The evidence from both the Old and New Testaments indicates that the worldview of the biblical authors, Jesus, and Paul was fundamentally henotheistic rather than strictly monotheistic. In the Old Testament, YHWH’s supremacy is repeatedly framed in relation to other divine beings, such as the gods of Egypt whom He defeats during the plagues, the “sons of God” in Job and Genesis, and the members of the divine council in Psalms and 1 Kings. The rhetorical force of calling YHWH “King above all gods” only works if these gods are considered real entities. Angels, demons, Satan, and other spiritual powers are treated as genuine actors within a hierarchical cosmos, and nowhere does the Old Testament assert that these beings do not exist. The early Jewish worldview of the Second Temple period, in which Jesus and Paul lived, continued this henotheistic framework. Satan, principalities, and powers were understood as real, and a second divine figure, such as the Son of Man or the Logos, was conceptually acceptable within Jewish thought. Jesus and Paul both operated entirely within this framework, never attempting to argue against the existence of other divine or spiritual beings. They assumed henotheism as a given and used it to frame the gospel. Jesus treated Satan and demons as real cosmic actors and spoke of angels and heavenly hierarchies, while Paul explicitly affirmed the existence of many gods and lords but insisted that for Christians there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Their teachings presupposed a populated spiritual cosmos and did not include apologetics for strict monotheism, because such a worldview did not exist at the time. Paul’s language in Galatians 1, invoking anathema on anyone who preaches a gospel contrary to what he delivered, emphasizes that the gospel he proclaimed was non-negotiable. From his perspective, any substantive change was spiritually lethal and inviolable, a principle mirrored in John’s epistles, where deviation from the true message about Jesus constitutes antichrist behavior, leading to separation from God and spiritual death. Both apostles fiercely protected the gospel as they had preached it, and their warnings imply that any alteration of its core cosmic and Christological assumptions would have been judged forbidden and fatal.
