Are Jesus and God the same or separate beings?

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Also, certain passages were badly translated or were later additions.

The passage in question, 1 Tim. 3: 16, had long been used by advocates of orthodox theology to support the view that the New Testament itself calls Jesus God. For the text, in most manuscripts, refers to Christ as “God made manifest in the flesh, and justified in the Spirit.” As I pointed out in chapter 3, most manuscripts abbreviate sacred names (the so-called nomina sacra), and that is the case here as well, where the Greek word God (ΘEOΣ) is abbreviated in two letters, theta and sigma (ΘΣ), with a line drawn over the top to indicate that it is an abbreviation. What Wettstein noticed in examining Codex Alexandrinus was that the line over the top had been drawn in a different ink from the surrounding words, and so appeared to be from a later hand (i.e., written by a later scribe). Moreover, the horizontal line in the middle of the first letter, Θ, was not actually a part of the letter but was a line that had bled through from the other side of the old vellum. In other words, rather than being the abbreviation (theta–sigma) for “God” (ΘΣ), the word was actually an omicron and a sigma (OΣ), a different word altogether, which simply means “who.” The original reading of the manuscript thus did not speak of Christ as “God made manifest in the flesh” but of Christ “who was made manifest in the flesh.” According to the ancient testimony of the Codex Alexandrinus, Christ is no longer explicitly called God in this passage.

As Wettstein continued his investigations, he found other passages typically used to affirm the doctrine of the divinity of Christ that in fact represented textual problems; when these problems are resolved on text-critical grounds, in most instances references to Jesus’s divinity are taken away. This happens, for example, when the famous Johannine Comma (1 John 5: 7–8) is removed from the text. And it happens in a passage in Acts 20: 28, which in many manuscripts speaks of “the Church of God, which he obtained by his own blood.” Here again, Jesus appears to be spoken of as God. But in Codex Alexandrinus and some other manuscripts, the text instead speaks of “the Church of the Lord, which he obtained by his own blood.” Now Jesus is called the Lord, but he is not explicitly identified as God.

It DOES mean "other gods may exist" but it means "we Hebrews are only allowed to worship our one god, and we never worship our neighboring tribes' gods". Not "check in with Yaweh first, and then go ahead and worship whomever you want".

But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense
unto the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done. We, and
our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem.
For then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings
unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
And when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her,
did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?

Exactly my point.

The passage explains how the people of Judah had it fine...until they started worshipping that female pagan diety...which pissed off Yahweh, who punished them by sending armies to destroy their cities and lay waste to their country.

Essayist and novelist George Santayana famously said that history is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there. Napoléon Bonaparte remarked that history is a set of lies that have been agreed upon. Winston Churchill famously said that history is what is written by the victors. Thus, you cannot blame me for believing that history is just a version of events and readers of history tend to accept what suits their own sensibilities.

Most of the OT, especially the Pentateuch, was about warfare and pogroms (particularly heavy in Numbers and Joshua). You get a clear sense that what they're dealing with is something like the collective psyche of the tribes of Israel, that their God was the god of their people, and that nationality and 'religion' (modern convention) was fused into the same thing. Praying to other people's gods was treasonous because it would damage social cohesion and increase the odds of all getting enslaved or slaughtered if there was any division in their ranks.

But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites: Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, "Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods": Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.

Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.

Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, "Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen."