תודה for giving me the proper context in which my question should be presented. I think that in general, I just have a hard time seeing that no one group or single person has a perfect grasp on the totality of truth. I am still getting used to having to just let there be a loose end or something unknown. To me what EJ and its respectable bibliographical authorities seem to be communicating is that, regardless of whether the יהודים and the בבלים shared mutual assertion of these ancient stories, or that one copied from the other, the יהודים most definitely believed that, other than having contradictions with their monotheistic beliefs, (such as adapting the stories about the אלהים אחרים interacting with humans to understand these beings existing as מלאכים) they acknowledged these stories which were shared by them as being historically accurate. Maybe I'm wrong about this interpretation but if I'm right doesn't that have further reaching implications when we talk about what is actually true in those ancient stories? As for my follow up question, I wasn't trying to challenge anything or even necessarily tie the question directly to my previous one. I was really just looking for a way not to get caught up in the possible unknowns which could get in the way of giving me a more established אמונה in הדרך. I was asking you personally a philosophical question about something that I was unsure of whether it was a logical maxim or not. My challenge here is really just to accurately be able to understand what was meant by what was written by EJ. Once again, תודה רבה for your time and patience!

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I think part of the difficulty in your reasoning is your assumption that "these [were] beings" (which, only then, presents a necessity to explain what type of beings: a•vod•âhꞋ zâr•âhꞋ or lᵊ-ha•vᵊdilꞋ, monotheistic.

But "beings" were not the given here. Rather, "beings" are the product of a premise that turns out to have been false – an ex falso quodlibet that misdirects the researcher away from the answer.

No differently than people today attribute what they don't understand to the supernatural, the ancients did the same. The argument wasn't that they had to be "beings"; whether gods or lᵊ-ha•vᵊdilꞋ ma•lâkh•imꞋ – introducing yet another complicating dispute: human or supernatural (now where did I just see that term?). Rather, the argument was how to explain phenomena that they all agreed was fact – just as we see people still doing today: "that was caused by the ___ god." "No, it was a different god." "No, it was this angel." "No, it was that angel." That is what I was trying to explain in The Netzarim Reconstruction of Hebrew Matityahu (NHM). The EJ editors, preferring to constrain their remarks to the historical facts, didn't explore motivational factors.

Belief in the supernatural is an intractable, contra-Tor•âhꞋ, contradiction of a Perfect Creator-Singularity. Was a fallible god mistaken and wrong before or after the supernatural correction = self-contradiction? Despite the widespread literacy in our modern world and our scientific progress, belief in the supernatural continues to persist even today among the illiterate – including Christians and Ultra-Orthodox / Kha•reid•imꞋ, and, tragically, even among many mainstream Orthodox who get caught up in Medieval mysticism of Qa•bâl•âhꞋ and never contemplate its implications.

The goy•imꞋ sought to explain phenomena they didn't understand in terms of their a•vod•âhꞋ zâr•âhꞋ, while, lᵊ-ha•vᵊdilꞋ, Yi•sᵊrâ•eilꞋ attempted to explain the same phenomena, which they didn't understand either, in terms of their monotheism. That's your answer.

Both groups are still doing the same today. We're no different – which is why the modern world needs to learn to relate to Biblical people exactly like people today, not mythicizing and fablizing them as, lᵊ-ha•vᵊdilꞋ, superhero angels / gods with super powers. There is only י--ה, Who is the Creator-Singularity, the universe He projects (Matrix-like and avatar-like) by His Unified Force, including humankind, which subsumes ma•lâkh•imꞋ – and physics that tries to understand non-supernaturally.