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The Unseen Realm
In The Unseen Realm, Dr. Michael Heiser examines the ancient context of Scripture, explaining how its supernatural worldview can help us grow in our understanding of God. He illuminates intriguing and amazing passages of the Bible that have been hiding in plain sight. You'll find yourself engaged in an enthusiastic pursuit of the truth, resulting in a new appreciation for God's Word. Why wasn't Eve surprised when the serpent spoke to her? How did descendants of the Nephilim survive the flood? Why did Jacob fuse Yahweh and his Angel together in his prayer? Who are the assembly of divine beings that God presides over? In what way do those beings participate in God's decisions? Why do Peter and Jude promote belief in imprisoned spirits? Why does Paul describe evil spirits in terms of geographical rulership? Who are the glorious ones that even angels dare not rebuke? After reading this book, you may never read your Bible the same way again
413 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2015
About the author
Michael S. Heiser
61 books805 followersMike Heiser is a scholar in the fields of biblical studies and the ancient Near East. He is the Academic Editor of Logos Bible Software. Mike earned the M.A. and Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004. He has also earned an M.A. in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania (major fields: Ancient Israel and Egyptology). His main research interests are Israelite religion (especially Israel’s divine council), biblical theology, ancient Near Eastern religion, biblical & ancient Semitic languages, and ancient Jewish binitarian monotheism.
Mike blogs about biblical studies at The Naked Bible, and fringe beliefs about the ancient world at PaleoBabble. He offers courses to the public in Old Testament, biblical theology, Israelite religion, ancient languages, the Book of Enoch through his online institute, MEMRA.
Mike's other academic interests include the paranormal and the occult. His UFO Religions blog discusses how the pop cultural belief in aliens shape religious worldviews. Mike has been a frequent guest on a number of radio programs such as Coast to Coast AM. He is best known for his critique of the ancient astronaut theories of Zecharia Sitchin and his paranormal thriller, The Facade, which intertwines many of his interests.
Mike blogs about biblical studies at The Naked Bible, and fringe beliefs about the ancient world at PaleoBabble. He offers courses to the public in Old Testament, biblical theology, Israelite religion, ancient languages, the Book of Enoch through his online institute, MEMRA.
Mike's other academic interests include the paranormal and the occult. His UFO Religions blog discusses how the pop cultural belief in aliens shape religious worldviews. Mike has been a frequent guest on a number of radio programs such as Coast to Coast AM. He is best known for his critique of the ancient astronaut theories of Zecharia Sitchin and his paranormal thriller, The Facade, which intertwines many of his interests.
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October 31, 2016
This book is a true resource, but it is the kind of resource that you are likely to read clean through, and then read through some other time, and then keep it nearby in order to refresh your memory on this or that.
Too many contemporary Christians are modernists when it comes to their cosmology, with the sole exception of their belief in the human soul. The reality of the afterlife—and a heaven populated with “angels” and what not—doesn’t really count because it is quietly assumed that that place is outside the regular cosmos somehow, and so can’t be incorporated into the modern cosmology. The universe is thought to be exactly what the atheist astronomer says it is—a vast empty space, punctuated here and there with dead rock and flaming gases. The spiritual realm is filed away in the 17th dimension somehow.
The problem with this is that there is such a thing as a biblical cosmology. We often miss references to these realities in the text because we are so steeped in the modernist conceptions that we simply slide right over them in our Scripture reading. But if we are ever brought up short, we will really be brought up short, and this will be the book that can do it. The subtitle is a very good description—“Recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible.” Considered as a promise, it is a promise that delivers.
Michael Heiser begins his exhaustive biblical study of cosmology with Psalm 82:1
“God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods” (Ps. 82:1).
This is not an instance of the living God judging among the dead superstitions. It can be read as “Elohim stands in the congregation of the mighty—He judges among the elohim.” The one true God with a plural suffix in His name judges among the plural gods that have a plural suffix for a different reason.
Scripture does not teach us that the pagan gods were non-existent. Paul tells us that there were in fact “gods many and lords many” (1 Cor. 8:5-6), and he tells us that genuine demonic forces were involved in idol worship of the pagans (1 Cor. 10:20). And when Paul cast a demon out of that young woman at Philippi, the original says that he was casting out the “spirit of a python.” This marked her as a devotee of the god Apollo. All of this is to say that the unseen realm is not sparsely populated. A lot is going on there, and a lot is said about in the Scriptures.
This book is really outstanding. There are places where I differ with a particular point, but even here it is a delight to be having the discussion. The Unseen Realm is scholarly, readable, provocative, and above all, grounded in the text. The only serious criticism I would have concerned the (unnecessary) foray into a discussion of free will in Chapter 7. But even that was comparatively a slight distraction.
Who are the Nephilim? What is the council of the gods exactly? Who were the beings that were locked up in Tartarus? Who is the angel of YHWH? What is meant by the “two YHWHs,” and how does this relate to the radical scriptural insistence upon monotheism? What is being referred to when we speak of principalities, powers, dominions or thrones? The chief value of this book is that we learn that it is not necessary for our eyes to glaze over when we encounter references like this. When we turn to the Scripture with our questions, it is astonishing how many of those questions are answered explicitly in the text.
This is the scholarly fat book on the subject. If you want to check the thesis out on a more popular level, you can check out his other book on the subject entitled Supernatural.
Highly recommended.
Too many contemporary Christians are modernists when it comes to their cosmology, with the sole exception of their belief in the human soul. The reality of the afterlife—and a heaven populated with “angels” and what not—doesn’t really count because it is quietly assumed that that place is outside the regular cosmos somehow, and so can’t be incorporated into the modern cosmology. The universe is thought to be exactly what the atheist astronomer says it is—a vast empty space, punctuated here and there with dead rock and flaming gases. The spiritual realm is filed away in the 17th dimension somehow.
The problem with this is that there is such a thing as a biblical cosmology. We often miss references to these realities in the text because we are so steeped in the modernist conceptions that we simply slide right over them in our Scripture reading. But if we are ever brought up short, we will really be brought up short, and this will be the book that can do it. The subtitle is a very good description—“Recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible.” Considered as a promise, it is a promise that delivers.
Michael Heiser begins his exhaustive biblical study of cosmology with Psalm 82:1
“God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods” (Ps. 82:1).
This is not an instance of the living God judging among the dead superstitions. It can be read as “Elohim stands in the congregation of the mighty—He judges among the elohim.” The one true God with a plural suffix in His name judges among the plural gods that have a plural suffix for a different reason.
Scripture does not teach us that the pagan gods were non-existent. Paul tells us that there were in fact “gods many and lords many” (1 Cor. 8:5-6), and he tells us that genuine demonic forces were involved in idol worship of the pagans (1 Cor. 10:20). And when Paul cast a demon out of that young woman at Philippi, the original says that he was casting out the “spirit of a python.” This marked her as a devotee of the god Apollo. All of this is to say that the unseen realm is not sparsely populated. A lot is going on there, and a lot is said about in the Scriptures.
This book is really outstanding. There are places where I differ with a particular point, but even here it is a delight to be having the discussion. The Unseen Realm is scholarly, readable, provocative, and above all, grounded in the text. The only serious criticism I would have concerned the (unnecessary) foray into a discussion of free will in Chapter 7. But even that was comparatively a slight distraction.
Who are the Nephilim? What is the council of the gods exactly? Who were the beings that were locked up in Tartarus? Who is the angel of YHWH? What is meant by the “two YHWHs,” and how does this relate to the radical scriptural insistence upon monotheism? What is being referred to when we speak of principalities, powers, dominions or thrones? The chief value of this book is that we learn that it is not necessary for our eyes to glaze over when we encounter references like this. When we turn to the Scripture with our questions, it is astonishing how many of those questions are answered explicitly in the text.
This is the scholarly fat book on the subject. If you want to check the thesis out on a more popular level, you can check out his other book on the subject entitled Supernatural.
Highly recommended.
November 14, 2017
While I found this book interesting, I was left feeling frustrated and disappointed. This is no reflection on the merits of Mr. Heiser's faith or his sincerity. The book was well written and in many cases full of profound connections.
It probably would help to start off by listing some of the author's primary theses that he returns to over and over in this book:
1) The Bible uses the Divine Assembly motif regularly.
2) Human beings were made in God's Image and are thus His "Imagers" (Heiser's word).
3) The Angel of YHWH in the Old Testament is to be equated with Christ.
4) Yahweh disinherited the non-Hebrew nations at the dispersion after the tower of Babel and He concerned Himself with the Hebrew nation exclusively, but with a plan to later bring all other nations into that fold.
While he may explore other topics in here (e.g. Enoch, fallen angels, Hermon, Nephilim, giants, etc), the above four seem to be the ones he returns to more often than not and under which all other topics relate in some way. While I concur with the first two, the last two are either wholly, or in large part, erroneous.
Regarding the first thesis: Psalm 82 has been a verse I've often found interesting as does this author. To cite the verse:
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Most Jews and Christians either ignore this verse, or trivialize it and explain it away. The phrase translated as "divine council" is the Hebrew word "Elohim", which is the Hebrew word for God(s). The verse literally reads "Elohim has taken His place among the Elohim, in the midst of the Elohim He holds judgment." The verse is somewhat ambiguous on the surface; and inexplicable when seen from the supposed rigid monotheism of Judaism. The verse gained more illumination following the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets, where very similar language is used regarding the Canaanite/Phoenician gods El and Baal. For a long time now, only secular biblical scholars have been willing to use the Ugaritic tablets as referents for this ambiguous verse in Psalms. I started studying Levantine mythology years ago, so I've been aware of the importance of the Ugaritic tablets and how they indicate that Jews, Phoenicians and other Levantine tribes, shared a common stock of myths. Christians have typically shied away from any implication that the Bible contains any mythology, let alone drew from a mythology shared with the mortal enemies of the Hebrews the Canaanites; thus, the importance of the Ugaritic tablets and Psalm 82 have been largely ignored by theologians--except for idiosyncratic Christians like myself, that is.
I concur with Heiser about the connections between the Divine Assembly motif and various verses of the Bible stretching from Deuteronomy to Revelation. I've seen those connections for some time. He added some verses where I didn't initially see it, e.g. from Revelation; but all the relevant OT verses I was aware of the connection to the Divine Assembly motif. So far I am in agreement with Heiser.
Regarding the second thesis: Heiser also finds the Divine Image motif important as well, but I was left rather perplexed as to what exactly that entails in Heiser's view. He removes it from any practical human attribute, so even his assertion that as Divine "Imagers" we were to be stewards over the earth becomes problematic. I am not sure how our intelligence, freewill, etc, could not be directly relevant to the nature of Divine Image when that status must include practical abilities. I personally believe that being made in God's Image is related to our Spiritual nature and is manifested in our practical abilities. This issue I have with the author is not a major one, so it wouldn't have affected my overall stance regarding the book.
The third thesis above is where we start getting into serious issues. Issues I cannot ignore or glide over lightly. Heiser is intrigued by the language of the OT regarding the Angel of YHWH. In many cases, the OT conflates the Angel with YHWH; sometimes using YHWH as the referent and sometimes the Angel. Once again, I also was aware of these cases and I didn't draw the conclusions that Heiser does. The Angel of YHWH is STILL an angel--that is incredibly important to note. As Heiser mentions in the book a plethora of times, angelos and malach in Greek and Hebrew respectively, simply means "messenger." What I find puzzling is that theologians often fail to make the connection between God The Word and the role of being a Messenger of The Word. The Word (Logos) was essentially also a "message" in the OT. The YHWH Angel, in his office as messenger of the "Word", also carried the Divine authority of the Word he carried. This explains the ambiguity of the language and the subtle conflation that often occurs. It doesn't change the fact that he is still just an angel in himself.
Heiser glosses over all the problematic verses of the OT where the Angel of YHWH doesn't display just Divine characteristics but also positively diabolical ones. For example, the Angel of YHWH is called "the destroyer" in Exodus and related terms are used in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. He is also called "a satan" (usually translated as "adversary" in English) in Numbers chapter 22. Because Heiser sees the term "satan" as just referring to an office when no article is used (i.e. "the"), he doesn't seem to be all that bothered that in both these cases the names/titles "satan" and "destroyer" are also used as names for fallen angels (might be the same angel, in fact) in the New Testament (see Luke 10:18 and Revelation 9:1, 11). One might be able to explain away one as coincidence, but one can only be called naïve when one tries to do it twice.
Now, someone can think whatever they like about the Angel of YHWH, but Jesus Christ he isn't. Jesus' attributes are largely in conflict with the Angel of YHWH. More often than not the YHWH Angel is associated with death and destruction. Whenever a patriarch or a prophet is in danger of their life, the YHWH Angel isn't far from the scene (Gen. 22:11-12; 32:25; Exodus 4:24). The Angel of YHWH is quite literally the angel of death. While I realize that early church fathers like Justin Martyr equated the angel with Christ, later church fathers, like Augustine, saw the disparity between the two and the teaching was rightly forgotten.
I agree with Heiser that this angel personified (or angelified, really) YHWH in some sense. His was only a preliminary role in the story of salvation though--thankfully. While I have cautious respect for the figure of the Angel of YHWH, he inspires no love in me at all. He's quite an unpleasant fellow. Ultimately, the issues I have with Heiser's interpretation of the angel also relate to my issues with the last thesis. I'll follow this up below.
Now, to the last thesis. The author holds the dispersion at Babel to be a paradigmatic event. Indeed, it was here that YHWH disowned all the non-Hebrew nations, giving them over to lesser elohim (angels), and then called Abraham out of Ur in order to form a people He would care for personally. The issues I have with this premise are manifold. Firstly, the role that death plays in the Bible at the time of the fall cannot be relegated to a bin of insignificant theological anomalies. It is actually here where Satan gains control over all nations--including the Hebrew one. The author's contention that God was personally involved with all events in the life of the Hebrew nation, with no interference from rebellious principalities, is not a premise that can be held consistently when all the Biblical evidence is accounted for.
My biggest frustration came when the author tied the Divine Assembly motif to Galatians chapters 3 and 4 and Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. I agree whole heartedly that the motif is relevant but Heiser misreads all of the above to make them say the opposite of what they actually say.
Lets start with Galatians 3 and 4. In Galatians 3:19, Paul clearly says that the Law (i.e. Torah) was given by angels through the hand of a mediator. Paul sums up the former interaction by saying "but God is One." It's obvious what Paul is saying: Paul is saying that the Hebrews DID NOT have a direct relationship with God. They were twice removed from a direct relationship. Paul's view is that we now have a direct relationship through Christ. If there was no difference between the role of the angels (including the Angel of YHWH), why was Jesus needed? He was needed because there was, and is, a difference between God and the angels who gave the law. Heiser wants to insert the YHWH Angel into the role of mediator in this verse, but even if that were valid, it doesn't change the result; the result is that the angel(s) were not direct intermediaries of God. Just like with the fall in Eden, the role of these angels only comes into play because of human transgression. Counter to what Heiser says, they had authority over the Hebrew nation as well--since the fall, in fact, because that's where transgression entered. Heiser attempts to make these angels innocent bystanders at God's (as the Angel of YHWH, presumably) giving of the law to Moses at Sinai. Chapter 4 of Galatians clearly cannot be divorced from chapter 3. Here Paul goes on to say that the commemoration of special days, months and years, which are all aspects of Torah, are nothing but slavery to the stoicheia angels. Paul is not talking to gentiles at risk of going back into paganism--not at all! He is worried about them, and Christian Jews, becoming Torah slaves. Verses 21-26 drive home the point that non-Christian Hebrews are slaves in bondage. Following Paul's context earlier, non-Christian Hebrews are slaves to the stoicheia powers. This hardly jibes with the premise that the Hebrews had a direct relationship with God.
Heiser only skims over the importance of the term stoicheia and never really explores it sufficiently. He at least concedes the possibility that it refers to spiritual powers in various Pauline epistles. It does indeed. The same term comes up in another relevant passage in Colossians that supports the above reading of Galatians. I am going to quote the passage because Heiser doesn't:
Colossians 2:13-15
13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
So what was the record and legal demands that stood against us? The Torah, of course! What did Christ do with it? Nailed it to the cross. Who were disarmed by this? The rulers and authorities. Who are the rulers and authorities? The angels who gave the law, of course. Far from supporting the supposition that the angels were just innocent bystanders at the giving of the law, Paul makes clear in Colossians that they were the administrators and executioners (double entendre intended) of it. Paul concludes this chapter in Colossians by, once again, mentioning the observing of new moons, festivals, Sabbaths etc--all the ceremonial aspects of Torah that he mentioned in Galatians--and equating the commemorating of such with the worship of angels; and also stating that all the Torah and Rabbinic laws related to handling, tasting and touching, are all aspects of slavery to stoicheia powers.
Heiser wants to use the divine assembly motif in the above verses but he must change the meaning in Psalm 82 where God is judging the angels in the assembly, to God having a peaceful and harmonious assembly with them on Sinai. I am being consistent with Psalm 82 by stating that the same angels God is judging in the Psalm are the angels that were present at Sinai. And, yes, the angels who gave the law included the Angel of YHWH. He is just an angel. I follow this up now.
The very point of Hebrews chapters 1 and 2 is to show that Jesus is superior to angels. The very context of this is that He is a superior intermediary as compared to the intermediaries that gave the law. In no uncertain terms, the author makes it clear that Jesus is not an angel, He is superior to all angels:
Hebrews 1:5-6
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have begotten you”?
Or again,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”?
