Theos

Theos

In the New Testament, the words “God” and “gods” is translated from the Greek word theos, which figuratively means “a magistrate.” The word “god” specifies an office and means a “ruling judge”. It was a title used to address men who have a right to exercise authority or judgment in courts of law. To realize that, at the time of Christ, you would address a judge in a Hebrew, Roman, or Greek court as god should change the entire way you read your modern Bibles. This is why there are “gods many.”

The term "theos" like "Elohim" can also figuratively mean "magistrates and judges" and is defined as such.

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IV. whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way

A. God's representative or viceregent

i. of magistrates and judges

θεός theós, theh'-os; of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with G3588) the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very:—X exceeding, God, god(-ly, -ward).

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Octavius, who became Augustus Caesar, was called a god but the actual title was Apotheosis which means an appointer of gods. Augustus was the Soter "meaning a saviour, a deliverer" of Rome and his reforms transformed the Republican to an indirect democracy and virtual de facto monarchy with traditional Roman practices and the appearance of Republican values.

Roman gods were merely Greek gods renamed. They represented in myth form human characteristics to be admired or respected. Originally every head of household embodied the genius of the familia but with the rise of power, men were given official titles like "unconquered god" granted to Caesar and inscribed in the temple of Quirinus. He was called parens patriae (father of the fatherland). As this Father of the earth, his genius demanded the loyalty of all the natural fathers of Roman households and proven by legal oaths were taken by his Genius.

In the Republic, the gods manifested their character, power, and authority through those individual "heads of households". Even though many of the Roman people feared this centralization of power in the office, munificence, auctoritas and gens of a man and were driven to assassinate Julius Caesar. After the bloody civil war, few dared argue with Augustus. The spoils of war had made Augustus rich and "his" Imperial revenue funded temples, amphitheaters, theatres, baths, festivals and the government itself. The free bread of Rome appeased the mob and fed their loyalty. According to Polybius the acceptance of a despot was a long time in coming because the people " an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force and violence. The people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others... institute the rule of violence".

These socialist provisions of free bread by the government of Rome was counted as covetous practices and seen as the antithesis of the teaching of John the Baptist, Jesus the Christ and the Apostles.

Once the divine office of Principate was sanctioned by the Senate and occupied by a man subsequent successors like Caligula exposed the legal and moral contradictions of the Augustan "Republic" which was not a republic at all. The Senate was compelled to constitutionally define his role, but the rites and sacrifices to the living genius of the emperor as a god of Rome already acknowledged his constitutionally of unlimited powers as the paterfamilias of the Roman people.

Remember the Greek word theos is can be defined as "whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way." Almost every time the Bible speaks of gods it is not talking about an alternative spiritual creator of the universe but a man-made "office or institution" that assumes a role of authority over other men and their natural conscience or God-given faith and logos.