“God’s Propaganda” by Kipp Davis–An Extended Book Analysis (Part 3)

In my last post on Kipp Davis’ God’s Propaganda: Pulling Back the Curtain on What the Bible Wants You to See, I covered Davis’ first major section, “The Known World,” which consisted of four chapters, most of which, to be honest, was rather dry. The only thing I felt worth critiquing was Davis’ take on “myth.”

Starting here in Part 3 of my book analysis, though, I’m not going to be able to plow through four chapters at a time in a single post, because once we get to Davis’ second major section, “Universal Truths,” let’s just say there are a few more things worth talking about. That being said, I hope to cover two chapters in this post. Let’s dive in.

Chapter 5: In the Council of the Holy Ones
Davis begins Chapter 5 by talking a little bit about himself. He went to Bible college and was planning on becoming a church pastor. During that time, he became a hard-core Calvinist and was a big fan of John MacArthur. When it came to the interpretation of Job 1-2, MacArthur taught that the “sons of elohim” in Job 1:6 (translated as “heavenly beings” in the NRSV and “sons of God” in the ESV) were, in fact, angels, and Satan was, in fact the Satan who was feeling so good about his success getting Adam and Eve to fall that he now went about the earth trying to screw other human beings up. He was, the “Judas” of the heavenly court.

Well, says Davis, that really isn’t accurate. This sort of “heavenly council” is a common feature in other ANE myths like the Baal Cycle. The “sons of elohim” weren’t so much “angels” (in the away we often picture them) as they were other, lesser gods, and “the Satan” would not have been understood as our common assumption of that “red devil,” but more like a “prosecuting attorney” among the divine assembly. That is fairly accurate. MacArthur, like many modern Christians, do, in fact, tend to read into passages like Job 1-2 our modern mental picture of “angels in white robes” and a red, goateed, pointy-tailed “Satan.” Still, what is clear within the biblical context is that these “sons of elohim,” or “gods,” are still not like YHWH, who is consistently understood to be the Supreme God. In fact, within the context of the Bible, it is clear that YHWH is uncreated and eternal, and that these lesser “sons of elohim,” though divine beings, are still created by YHWH.

That’s not the direction Davis takes things, though. Instead, his discussion about “the gods” relies heavily on the work of Francesca Stavrakopoulou who claims YHWH a “fully-embodied” deity, just like all the other gods. Not surprisingly, Davis claims the following about YHWH: “Israel’s god was like all the gods, and he can be glimpsed by careful readers of the Bible by seeing past the words for what they represented” (134).

I find that comment extremely telling, for it betrays Davis’ complete disregard for the original historical and literary context of any given passage. Please note, he isn’t coming to his conclusion that YHWH was “just like any other ANE god” from reading the actual biblical text. He is admitting he gets to that conclusion by “seeing past the words” of the biblical text. Instead of viewing the biblical text as a window to that biblical world and what the beliefs of ancient Judaism were, he views the biblical text as a barrier to it. He is, in fact, rejecting the intent and message of the biblical text and claiming he can someone “get around it” and decipher somehow what really happened and what was really believed. Basically, his logic is this: “Since the biblical text makes it clear that although there are other divine beings, YHWH is uniquely different, we know that YHWH was no different than all the other gods!” Mind you, he hasn’t proven that at all—he is simply asserting it, despite the entire biblical corpus that says otherwise.

Once you do that, you have license to read into any given biblical text anything you want…and Davis does, as we will see.

The Flood Story
For example, after the “sons of elohim” impregnant the “daughters of men” and they bring forth the Nephilim, Genesis 6:1-6 tells us that YHWH saw man’s wickedness was great over the earth and that their hearts were bent on evil. He “regretted” that He had made man and determined to send the flood. As we know, though, YHWH spared Noah and his family and started over. Now, when I teach or write about Noah’s flood, I compare it to the flood story in Gilgamesh and show how, even though the basic stories are the same, there are key theological differences that highlight the difference between the worldview of the Hebrew Bible and that of the surrounding ANE cultures.