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”
This makes any direct identification with the Angel of YHWH quite untenable. The Angel of YHWH is just an angel--even if an archangel--and one of the angels that Paul and the author of Hebrews are contrasting with Christ. The similarity begins and ends at them both being intermediaries of God. One was an intermediary of death and law--a preliminary and temporal one. The other is an intermediary of Life and Grace--an eternal one. If one were to appeal to the Edenic symbols that Heiser often explores, Jesus is the Tree of Life and the Angel of YHWH is the sword trying to prevent people from eating of it. They are not the same.
There are other problems I have with the supposition that the Hebrew nation was somehow barred from the rule of rebel angels. Sin was ultimately what gave Satan authority over the world. No human is barred from that reality and thus no nation. When Jesus came on the scene, there were Jews all around Him that were demon possessed. The Jewish nation was under the control of pagans and a murderous Sanhedrin. Satan's temptation that he could give Jesus all the nations, including the Jewish one, was no idle claim. He is called in the New Testament the ruler of this cosmos and the god of this aion. Those are strong terms. No amount of ingenious hermeneutics changes the meaning. Heiser says more than once that "satan" in the OT was the name of an office, and so it is. If it is a title, one would not expect Paul, or other New Testament writers, to feel the need to specify that name and use it amongst titles like those above. They knew who they were talking about and they trusted that you know as well.
Just to be clear: I believe God chose the Hebrew nation for something specific, namely, as the lineage of Christ. They were no less affected by sin and death and the one who held it's power (Hebrews 2:14); and that means their nation was no less prone to demonic influence than any other nation. They proved it when they sentenced Christ to death.
I would like to end on a positive note. I like Heiser's willingness to use extra-Biblical literature to help understand Biblical context. I also was impressed that he gives the Septuagint a lot of credit. It's rare to see theologians do that today.
I know this review is long but I felt compelled to state my issues in this review. If they were minor ones, I wouldn't have felt the need to address them. I am giving the book a 2-and-a-half to 3 star rating. I am taking into account the author's sincerity and his overall desire to get across a Christian message.
I am willing to debate any points I made in this review. One can either comment, if a friend, or message me, if not.
It probably would help to start off by listing some of the author's primary theses that he returns to over and over in this book:
1) The Bible uses the Divine Assembly motif regularly.
2) Human beings were made in God's Image and are thus His "Imagers" (Heiser's word).
3) The Angel of YHWH in the Old Testament is to be equated with Christ.
4) Yahweh disinherited the non-Hebrew nations at the dispersion after the tower of Babel and He concerned Himself with the Hebrew nation exclusively, but with a plan to later bring all other nations into that fold.
While he may explore other topics in here (e.g. Enoch, fallen angels, Hermon, Nephilim, giants, etc), the above four seem to be the ones he returns to more often than not and under which all other topics relate in some way. While I concur with the first two, the last two are either wholly, or in large part, erroneous.
Regarding the first thesis: Psalm 82 has been a verse I've often found interesting as does this author. To cite the verse:
1 God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Most Jews and Christians either ignore this verse, or trivialize it and explain it away. The phrase translated as "divine council" is the Hebrew word "Elohim", which is the Hebrew word for God(s). The verse literally reads "Elohim has taken His place among the Elohim, in the midst of the Elohim He holds judgment." The verse is somewhat ambiguous on the surface; and inexplicable when seen from the supposed rigid monotheism of Judaism. The verse gained more illumination following the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets, where very similar language is used regarding the Canaanite/Phoenician gods El and Baal. For a long time now, only secular biblical scholars have been willing to use the Ugaritic tablets as referents for this ambiguous verse in Psalms. I started studying Levantine mythology years ago, so I've been aware of the importance of the Ugaritic tablets and how they indicate that Jews, Phoenicians and other Levantine tribes, shared a common stock of myths. Christians have typically shied away from any implication that the Bible contains any mythology, let alone drew from a mythology shared with the mortal enemies of the Hebrews the Canaanites; thus, the importance of the Ugaritic tablets and Psalm 82 have been largely ignored by theologians--except for idiosyncratic Christians like myself, that is.
I concur with Heiser about the connections between the Divine Assembly motif and various verses of the Bible stretching from Deuteronomy to Revelation. I've seen those connections for some time. He added some verses where I didn't initially see it, e.g. from Revelation; but all the relevant OT verses I was aware of the connection to the Divine Assembly motif. So far I am in agreement with Heiser.
Regarding the second thesis: Heiser also finds the Divine Image motif important as well, but I was left rather perplexed as to what exactly that entails in Heiser's view. He removes it from any practical human attribute, so even his assertion that as Divine "Imagers" we were to be stewards over the earth becomes problematic. I am not sure how our intelligence, freewill, etc, could not be directly relevant to the nature of Divine Image when that status must include practical abilities. I personally believe that being made in God's Image is related to our Spiritual nature and is manifested in our practical abilities. This issue I have with the author is not a major one, so it wouldn't have affected my overall stance regarding the book.
The third thesis above is where we start getting into serious issues. Issues I cannot ignore or glide over lightly. Heiser is intrigued by the language of the OT regarding the Angel of YHWH. In many cases, the OT conflates the Angel with YHWH; sometimes using YHWH as the referent and sometimes the Angel. Once again, I also was aware of these cases and I didn't draw the conclusions that Heiser does. The Angel of YHWH is STILL an angel--that is incredibly important to note. As Heiser mentions in the book a plethora of times, angelos and malach in Greek and Hebrew respectively, simply means "messenger." What I find puzzling is that theologians often fail to make the connection between God The Word and the role of being a Messenger of The Word. The Word (Logos) was essentially also a "message" in the OT. The YHWH Angel, in his office as messenger of the "Word", also carried the Divine authority of the Word he carried. This explains the ambiguity of the language and the subtle conflation that often occurs. It doesn't change the fact that he is still just an angel in himself.
Heiser glosses over all the problematic verses of the OT where the Angel of YHWH doesn't display just Divine characteristics but also positively diabolical ones. For example, the Angel of YHWH is called "the destroyer" in Exodus and related terms are used in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. He is also called "a satan" (usually translated as "adversary" in English) in Numbers chapter 22. Because Heiser sees the term "satan" as just referring to an office when no article is used (i.e. "the"), he doesn't seem to be all that bothered that in both these cases the names/titles "satan" and "destroyer" are also used as names for fallen angels (might be the same angel, in fact) in the New Testament (see Luke 10:18 and Revelation 9:1, 11). One might be able to explain away one as coincidence, but one can only be called naïve when one tries to do it twice.
Now, someone can think whatever they like about the Angel of YHWH, but Jesus Christ he isn't. Jesus' attributes are largely in conflict with the Angel of YHWH. More often than not the YHWH Angel is associated with death and destruction. Whenever a patriarch or a prophet is in danger of their life, the YHWH Angel isn't far from the scene (Gen. 22:11-12; 32:25; Exodus 4:24). The Angel of YHWH is quite literally the angel of death. While I realize that early church fathers like Justin Martyr equated the angel with Christ, later church fathers, like Augustine, saw the disparity between the two and the teaching was rightly forgotten.
I agree with Heiser that this angel personified (or angelified, really) YHWH in some sense. His was only a preliminary role in the story of salvation though--thankfully. While I have cautious respect for the figure of the Angel of YHWH, he inspires no love in me at all. He's quite an unpleasant fellow. Ultimately, the issues I have with Heiser's interpretation of the angel also relate to my issues with the last thesis. I'll follow this up below.
Now, to the last thesis. The author holds the dispersion at Babel to be a paradigmatic event. Indeed, it was here that YHWH disowned all the non-Hebrew nations, giving them over to lesser elohim (angels), and then called Abraham out of Ur in order to form a people He would care for personally. The issues I have with this premise are manifold. Firstly, the role that death plays in the Bible at the time of the fall cannot be relegated to a bin of insignificant theological anomalies. It is actually here where Satan gains control over all nations--including the Hebrew one. The author's contention that God was personally involved with all events in the life of the Hebrew nation, with no interference from rebellious principalities, is not a premise that can be held consistently when all the Biblical evidence is accounted for.
My biggest frustration came when the author tied the Divine Assembly motif to Galatians chapters 3 and 4 and Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. I agree whole heartedly that the motif is relevant but Heiser misreads all of the above to make them say the opposite of what they actually say.
Lets start with Galatians 3 and 4. In Galatians 3:19, Paul clearly says that the Law (i.e. Torah) was given by angels through the hand of a mediator. Paul sums up the former interaction by saying "but God is One." It's obvious what Paul is saying: Paul is saying that the Hebrews DID NOT have a direct relationship with God. They were twice removed from a direct relationship. Paul's view is that we now have a direct relationship through Christ. If there was no difference between the role of the angels (including the Angel of YHWH), why was Jesus needed? He was needed because there was, and is, a difference between God and the angels who gave the law. Heiser wants to insert the YHWH Angel into the role of mediator in this verse, but even if that were valid, it doesn't change the result; the result is that the angel(s) were not direct intermediaries of God. Just like with the fall in Eden, the role of these angels only comes into play because of human transgression. Counter to what Heiser says, they had authority over the Hebrew nation as well--since the fall, in fact, because that's where transgression entered. Heiser attempts to make these angels innocent bystanders at God's (as the Angel of YHWH, presumably) giving of the law to Moses at Sinai. Chapter 4 of Galatians clearly cannot be divorced from chapter 3. Here Paul goes on to say that the commemoration of special days, months and years, which are all aspects of Torah, are nothing but slavery to the stoicheia angels. Paul is not talking to gentiles at risk of going back into paganism--not at all! He is worried about them, and Christian Jews, becoming Torah slaves. Verses 21-26 drive home the point that non-Christian Hebrews are slaves in bondage. Following Paul's context earlier, non-Christian Hebrews are slaves to the stoicheia powers. This hardly jibes with the premise that the Hebrews had a direct relationship with God.
Heiser only skims over the importance of the term stoicheia and never really explores it sufficiently. He at least concedes the possibility that it refers to spiritual powers in various Pauline epistles. It does indeed. The same term comes up in another relevant passage in Colossians that supports the above reading of Galatians. I am going to quote the passage because Heiser doesn't:
Colossians 2:13-15
13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
So what was the record and legal demands that stood against us? The Torah, of course! What did Christ do with it? Nailed it to the cross. Who were disarmed by this? The rulers and authorities. Who are the rulers and authorities? The angels who gave the law, of course. Far from supporting the supposition that the angels were just innocent bystanders at the giving of the law, Paul makes clear in Colossians that they were the administrators and executioners (double entendre intended) of it. Paul concludes this chapter in Colossians by, once again, mentioning the observing of new moons, festivals, Sabbaths etc--all the ceremonial aspects of Torah that he mentioned in Galatians--and equating the commemorating of such with the worship of angels; and also stating that all the Torah and Rabbinic laws related to handling, tasting and touching, are all aspects of slavery to stoicheia powers.
Heiser wants to use the divine assembly motif in the above verses but he must change the meaning in Psalm 82 where God is judging the angels in the assembly, to God having a peaceful and harmonious assembly with them on Sinai. I am being consistent with Psalm 82 by stating that the same angels God is judging in the Psalm are the angels that were present at Sinai. And, yes, the angels who gave the law included the Angel of YHWH. He is just an angel. I follow this up now.
The very point of Hebrews chapters 1 and 2 is to show that Jesus is superior to angels. The very context of this is that He is a superior intermediary as compared to the intermediaries that gave the law. In no uncertain terms, the author makes it clear that Jesus is not an angel, He is superior to all angels:
Hebrews 1:5-6
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have begotten you”?
Or again,
“I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son”?
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”
This makes any direct identification with the Angel of YHWH quite untenable. The Angel of YHWH is just an angel--even if an archangel--and one of the angels that Paul and the author of Hebrews are contrasting with Christ. The similarity begins and ends at them both being intermediaries of God. One was an intermediary of death and law--a preliminary and temporal one. The other is an intermediary of Life and Grace--an eternal one. If one were to appeal to the Edenic symbols that Heiser often explores, Jesus is the Tree of Life and the Angel of YHWH is the sword trying to prevent people from eating of it. They are not the same.
There are other problems I have with the supposition that the Hebrew nation was somehow barred from the rule of rebel angels. Sin was ultimately what gave Satan authority over the world. No human is barred from that reality and thus no nation. When Jesus came on the scene, there were Jews all around Him that were demon possessed. The Jewish nation was under the control of pagans and a murderous Sanhedrin. Satan's temptation that he could give Jesus all the nations, including the Jewish one, was no idle claim. He is called in the New Testament the ruler of this cosmos and the god of this aion. Those are strong terms. No amount of ingenious hermeneutics changes the meaning. Heiser says more than once that "satan" in the OT was the name of an office, and so it is. If it is a title, one would not expect Paul, or other New Testament writers, to feel the need to specify that name and use it amongst titles like those above. They knew who they were talking about and they trusted that you know as well.
Just to be clear: I believe God chose the Hebrew nation for something specific, namely, as the lineage of Christ. They were no less affected by sin and death and the one who held it's power (Hebrews 2:14); and that means their nation was no less prone to demonic influence than any other nation. They proved it when they sentenced Christ to death.
I would like to end on a positive note. I like Heiser's willingness to use extra-Biblical literature to help understand Biblical context. I also was impressed that he gives the Septuagint a lot of credit. It's rare to see theologians do that today.
I know this review is long but I felt compelled to state my issues in this review. If they were minor ones, I wouldn't have felt the need to address them. I am giving the book a 2-and-a-half to 3 star rating. I am taking into account the author's sincerity and his overall desire to get across a Christian message.
I am willing to debate any points I made in this review. One can either comment, if a friend, or message me, if not.
Want to read
February 21, 2023Heiser died in February 2023.
The popularized version is titled Supernatural. Interesting thread (see Jay's book here). Read this to see why Enoch > Dante.
See Plodcast, Episode #28. Short video discussion here.
This seems kind of related (where did Christ go for three days after dying?). Detailed review at Amazon. Markos reviews it at TGC, making connections to Tolkien's mythology. See another review here.
See Heiser on the Divine Council here. The Bible Project (for whom Heiser is a consultant) has several videos on spiritual beings: introduction, elohim, the Divine Council, angels and cherubim, the angel of the Lord, the Satan and demons, and the new humanity (see some Q&A here). See here for a slightly less related video.
I've heard that Divine Council (DC) scholars will often lean toward a Christus Victor theory of the atonement and away from a Penal Substitution theory. It's possible that now the DC is the church, not ruling angels. Origen and Kline speak of the DC. More here (including cautions about Heiser: premil, anti-Calvinist, local flood). "Sons of God" discussion here.
Reformed perspective. Eastern Orthodox perspective. Series of constructive criticism: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. I have heard that much of what's in Heiser is in Greg Boyd's God at War (1997).
Not sure where to put this bit on Nephilim, so I'll put it here: Giant DNA may have passed through the ark via Ham's wife.
The popularized version is titled Supernatural. Interesting thread (see Jay's book here). Read this to see why Enoch > Dante.
See Plodcast, Episode #28. Short video discussion here.
This seems kind of related (where did Christ go for three days after dying?). Detailed review at Amazon. Markos reviews it at TGC, making connections to Tolkien's mythology. See another review here.
See Heiser on the Divine Council here. The Bible Project (for whom Heiser is a consultant) has several videos on spiritual beings: introduction, elohim, the Divine Council, angels and cherubim, the angel of the Lord, the Satan and demons, and the new humanity (see some Q&A here). See here for a slightly less related video.
I've heard that Divine Council (DC) scholars will often lean toward a Christus Victor theory of the atonement and away from a Penal Substitution theory. It's possible that now the DC is the church, not ruling angels. Origen and Kline speak of the DC. More here (including cautions about Heiser: premil, anti-Calvinist, local flood). "Sons of God" discussion here.
Reformed perspective. Eastern Orthodox perspective. Series of constructive criticism: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. I have heard that much of what's in Heiser is in Greg Boyd's God at War (1997).
Not sure where to put this bit on Nephilim, so I'll put it here: Giant DNA may have passed through the ark via Ham's wife.
July 30, 2023
For many, the word of God is lost among the cacophony of life. We find within "The Unseen Realm," by Dr. Michael Heiser a new comprehension of the ancient context of scripture. He assists the lay person to reconcile the supernatural worldview of events beyond common explanation. Passages of the Bible--after a renewed understanding of God--- begin to breathe and live within the soul of the reader. Truth then becomes a panacea for many ailments resulting from base pursuits.
“Stars were the shining glory of the human beings. The stars also inhabited the divine realm—literally, in the sense that they existed off the earth.”
—-Dr. Michael S. Heiser"
In “The Unseen Realm" we find a common connection depicting an exalted future via a mutual union and dedication to the divine. This text is a serious study and offers its treasures in seven parts. Heiser is a scholar who knows scripture intimately in its ancient cultural context. Expert in Sumerian history and those who can endure will gain understanding of both the Old and New Testaments, with illumination bringing clarity to the veiled or "Unseen World."
“Stars were the shining glory of the human beings. The stars also inhabited the divine realm—literally, in the sense that they existed off the earth.”
