Isaiah 45:5, New American Standard Bible

Sources

• Isaiah 45:5, New American Standard Bible, Bible Gateway. (opens in a new tab)

Objections & responses

Latter-day Saints read Isaiah’s exclusivity statements as being about idols, not about whether exalted beings exist elsewhere. Psalm 82 says “you are gods,” and Jesus quotes it in John 10. Isn’t the Bible’s own language on the LDS side?

The polemical context is real: Isaiah’s primary target is idolatry. The statements go beyond idols are false, though. I am God and there is none like me (46:9) is a claim about uniqueness of kind, and it is the claim first-century Jews, including Jesus, understood as strict monotheism. Psalm 82’s gods are, in the psalm itself, condemned to die like men, which is not a description of exalted beings, and Jesus’s use of it in John 10 is an argument from the lesser to the greater about the word’s application. Read Isaiah 43:10 and Psalm 82 in full, side by side, and compare.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• Latter-day Saint scripture teaches that the Father has a body and that the faithful may become gods, while Isaiah’s God says there was no God formed before him and none after him: the two pictures of God cannot both be true.