Psalm 82:1 places Elohim in the 'divine council' (adat-el), judging 'among the gods' (elohim). Deuteronomy 32:8-9, as read in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDeut-j) and the Septuagint, says the Most High divided the nations 'according to the number of the sons of God', while the later Masoretic Text reads 'sons of Israel', the single most consequential variant in the Bible for this topic. First Kings 22:19-23 shows the heavenly council in deliberation. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm (2015) is the popular synthesis; the scroll evidence stands independent of it.
Mainline readings defuse the council: the 'gods' are angels, judges, or a rhetorical device. The textual history shows the discomfort is old, the Masoretic smoothing of Deuteronomy 32:8 is itself evidence that scribes felt the problem centuries before commentators did.
The council texts depict heaven as a court with jurisdiction tables: a high God, assigned subordinates, appointed territories, and a judgment scene where subordinates are sentenced to 'die like men' (Psalm 82:7). Whether read as theology, memory of polytheism, or cosmic administration, it is a map of delegated power, the archive's recurring pattern, in scripture.
If the council scene survived every editor, what did the editors believe it meant?