—-Dr. Michael S. Heiser"
In “The Unseen Realm" we find a common connection depicting an exalted future via a mutual union and dedication to the divine. This text is a serious study and offers its treasures in seven parts. Heiser is a scholar who knows scripture intimately in its ancient cultural context. Expert in Sumerian history and those who can endure will gain understanding of both the Old and New Testaments, with illumination bringing clarity to the veiled or "Unseen World."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2015
I’ve learned a lot in my years as a Christian. One thing I’ve found is that your view of the spirit realm can vary greatly depending on the circles you’re a part of. One side will over emphasize the spiritual to the point that everything that happens in the physical is directly the result of some spiritual force. On the other hand you have Christians who act as if the spirit realm doesn’t exist, outside of the working of the Holy Spirit, but even limiting his influence. My own Christian journey has involved participation in many of these camps, swinging from one extreme to the other. I finally feel like I have a more biblically balanced view of the spiritual world, after many years of study. With that being said, when I was approached with the opportunity to review a book written on this subject by an author I respect, I jumped at the opportunity. The book is The Unseen Realm: Recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible by Michael S. Heiser, scholar-in-residence at Faithlife.
To be honest, I didn’t quite know what to expect when I got this book in hand. I’d read some of Dr. Heiser’s work before on his blog and in Bible Study Magazine, but I wasn’t wholly aware of his position on the spiritual. All I knew is that it was going to be a good and challenging read on a subject that I was interested in. So, I dove in headfirst and began devouring it.
Like most academic level books, The Unseen Realm begins with some introductory material so the groundwork is laid and you know what to expect. Dr. Heiser starts the book by telling the story of how he even began to study this material. It started with a Sunday at church and a friend asking him to reading Psalm 82 in the Hebrew text. What he found began a fifteen year journey culminating in this book. After telling this story and recalling how it changed his approach to reading the Bible, he challenges the reader to do the same as they embark on this journey through the Scriptures. As Dr. Heiser states in these opening chapters, the key is to look at the Scriptures through supernatural lens employed by the biblical authors, not our modern understandings. If we can do that, we can understand the unseen realm.
Once you get through the opening chapters, the remainder of the book is broken down into seven subsequent parts. Each section walks you through the biblical narrative and clearly explains instances where we encounter the supernatural in those passages. The book’s second section walks through the concept of the “divine counsel,” fully explaining what it is and is not. Spoiler alert: the divine counsel is more than the Trinity. Once that groundwork is laid, a discussion on Eden and what it means to be God’s image bearers ensues. The next section covers the Fall and everything that entails, including: Genesis 6, the flood, and the table of nations. If you were able to get with the concept of the divine counsel, this is where a lot of the Bible starts to make more sense if you look at it with a supernatural understanding. I’ll admit that Dr. Heiser’s explanation of the table of nations was mind blowing & enlightening.
Parts 4 and 5 deal with the call of Abraham and Israel’s conquest & subsequent failure. The key takeaway from these sections is that God physically walked with his people. I had never considered such a thought before, but it makes perfect sense when read the passages again with the blinders off. Even though the fifth section was a bit difficult to get through because of its density and repetitiveness, how Israel went about their conquest makes a lot more sense, when you understand the spiritual forces they were battling. Part 6 is all about how God used the prophets, and specifically how they saw and spoke with the Lord. The book picks up considerable speed in the latter parts that deal with the ministry of Jesus, the early church, and eschatology.
In The Unseen Realm I believe that Dr. Heiser does a wonderful job of bringing the spiritual realm to the forefront. He doesn’t sensationalize or over emphasize the matter at all. Instead, he helps us to understand how Jews, early Christians, and surrounding cultures would have understood these writings. God had a divine counsel, some of which rebelled. He gave the people over to some of these lower elohim (gods) and called out his own portion in Abraham. The rest of the story is how God works to restore Eden, ultimately through the work of Jesus and building of the Church. Even today we still must realize that the spiritual realm is real. We need to read the Bible with this understanding or we will miss a good portion of what God is trying to tell us. That is what this book seeks to drive home.
Depending on your Christian upbringing, a lot of what Dr. Heiser says in this book will either confirm & strengthen what you already believe, or it will totally challenge and blow your mind. For me it was the former. For an academic level title, I felt it was very approachable and one I would recommend any student of theology read. I look forward to reading more of what Dr. Heiser writes on this subject in the future because I think he is spot on in his analysis. And if you’re not up for an academic level read, be on the lookout for the more accessible and condensed version titled Supernatural releasing later this year.
To be honest, I didn’t quite know what to expect when I got this book in hand. I’d read some of Dr. Heiser’s work before on his blog and in Bible Study Magazine, but I wasn’t wholly aware of his position on the spiritual. All I knew is that it was going to be a good and challenging read on a subject that I was interested in. So, I dove in headfirst and began devouring it.
Like most academic level books, The Unseen Realm begins with some introductory material so the groundwork is laid and you know what to expect. Dr. Heiser starts the book by telling the story of how he even began to study this material. It started with a Sunday at church and a friend asking him to reading Psalm 82 in the Hebrew text. What he found began a fifteen year journey culminating in this book. After telling this story and recalling how it changed his approach to reading the Bible, he challenges the reader to do the same as they embark on this journey through the Scriptures. As Dr. Heiser states in these opening chapters, the key is to look at the Scriptures through supernatural lens employed by the biblical authors, not our modern understandings. If we can do that, we can understand the unseen realm.
Once you get through the opening chapters, the remainder of the book is broken down into seven subsequent parts. Each section walks you through the biblical narrative and clearly explains instances where we encounter the supernatural in those passages. The book’s second section walks through the concept of the “divine counsel,” fully explaining what it is and is not. Spoiler alert: the divine counsel is more than the Trinity. Once that groundwork is laid, a discussion on Eden and what it means to be God’s image bearers ensues. The next section covers the Fall and everything that entails, including: Genesis 6, the flood, and the table of nations. If you were able to get with the concept of the divine counsel, this is where a lot of the Bible starts to make more sense if you look at it with a supernatural understanding. I’ll admit that Dr. Heiser’s explanation of the table of nations was mind blowing & enlightening.
Parts 4 and 5 deal with the call of Abraham and Israel’s conquest & subsequent failure. The key takeaway from these sections is that God physically walked with his people. I had never considered such a thought before, but it makes perfect sense when read the passages again with the blinders off. Even though the fifth section was a bit difficult to get through because of its density and repetitiveness, how Israel went about their conquest makes a lot more sense, when you understand the spiritual forces they were battling. Part 6 is all about how God used the prophets, and specifically how they saw and spoke with the Lord. The book picks up considerable speed in the latter parts that deal with the ministry of Jesus, the early church, and eschatology.
In The Unseen Realm I believe that Dr. Heiser does a wonderful job of bringing the spiritual realm to the forefront. He doesn’t sensationalize or over emphasize the matter at all. Instead, he helps us to understand how Jews, early Christians, and surrounding cultures would have understood these writings. God had a divine counsel, some of which rebelled. He gave the people over to some of these lower elohim (gods) and called out his own portion in Abraham. The rest of the story is how God works to restore Eden, ultimately through the work of Jesus and building of the Church. Even today we still must realize that the spiritual realm is real. We need to read the Bible with this understanding or we will miss a good portion of what God is trying to tell us. That is what this book seeks to drive home.
Depending on your Christian upbringing, a lot of what Dr. Heiser says in this book will either confirm & strengthen what you already believe, or it will totally challenge and blow your mind. For me it was the former. For an academic level title, I felt it was very approachable and one I would recommend any student of theology read. I look forward to reading more of what Dr. Heiser writes on this subject in the future because I think he is spot on in his analysis. And if you’re not up for an academic level read, be on the lookout for the more accessible and condensed version titled Supernatural releasing later this year.
September 8, 2023
*** 1/2
Not fully convinced by his methodology or all of the concepts, but despite that this book was a big eye-opener. A systematic theology of the spiritual realm, utilizing an ancient Jewish worldview, cultural context, and scripture.
Heiser's insight into the spiritual realm makes the read well worth it, even if it is held back in my opinion by shoddy methodology, an unnecessary length brought on by excessive repetition of his thesis, and what at times feels like an elitist confidence in his opinions due to the fact that he had a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages. I acknowledge that his knowledge of the Hebrew language is ultimately what brought him to these wonderful insights about the spiritual realm, but at times it feels as if he is too careless or matter-of-fact about uprooting thousands of years of Christian theology handed down through church history. I found myself questioning his reasoning several times throughout. Heiser tends to be a bit too certain about things that are likely still uncertain or unknown for my taste.
I think that my main complaint with this book is that Heiser writes as if all of these "truths" are self-evident, but in order to come to the conclusions that he has arrived at it would require a PhD in Hebrew as well as a deep understanding and knowledge of the ancient surrounding cultures that surrounded Israel, as well as Israel itself. He writes as if his unveiling of the hidden spiritual realm throughout the bible is exposing the main purpose of the bible from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation. Yet, I don't think that the main purpose of the bible is hidden to the extent that the only one who could uncover it for us up to this point in history is Michael Heiser. Especially with the amount of extrabiblical writings he is utilizing to help understand biblical texts. Many times he employs the writings of the Ugarit which were discovered in 1928 to better understand biblical text, drawing conclusions from these that are far from obvious. Just to give an example off the top of my head, he argues utilizing the Ugarit writings that Baal is known throughout the ancient world as a cloud-rider, and because of that he draws the conclusion that in Daniel 7, when the son of man comes down with the clouds that this was a clear spiritual attack on Baal, something he argues that would have been obvious to every ancient Jewish person. He makes arguments based on this type of reasoning over and over again throughout the book. And, although it could possibly be the truth, I think it is far from obvious. That sort of confidence on his part rubbed me the wrong way.
Aside from the abrasive qualities of Heiser, I do think that this book had deep insights into the spiritual realm. What Heiser revealed to me about the Council of God, Paul's understanding about spiritual warfare, the Nephilim, Daniel 7, angelic and demonic beings, some of the typology throughout the Bible, etc. They all add richness and depth to many verses in the bible that might not have made sense to me before, or that I might have sped over quickly categorizing them as the mythical/spiritual unknown. This book has changed the way that I will read certain aspects of the bible story, and in that way I am in it's debt.
Not fully convinced by his methodology or all of the concepts, but despite that this book was a big eye-opener. A systematic theology of the spiritual realm, utilizing an ancient Jewish worldview, cultural context, and scripture.
Heiser's insight into the spiritual realm makes the read well worth it, even if it is held back in my opinion by shoddy methodology, an unnecessary length brought on by excessive repetition of his thesis, and what at times feels like an elitist confidence in his opinions due to the fact that he had a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages. I acknowledge that his knowledge of the Hebrew language is ultimately what brought him to these wonderful insights about the spiritual realm, but at times it feels as if he is too careless or matter-of-fact about uprooting thousands of years of Christian theology handed down through church history. I found myself questioning his reasoning several times throughout. Heiser tends to be a bit too certain about things that are likely still uncertain or unknown for my taste.
I think that my main complaint with this book is that Heiser writes as if all of these "truths" are self-evident, but in order to come to the conclusions that he has arrived at it would require a PhD in Hebrew as well as a deep understanding and knowledge of the ancient surrounding cultures that surrounded Israel, as well as Israel itself. He writes as if his unveiling of the hidden spiritual realm throughout the bible is exposing the main purpose of the bible from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation. Yet, I don't think that the main purpose of the bible is hidden to the extent that the only one who could uncover it for us up to this point in history is Michael Heiser. Especially with the amount of extrabiblical writings he is utilizing to help understand biblical texts. Many times he employs the writings of the Ugarit which were discovered in 1928 to better understand biblical text, drawing conclusions from these that are far from obvious. Just to give an example off the top of my head, he argues utilizing the Ugarit writings that Baal is known throughout the ancient world as a cloud-rider, and because of that he draws the conclusion that in Daniel 7, when the son of man comes down with the clouds that this was a clear spiritual attack on Baal, something he argues that would have been obvious to every ancient Jewish person. He makes arguments based on this type of reasoning over and over again throughout the book. And, although it could possibly be the truth, I think it is far from obvious. That sort of confidence on his part rubbed me the wrong way.
Aside from the abrasive qualities of Heiser, I do think that this book had deep insights into the spiritual realm. What Heiser revealed to me about the Council of God, Paul's understanding about spiritual warfare, the Nephilim, Daniel 7, angelic and demonic beings, some of the typology throughout the Bible, etc. They all add richness and depth to many verses in the bible that might not have made sense to me before, or that I might have sped over quickly categorizing them as the mythical/spiritual unknown. This book has changed the way that I will read certain aspects of the bible story, and in that way I am in it's debt.
January 2, 2016
It is not exaggerating to say that Dr. Heiser's work has helped me understand the biblical narrative far more clearly than I did before.
Whether you're familiar with the Divine Council or not, Mike's thorough explanation of the cosmology hidden in plain sight on the pages of the Bible will leave you wondering why you've never heard about this in church.
The Unseen Realm and Supernatural are complementary works. Supernatural is an introduction to the supernatural worldview of the authors of the Bible, while The Unseen Realm, a heavily footnoted volume, dives deeper into the theology. (And if you want a serious look under the hood, Mike helpfully provides a companion website to The Unseen Realm with scholarly discussions organized by the chapters of the book.)
Mike's writing style is clear and concise, very readable and accessible even for non-scholars like me. Mike is a credentialed scholar whose conclusions are based on where the biblical text leads. This is not a weird new interpretation of scripture, although it was new to me and probably will be to most readers. Call it the "new old way" of reading the Bible--cosmology seen through the eyes of the authors of the scriptures, or as closely as we can manage from our 21st century perspective.
In both books, Mike systematically lays out the worldview the prophets and apostles recorded in the 66 books of the canon. In a nutshell, humanity was created to serve as the "imagers" of Yahweh, charged with taking dominion of the Earth as members of His Divine Council--which Mike describes as a sort of "supernatural task force". The rebellion of Adam and Eve, encouraged by one of the nachash, resulted in death and banishment from the "cosmic mountain". (Yes, Eden was a garden, but it was also a mountain).
The rest of the Bible is a chronicle of the long war between the rebellious members of the council and Yahweh, and the plan of redemption He set in motion after the Fall. It culminates with Yahweh's final victory at the battle for the "cosmic mountain", Armageddon. (And Mike explains why Armageddon will be fought at Jerusalem--Mount Zion--and not at the "mount of Megiddo". For one thing, Megiddo is in a valley.)
Most of us have heard about heaven, but it's a safe bet that most of what we think we know about life after death and/or the Second Coming is a fuzzy conflation of things half heard on Sunday mornings and random bits of scripturally unfounded fluff absorbed from the culture. Jesus didn't die on the cross just to save us from death, although that's obviously of critical importance, but to restore our inheritance as heirs of Yahweh--members of the Divine Council who will one day judge angels!
This mind-blowing concept gives new significance this passage from Hebrews:
11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,
"I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise."
13 And again,
"I will put my trust in him."
And again,
“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
(Hebrews 2:11-13, ESV - emphasis added)
Do you get that? A day is coming when Jesus will present his followers to the congregation--the assembly, the Divine Council--on Yahweh's "cosmic mountain", Mount Zion. And he will sing our praises, saying, "Behold: I and the children God has given to me."
If that doesn't take away your breath, then you really don't grasp the situation you're in.
Five-star ratings for both books. Lexham Press also offers a study guide for Supernatural suitable for personal devotions or small group study. If you're new to the concept of the Divine Council and looking for a quick overview, or something you can share with a friend or family member to ease them into this "new old way" of reading the Bible, start with Supernatural.
If you're willing to jump into the deep end, get The Unseen Realm. Both are highly recommended.
Mike will be the guest on the nationally syndicated SkyWatchTV program (Christian Television Network: DirecTV ch. 376 and Dish Network ch. 267) on Tuesday, January 19th at 9:30 PM Eastern.
Whether you're familiar with the Divine Council or not, Mike's thorough explanation of the cosmology hidden in plain sight on the pages of the Bible will leave you wondering why you've never heard about this in church.
The Unseen Realm and Supernatural are complementary works. Supernatural is an introduction to the supernatural worldview of the authors of the Bible, while The Unseen Realm, a heavily footnoted volume, dives deeper into the theology. (And if you want a serious look under the hood, Mike helpfully provides a companion website to The Unseen Realm with scholarly discussions organized by the chapters of the book.)
Mike's writing style is clear and concise, very readable and accessible even for non-scholars like me. Mike is a credentialed scholar whose conclusions are based on where the biblical text leads. This is not a weird new interpretation of scripture, although it was new to me and probably will be to most readers. Call it the "new old way" of reading the Bible--cosmology seen through the eyes of the authors of the scriptures, or as closely as we can manage from our 21st century perspective.
In both books, Mike systematically lays out the worldview the prophets and apostles recorded in the 66 books of the canon. In a nutshell, humanity was created to serve as the "imagers" of Yahweh, charged with taking dominion of the Earth as members of His Divine Council--which Mike describes as a sort of "supernatural task force". The rebellion of Adam and Eve, encouraged by one of the nachash, resulted in death and banishment from the "cosmic mountain". (Yes, Eden was a garden, but it was also a mountain).
The rest of the Bible is a chronicle of the long war between the rebellious members of the council and Yahweh, and the plan of redemption He set in motion after the Fall. It culminates with Yahweh's final victory at the battle for the "cosmic mountain", Armageddon. (And Mike explains why Armageddon will be fought at Jerusalem--Mount Zion--and not at the "mount of Megiddo". For one thing, Megiddo is in a valley.)
Most of us have heard about heaven, but it's a safe bet that most of what we think we know about life after death and/or the Second Coming is a fuzzy conflation of things half heard on Sunday mornings and random bits of scripturally unfounded fluff absorbed from the culture. Jesus didn't die on the cross just to save us from death, although that's obviously of critical importance, but to restore our inheritance as heirs of Yahweh--members of the Divine Council who will one day judge angels!
This mind-blowing concept gives new significance this passage from Hebrews:
11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,
"I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise."
13 And again,
"I will put my trust in him."
And again,
“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
(Hebrews 2:11-13, ESV - emphasis added)
Do you get that? A day is coming when Jesus will present his followers to the congregation--the assembly, the Divine Council--on Yahweh's "cosmic mountain", Mount Zion. And he will sing our praises, saying, "Behold: I and the children God has given to me."
If that doesn't take away your breath, then you really don't grasp the situation you're in.
Five-star ratings for both books. Lexham Press also offers a study guide for Supernatural suitable for personal devotions or small group study. If you're new to the concept of the Divine Council and looking for a quick overview, or something you can share with a friend or family member to ease them into this "new old way" of reading the Bible, start with Supernatural.
If you're willing to jump into the deep end, get The Unseen Realm. Both are highly recommended.
Mike will be the guest on the nationally syndicated SkyWatchTV program (Christian Television Network: DirecTV ch. 376 and Dish Network ch. 267) on Tuesday, January 19th at 9:30 PM Eastern.
April 10, 2018
Writing a book on worldview is so passe. What really gets people uncomfortable is writing on the supernatural. We believe in it on paper--as long as it stays on paper. Michael Heiser, by contrast, gives a mini-systematic theology around the Supernatural.
A brief summary: God’s Household has a layered authority: high king → elite administrators → low-level personnel. Psalm 82 is the clearest example in the OT (25). The first Elohim in 82:1 is singular, since it has a singular verbal form (stands). The second is plural, “since the preposition in front of it (“in the midst of”) requires more than one.”
Verse 10: why does God tell him he will die the death of uncircumcised strangers? He is (presumably) a Phoenician and would be uncircumcised anyway (77). The answer: he is sent to the underworld where there were uncircumcised warrior-kings (Ezek. 32.21; 24-30; 32; Isa. 14.9). This is the place of the Rephaim.
Most people can probably take the argument so far. Yeah, the Hebrew says that. We might not like it, but it says it. The next part is the real struggle for belief, though it makes sense to me.
Argument: The serpent (Nachash) is a substantival adjective. He is a serpentine being. This bothers people for some reason.
Why wasn’t Eve afraid of a talking snake, if we take the story literally? Eve was in the garden, which was the meeting place between the heavenly realm and earth. She knew she was talking to an elohim. Ancient man knew that animals really couldn’t talk. Another common sense observation: if the enemy in the garden was a supernatural being, then he wasn’t a mere snake.
Heiser then connects the nachash to events in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28: the prince of Tyre considers himself an el, who sits in the moshab elohim.
Divine Allotment
God scattered the nations in Gen. 11; Deut. 32:8-9 describes it as disinheriting.
Key idea: God gave ownership of the Table of Nations to the divine council (113). Deut. 4:19-20 makes this clear. Psalm 82 judges these elohim for doing a bad job, and then urges God to rise up for he shall inherit the nations.
The Nephilim
This is where the fun begins. Are the entities in Genesis 6 the line of Seth or the Watchers?
However the Israelites would have interpreted Gen. 6, it is certain they wouldn’t have demythologized the text. The real problem for most is how can an incorporeal being physically interact with a corporeal world? This is a big problem in analytic philosophy. It is related to the problem of divine action. On a supernatural worldview, it is no problem. But if you are a conservative Christian and hold to the other line of thinking, then you need to explain the following?
Does Matt. 22:23-33 rule out the supernatural view? The Bible tells of angels physically interacting with humans. Some considerations:
1. This text never says angels can’t have sexual relations. It just says they don’t.
2 Nevertheless, Genesis 6 isn’t the spiritual realm, so the situation doesn’t apply.
3.This event is far less radical in what is required of a belief than the Incarnation.
4.The actions in Genesis 18-19 are physical actions (eating food, taking hold of Lot, etc.).
5. In Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob wrestles with an elohim and the elohim can be touched and in return physically harm Jacob.
6. Everyone believes angels can speak, yet on this objection how can an incorporeal being produce sound waves?
7. Angels open doors (Acts 5:19)
8. They hit the disciples (Acts 12.7).
Space prevents me from developing all of Heiser’s points. The book is fantastic and I am glad to see it getting a wide readership. I do think it could have been shorter. While I understand his point about free will and divine foreknowledge, the study of counterfactuals has come a long way and there are answers and alternatives to what he has given.
A brief summary: God’s Household has a layered authority: high king → elite administrators → low-level personnel. Psalm 82 is the clearest example in the OT (25). The first Elohim in 82:1 is singular, since it has a singular verbal form (stands). The second is plural, “since the preposition in front of it (“in the midst of”) requires more than one.”
Verse 10: why does God tell him he will die the death of uncircumcised strangers? He is (presumably) a Phoenician and would be uncircumcised anyway (77). The answer: he is sent to the underworld where there were uncircumcised warrior-kings (Ezek. 32.21; 24-30; 32; Isa. 14.9). This is the place of the Rephaim.
Most people can probably take the argument so far. Yeah, the Hebrew says that. We might not like it, but it says it. The next part is the real struggle for belief, though it makes sense to me.
Argument: The serpent (Nachash) is a substantival adjective. He is a serpentine being. This bothers people for some reason.
Why wasn’t Eve afraid of a talking snake, if we take the story literally? Eve was in the garden, which was the meeting place between the heavenly realm and earth. She knew she was talking to an elohim. Ancient man knew that animals really couldn’t talk. Another common sense observation: if the enemy in the garden was a supernatural being, then he wasn’t a mere snake.
Heiser then connects the nachash to events in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28: the prince of Tyre considers himself an el, who sits in the moshab elohim.
Divine Allotment
God scattered the nations in Gen. 11; Deut. 32:8-9 describes it as disinheriting.
Key idea: God gave ownership of the Table of Nations to the divine council (113). Deut. 4:19-20 makes this clear. Psalm 82 judges these elohim for doing a bad job, and then urges God to rise up for he shall inherit the nations.
The Nephilim
This is where the fun begins. Are the entities in Genesis 6 the line of Seth or the Watchers?
However the Israelites would have interpreted Gen. 6, it is certain they wouldn’t have demythologized the text. The real problem for most is how can an incorporeal being physically interact with a corporeal world? This is a big problem in analytic philosophy. It is related to the problem of divine action. On a supernatural worldview, it is no problem. But if you are a conservative Christian and hold to the other line of thinking, then you need to explain the following?
Does Matt. 22:23-33 rule out the supernatural view? The Bible tells of angels physically interacting with humans. Some considerations:
1. This text never says angels can’t have sexual relations. It just says they don’t.
2 Nevertheless, Genesis 6 isn’t the spiritual realm, so the situation doesn’t apply.
3.This event is far less radical in what is required of a belief than the Incarnation.
4.The actions in Genesis 18-19 are physical actions (eating food, taking hold of Lot, etc.).
5. In Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob wrestles with an elohim and the elohim can be touched and in return physically harm Jacob.
6. Everyone believes angels can speak, yet on this objection how can an incorporeal being produce sound waves?
7. Angels open doors (Acts 5:19)
8. They hit the disciples (Acts 12.7).
Space prevents me from developing all of Heiser’s points. The book is fantastic and I am glad to see it getting a wide readership. I do think it could have been shorter. While I understand his point about free will and divine foreknowledge, the study of counterfactuals has come a long way and there are answers and alternatives to what he has given.
May 23, 2022
Here in lies another book that completely frustrated me. The author starts out touting his own credentials so as to make the reader believe every bizarre thing he spouts is true. From childhood through adult hood he briefly recounts his journey into the dangerous world of misrepresenting the bible…and that is supposed to make us believe him. He uses that standard line that modern Christians can’t rightly read the bible because we are too biased, which is most likely true in some cases, but then thinks that he is not in this same position because he came to see the scriptures differently.
He starts out at his life changing moment of psalm 82:1 “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…v6 I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” He will then explain how we have all been reading this wrong and that these are lesser gods in a pantheon of gods (a divine counsel). It is weird to me that someone who claims to love Jesus actually discounts Jesus himself who said these were men and NOT gods in the Gospel of John (to be fair Heiser does try to address this). He then goes on to lambast all preachers because they are too afraid to cover sensitive verses (a long list, many of which I have actually covered) as a way to bolster his claim that he will impart the truth while every good conservative bible teacher is too afraid to look at the text honestly. It is very arrogant and misleading.
I find the charge of “misleading” actually misleading when Heisler points out a verse and shows how the punctuation in our English text is all wrong. It leads the reader to think that a translator was biased…when the truth is there is actually NO punctuation in any of our earliest texts because that was how the Greek text was written. The text itself is what lets us know where the punctuation should be, but Heisler leads the reader to believe that in this one instance the translator tried to cover something up that was earth shattering.
I was talking to a young man recently who read this book and I asked him 2 questions (after I finished the book). First, what did he think Heisler’s definition of salvation is based on this book? Personally I walked away feeling like it was very works based, as getting back into the kingdom meant moving to be under the rightful rule of YHWH, the head Elohim (not necessarily LORD GOD ALMIGHTY). Second I asked my friend, how does this book further the proclamation of the good news (the Gospel) of God’s rescue of us? This book has very low view of God by teaching that God HAD TO hide his purpose for Jesus coming so that the other forces wouldn’t be able to stop it. Really? The God who made the heavens and the earth is so impotent that He fears people/gods stopping Him or His plans?
Needless to say, I had multiple issues with the book. On the other hand, in order to also say something nice, he does talk about few things in the book that are beautiful in their context…I only wish instead of diminishing God, he exalted Him. I would say the book borders on, if not full on embraces, open theism.
Is 43:10 states You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I think I’ll take God’s word on it.
He starts out at his life changing moment of psalm 82:1 “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…v6 I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” He will then explain how we have all been reading this wrong and that these are lesser gods in a pantheon of gods (a divine counsel). It is weird to me that someone who claims to love Jesus actually discounts Jesus himself who said these were men and NOT gods in the Gospel of John (to be fair Heiser does try to address this). He then goes on to lambast all preachers because they are too afraid to cover sensitive verses (a long list, many of which I have actually covered) as a way to bolster his claim that he will impart the truth while every good conservative bible teacher is too afraid to look at the text honestly. It is very arrogant and misleading.
I find the charge of “misleading” actually misleading when Heisler points out a verse and shows how the punctuation in our English text is all wrong. It leads the reader to think that a translator was biased…when the truth is there is actually NO punctuation in any of our earliest texts because that was how the Greek text was written. The text itself is what lets us know where the punctuation should be, but Heisler leads the reader to believe that in this one instance the translator tried to cover something up that was earth shattering.
I was talking to a young man recently who read this book and I asked him 2 questions (after I finished the book). First, what did he think Heisler’s definition of salvation is based on this book? Personally I walked away feeling like it was very works based, as getting back into the kingdom meant moving to be under the rightful rule of YHWH, the head Elohim (not necessarily LORD GOD ALMIGHTY). Second I asked my friend, how does this book further the proclamation of the good news (the Gospel) of God’s rescue of us? This book has very low view of God by teaching that God HAD TO hide his purpose for Jesus coming so that the other forces wouldn’t be able to stop it. Really? The God who made the heavens and the earth is so impotent that He fears people/gods stopping Him or His plans?
Needless to say, I had multiple issues with the book. On the other hand, in order to also say something nice, he does talk about few things in the book that are beautiful in their context…I only wish instead of diminishing God, he exalted Him. I would say the book borders on, if not full on embraces, open theism.
Is 43:10 states You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I think I’ll take God’s word on it.
February 21, 2023
I went into this book knowing I would have a few qualms here and there, but I expected to gain from it in the main. That's because I knew Heiser has been a big name in recent years -- anybody who talks about Ancient Near Eastern background apparently has to pay some homage to him. But, in all honesty, I was not impressed.
The Good
Heiser insists we understand the Bible on its own terms. That's certainly a laudable goal, in general.
Heiser's exegesis of a number of texts was certainly helpful. There were a number of places where he introduced me to an interpretations I hadn't heard before, but that were undoubtedly spot-on.
I think Heiser's treatment of the word אלוהים is helpful. He demonstrates that the biblical writers use this word to signify more than just God. It refers to spiritual beings in general. This point is important for translation and interpretation of a number of texts.
Heiser is right that the divine council concept has been neglected in a lot of conservative scholarship.
The Bad
First, this book is a disorganized mess. By the end I really couldn't remember what Heiser's central thesis was (or if he really had one). It's split up into sections that ostensibly have unified themes, but even these were jumbled and scatterbrained. This book doesn't seem to have any specific argument to make -- it's just an infodump.
Second, while his treatment of some texts are convincing, I found that Heiser's exegesis was more often characterized by a propensity to overstate his case. In most places the most that he proves is that his reading is potentially possible. In other places his arguments are just bad. The most egregious example being when he revealed the hidden Phoenecian word for serpent within the typical Hebrew word for signet ring by proposing the final mem might be silent. I actually laughed out loud when I read that the first time.
Third, Heiser operates with a faulty hermeneutic. He is a biblicist who objects to reading Scripture along with Christian tradition. If it's not explicitly stated in the text, he says, it's not there. Yet the way he uses inter-testamental Jewish sources and ANE literature violates his own biblicism.
Another issue with his hermeneutic is the way he tends to read the whole in light of obscure parts. Similarly, many of his intertextual arguments rest on single words -- frequently common words. This goes back to his propensity to overstate his case.
My primary issue, though, is that the way he handles scripture frequently indicates that no one can understand the main point of a passage without understanding the ANE background. In other words, the main point of scripture was often unavailable to generations of believers who did not have access to Ugaritic or Babylonian literature. I believe this is incompatible with a sound doctrine of revelation. While certain details may be illuminated by historical research, the primary teaching of any passage must be accessible to all readers, otherwise the Bible cannot be a light to every believer's path.
Fourth, Heiser seems largely ignorant of theology in general. The fault in his doctrine of scripture mentioned above is one example. Another frankly hilarious example is the way he engaged the free will vs determinism debate by highlighting biblical references to counterfactuals. Not only was this not a real solution to the problem, but theologians have known about counterfactuals for quite a long time now. It is frankly irresponsible for someone who presents himself as a teacher to engage in any debate without first familiarizing himself with the details.
I previously commended Heiser's treatment of אלוהים, but there is nevertheless a problem with the conclusions he draws. He ably demonstrates that אלוהים does not mean the same thing as the english word "god." But then he proceeds to draw implications, arguing that it would be inaccurate to describe Israelite theology as "monotheistic" in the ontological sense of the term. But this conclusion is dependent upon the very point he just disproved: אלוהים does not mean god. It is still entirely possible to insist that the Israelites were ontological monotheists -- Yhwh is the only being of his kind.
Heiser also make a huge and problematic theological claim in his discussion of Gen 1:27. Based only on the first-person plural verb, he asserts that the divine council must also have been created in Yhwh's image -- and that humans are made in the image of the divine council. Without getting into all the problems of this view, I must insist that the first-person plural is not enough to substantiate it. We cannot build our anthropology on a single verb. I would also argue that the subsequent third-person singular verbs should give pause to anyone who reads "Let us make" as a reference to the divine council.
Lastly, I think Heiser's rhetoric throughout the book is dishonest and legitimately dangerous. His motto that people shouldn't be "protected from the Bible" implies that the majority of Bible teachers are deliberately suppressing Biblical truth. In fact, Heiser's rhetoric often has a gnostic flavor to it: There are truths in the Bible that most people don't want you to know, but that I can show you. His assertions that everything he shows you is "clear" if you know what to look for also imply that most interpreters are incompetent. This kind of speech is damaging to the church and ought to be strongly condemned.
Conclusion
I could say more. I was majorly underwhelmed by this book. Whatever good points it has are buried under piles of very bad points. I can't really recommend it to anybody, and I would certainly never recommend it to a layperson.
Addendum Upon Heiser's Passing
While I stand by my criticisms of this book, I do think I should add that, over the course of a year, I've cited it positively several times in my own (amateur) academic work -- as well as others of Heiser's publications. Upon further reflection, I've come to think of Heiser as the sort of crazy creative in academia that we need every so often. Somebody has to go too far so we can back up, evaluate, and find a better balance. His basic motivations were admirable: Love of God and a desire that the Church would know the word. So while I still think this book is largely problematic, I don't want to give the impression that I'm against the man who wrote it. I hope the Lord blesses the fruit of his labors with Logos, the Bible Project, and books like this one.
The Good
Heiser insists we understand the Bible on its own terms. That's certainly a laudable goal, in general.
Heiser's exegesis of a number of texts was certainly helpful. There were a number of places where he introduced me to an interpretations I hadn't heard before, but that were undoubtedly spot-on.
I think Heiser's treatment of the word אלוהים is helpful. He demonstrates that the biblical writers use this word to signify more than just God. It refers to spiritual beings in general. This point is important for translation and interpretation of a number of texts.
Heiser is right that the divine council concept has been neglected in a lot of conservative scholarship.
The Bad
First, this book is a disorganized mess. By the end I really couldn't remember what Heiser's central thesis was (or if he really had one). It's split up into sections that ostensibly have unified themes, but even these were jumbled and scatterbrained. This book doesn't seem to have any specific argument to make -- it's just an infodump.