In the pagan stories, the gods send the flood to destroy human beings because human beings were too loud, and it is the actions of only one god who alerts one man to what was going down that saved humanity—that reflects just how petty, pathological, and dangerous those ANE gods were understood to be. In Genesis 6, the reason for the flood is because of wickedness and evil. Still, God wanted to save humanity and start over. When you compare the flood stories, the character of God vs. the character of “the gods” is vastly different.

Not so, according to Davis. He says YHWH was “so deeply affected by his own feelings that he makes the rash decision to wipe out all of humanity” (135).  Davis characterizes YHWH’s actions as “blind rage to the point of anxiety” (135) to the point he “just rage-quit on everyone” (136). And again, “In his blind rage, YHWH resolves to take the extreme action and annihilate, not just every offending human, but all humans everywhere. Big gods have very big feelings” (135). He even goes so far to suggest that even though YHWH is so enraged and human beings, he probably wasn’t too upset with the “sons of elohim” because, you know, that’s just what gods do.

You may be wondering, “How in the world did Davis come up with that…novel interpretation? Easy—he simply was “looking past the words” of the biblical text!

Psalms 82 and 89
When it comes to Psalm 82, Davis has another interesting take. Psalm 82 describes God as standing in the “Council of El” and pronouncing judgment on the gods. The more famous line is: “I said it myself: ‘You are god! Sons of Elyon, all of you! But, you will die like men.” Michael Heiser explains this psalm in light of Deuteronomy 32, where God divided the nations “according to the sons of elohim.” According to Heiser, after Babel, where human beings rejected YHWH, He appointed the “sons of elohim” to rule the various nations, while He took Israel as His inheritance and chosen people. What happened, though, was that those “sons of elohim” became corrupted and the nations ended up worshipping them. Therefore, here in Psalm 82, God is passing judgment on those corrupted “sons of elohim.” (I write more about Heiser’s view here).

Davis, though, views this “Council of El” more like a “sky-mafia” in which all the members, like mobsters, were always vying for supremacy and were always looking over their shoulders for who might try to whack them.

When it comes to Psalm 89, Davis’ interpretation is, for the lack of a better word, interesting. Most people read it as a praise of YHWH as being greater than all others in the “assembly of the holy ones.” Of interest is 89:6-8. In my translation, I have:

⁶For who in the skies can compare to YHWH?
Who among the Sons of Elohim is like YHWH?
⁷He is an El who is to be feared in the council of the holy ones;
great and fearsome over all who are around Him.
⁸O YHWH, Elohim of Armies, who is as strong as you?
O Yah, your faithfulness surrounds you.

Most translations have roughly the same kind of thing, only most use “LORD” instead of YHWH, “heavenly beings” instead of Sons of Elohim, and “God” instead of “El.” Still, the meaning is pretty clear: No one can compare to YHWH, He is the Supreme God. He is YHWH, the Elohim of Armies [God of hosts].

Davis doesn’t see it that way. Instead, he sees this psalm as basically a challenge on the part of YHWH to try to usurp El as the head of the council. He interprets these verses as the following:

            “Who is like YHWH among the sons of the gods?“
The answer is “No one!”
“Not even El, greatly dreaded in the council of the Holy Ones,
and awesome above all around him?”
The answer is “No! YHWH, is the god of armies!”
“Who is like you, mighty Yah?”
            “No one! Not even El!”

That is quite an interpretation. And the only thing you have to do to get to that interpretation is to insert a “Not even” in the text in two different places, so you can suggest that YHWH and El are two different beings. There’s no point in giving any more of a counter argument than that because the biblical text doesn’t say that. It’s not even a matter of interpretation of the Hebrew on the page. Davis completely inserts something that isn’t in the text. Of course, that shouldn’t be surprising. After all, Davis has the ability to “look past the words” to what really is going on.

