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Does the Bible ever speak of redeemed humans as “gods”?
Many Jews and Christians have thought so.
In this episode Dr. Carl Mosser takes us on a journey through this theme in the Bible, including Psalm 82, the New Testament epistles, and the book of Genesis.
You’ll have listen to see why I chose a picture of Joseph in his career as the Pharaoh’s right hand man.
Links for this episode:
- “The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents and the Origin of Christian Deification“
- Dr. Mosser’s other papers at Academia.edu
- podcast episode 59 – Dr. Carl Mosser on salvation as deification
- podcast episode 49 – 2 interpretations of Philippians 2 – part 2
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podcast 161 - Dr. Paul Moser on Conforming Philosophy to Christianity
podcast 376 - The Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and the Best Craig - Part 2
podcast 184 - Where did Jesus say "I am God, worship me"?
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some additional thoughts about my demon-puppet objection
Hi Lee,
You may want to be careful to not assume pre-existence in 2 Cor. 8:9. The deification has echoes of angelomorphic humanity, as has been found in Qumranic texts.
Thanks,
The article by Carl Mosser, “The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents and the Origin of Christian Deification” is definitely worth reading. Also Dr. Mosser’s other papers at Academia.edu are worth reading, except, at least AFAIAC, for the Mormon abundant part of the “menu”.
Thank you Dale and Dr. Mosser for two most informative and provocative podcasts. I have been studying the concept of “Deification” for about 3 years, finding an explosion of recent books on the subject. I’ve found Norman Russell’s book very informative and the most thoroughly researched so far. I look forward to purchasing Dr. Mossers two books, once finished. Would he care to provide his opinion on whether or not the biblical exchange formula found at 2cor 8.9 entailed an equivalent exchange, i.e. was the “being rich” given up by Christ by incarnation, in Paul’s opinion, of equal value to the “being rich” ultimately gained by ascended Christians, and was their “poorness” equivalent with the “poor” he became, i.e. were both sides of the metaphor to be understood as referring to exact ontological parity ? IMHO equal value in an exchange makes sense, otherwise we’re just dealing with a hastily conceived analogy. thanks for the articulate discussion of the topic.
Hi Dale, I really enjoyed these two episodes with Dr. Mosser. I had never given this theme of deification much thought before. It was very thought-provoking, and may even lead to some book purchases!
What a feast for the 60th podcast! I’ll be replaying this for myself and friends. Facsinating- great motivation for overcoming this world.
A similar discussion can be found in Jerome H. Neyrey’s article on Psalm 82 and John 10:
http://www3.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/Gods.html
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