Second, while his treatment of some texts are convincing, I found that Heiser's exegesis was more often characterized by a propensity to overstate his case. In most places the most that he proves is that his reading is potentially possible. In other places his arguments are just bad. The most egregious example being when he revealed the hidden Phoenecian word for serpent within the typical Hebrew word for signet ring by proposing the final mem might be silent. I actually laughed out loud when I read that the first time.
Third, Heiser operates with a faulty hermeneutic. He is a biblicist who objects to reading Scripture along with Christian tradition. If it's not explicitly stated in the text, he says, it's not there. Yet the way he uses inter-testamental Jewish sources and ANE literature violates his own biblicism.
Another issue with his hermeneutic is the way he tends to read the whole in light of obscure parts. Similarly, many of his intertextual arguments rest on single words -- frequently common words. This goes back to his propensity to overstate his case.
My primary issue, though, is that the way he handles scripture frequently indicates that no one can understand the main point of a passage without understanding the ANE background. In other words, the main point of scripture was often unavailable to generations of believers who did not have access to Ugaritic or Babylonian literature. I believe this is incompatible with a sound doctrine of revelation. While certain details may be illuminated by historical research, the primary teaching of any passage must be accessible to all readers, otherwise the Bible cannot be a light to every believer's path.
Fourth, Heiser seems largely ignorant of theology in general. The fault in his doctrine of scripture mentioned above is one example. Another frankly hilarious example is the way he engaged the free will vs determinism debate by highlighting biblical references to counterfactuals. Not only was this not a real solution to the problem, but theologians have known about counterfactuals for quite a long time now. It is frankly irresponsible for someone who presents himself as a teacher to engage in any debate without first familiarizing himself with the details.
I previously commended Heiser's treatment of אלוהים, but there is nevertheless a problem with the conclusions he draws. He ably demonstrates that אלוהים does not mean the same thing as the english word "god." But then he proceeds to draw implications, arguing that it would be inaccurate to describe Israelite theology as "monotheistic" in the ontological sense of the term. But this conclusion is dependent upon the very point he just disproved: אלוהים does not mean god. It is still entirely possible to insist that the Israelites were ontological monotheists -- Yhwh is the only being of his kind.
Heiser also make a huge and problematic theological claim in his discussion of Gen 1:27. Based only on the first-person plural verb, he asserts that the divine council must also have been created in Yhwh's image -- and that humans are made in the image of the divine council. Without getting into all the problems of this view, I must insist that the first-person plural is not enough to substantiate it. We cannot build our anthropology on a single verb. I would also argue that the subsequent third-person singular verbs should give pause to anyone who reads "Let us make" as a reference to the divine council.
Lastly, I think Heiser's rhetoric throughout the book is dishonest and legitimately dangerous. His motto that people shouldn't be "protected from the Bible" implies that the majority of Bible teachers are deliberately suppressing Biblical truth. In fact, Heiser's rhetoric often has a gnostic flavor to it: There are truths in the Bible that most people don't want you to know, but that I can show you. His assertions that everything he shows you is "clear" if you know what to look for also imply that most interpreters are incompetent. This kind of speech is damaging to the church and ought to be strongly condemned.
Conclusion
I could say more. I was majorly underwhelmed by this book. Whatever good points it has are buried under piles of very bad points. I can't really recommend it to anybody, and I would certainly never recommend it to a layperson.
Addendum Upon Heiser's Passing
While I stand by my criticisms of this book, I do think I should add that, over the course of a year, I've cited it positively several times in my own (amateur) academic work -- as well as others of Heiser's publications. Upon further reflection, I've come to think of Heiser as the sort of crazy creative in academia that we need every so often. Somebody has to go too far so we can back up, evaluate, and find a better balance. His basic motivations were admirable: Love of God and a desire that the Church would know the word. So while I still think this book is largely problematic, I don't want to give the impression that I'm against the man who wrote it. I hope the Lord blesses the fruit of his labors with Logos, the Bible Project, and books like this one.
September 27, 2018
A decent introduction to a concept that has been out there for a very long time among academics. Heiser presents a popularized overview of the spiritual worldview of Scripture, some of which he goes into more scholarly detail of in his dissertation (available online for download).
I believe some correctives to the thesis must be in order, however, and while I realize this is a popular work, I would have liked to have seen a lot more references in the footnotes. Weaknesses include various assumptions that I believe he makes, his view of Scripture being of the more text critical school. The argument for Harmagedon as Har-Mo'ed, which I agree with, is very underdeveloped and, I think, poorly argued (Meredith Kline makes a much more solid case). And his treatment of Psalm 82, while fascinating and plausible on a purely ancient Near East comparative studies level, leaves out treatment of John 10:34-35, reducing it to a mere footnote in the book due to "space constraints." There is, I later discovered, more on this on his website, but it is so crucial to Heiser's thesis that it needed to be included here. His treatment of John 10 in the online resources ultimately fails to convince (IMO). I also feel that Heiser has some rather large theological blind spots, particularly in the area of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology, that hamper his evaluation of certain texts and issues.
Heiser has a tendency to present some of his ideas as if they are essentially new and previously undiscovered insights, where the truth is that this kind of discussion of the Divine Council in OT literature has been going on for decades. I think it ultimately hurts his argument, as many people are rightly wary of "new" theology. There is more that could be said, specifically about how Israel's role in Scripture affects Heiser's thesis. I recently completed a thesis paper in which I deal with some of these issues, and I'm looking to expand it into something more popularly readable, so I'm reserving some comments (If you're interested in reading it feel free to contact me or just search my name in Academia dot com).
Suffice to say, I do recommend Unseen Realm, with caution and reservation, as an introduction and popularization of some observations that scholars have been making on the OT text for a very long time. Those discussions have taken place largely in academic ivory towers behind closed doors, so Unseen Realm is a welcome popular presentation.
The chapter on the Angel of Yahweh is particularly brilliant, and I would recommend the book on the merit of that alone. As always, read with discernment.
I believe some correctives to the thesis must be in order, however, and while I realize this is a popular work, I would have liked to have seen a lot more references in the footnotes. Weaknesses include various assumptions that I believe he makes, his view of Scripture being of the more text critical school. The argument for Harmagedon as Har-Mo'ed, which I agree with, is very underdeveloped and, I think, poorly argued (Meredith Kline makes a much more solid case). And his treatment of Psalm 82, while fascinating and plausible on a purely ancient Near East comparative studies level, leaves out treatment of John 10:34-35, reducing it to a mere footnote in the book due to "space constraints." There is, I later discovered, more on this on his website, but it is so crucial to Heiser's thesis that it needed to be included here. His treatment of John 10 in the online resources ultimately fails to convince (IMO). I also feel that Heiser has some rather large theological blind spots, particularly in the area of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology, that hamper his evaluation of certain texts and issues.
Heiser has a tendency to present some of his ideas as if they are essentially new and previously undiscovered insights, where the truth is that this kind of discussion of the Divine Council in OT literature has been going on for decades. I think it ultimately hurts his argument, as many people are rightly wary of "new" theology. There is more that could be said, specifically about how Israel's role in Scripture affects Heiser's thesis. I recently completed a thesis paper in which I deal with some of these issues, and I'm looking to expand it into something more popularly readable, so I'm reserving some comments (If you're interested in reading it feel free to contact me or just search my name in Academia dot com).
Suffice to say, I do recommend Unseen Realm, with caution and reservation, as an introduction and popularization of some observations that scholars have been making on the OT text for a very long time. Those discussions have taken place largely in academic ivory towers behind closed doors, so Unseen Realm is a welcome popular presentation.
The chapter on the Angel of Yahweh is particularly brilliant, and I would recommend the book on the merit of that alone. As always, read with discernment.
July 20, 2021
This book is outstanding. As a scholarly work, it is thorough, but it is still a very enjoyable read. There were times when I really did find it hard to put down. Most importantly, it is intensely exegetical. In chapter 2, he provides a list of texts that believers (even pastors and theologians) tend to abandon, gloss over, or otherwise explain away. This list functions as a table of contents for the book. Here is a sampling of what you'll find:
Genesis 3 - Why wasn't Eve surprised when the serpent spoke to her?
Genesis 6:1-4, Numbers 13:33 - Who are the "sons of God" and how did they survive the flood?
Genesis 48:15-16 - Why are Yahweh and his Angel fused together in Jacob’s prayer?
Psalm 82:1 - Who are the assembly of divine beings that God presides over?
1 Kings 22:19-23 - How exactly do these beings participate in God’s decisions?
Matthew 16:18-19 - What are the "gates of hell" and how does Christ conquer them?
1 Corinthians 2:8 - Who are the "princes of this world"?
1 Corinthians 6:3 - In what way are believers going to judge angels?
1 Corinthians 8:5 - Who are the many gods and many lords?
Galatians 3:19 - Who are these divine beings involved in the giving of the law?
Ephesians 6:12 - Why does Paul describe evil spirits in terms of geographical rulership?
1 Peter 3:18-22, 2:4-5 and Jude 5-7 - What is meant by the references to imprisoned spirits?
If you have read or studied the Bible at all, you've probably wondered about a few of these texts. Sadly, most Christians are functional naturalists/modernists when it comes to any texts that are not absolutely central to the gospel. They will admit the existence of the human soul, the incarnation, the eternal state, etc. But if the text is any way disputed or peripheral, they hurriedly grasp for the (shall we say) "most respectable" interpretation.
But in the task of biblical interpretation, we must not adopt the atheistic/naturalistic worldview. In Heiser's words, we must recover the "supernatural worldview of the Bible". And we must be prepared for what this will mean for us. I'll give you a hint: it won't include praise from your secular university.
The value of Heiser's work here is not in his interpretation of any single text. Even if you don't follow his exegesis on a specific text, you will still feel the cumulative force of all of the texts together. In other words, this mosaic of biblical cosmology will require you to adopt a more supernatural worldview, even if it differs in certain places with the author's view.
Heiser is clear that the triune God stands alone on the Creator side of the divide. But the other side is more densely populated than we usually admit. Specifically, there is a lot of activity in the unseen realm. Both the Old and New Testaments make this very clear. We just need someone like Heiser to help us ditch our modernist blinders.
This book will change the way you read the Bible. It will give you the biblical theological lenses to interpret difficult passages (like the ones listed above). And it will give you the courage to embrace a more supernatural and more biblical worldview.
Genesis 3 - Why wasn't Eve surprised when the serpent spoke to her?
Genesis 6:1-4, Numbers 13:33 - Who are the "sons of God" and how did they survive the flood?
Genesis 48:15-16 - Why are Yahweh and his Angel fused together in Jacob’s prayer?
Psalm 82:1 - Who are the assembly of divine beings that God presides over?
1 Kings 22:19-23 - How exactly do these beings participate in God’s decisions?
Matthew 16:18-19 - What are the "gates of hell" and how does Christ conquer them?
1 Corinthians 2:8 - Who are the "princes of this world"?
1 Corinthians 6:3 - In what way are believers going to judge angels?
1 Corinthians 8:5 - Who are the many gods and many lords?
Galatians 3:19 - Who are these divine beings involved in the giving of the law?
Ephesians 6:12 - Why does Paul describe evil spirits in terms of geographical rulership?
1 Peter 3:18-22, 2:4-5 and Jude 5-7 - What is meant by the references to imprisoned spirits?
If you have read or studied the Bible at all, you've probably wondered about a few of these texts. Sadly, most Christians are functional naturalists/modernists when it comes to any texts that are not absolutely central to the gospel. They will admit the existence of the human soul, the incarnation, the eternal state, etc. But if the text is any way disputed or peripheral, they hurriedly grasp for the (shall we say) "most respectable" interpretation.
But in the task of biblical interpretation, we must not adopt the atheistic/naturalistic worldview. In Heiser's words, we must recover the "supernatural worldview of the Bible". And we must be prepared for what this will mean for us. I'll give you a hint: it won't include praise from your secular university.
The value of Heiser's work here is not in his interpretation of any single text. Even if you don't follow his exegesis on a specific text, you will still feel the cumulative force of all of the texts together. In other words, this mosaic of biblical cosmology will require you to adopt a more supernatural worldview, even if it differs in certain places with the author's view.
Heiser is clear that the triune God stands alone on the Creator side of the divide. But the other side is more densely populated than we usually admit. Specifically, there is a lot of activity in the unseen realm. Both the Old and New Testaments make this very clear. We just need someone like Heiser to help us ditch our modernist blinders.
This book will change the way you read the Bible. It will give you the biblical theological lenses to interpret difficult passages (like the ones listed above). And it will give you the courage to embrace a more supernatural and more biblical worldview.
September 6, 2023
Heiser’s Unseen Realm is crucial, compelling, and competent, but ultimately not totally convincing. Let me explain.
Heiser’s work attempts—I think successfully—to introduce readers who grew up in the Modern West as the inheritors of enlightenment thinking and modernism to the biblical notion that there is an entire other realm that what we see with our physical, earthly, fleshly vision. There is a whole other supernatural realm, the unseen realm, and it’s far more that most folks are used to seeing in their Bibles because have—to use his terminology—blinders on. We explain away difficult and discomforting passages that deal with the supernatural using everything from simply reading over them and not noticing what’s going on (much like Elisha’s slave, Gehazi, in 2 Kings), or by appealing to several centuries of traditional explanations that is aimed to defang these passages and bring the supernatural back down to earth. “No, no, no,” such traditions say, “The sons of God in Genesis 6–that clearly appear to be angelic beings or at least supernatural beings of some sort—aren’t really that! This is talking about Sethites intermarrying… after all, doesn’t Jesus say angels aren’t given in marriage?”
So, I think that Heiser is doing crucial work in helping us uncover more spiritual eyes, ones that recognize that we should see by faith and not by sight, and what is seen may look real, but there’s far more out there than what meets the eye (who knew I’d get a transformers reference in here?). And I think he’s compelling at this broad goal. His work is also competent—he knows what he’s talking about with a lot of this. It’s well researched, pretty well documented, and still readable for educated folks with or without academic training (although that would obviously help!). I think folks should read this book and consider it deeply and carefully.
But some parts simply aren’t convincing. Too often in his attempt to find a broad sweeping narrative for the supernatural world that may work in a theological system, it breaks down—at least for me, and without a lot more exegesis of particular passages—when you move beyond the broad arcs. Some parts just don’t work, and he’s had to gloss around or over read a few things. Also, sometimes his system is a bit sloppy (he tends to read ANE and GR supernatural worldviews along side each other). There are issues I have with this work and a million nits to pick that keep it from being better than it is, but it’s still really good.
If you want to have some things worked through, and are willing to take some time to work through them, this is a great book for you.
Heiser’s work attempts—I think successfully—to introduce readers who grew up in the Modern West as the inheritors of enlightenment thinking and modernism to the biblical notion that there is an entire other realm that what we see with our physical, earthly, fleshly vision. There is a whole other supernatural realm, the unseen realm, and it’s far more that most folks are used to seeing in their Bibles because have—to use his terminology—blinders on. We explain away difficult and discomforting passages that deal with the supernatural using everything from simply reading over them and not noticing what’s going on (much like Elisha’s slave, Gehazi, in 2 Kings), or by appealing to several centuries of traditional explanations that is aimed to defang these passages and bring the supernatural back down to earth. “No, no, no,” such traditions say, “The sons of God in Genesis 6–that clearly appear to be angelic beings or at least supernatural beings of some sort—aren’t really that! This is talking about Sethites intermarrying… after all, doesn’t Jesus say angels aren’t given in marriage?”
So, I think that Heiser is doing crucial work in helping us uncover more spiritual eyes, ones that recognize that we should see by faith and not by sight, and what is seen may look real, but there’s far more out there than what meets the eye (who knew I’d get a transformers reference in here?). And I think he’s compelling at this broad goal. His work is also competent—he knows what he’s talking about with a lot of this. It’s well researched, pretty well documented, and still readable for educated folks with or without academic training (although that would obviously help!). I think folks should read this book and consider it deeply and carefully.
But some parts simply aren’t convincing. Too often in his attempt to find a broad sweeping narrative for the supernatural world that may work in a theological system, it breaks down—at least for me, and without a lot more exegesis of particular passages—when you move beyond the broad arcs. Some parts just don’t work, and he’s had to gloss around or over read a few things. Also, sometimes his system is a bit sloppy (he tends to read ANE and GR supernatural worldviews along side each other). There are issues I have with this work and a million nits to pick that keep it from being better than it is, but it’s still really good.
If you want to have some things worked through, and are willing to take some time to work through them, this is a great book for you.
January 10, 2016
A fascinating book. Heiser's primary contention is that we have lost, or at least severely under-emphasize, the "supernaturalness" of the worldview of the Biblical authors. Heiser digs deep into scripture (especially the Old Testament) as a linguist and expert in ancient cultures, and has no problem bringing extra-Biblical sources in to help him get a better grasp of the intent and meaning of the authors of scripture. Note that he believes in inerrancy and would probably call himself an evangelical Protestant (but clearly not a Calvinist). He would also probably take it as a compliment to say that he believes in "let's get back to what the text actually says" - using all the findings of modern linguistics and archaeology to help us, and regardless of how much church tradition might say something different. Some of his major thrusts are:
1. God rules creation through a "divine council". Just as humans participate in the governance of creation (we aren't just God's robots), so too divine beings participate in an interactive way in that governance. I think many Christians have the idea that there is God, angels, and demons, and God rules as monarch on high with angels merely carrying out his orders. Heiser pulls passages like 1st Kings 22 to show what you might call conversational decision making between Yahweh and other "elohim" (spiritual beings), although he would not dispute for a moment that Yahweh is unique, God Almighty. And then he finds evidence of this divine council everywhere in scripture, often in passages you could easily breeze right through without really considering what is being said.
2. The strange passage in Genesis 6 is indeed about spiritual beings procreating with human women and producing unusually large offspring. And in some way those offspring (and their offspring) are still around post-Flood, either because the Flood wasn't global or because the spiritual misbehavior continued. And then he sees the "holy war" carried out by Israel under Joshua as having, as primary goal, the elimination of the bloodline of these rebellious elohim - that is why God is so concerned that every man, woman, and child be eliminated (passages so difficult for modern Christians). Certainly not a proposal I'd heard before.
3. The Tower of Babel incident is extremely important for understanding the Old Testament worldview. By that affair God is "disinheriting" that nations and giving them over to other gods (real spiritual beings). He then chooses Abraham to begin his own special people, and the rest of the Bible is in some sense "reclaiming lost ground".
4. Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were intentionally cryptic in order to prevent Satan and his forces from deciphering, and acting to hinder, the plan of salvation (in particular they would not have killed Jesus had they realized it would be their undoing). No Jewish scholar expected a Messiah like Jesus although the pieces were there, but no one could have put all the pieces together except in hindsight. I will say Heiser's view of free will makes me a little uncomfortable, especially here (it sort of seems like he thinks Satan could have successfully disrupted God's plans?). But if he is right - should we assume our interpretations of eschatological prophecy are any more accurate?
All those statements will surely provoke a lot of questions, but he marshals a lot of scripture in defense of his positions - but you'll have to read the book for that. I can also certify with near 100% certainty that you won't agree with everything he writes (I sure didn't), but a worthwhile read all the same.
I will say that one result of reading the book for me was enhanced confidence in scripture. Heiser examines the Bible with a microscope, paying attention to little details of phrasing, pulling in extra-Biblical documents to show parallels and aid understanding... and produces a detailed, coherent, and consistent worldview from Genesis to Revelation. I left feeling even more convinced that "you can trust the Bible", in all its details. (I also left much more convinced that a knowledge of the original languages is quite helpful in understanding scripture.)
1. God rules creation through a "divine council". Just as humans participate in the governance of creation (we aren't just God's robots), so too divine beings participate in an interactive way in that governance. I think many Christians have the idea that there is God, angels, and demons, and God rules as monarch on high with angels merely carrying out his orders. Heiser pulls passages like 1st Kings 22 to show what you might call conversational decision making between Yahweh and other "elohim" (spiritual beings), although he would not dispute for a moment that Yahweh is unique, God Almighty. And then he finds evidence of this divine council everywhere in scripture, often in passages you could easily breeze right through without really considering what is being said.
2. The strange passage in Genesis 6 is indeed about spiritual beings procreating with human women and producing unusually large offspring. And in some way those offspring (and their offspring) are still around post-Flood, either because the Flood wasn't global or because the spiritual misbehavior continued. And then he sees the "holy war" carried out by Israel under Joshua as having, as primary goal, the elimination of the bloodline of these rebellious elohim - that is why God is so concerned that every man, woman, and child be eliminated (passages so difficult for modern Christians). Certainly not a proposal I'd heard before.
3. The Tower of Babel incident is extremely important for understanding the Old Testament worldview. By that affair God is "disinheriting" that nations and giving them over to other gods (real spiritual beings). He then chooses Abraham to begin his own special people, and the rest of the Bible is in some sense "reclaiming lost ground".
4. Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were intentionally cryptic in order to prevent Satan and his forces from deciphering, and acting to hinder, the plan of salvation (in particular they would not have killed Jesus had they realized it would be their undoing). No Jewish scholar expected a Messiah like Jesus although the pieces were there, but no one could have put all the pieces together except in hindsight. I will say Heiser's view of free will makes me a little uncomfortable, especially here (it sort of seems like he thinks Satan could have successfully disrupted God's plans?). But if he is right - should we assume our interpretations of eschatological prophecy are any more accurate?
All those statements will surely provoke a lot of questions, but he marshals a lot of scripture in defense of his positions - but you'll have to read the book for that. I can also certify with near 100% certainty that you won't agree with everything he writes (I sure didn't), but a worthwhile read all the same.
I will say that one result of reading the book for me was enhanced confidence in scripture. Heiser examines the Bible with a microscope, paying attention to little details of phrasing, pulling in extra-Biblical documents to show parallels and aid understanding... and produces a detailed, coherent, and consistent worldview from Genesis to Revelation. I left feeling even more convinced that "you can trust the Bible", in all its details. (I also left much more convinced that a knowledge of the original languages is quite helpful in understanding scripture.)
March 29, 2019
I really enjoyed this book, and I have to say that all the stuff on free will and eschatology was the most bizarre stuff in it for me (like CS Lewis in PERELANDRA, I don't see at all how free will and predestination can be made incompatible or opposed to one another, and Heiser opposes them pretty fiercely here). Some of what this book talked about, I'd definitely come across before - in Chilton's PARADISE RESTORED or James Jordan's THROUGH NEW EYES, for instance. In other ways, this book was a really helpful introduction to some of the existing scholarship on this topic, and as I trawled through the DICTIONARY OF DEITIES AND DEMONS IN THE BIBLE (one of my perennial sourcebooks), a whole lot of things started to jump out at me that I understood much better for having read this book.
THE UNSEEN REALM is an introduction, written for the casual reader, to the Bible's "supernatural worldview". Using modern academic scholarship on the ancient Near East and painstakingly cross-referencing Scripture, Heiser explains a ton of passages that mostly get glossed over in our post-enlightenment worldview. His dependence on modern academic works often leads him to assume that Biblical writers took some inspiration for the cultures around them, when I would tend to assume that it was the cultures around them that got inspiration from, you know, the objective supernatural truth which only the Israelites retained in their pure form. Of course, the further back you go in history, the closer you get to the time when mankind walked with God in the garden. It makes sense that ancient cultures would have similar myths.
I think the main takeaway for Christians today is the fact that we were created to be part of God's divine council, reigning with him in the heavenly places. Unlike Heiser, however, I'm postmil, so I get more of a practical takeaway from this book than "oh neat, one day we're going to be on the divine council." The gods were defeated at the cross and Jerusalem 70AD was Armageddon; that's not off in the future somewhere. As other postmil writers have noted, this means that believers reign on Christ's heavenly council here and now. The Kingdom of God is here. We already have the mandate, and the duty, to judge the world according to the word of truth. After all, isn't that what the Great Commission tells us to do?
THE UNSEEN REALM is an introduction, written for the casual reader, to the Bible's "supernatural worldview". Using modern academic scholarship on the ancient Near East and painstakingly cross-referencing Scripture, Heiser explains a ton of passages that mostly get glossed over in our post-enlightenment worldview. His dependence on modern academic works often leads him to assume that Biblical writers took some inspiration for the cultures around them, when I would tend to assume that it was the cultures around them that got inspiration from, you know, the objective supernatural truth which only the Israelites retained in their pure form. Of course, the further back you go in history, the closer you get to the time when mankind walked with God in the garden. It makes sense that ancient cultures would have similar myths.
I think the main takeaway for Christians today is the fact that we were created to be part of God's divine council, reigning with him in the heavenly places. Unlike Heiser, however, I'm postmil, so I get more of a practical takeaway from this book than "oh neat, one day we're going to be on the divine council." The gods were defeated at the cross and Jerusalem 70AD was Armageddon; that's not off in the future somewhere. As other postmil writers have noted, this means that believers reign on Christ's heavenly council here and now. The Kingdom of God is here. We already have the mandate, and the duty, to judge the world according to the word of truth. After all, isn't that what the Great Commission tells us to do?
May 5, 2023
It’s impossible to read the Bible the same way after reading this book. The thorough research and depth of insights were astounding. Will revisit again soon.
January 1, 2022
Certainly worth reading, but I remain unconvinced by his methodology and conclusions.
April 30, 2023
This book was truly fascinating. Heiser has created a biblical theology of the spiritual realm. This area is sadly a very neglected one in biblical studies and systematic theology. Heiser’s immensely popular work will hopefully go a great way to correct this issue. Heiser takes the reader from Genesis to Revelation and shows them the key passages and themes that highlight the spiritual realm throughout Scripture.
Our era is quick to mock the biblical idea of angels and demons, but interestingly seems to be open to the ideas of alien life existing beyond earth. I couldn’t help but consider that, if given the full picture that Heiser presents here, a modern person would be able to consider the spiritual realm that the ancient world held with greater depth and nuance, and not as the simple trite system that many take the Christian position to be (anywhere from rosy cheeked baby winged angels in diapers, to the demonic tropes from your average horror flick).
I found many of Heiser’s observations stunning, and his biblical interpretations fascinating (though I did take issue with a few as well). Examples abound, but here are a few:
• The observation that the Hebrew for ‘serpent’ (Genesis 3) can also mean ‘shining one’ was something I had never heard before.
• The concept that the demonic beings in Scripture were thought to be the offspring of the Nephilim from Genesis 6 in the 2nd temple period, was entirely foreign to me.
• The discussion of the Nephilim was extremely interesting, though I still am not sure what I think about it.
• I greatly appreciated his treatment of the divine council, and I will now see many portions of Scripture in better light (Job 1, Isa 6, Ezek 1, Daniel 10, Psalm 82)
• His treatment of the extra biblical literature concerning the Christ figures in the Old Testament and the ‘two powers’ was absolutely fascinating and I plan to study this in more depth.
• The connection of the 70 missionaries to the 70 nations of Genesis 11 was intriguing.
• His NT discussions on the ‘gates of hell’ and on ‘Armageddon’ were incredibly fascinating.
Having said all these, I’m not sure I agree with them all yet, however I did find much food for thought. But, there were other parts of the book that I disagreed with him strongly, and/or just found his interpretation strange. For example:
• His confidence that the ‘let us make them…’ in Genesis 1 refers to a host of heavenly beings and not the trinitarian God alone (or the magisterial ‘we’) I found problematic, suggesting we are made by, and in the image of, both God and angels rather than God alone, despite his comments otherwise.
• His denial that the serpent of Genesis 3 is the same as Satan in the Scriptures despite Romans 16:20 and his having some conversation about it.
• His reticence to take Genesis 3:15 as the first look at the gospel (protoevangelion) because Romans 16:20 mentions God and not Jesus in particular as the snake crusher (despite his trinitarian emphasis throughout the book).
• His denial that Psalm 22 has any kind of Christological reference despite his acceptance of several less reliable references in the OT as Christological.
• His take on 1 Cor. 5 was absolutely strange and wrong to me.
• His dismissal of some aspects of Calvinism I found to be a bit dismissive and fairly one dimensional.
Also, throughout the book I had a sense that some of it just didn’t smell right at at times. After some further reading and thought, I think the main issue I had with the book is that Heiser treats the unseen realm as if it’s the most important topic in all of the Scriptures! It isn’t though - not by a long shot. Paul tells us that the most important thing in the Scriptures is the gospel (1 Cor. 15:3): the fact that God loves us and became one of us in order to bear our sin for us, so that we could share eternity with him. Heiser seems to see the ruling and reigning as a divine counsel member to be the greatest goal, but instead, our greatest desire should be to be united to Christ to enjoy him forever.
Another aspect that I found strange was the omission of almost any talk of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross or much of any mention of sin and why we need Jesus. Given that this is really the center of what Christianity is, it seemed an absolutely massive omission to not have any coverage of these central Christian themes of sin and atonement. I understand that this wasn’t what his book was primarily about, but given the breadth of the coverage of the book, and that it was arranged as a biblical theology of sorts (from Genesis to Revelation), this seemed a huge oversight.
The last issue I had with the book was that his reliance on the extra biblical literature seemed like it approached the level of competing with the Scriptures themselves. While he didn't say as much, it seemed that the extra biblical literature loomed over above and overshadowed the actual Scripture he discussed. I felt that this could also lead to the problem of Christians thinking they cannot understand the Bible unless they become Hebrew scholars and read all the primary source material.
Having said some of these negatives, I really do think that this book is something that all mature Christians who are well grounded in doctrine should read - at least until these ideas are distilled into a good theology that doesn’t have the negatives.
The book gave me much to think on and I will be considering these things for some time to come.
Somewhere between 3.5 & 4 stars
While The Gospel Coalition’s review was overwhelmingly positive, and desiring God’s review seemed mostly negative (with a little positive), Andrew Moody’s review here from the Australian branch of TGC seemed to be the most well rounded of the other reviews I read.
Our era is quick to mock the biblical idea of angels and demons, but interestingly seems to be open to the ideas of alien life existing beyond earth. I couldn’t help but consider that, if given the full picture that Heiser presents here, a modern person would be able to consider the spiritual realm that the ancient world held with greater depth and nuance, and not as the simple trite system that many take the Christian position to be (anywhere from rosy cheeked baby winged angels in diapers, to the demonic tropes from your average horror flick).
I found many of Heiser’s observations stunning, and his biblical interpretations fascinating (though I did take issue with a few as well). Examples abound, but here are a few:
• The observation that the Hebrew for ‘serpent’ (Genesis 3) can also mean ‘shining one’ was something I had never heard before.
• The concept that the demonic beings in Scripture were thought to be the offspring of the Nephilim from Genesis 6 in the 2nd temple period, was entirely foreign to me.
• The discussion of the Nephilim was extremely interesting, though I still am not sure what I think about it.
• I greatly appreciated his treatment of the divine council, and I will now see many portions of Scripture in better light (Job 1, Isa 6, Ezek 1, Daniel 10, Psalm 82)
• His treatment of the extra biblical literature concerning the Christ figures in the Old Testament and the ‘two powers’ was absolutely fascinating and I plan to study this in more depth.
• The connection of the 70 missionaries to the 70 nations of Genesis 11 was intriguing.
• His NT discussions on the ‘gates of hell’ and on ‘Armageddon’ were incredibly fascinating.
Having said all these, I’m not sure I agree with them all yet, however I did find much food for thought. But, there were other parts of the book that I disagreed with him strongly, and/or just found his interpretation strange. For example:
• His confidence that the ‘let us make them…’ in Genesis 1 refers to a host of heavenly beings and not the trinitarian God alone (or the magisterial ‘we’) I found problematic, suggesting we are made by, and in the image of, both God and angels rather than God alone, despite his comments otherwise.
• His denial that the serpent of Genesis 3 is the same as Satan in the Scriptures despite Romans 16:20 and his having some conversation about it.
• His reticence to take Genesis 3:15 as the first look at the gospel (protoevangelion) because Romans 16:20 mentions God and not Jesus in particular as the snake crusher (despite his trinitarian emphasis throughout the book).
• His denial that Psalm 22 has any kind of Christological reference despite his acceptance of several less reliable references in the OT as Christological.
• His take on 1 Cor. 5 was absolutely strange and wrong to me.
• His dismissal of some aspects of Calvinism I found to be a bit dismissive and fairly one dimensional.
Also, throughout the book I had a sense that some of it just didn’t smell right at at times. After some further reading and thought, I think the main issue I had with the book is that Heiser treats the unseen realm as if it’s the most important topic in all of the Scriptures! It isn’t though - not by a long shot. Paul tells us that the most important thing in the Scriptures is the gospel (1 Cor. 15:3): the fact that God loves us and became one of us in order to bear our sin for us, so that we could share eternity with him. Heiser seems to see the ruling and reigning as a divine counsel member to be the greatest goal, but instead, our greatest desire should be to be united to Christ to enjoy him forever.
Another aspect that I found strange was the omission of almost any talk of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross or much of any mention of sin and why we need Jesus. Given that this is really the center of what Christianity is, it seemed an absolutely massive omission to not have any coverage of these central Christian themes of sin and atonement. I understand that this wasn’t what his book was primarily about, but given the breadth of the coverage of the book, and that it was arranged as a biblical theology of sorts (from Genesis to Revelation), this seemed a huge oversight.
The last issue I had with the book was that his reliance on the extra biblical literature seemed like it approached the level of competing with the Scriptures themselves. While he didn't say as much, it seemed that the extra biblical literature loomed over above and overshadowed the actual Scripture he discussed. I felt that this could also lead to the problem of Christians thinking they cannot understand the Bible unless they become Hebrew scholars and read all the primary source material.
Having said some of these negatives, I really do think that this book is something that all mature Christians who are well grounded in doctrine should read - at least until these ideas are distilled into a good theology that doesn’t have the negatives.
The book gave me much to think on and I will be considering these things for some time to come.
Somewhere between 3.5 & 4 stars
While The Gospel Coalition’s review was overwhelmingly positive, and desiring God’s review seemed mostly negative (with a little positive), Andrew Moody’s review here from the Australian branch of TGC seemed to be the most well rounded of the other reviews I read.
November 4, 2017
The most explosively eye-opening book I've read since Orthodoxy, Through New Eyes, Planet Narnia, and Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl. Ignore the chapter on free will; it's hogwash and will make you mad. But the rest is stellar, stellar, stellar.
Heiser posits that lesser elohim ("gods," "sons of God") once ruled the disinherited nations (while God adopted Israel), these elohim rebelled, were sentenced to mortality, and will be defeated at Armageddon and finally replaced by the reconstituted divine council which now includes glorified believers. All of history is the war between Yahweh and these gods.
If it sounds crazy, just wait till it makes sense of so much of Scripture that you never knew confused you: sons of God impregnating women (Genesis 6), where the Nephilim came from, why Israel had to wipe out so many nations down to the last child, and to really throw you for a loop, what Jesus meant when He told Peter "on this rock I will build my church." Spoiler: He's referring to the mountain location around them, Caesarea Philippi, which was in the region of Bashan, and Bashan was "the place of the serpent" at the foot of Mt. Hermon where the Nephilim were born in Genesis 6, a place also known as the gates of hell. No wonder Jesus finishes: "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." BOOM. He just dropped D-Day on Satan's beach.
READ IT.
Heiser posits that lesser elohim ("gods," "sons of God") once ruled the disinherited nations (while God adopted Israel), these elohim rebelled, were sentenced to mortality, and will be defeated at Armageddon and finally replaced by the reconstituted divine council which now includes glorified believers. All of history is the war between Yahweh and these gods.
If it sounds crazy, just wait till it makes sense of so much of Scripture that you never knew confused you: sons of God impregnating women (Genesis 6), where the Nephilim came from, why Israel had to wipe out so many nations down to the last child, and to really throw you for a loop, what Jesus meant when He told Peter "on this rock I will build my church." Spoiler: He's referring to the mountain location around them, Caesarea Philippi, which was in the region of Bashan, and Bashan was "the place of the serpent" at the foot of Mt. Hermon where the Nephilim were born in Genesis 6, a place also known as the gates of hell. No wonder Jesus finishes: "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." BOOM. He just dropped D-Day on Satan's beach.
READ IT.
April 23, 2024
It’s a great outline of Biblical theology tracing the vision of God’s will to partner with humans to establish his rule and reign throughout the earth. Really enjoyed it.
My thoughts during this book:
- wow this makes so much sense
- wait I have so many follow up questions
- this seems problematic
- are you reading into this too much
- this makes soooo much sense
My thoughts after this book:
- would recommend but mostly because I want to hear other people’s opinions
- the story of the Bible is always more epic than we give it credit for
- refreshing to read a book where the “weird” parts of the Bible aren’t glossed over
- I still have so many thoughts/questions/conerns
- I need to buy a paper copy cause I think I’m gonna want to be able to pull this bad boy out again
- the writing hit the sweet spot between academic and accessible
My thoughts during this book:
- wow this makes so much sense
- wait I have so many follow up questions
- this seems problematic
- are you reading into this too much
- this makes soooo much sense
My thoughts after this book:
- would recommend but mostly because I want to hear other people’s opinions
- the story of the Bible is always more epic than we give it credit for
- refreshing to read a book where the “weird” parts of the Bible aren’t glossed over
- I still have so many thoughts/questions/conerns
- I need to buy a paper copy cause I think I’m gonna want to be able to pull this bad boy out again
- the writing hit the sweet spot between academic and accessible
January 14, 2016
I loved this book so much I created a Facebook discussion group for it. All who are interested and have read (or are reading) any of Heiser's books are invited to come and join the conversation.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/95520...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/95520...
November 13, 2015
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015).
Hardcover
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The Bible both assumes and articulates a supernatural worldview. From the “In the beginning” of Genesis to the “Amen” of Revelation, mention of God and divine action is heard on each page. All Bible-believing Christians are thus supernaturalists.
Modernity assumes and articulates a worldview of naturalism. In this view worldview, reality is a closed nexus of material cause and effect. No God transcends this nexus nor intervenes within it.
Contemporary Bible-believing Christians thus feel the tension between their supernaturalist theological convictions and their naturalist cultural context. Desiring to minimize this tension, they offer a thin account of biblical supernaturalism, which retains belief in God and miracles but downplays other aspects of what Michael S. Heiser calls “the unseen realm.”
In The Unseen Realm, Heiser sets out to provide a thick description of biblical supernaturalism. He describes the “real focus” and “theological center” of the Bible in this way:
Heiser is Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife, the parent company of Logos Bible Software. He has an MA in Hebrew Studies and a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The topic of his dissertation was, “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature,” a topic of importance to the book.
Psalm 82:1 sparked Heiser’s interest in the unseen realm. “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…” (ESV). The English words God and gods translate the same Hebrew word, elohim. “The singular elohim of Israel presides over an assembly of elohim,” Heiser writes.
Heiser names this “ the ‘divine council worldview’ of the biblical writers,” which he explains this way:
In addition to the divine council worldview, Heiser writes about “the Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” also called “the cosmic-geographical worldview.”
The Unseen Realm traces these divine-council and cosmic-geography themes throughout Scripture, largely following the biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.
Heiser uses this supernatural worldview to explain features of the biblical text that leave readers scratching their heads—for example, the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1–4, the “angel of the Lord” in the Pentateuch, the pattern of destruction in Joshua’s conquest of Caanan, the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” and “Michael” in Daniel 10, the “Son of Man” sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, Paul’s reference to “cosmic powers” and “spiritual forces” in Ephesians 6, the “harmagedon” (i.e., Armageddon) of Revelation 6, among many others.
In any book covering as much biblical territory as Heiser’s does, readers will find interpretations of specific passages they disagree with. Not everyone—neither scholar nor layperson—will agree with every jot and tittle of Heiser’s argument. Nonetheless, as a whole, Heiser’s thick description of the biblical worldview is both exegetically interesting and spiritually suggestive. The Unseen Realm is an eye-opening book. Once you see the Bible as Michael Heiser sees it, you will find it difficult to un-see it that way.
Two questions arise:
First, is Heiser suggesting that the biblical worldview is polytheistic? The answer is no. “When we see the word God,” Heiser writes, “we instinctively think of a divine being with a unique set of attributes—omnipresence, omnipotence, sovereignty, and so on. But this is not how a biblical writer thought about the term. Biblical authors did not assign a specific set of attributes to the word elohim.” Instead, “What all the figures on the list [of beings referred to in the Bible as elohim] have in common is that they are inhabitants of the spiritual world” (emphasis in original). Israel’s elohim—whose name is Yahweh—sits enthroned as sovereign over this divine council. “The Old Testament writers understood that Yahweh was an elohim—but no other elohim was Yahweh.”
If it helps you better understand Heiser’s point, think of the elohim (“gods”) as angels of varying ranks. Doing so reinforces the theological distinction between God and his spiritual creations. Unfortunately, given how many Christians think of angels (as fat little babies with wings), it minimizes the power Scripture attributes to those beings, as well as the depths of the conflict between God and the Church, on one side, and the fallen elohim on the other.
Which brings us to the second question: Is Heiser talking about strategic-level spiritual warfare? This practice, popular in some Pentecostal and charismatic circles, focuses on taking dominion over “territorial spirits” through prayer. My guess is that advocates of this form of spiritual warfare use Heiser’s research to buttress their distinctive practices.
If I read Heiser correctly, however, the answer once again is no. Heiser’s book explicates the divine council worldview in terms of mainstream biblical scholarship. It does not articulate a practical theology of spiritual warfare. At the outset of the book, in fact, Heiser agrees in part with the suspicion that “charismatic practices are detached from sound exegesis of Scripture.” He does not specify which practices he’s talking about. As a Pentecostal, I’d argue that at least some practices (e.g., speaking in tongues, contemporary prophecy) have explicit biblical warrant. I’d also argue, however, that strategic-level spiritual warfare doesn’t have biblical warrant, even if it is partially correct about territorial spirits.
The answer to these questions leads me to the following assessment of The Unseen Realm. It is an insightful book that has caused me to look at the Bible in a new way, one with tremendous explanatory power. But at a practical level, I’m not sure what to do with it. And beyond reading the Bible in its original context rather than our modern context, I’m not sure Heiser does either. What is needed is a practical theology of spiritual formation that incorporates legitimate insights about the Bible’s supernatural worldview without engaging in strategic-level spiritual warfare’s flights of exegetical fancy. The Unseen Realm is not that book—by authorial design, but it is still a thought-provoking book, well worth reading.
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P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.
P.P.S. Heiser has penned a shorter paperback on the same topic. Check out Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World and Why It Matters (Paperback | Kindle).
P.P.S. On the topic of spiritual warfare, see my review of Understanding Spiritual Warfare, edited by James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy. Heiser’s point of review has affinities with Greg Boyd’s “Ground-Level Deliverance Model,” in my opinion. I also point out weaknesses in C. Peter Wagner and Rebecca Greenwood’s “Strategic-Level Deliverance Model.”
The Bible both assumes and articulates a supernatural worldview. From the “In the beginning” of Genesis to the “Amen” of Revelation, mention of God and divine action is heard on each page. All Bible-believing Christians are thus supernaturalists.
Modernity assumes and articulates a worldview of naturalism. In this view worldview, reality is a closed nexus of material cause and effect. No God transcends this nexus nor intervenes within it.
Contemporary Bible-believing Christians thus feel the tension between their supernaturalist theological convictions and their naturalist cultural context. Desiring to minimize this tension, they offer a thin account of biblical supernaturalism, which retains belief in God and miracles but downplays other aspects of what Michael S. Heiser calls “the unseen realm.”
In The Unseen Realm, Heiser sets out to provide a thick description of biblical supernaturalism. He describes the “real focus” and “theological center” of the Bible in this way:
The story of the Bible is about God’s will for, and rule of, the realms he has created, visible and invisible, through the imagers he has created, human and nonhuman. This divine agenda is played out in both realms, in deliberate tandem.
Heiser is Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife, the parent company of Logos Bible Software. He has an MA in Hebrew Studies and a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The topic of his dissertation was, “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature,” a topic of importance to the book.
Psalm 82:1 sparked Heiser’s interest in the unseen realm. “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…” (ESV). The English words God and gods translate the same Hebrew word, elohim. “The singular elohim of Israel presides over an assembly of elohim,” Heiser writes.
Heiser names this “ the ‘divine council worldview’ of the biblical writers,” which he explains this way:
This phrase and others like it refer to God’s rule over all things, visible or invisible, through his intelligent agents—his imagers—both human and nonhuman. Since…it was God’s original intention for humanity (and thus humanity’s original destiny) that they rule and reign with him as part of his heavenly nonhuman household, human affairs are encompassed in the divine council worldview. In biblical theology, there is a symbiosis of both realms, whether in loyal service to God, or in spiritual conflict in the wake of divine and human rebellion.”
In addition to the divine council worldview, Heiser writes about “the Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” also called “the cosmic-geographical worldview.”
The Old Testament…describes a world where cosmic-geographical lines have been drawn. Israel was holy ground because it was Yahweh’s “inheritance,” in the language of Deuteronomy 32:8–9. The territory of other nations belonged to other elohim because Yahweh had decreed it. Psalm 82 told us that these lesser elohim were corrupt. We aren’t told how the elohim Yahweh assigned to the nations became corrupt, only that they were. It is clear from Deuteronomy 4:19–20; 17:3; 29:25; and 32:17 that these elohim were illegitimate for Israelite worship.
The Unseen Realm traces these divine-council and cosmic-geography themes throughout Scripture, largely following the biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.
Heiser uses this supernatural worldview to explain features of the biblical text that leave readers scratching their heads—for example, the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1–4, the “angel of the Lord” in the Pentateuch, the pattern of destruction in Joshua’s conquest of Caanan, the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” and “Michael” in Daniel 10, the “Son of Man” sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, Paul’s reference to “cosmic powers” and “spiritual forces” in Ephesians 6, the “harmagedon” (i.e., Armageddon) of Revelation 6, among many others.
In any book covering as much biblical territory as Heiser’s does, readers will find interpretations of specific passages they disagree with. Not everyone—neither scholar nor layperson—will agree with every jot and tittle of Heiser’s argument. Nonetheless, as a whole, Heiser’s thick description of the biblical worldview is both exegetically interesting and spiritually suggestive. The Unseen Realm is an eye-opening book. Once you see the Bible as Michael Heiser sees it, you will find it difficult to un-see it that way.
Two questions arise:
First, is Heiser suggesting that the biblical worldview is polytheistic? The answer is no. “When we see the word God,” Heiser writes, “we instinctively think of a divine being with a unique set of attributes—omnipresence, omnipotence, sovereignty, and so on. But this is not how a biblical writer thought about the term. Biblical authors did not assign a specific set of attributes to the word elohim.” Instead, “What all the figures on the list [of beings referred to in the Bible as elohim] have in common is that they are inhabitants of the spiritual world” (emphasis in original). Israel’s elohim—whose name is Yahweh—sits enthroned as sovereign over this divine council. “The Old Testament writers understood that Yahweh was an elohim—but no other elohim was Yahweh.”
If it helps you better understand Heiser’s point, think of the elohim (“gods”) as angels of varying ranks. Doing so reinforces the theological distinction between God and his spiritual creations. Unfortunately, given how many Christians think of angels (as fat little babies with wings), it minimizes the power Scripture attributes to those beings, as well as the depths of the conflict between God and the Church, on one side, and the fallen elohim on the other.
Which brings us to the second question: Is Heiser talking about strategic-level spiritual warfare? This practice, popular in some Pentecostal and charismatic circles, focuses on taking dominion over “territorial spirits” through prayer. My guess is that advocates of this form of spiritual warfare use Heiser’s research to buttress their distinctive practices.
If I read Heiser correctly, however, the answer once again is no. Heiser’s book explicates the divine council worldview in terms of mainstream biblical scholarship. It does not articulate a practical theology of spiritual warfare. At the outset of the book, in fact, Heiser agrees in part with the suspicion that “charismatic practices are detached from sound exegesis of Scripture.” He does not specify which practices he’s talking about. As a Pentecostal, I’d argue that at least some practices (e.g., speaking in tongues, contemporary prophecy) have explicit biblical warrant. I’d also argue, however, that strategic-level spiritual warfare doesn’t have biblical warrant, even if it is partially correct about territorial spirits.
The answer to these questions leads me to the following assessment of The Unseen Realm. It is an insightful book that has caused me to look at the Bible in a new way, one with tremendous explanatory power. But at a practical level, I’m not sure what to do with it. And beyond reading the Bible in its original context rather than our modern context, I’m not sure Heiser does either. What is needed is a practical theology of spiritual formation that incorporates legitimate insights about the Bible’s supernatural worldview without engaging in strategic-level spiritual warfare’s flights of exegetical fancy. The Unseen Realm is not that book—by authorial design, but it is still a thought-provoking book, well worth reading.
-----
P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.
P.P.S. Heiser has penned a shorter paperback on the same topic. Check out Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World and Why It Matters (Paperback | Kindle).
P.P.S. On the topic of spiritual warfare, see my review of Understanding Spiritual Warfare, edited by James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy. Heiser’s point of review has affinities with Greg Boyd’s “Ground-Level Deliverance Model,” in my opinion. I also point out weaknesses in C. Peter Wagner and Rebecca Greenwood’s “Strategic-Level Deliverance Model.”
May 22, 2024
Michael Heiser's "The Unseen Realm" has an intriguing take on the time-worn questions about the spiritual world. Heiser argues that key to the spiritual world is a divine counsel of gods (or "sons of God").
Heiser sees himself as operating outside of the traditional interpretation. His anti-institutional bent can wear a little thin and feel a little self-aggrandizing at times, maybe especially when he's not making points that are outside the mainstream (like the fact that our imaging God reflects our initiation to governance).
I believe Heiser is onto something with his emphasis of a divine council, although I think he overstates his case at several places and overstates the role of the divine counsel in creation, judgment, and salvation. Also unhelpful are Heiser's attacks on church tradition and creeds. I actually think that what Heiser sets up here is problematic--he places biblical interpretation at odds with church tradition in a way that I think is simplistic at best, foolish at worst. One doesn't need to dig too deep into the church fathers to find those whose perspective on the spiritual realm is similar to Heiser's. And while the Bible (and not tradition) is our authority, the wise interpreters seek out wisdom from those who have come before. One other critique: Heiser unnecessarily throws in several barbs at reformed thought in ways that are both superfluous and not even biblically supported. Given his background, it's odd that he decides to open that can of worms without an honest exploration of scripture.
Heiser's "The Unseen Realm" is a worthwhile read for a mature Christian and certainly more biblical than the worldview presented by Neil Anderson, but I think overstates the case and is off-base at certain key points. I'm grateful to have read Heiser and will probably continue to read him as a thoughtful (and challenging) interlocutor in this realm of the spiritual world.
For more reviews see thebeehive.live.
Heiser sees himself as operating outside of the traditional interpretation. His anti-institutional bent can wear a little thin and feel a little self-aggrandizing at times, maybe especially when he's not making points that are outside the mainstream (like the fact that our imaging God reflects our initiation to governance).
I believe Heiser is onto something with his emphasis of a divine council, although I think he overstates his case at several places and overstates the role of the divine counsel in creation, judgment, and salvation. Also unhelpful are Heiser's attacks on church tradition and creeds. I actually think that what Heiser sets up here is problematic--he places biblical interpretation at odds with church tradition in a way that I think is simplistic at best, foolish at worst. One doesn't need to dig too deep into the church fathers to find those whose perspective on the spiritual realm is similar to Heiser's. And while the Bible (and not tradition) is our authority, the wise interpreters seek out wisdom from those who have come before. One other critique: Heiser unnecessarily throws in several barbs at reformed thought in ways that are both superfluous and not even biblically supported. Given his background, it's odd that he decides to open that can of worms without an honest exploration of scripture.
Heiser's "The Unseen Realm" is a worthwhile read for a mature Christian and certainly more biblical than the worldview presented by Neil Anderson, but I think overstates the case and is off-base at certain key points. I'm grateful to have read Heiser and will probably continue to read him as a thoughtful (and challenging) interlocutor in this realm of the spiritual world.
