from which the excerpts above were quoted, can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge)
The references made in this chapter all support the argument that we are not ruled by One God, but that even the Bible refers to a pantheon of gods who belong to a Divine Council. We are taught there exists a Most High God who divided the regions of the world and allotted them as an inheritance to the Anunnaki, who are His legitimate sons, and this is why Satan rules over the world as the coregent of Jehovah. The data also shows how the Creation story found in the Sumerian tablets harmonizes perfectly with the Creation account of Genesis 1, in that both accounts teach that in the beginning all that existed was the spirit of gods (Elohiym) that were moving over the face of a chaotic mass of waters void of the light. From that first “Age” of the heavens and the earth, when the “good light” first began to shine into and separate from the darkness that existed there, we can say that there already existed a vast kingdom of darkness. Thus the Bible and the Sumerian tablets both teach that it was from those primordial chaotic waters from which all the known deities evolved, each generation of God becoming more powerful than its previous existence. We have also learned that both the Sumerians and the Hebrews knew of the existence of a Divine Council of gods, the sons of the Most High, who came together in agreement and sat as judges in what Psalm 82 refers to as the Divine Council (which in Hebrew is בַּעֲדַת־ “ba-a-dat el”, which means “the congregation of el”). However, according to Psalm 82, we can also know that there came a day when some of the gods who belonged to the Divine Council were also judged and indicted, and condemned to live in the Underworld, “the world of the dead”, where they would experience mortality like other mortals.
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