when he separated humanity,

he fixed the boundaries of the peoples

according to the number of divine beings.

For Yahweh's portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted heritage.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#35137372)

So in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Septuagint we have God allotting the nations and setting the boundaries of man according to the number of divine beings, not the population of Israel. And while Yehoveh assigned those nations to the divine beings He also set Israel apart for Himself. Some Rabbis will say that a better translation is “equal to the number of the sons of God”. Most Jewish and Christian scholars currently acknowledge that at least during the era of Christ THIS indeed was the reading of Deuteronomy 32:8 as found in the Torah. And since the original Septuagint was written even 200 years before that, the mention of the nations being divided according to the number of divine beings was almost certainly the original wording.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#35566900)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#35680253)

Isn’t kaballistic rabbinic tradition that there was an original council of gods that Yahweh oversaw as the Superior Most High Demiurge?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#41457003)

GPT-4’s take:

The use of the plural form "Elohim" in Genesis 1 has been a subject of scholarly debate for centuries. While "Elohim" is indeed a plural noun in Hebrew, it is generally understood to refer to the single God of Israel when used in the context of the Hebrew Bible.

There are a few theories as to why the plural form is used:

Plural of Majesty: One common explanation is that the use of the plural "Elohim" is an example of the "plural of majesty" or "royal plural." This grammatical construction is found in various languages, including Hebrew, where a plural noun or pronoun is used to convey a sense of grandeur or importance for a single entity. In this interpretation, the use of "Elohim" is meant to emphasize the greatness and majesty of the one God being described.

Vestige of Polytheistic Origins: Another theory posits that the use of "Elohim" is a linguistic vestige of the polytheistic origins of the Israelite religion. According to this view, the early Israelite religion may have been polytheistic or henotheistic, and the use of "Elohim" reflects that earlier stage in the development of their religious beliefs. As the Israelites evolved towards monotheism, the term "Elohim" continued to be used but was reinterpreted to refer to a single God.

Grammatical Quirk: Some scholars suggest that the use of the plural "Elohim" is simply a grammatical quirk of the Hebrew language. In Hebrew, certain nouns that denote abstract concepts or entities with complex characteristics can be plural in form but singular in meaning. In this interpretation, the use of "Elohim" is a linguistic feature that does not imply multiple gods.

It is essential to note that despite the plural form, "Elohim" is typically used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew Bible when referring to the God of Israel. This grammatical agreement reinforces the understanding that "Elohim" is meant to convey a single deity in the context of Genesis 1 and other biblical passages.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#46130807)

Now billions of people believe that there was one God who made the whole world, but he set us up with all different languages and parochial Gods with false religions to punish us for some early mistakes that were made, then he chose one tribe and they did their thing for a few thousand years with some ups and downs. And then one semi-divine member of the tribe said never mind a bunch of what has been the law and religious practice, actually the whole world should follow this one God that formerly was only for a certain chosen people. Here is a bunch of new holy text, but please still refer to the old stuff, but only through a very specialized lens because the people who follow it in a slavish historical way are actually wrong about a bunch of important things, are no longer the chosen people, and in fact might collectively need to be lit on fire if they don't get in line with the new program.

And everyone just said - yeah, ok, that makes more sense than anything else on offer. How?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#41924626)

I don't mind that Christians believe what they believe. I just find it genuinely surprising that in a competitive marketplace for religions, they were able to recruit billions of people into a thing that would have been much, much more plausible and easy to explain if you cut out a lot of the detail between "one god made the whole world and all the creatures in it" and "here's how you should worship that one god now that we've done some work to understand his approach and cleared up all the earlier confusion."

I realize that this is what most Christians do in practice, but then you open the OT and it's like holy fuck, what is all this stuff? This is the one thing that billions of people have adopted? Everyone was doing it wrong for thousands of years, but here's an exhaustive recounting of one group's ineffective and obsolete rituals, some inscrutable prophecies, and a bunch of ancient Middle Eastern history to help you get started on the right track?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#41924788)

You make it sound like an ad hoc mess but it's all there in the text.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#41924855)

the OT is nothing but story after story of the Jews rejecting the right path and getting smacked back onto it, again and again and again, starting in Genesis 2 and then just working its way forward

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#41925822)

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-Bible-Richard-Friedman/dp/150119240X

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3856908&forum_id=2#46130829)