For more reviews see thebeehive.live.
June 24, 2021
Some years ago I was reading Eliade’s “Patterns in Comparative Religion” (ro: Tratat de istorie a religiilor) and other books on similar subjects. It was for the first time (excluding J.B. Peterson lectures) I found that ancient religions share similar vocabulary, symbols and conceptual metaphors. It was clear to me that knowing the cultural context of the ancient Middle East could help us in the exegesis of some relatively obscure Bible passages. I tried to make some intuitive parallels back then, especially around the idea of primitive monotheism, but without a systematic approach I was stuck in speculations. Then I found Michael Heiser, PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages, who seems to have taken the task of understanding the context of the Biblical writers seriously.
The book starts with a dismissal of denominational patronages and exegetical filters (e.g. creeds, confessions, and denominational references). They can be used in a constructive manner, but the problem with these is that they often filter out verses that didn't quite work in the respective tradition. But, as the author said, “if it’s weird, it’s important”. The task of every theologian is (at least) to construct “the Mosaic” by arranging the pieces (facts/verses of the Bible). For that, Heiser considers the context that produced the Bible to be essential, especially when we want to understand the Bible's perspective about “The Unseen Realm”.
I learned a lot about the ancient context, the Israelite post-exile and after-exile culture, the dialogue between Israel and the surrounding cultures. Most importantly, it became clear to me how some obscure passages can be understood in the light of the Bible’s mosaic (of correspondences), Jewish literature and cultural context.
Usually theologians are interested in a finite set of ideas which are then explained in broader contexts. The Bible story can be seen from many perspectives, depending on what the interpreter puts the lights on. Heiser takes the reader through the history of redemption, but as a stage director, he emphasizes the role (and activity) of the unseen realm in God’s plan. His presentation has definitely enriched my reading of the Bible. Once new entities (actors) are lighted, you could recognize them in a lot of passages throughout the Scripture. So it is with the “unseen realm”, which becomes less "unseen" (in the text).
Heiser is talking about how he awakened from his denominational slumber when he read Psalm 82 in Hebrew: “God (elohim) stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods (elohim)”. The verse seems to identify other divine beings (called “sons of God” in the OT) which form the council of God. It doesn’t describe a pantheon because Yahweh is unique and incomparable (He only possesses the attributes by which we think of God nowadays: omniscience, omnipresence, etc.). He alone commands the nations and their gods. As in the Ugarit literature, the OT describes a three-tiered council structure: Yahweh, “sons of God” and messengers (angels). The book will expand on that. It will talk about their origin, role, influence, thinking, how some of them fell and how they were defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The book has 8 chapters, each with a number of subchapters. To outline the idea of the unseen realm, the book touches on some important subjects: Eden, satan, the Serpent (Nachash), the nephilims, Babel, goat of Azazel, Anakins, Baal, places like Tsapon, Bashan, Mount Hermon and valley of Rephaim, the requirements of a prophet, Messiah in the OT, angel of the Lord (visible Yahweh), God’s name, the cloud rider, Pentecost (the reverse of Babel), saints, demons, cosmic geography, a version of the Church Fathers idea of ransom theory of atonement, etc. In explaining these, the book is citing many scientific papers, which are enumerated at the end, with a lot of adjacent comments. I really appreciate Heiser's effort. It compiles for us years of research in a pleasant 400 pages book. Heiser is not only a scholar, but he also wrote fiction. That is visible in his accesibile writing and also on how he names the chapters. I wrote around 20 pages of notes, which I still need time to digest, not because I do not understand them intellectually, but because I still need to fit them into my general understanding of the sacred text.
I’m not entirely convinced by his method of filling the gaps of the Jewish culture using the ugaritic, phoenician, babylonian, egyptian, etc. Undeniably, they used similar language with israelites. The Revelation is incarnated. So, the historico-cultural context is embedded in the text. However, the differences are considerable. For example, Israel was not supposed to be commanded by a king. On the other hand, the kings of the nations were considered divine (e.g. Pharaoh was the son of the high God Re). That’s why it is rather strange to me to compare the “council of Yahweh” with the “house of Pharaoh” other than metaphorically. Although it may seem subjective, I think we should make the difference between the (contingent) image (either a metaphor or a symbol) and the (eternal) reality it points to. Moreover, the Jews used the common language in a rather polemical manner to disprove the false religions of the surrounding nations and Heiser agrees with this. So, the analogical element should be considered. Heiser says that Jewish writers use the strategy of borrowing lines and motifs from the literature of the target civilization to articulate correct theology about Yahweh and to show contempt for other gods. I was hoping to see more about Heiser’s perspective on that and if he thinks the borrowing has a limited scope, or if it is perennial.
The book starts with a dismissal of denominational patronages and exegetical filters (e.g. creeds, confessions, and denominational references). They can be used in a constructive manner, but the problem with these is that they often filter out verses that didn't quite work in the respective tradition. But, as the author said, “if it’s weird, it’s important”. The task of every theologian is (at least) to construct “the Mosaic” by arranging the pieces (facts/verses of the Bible). For that, Heiser considers the context that produced the Bible to be essential, especially when we want to understand the Bible's perspective about “The Unseen Realm”.
I learned a lot about the ancient context, the Israelite post-exile and after-exile culture, the dialogue between Israel and the surrounding cultures. Most importantly, it became clear to me how some obscure passages can be understood in the light of the Bible’s mosaic (of correspondences), Jewish literature and cultural context.
Usually theologians are interested in a finite set of ideas which are then explained in broader contexts. The Bible story can be seen from many perspectives, depending on what the interpreter puts the lights on. Heiser takes the reader through the history of redemption, but as a stage director, he emphasizes the role (and activity) of the unseen realm in God’s plan. His presentation has definitely enriched my reading of the Bible. Once new entities (actors) are lighted, you could recognize them in a lot of passages throughout the Scripture. So it is with the “unseen realm”, which becomes less "unseen" (in the text).
Heiser is talking about how he awakened from his denominational slumber when he read Psalm 82 in Hebrew: “God (elohim) stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods (elohim)”. The verse seems to identify other divine beings (called “sons of God” in the OT) which form the council of God. It doesn’t describe a pantheon because Yahweh is unique and incomparable (He only possesses the attributes by which we think of God nowadays: omniscience, omnipresence, etc.). He alone commands the nations and their gods. As in the Ugarit literature, the OT describes a three-tiered council structure: Yahweh, “sons of God” and messengers (angels). The book will expand on that. It will talk about their origin, role, influence, thinking, how some of them fell and how they were defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The book has 8 chapters, each with a number of subchapters. To outline the idea of the unseen realm, the book touches on some important subjects: Eden, satan, the Serpent (Nachash), the nephilims, Babel, goat of Azazel, Anakins, Baal, places like Tsapon, Bashan, Mount Hermon and valley of Rephaim, the requirements of a prophet, Messiah in the OT, angel of the Lord (visible Yahweh), God’s name, the cloud rider, Pentecost (the reverse of Babel), saints, demons, cosmic geography, a version of the Church Fathers idea of ransom theory of atonement, etc. In explaining these, the book is citing many scientific papers, which are enumerated at the end, with a lot of adjacent comments. I really appreciate Heiser's effort. It compiles for us years of research in a pleasant 400 pages book. Heiser is not only a scholar, but he also wrote fiction. That is visible in his accesibile writing and also on how he names the chapters. I wrote around 20 pages of notes, which I still need time to digest, not because I do not understand them intellectually, but because I still need to fit them into my general understanding of the sacred text.
I’m not entirely convinced by his method of filling the gaps of the Jewish culture using the ugaritic, phoenician, babylonian, egyptian, etc. Undeniably, they used similar language with israelites. The Revelation is incarnated. So, the historico-cultural context is embedded in the text. However, the differences are considerable. For example, Israel was not supposed to be commanded by a king. On the other hand, the kings of the nations were considered divine (e.g. Pharaoh was the son of the high God Re). That’s why it is rather strange to me to compare the “council of Yahweh” with the “house of Pharaoh” other than metaphorically. Although it may seem subjective, I think we should make the difference between the (contingent) image (either a metaphor or a symbol) and the (eternal) reality it points to. Moreover, the Jews used the common language in a rather polemical manner to disprove the false religions of the surrounding nations and Heiser agrees with this. So, the analogical element should be considered. Heiser says that Jewish writers use the strategy of borrowing lines and motifs from the literature of the target civilization to articulate correct theology about Yahweh and to show contempt for other gods. I was hoping to see more about Heiser’s perspective on that and if he thinks the borrowing has a limited scope, or if it is perennial.
November 7, 2022
Don't let the three stars put you off! It is, in 99% of it, a four star book. The main exegetical case is very persuasive, and like other great 'keys', unlocks so many passages of Scripture (and not a few strange references). Indeed, it goes further, it deeply enriches the Bible narrative and the glory of redemption in Christ.
So why that missing star? Well, the author is an Arminian, and has just gone around sprinkling really silly things about free will. Simple as that. But deeply unfortunate.
Loved it.
So why that missing star? Well, the author is an Arminian, and has just gone around sprinkling really silly things about free will. Simple as that. But deeply unfortunate.
Loved it.
October 25, 2021
Had to give it five stars for content alone. This book is jam packed with solid gold, jasper, lapis lazuli, and carbuncle. Yet, I agree with my friend that it could have been at least 100 pages shorter. Nonetheless, it’s a great look into the often overlooked spiritual side of the scriptures.
November 6, 2021
This is the most fascinating book I’ve read in a very long time.
Michael Heiser is a respected scholar, and the material in this book has been peer reviewed and is widely accepted among scholars. I begin with that because the assertions in the book may strike the reader as fringe ideas. They are not. But most readers will find them unfamiliar.
The primary thesis is that that Scripture affirms the existence of a “divine council” made up of powerful spiritual beings, higher than angels, that bear God’s image and were God’s family prior to the creation. They are called sons of God, powers of the heavens (or simply “powers” in the Epistles), and the heavenly host. Some of them rebelled and became evil. At the tower of Babel, God punished the people by dividing them up into nations and allotting the sons of God to rule over the various nations. These beings are responsible for a great deal of the evil in the world and play a very significant role in God’s dealings with people throughout the Bible. God’s plan is to judge the fallen powers, reclaim the nations for himself, and elevate Christians to take their place in the divine council.
Heiser goes through the whole Bible, section-by-section, clearing showing the role these beings play at every point. As I listened to the audio book, Heiser dealt with one passage after another that has always confused me and showed how they made perfect sense with these beings in view. This includes insights into messianic prophecy, the day of Pentecost, the Transfiguration, and many end times prophecies.
There are some interpretations I don’t’ agree with. The most significant is Heiser’s view of predestination. He argues that not everything that happens is ordained by God. His argument is that since God foreknows some things that don’t happen (as seen when God says things like, “Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if …” He knows what would have happened in different circumstances, even though it didn’t happen), therefore not everything God foreknows is ordained. He then assumes that even some things that do happen, while they were foreknown by God, were not ordained by him. This strikes me as terrible logic. The fact that God didn’t ordain things that didn’t happen does not prove that he didn’t ordain things that did happen. Heiser gives no explanation for the many passage that speak of even negative things coming from God, such as Acts 4:28, Ecclesiastes 7:14, and Amos 3:6.
I should also point out, however, that his ideas about predestination have very little to do with the thesis of the book, which stands just as firmly regardless of whether the reader agrees or disagrees with his view of predestination. It is not a problem that the powers of the heavens are capable of choosing evil any more than it is a problem that human beings can choose evil.
Another point I’m not sure I’m convinced of is his view that the angel of the LORD is the pre-incarnate Christ. He argues that since that being is identified with Yahweh, he must be God. It’s true he is identified with Yahweh, but he is also called an angel, even in the New Testament. For me, it seems easier to explain why an angel would be identified with Yahweh (messengers sent by kings were often identified with the sovereign who sent them. I would find it much more difficult to explain why God himself would be called an angel (although I must admit, Heiser’s explanation is the best I’ve heard, and I am considering it. But as of yet, I remain unconvinced.)
My disagreements aside, this book has revolutionized my understanding of Scripture. I highly recommend it.
Michael Heiser is a respected scholar, and the material in this book has been peer reviewed and is widely accepted among scholars. I begin with that because the assertions in the book may strike the reader as fringe ideas. They are not. But most readers will find them unfamiliar.
The primary thesis is that that Scripture affirms the existence of a “divine council” made up of powerful spiritual beings, higher than angels, that bear God’s image and were God’s family prior to the creation. They are called sons of God, powers of the heavens (or simply “powers” in the Epistles), and the heavenly host. Some of them rebelled and became evil. At the tower of Babel, God punished the people by dividing them up into nations and allotting the sons of God to rule over the various nations. These beings are responsible for a great deal of the evil in the world and play a very significant role in God’s dealings with people throughout the Bible. God’s plan is to judge the fallen powers, reclaim the nations for himself, and elevate Christians to take their place in the divine council.
Heiser goes through the whole Bible, section-by-section, clearing showing the role these beings play at every point. As I listened to the audio book, Heiser dealt with one passage after another that has always confused me and showed how they made perfect sense with these beings in view. This includes insights into messianic prophecy, the day of Pentecost, the Transfiguration, and many end times prophecies.
There are some interpretations I don’t’ agree with. The most significant is Heiser’s view of predestination. He argues that not everything that happens is ordained by God. His argument is that since God foreknows some things that don’t happen (as seen when God says things like, “Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if …” He knows what would have happened in different circumstances, even though it didn’t happen), therefore not everything God foreknows is ordained. He then assumes that even some things that do happen, while they were foreknown by God, were not ordained by him. This strikes me as terrible logic. The fact that God didn’t ordain things that didn’t happen does not prove that he didn’t ordain things that did happen. Heiser gives no explanation for the many passage that speak of even negative things coming from God, such as Acts 4:28, Ecclesiastes 7:14, and Amos 3:6.
I should also point out, however, that his ideas about predestination have very little to do with the thesis of the book, which stands just as firmly regardless of whether the reader agrees or disagrees with his view of predestination. It is not a problem that the powers of the heavens are capable of choosing evil any more than it is a problem that human beings can choose evil.
Another point I’m not sure I’m convinced of is his view that the angel of the LORD is the pre-incarnate Christ. He argues that since that being is identified with Yahweh, he must be God. It’s true he is identified with Yahweh, but he is also called an angel, even in the New Testament. For me, it seems easier to explain why an angel would be identified with Yahweh (messengers sent by kings were often identified with the sovereign who sent them. I would find it much more difficult to explain why God himself would be called an angel (although I must admit, Heiser’s explanation is the best I’ve heard, and I am considering it. But as of yet, I remain unconvinced.)
My disagreements aside, this book has revolutionized my understanding of Scripture. I highly recommend it.
March 5, 2020
I can't believe that I had never heard some of the exegetical explanations offered in this book, not because the explanations are impossibly wrong, but because they are so impossible to argue plausibly against.
That said, not every textual observation has purchase. For example, I am not ready to use "imagers" as a description of humans and angels, nor do I think it makes sense that male and female are made in the image of the gods, as opposed to made only in the image of the Triune God. Also, the author has a particular soteriological soapbox about man's free will; he could have written another book instead of shove his irritations into this book. His main argument is that man can't be made in the image of God without freedom to choose. But certainly there are incommunicable attributes, and even limits to our reflecting of communicable ones.
Anyway, should you read this? Absolutely, and you should read it sooner rather than later for sake of understanding the pagan (and believing) worldviews of Abraham and Moses, Gilgamesh and Homer and more.
That said, not every textual observation has purchase. For example, I am not ready to use "imagers" as a description of humans and angels, nor do I think it makes sense that male and female are made in the image of the gods, as opposed to made only in the image of the Triune God. Also, the author has a particular soteriological soapbox about man's free will; he could have written another book instead of shove his irritations into this book. His main argument is that man can't be made in the image of God without freedom to choose. But certainly there are incommunicable attributes, and even limits to our reflecting of communicable ones.
Anyway, should you read this? Absolutely, and you should read it sooner rather than later for sake of understanding the pagan (and believing) worldviews of Abraham and Moses, Gilgamesh and Homer and more.
March 28, 2019
The Unseen Realm is a thought provoking work. It is full of interesting and insightful biblical exegesis. For that reason alone, it should be read. Here is one concern (I may add others as I find time and when I have the book in front of me):
I am fine with the idea of a divine council. If you want to call the beings and elders that worship around the throne in Rev 4-5 that, so be it. But at times, Heiser attributes the activities of creation, judgment, and salvation to the divine council. I am uncomfortable with that. Those activities are uniquely divine in the sense that only the One Creator God is responsible for them and only the Creator God, the triune God revealed in salvation history and Scripture, ought to be praised for them. In Rev 4-5, the beings that surround the throne praise God for those same activities.
I am fine with the idea of a divine council. If you want to call the beings and elders that worship around the throne in Rev 4-5 that, so be it. But at times, Heiser attributes the activities of creation, judgment, and salvation to the divine council. I am uncomfortable with that. Those activities are uniquely divine in the sense that only the One Creator God is responsible for them and only the Creator God, the triune God revealed in salvation history and Scripture, ought to be praised for them. In Rev 4-5, the beings that surround the throne praise God for those same activities.
January 3, 2020
I cannot recommend this book in any way. Very poor handling of scripture, massive errors based on incorrect presuppositions. Absolutely no reasonable connection with orthodox Christianity. The best descriptor of the theology in this book would be neo-gnostic.
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