It it should be noted that while in the Old Testament this usage of the word "gods" (elohim) does occur, in the New Testament it does not, there are only two categories of "THEOS": 1. the one true God, and 2. the false gods of the pagans (possibly Satan, as "the god of this world ").
In John 10 Jesus gave a parable to his accusers which means: if even they can be called gods (in a certain sense), then how much more the only begotten Son then? So it's clearly in the text He is God in a superior sense than the judges were called "gods" in the Psalm. In what sense namely then? He does not explain here exactly, but he makes it clear that it is not just in the same sense, but in a higher, superior sense. "Argumentum a fortiori" arguments are regularly used in Jewish law under the name kal va-chomer, literally "mild and severe", the mild case being the one we know about, while trying to infer about the more severe case. The Jews understood this and that's why they wanted to stone him "again" (v39).
JWs refer to this too, but Luke does not claim in Acts 28:6 that Paul was actually "a god", but only reports that, based on his miracles, the people believed that he was like a (pagan false) god. So, yes, "theos" here still does not justify a true, but inferior (demigod-archangel) category of divinity claimed by the Watchtower, and it is not because of the latter that it is written there with a lowercase letter. There are two kinds of "THEOS" in the New Testament, 1. the one true God, 2. the false gods of the pagans, and Satan. Paul was only thought to belong to the 2nd category.
But you claim that there is a third category, some kind of demigod-minor-god-archangel. Well, this alleged third category is not based on the verse you quoted, because Paul was actually classified in the 2nd category by the pagan people.
Having a lesser god is also forbidden by the commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
If saying "gods" means nothing special, why don't you call the members of the GB such?
John only recalls a dialogue that took place in a non-Greek language, where Jesus does not claim that his divinity is no more than is customary in the Old Testament usage of words. The idea is not that Jesus could only refer to Himself as "GOD" in the same way that the Psalm referred to judges as "elohim". The essence of the pericope is to point out the inconsistency of His accusers, by indicating there existed an Old Testament usage that called human judges "elohim", so if they could be so called, then how much more appropriately He (who is indeed the [only begotten] Son of God) should be called. He begins like this: "If even those...". Thus, His reference was a kind of apologetic bridge, somewhat like how Apostle Paul spoke to the Greeks about their "unknown god".
JWs claim that in John 10:31-38 Jesus denies the Jews interpretation. But does he? A careful reading will reveal that Jesus' response is much subtler than this. He first of all points out that his works are good, which of course implies that the doer is good and worthy of no punishment such as the Jews want to inflict. In response to their charge that Jesus is blaspheming by making himself out to be equal with God (they may have been thinking that Jesus was setting himself up as a rival God) Jesus does not give a straightforward "no, your wrong, I wasn't saying anything of the kind, I just meant that God was my Father because he created me a few thousand years ago". Instead he gives an answer that is designed to make them think about what his equality with (yet distinction from) the Father might mean. He argues from the lesser to the greater. IF the scripture can call mere humans "gods" (Theoi in Greek and elohim in Hebrew) THEN what about the one who has an absolutely unique relationship with the Father, a relationship best designated by the term son? By the way there has been a great deal of discussion in the history of interpretation on exactly what elohim meant in Ps 82:6. It is obviously a highly metaphorical application, but its precise nuance does not affect the point Jesus is making.
The Father has set him apart and sent him into the world to perform has saving office. In fact, the Father dwells in the Son and the Son in the Father. Again, Jesus gets back to the fundamental equality that was suggested by the context above. And once again the Jews get the point and seek to kill him, for any mere man claiming equality with God is blaspheming, and must receive the death penalty. While sonship in itself does not necessarily imply equality, the language used of Jesus' sonship here and elsewhere strongly suggests a uniqueness and an equality that exists only between these two.
Read these:
* https://www3.nd.edu/~jneyrey1/Gods.html
* https://answering-islam.org/BibleCom/jn10-34-36.html
* https://carm.org/jehovahs-witnesses/john-1030-33-what-made-the-jews-want-to-kill-jesus/
By the way, the NT does not call the apostles or the angels "theos" anywhere, so it cannot be said that the NT calls the persons representing God "theos", so it cannot be said that in the New Testament this that's all it would mean.
There is enough reference point around John 10:30: the audience immediately understood that Jesus did not merely claim a moral or volitional unity between Him and the Father, but more: unity in divinity. They said, "you, being a man, make yourself God." And the Lord did not start explaining that He was only talking about the alignment of their purposes, but in His characteristic rabbinic (see: kal va-chomer) response, He even added a challenge: "Is it not written in your Law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him, whom the Father has sanctified, and sent into the world, You blaspheme; because I said, I am the Son of God?!" - In other words, He used the authority of Scripture against them, silenced them, and affirmed His claim to deity.
If perhaps Jesus proclaimed His own deity more reservedly than the apostles who followed in His footsteps, this can be explained by His self-emptying, as well as by the fact that He came to make the Father known, and testified more by His actions and teaching than by Himself. But Jesus did proclaim His own deity, for example where He was accused of "making Himself God while being a man," and He did not protest, but justified His action with an Old Testament reference, all the while emphasizing that His designation as God is of a much higher order than those to whom the Word spoke, and therefore they appear as "gods."
There is indeed a significant difference between the deity of the so-called gods and the common nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I am indeed not willing to make this man a god in the latter sense. There are scripture passages where the Word calls man a god or gods: "I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron will be your prophet," "Ye are gods," "The Lord judges among the gods." In these places, there is certainly no talk of possessing the same nature, but rather of some kind of assumed dignity. This can also be seen in the way that elsewhere Yahweh deems the foreign gods as nothing compared to Himself: they did not create the world, they are not rocks, and so on. Similarly, he also calls the "gods" he judges mortal and rebukes them in the psalm. The concept of deity that I base here necessarily includes the attribute of being worthy of worship, just as it does of being the creator. However, in this sense, man is not God (and never will be), while the Son is (and has always been).
So, neither with this nor with Paul's expression of "so-called gods" have you succeeded in establishing a category of "small deity" prepared for Jesus, or even if we assume a category of "real, but not fully god" small deity, it would not automatically follow from this fact that Jesus would belong to this category.
A JW once referred to me that even Satan is referred to as "theos" in the NT. But you don't claim that all we know about Jesus and Satan is "well, both are called theos, so neither is the real God and that's fine". Does the scripture make such claims about Satan as it does about Jesus? That He was from the beginning, that He is the only begotten of the Father, that He received all power, that He is omniscient, etc? This fact alone proves that Jesus is not just a "theos" in the same way as Satan. Indeed, it is true that being a "theos" does not necessarily mean being the real God, but when it's not just claimed that he is THEOS, but a number of other statements are made about Him, attributes are stated about Him, which can only characterize the Almighty God, from these two facts combined it certainly does follow that He is "identical" (not in an equivalence sense, but in a predicate sense) with the one, true, omnipotent God.
Furthermore, the original Greek text, and Greek copies prior to the 7th-8th centuries, did not differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters, as they used exclusively uppercase letters. This by default proves that the Son is just as much and in the same sense GOD as the Father - unless Jesus is a false god. The original biblical language texts did not use upper and lower case distinction. Anyone who has read even the original copy from the hands of the inspired writer would have seen that the same title and the same initials are used for the Son and the Father: KYRIOS and THEOS. The Bible does not know about minor gods and demigods, there are two categories: a true God and the imagined, false gods of the pagans. Is Jesus a true or false GOD?
It's not about us making uppercase letters, but rather that this minor god category does not exist, and anyone who read an original copy of the Greek New Testament in antiquity would not have even considered such a distinction. So, the accusation of distortion is on the Watchtower, which introduced this artificial distinction, of which the Apostle John had absolutely no idea.
Of course, in the thinking of the Arians, the reader must always think of the Father when they see the word "GOD", but when the Bible calls the Son the same (see Jn 1:1.18, 20:28 etc.), they believe it must immediately be considered in a relativized sense as a "title" (?).
The statement "you are gods" comes from Psalm 82, but it does not talk about "born gods", but about earthly judges who bore the name of God for this function only. They judge falsely, do not understand, walk in darkness, and ultimately die. So these are not gods, but people. When Jesus referred to this passage, he only claimed that it was not unprecedented to call a man a god, so he could not even be stoned for this reason. But he did not claim that his divinity was the same as that of the judges poetically addressed as "gods" in the psalm. The Father and the Son are NOT just "one in intention and thought", but the Father and the Son have one and the same divine reality, nature.
So, just because the judges were referred to as "gods" in a certain sense in one place in the Old Testament, Jesus is not limited to such titular divinity, because in John 10:36 he forms a higher right to divinity than theirs. For to them only the word of God was spoken, whereas He was sanctified by the Father and sent into the world.
The meaning of the Hebrew 'elohim' is only "gods" if the verb following it is also plural (with a few exceptions for pagan gods), but if the verb is singular, its meaning is "the Deity" (because Hebrew forms abstract nouns with the plural form of the noun).
Psalm 82:1.6 mocks the judges who were "gods" (mighty ones), but because they became unfaithful, they die as ordinary people. In John 10:34-36, Jesus refers back to Psalm 82: if God mockingly called the judges "gods", how much more true is it for Him (who is truly so).