And Back to Job
At the end of Chapter 5, Davis returns to Job and lays out another novel interpretation. He suggests that YHWH actually employs Satan’s help to determine if Job really is as pious as he seems. After all, according to Davis, Job is obsessed about “potential thought-crimes among his children” (148). Therefore, maybe his “obsessive acts of religiosity” are really nothing more than his attempt to avoid harm. Therefore, it seems obvious to Davis that YHWH is equally obsessed in trying to find that out, and that is why he enlists the help of Satan…and that is pretty petty for God to do. Davis ends by asking this question: “Are these really the questions that the sons of the gods were called here to answer? Please tell us that the masters of the universe have better things to do than to worry about the trivialities of a rich man” (148).

Aside from the lame allusion to Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, I find Davis take on Job just silly. He doesn’t engage the larger context of the entire story at all. It seems to me to be just a rather adolescent “rage interpretation” all his own and he displays his rebellion against John MacArthur, a man he used to veritably worship. If MacArthur says Satan is the bad guy, Davis is going to find a way to say YHWH really is the bad guy.

Chapter 7: YHWH Alone
My take of Chapter 7 is going to be extremely short. I try to keep my posts around 2000 words, and I’m already at 1800. I’m giving myself no more than 700 words here. Let’s go…

Davis asserts that the concept of YHWH being the one true God really didn’t happen in ancient Israel until the likes of Hezekiah and Josiah forced it on the people. In particular, he characterizes Josiah’s reforms as a “ruthless campaign,” “naked propaganda,” a “draconian mandate,” and completely brutal. Davis claims (along with Stavrakopolou) that before that time, YHWH was worshipped as just another god by all Israelites—that were just your typical, average ANE pagans.

Of course, we sort of already knew that by reading the Old Testament. It is quite up front about the fact that people in ancient Israel and Judah worshipped various gods, right alongside YHWH—and it thoroughly condemns it. The question, thus becomes, “Was the situation one of complete ANE paganism, with YHWH-monotheism being forcibly shoved down everyone’s throat at that later time? Or was the situation that among that prevalent paganism, there was a continuous monotheistic faith in YHWH as the God of Israel happening among some in Israel and Judah at throughout their history at the same time?” The biblical account clearly says it is the latter. But Davis, being that he can “see through the words in the biblical texts” claims it is the former.

That ability to “see through” the biblical texts makes it possible for Davis to see that in the story of Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3 that there were actually multiple gods in the bush. After all, the text says Moses was on the “Mountain of Elohim,” and “Elohim” could be “gods” or “God.” So, Davis is going to take is as “gods.” And since 3:6 says Moses was afraid to “look at Elohim,” that must mean “gods.” Sure, YHWH was one of the gods in the bush, but do we really know who was initially speaking to Moses?

Davis ends Chapter 7 by giving the pretty standard current “scholarly” explanation for the origin of YHWH. He was originally just a minor storm deity somewhere in the southern deserts, similar to Baal. Given his atheistic and hyper-speculative assumptions regarding the Bible, this is not surprising. He doesn’t believe God exists, so he obviously does not believe there really is a YHWH really entered into a covenant with ancient Israelites. No, they must have just latched on to some minor storm deity and then their beliefs about that minor deity simply evolved into how YHWH is finally portrayed in the Hebrew Bible.

I’m not really in the mood to really debate that because how can you debate with a view that, at its bedrock, is rooted in the conviction that we can somehow “look through” the biblical text to what “really happened”? If one expresses skepticism of the veracity of the biblical text, I’ll say, “Well, at least there is a text!” Davis’ position and his subsequent interpretations of the biblical texts are not interpretations of the biblical texts. They are fanciful speculations that claim to “get behind the text.” They are rejections of the texts we actually have, in favor of (in this case) Davis’ own imagination.