Where Heiser Goes Too Far

Introduction

In the last lecture we focussed on the needed elements of Heiser’s work.

To start out today I want to focus on where I believe Heiser oversteps and where we need to be careful not to follow.

He Flattens Out Authority and Certainty

There is a difference between what Scripture clearly teaches, what Scripture may imply, what ancient interpreters believed, and what modern scholars reconstruct.

Those are not the same thing.

They do not carry the same weight.

They should not be taught with the same level of confidence.

For example

Scripture clearly teaches that angels exist.

Scripture clearly teaches that demons exist.

Scripture clearly teaches that there are spiritual powers opposed to God and His people.

Scripture clearly teaches that Christ has triumphed over those powers.

These things are not speculative. They are part of the Christian faith.

But then there are other questions.

Who exactly are the sons of God in Genesis 6?

What exactly is meant by the gods in Psalm 82?

What exactly happened at Babel in relation to the nations?

What is the precise origin of demons?

How much should we make of the Nephilim?

How do Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82 fit together?

These are real questions, and some answers may be better than others. But they are not all equally clear.

He weaves all of these levels together with little or no distinction made in his rhetoric.

He claims a “plain reading” when he is, in fact, reading into the text. He is interpreting while claiming not to interpret.

He Leans Too Heavily on Extra-Biblical Context

We all rely on ancient context of the Biblical text to understand the Bible whether we know it or not.

But the Bible doesn’t develop from that context, it is written TO that context.

This is one of Heiser’s biggest problems in my estimation.

He oftens writes as if the Bible developed out of the mythologies.

In fact, we ought to recognize mythologies as echoes (perversions) of the true story (ie Epic of Gilgamesh and other flood narratives).

Heiser leans back on ANE mythologies to interpret Old Testament context.

“This article deals a death blow to any non-supernatural (or non-mythic as some prefer) interpretation in the sense that, if you care about interpreting the Bible in context, no human interpretation of the sons of God can work. It violates every point of context. Annus’ article is the most current study on the Mesopotamian apkallu. It supersedes ALL preceding work on this subject. That means your standard academic commentaries that all pastors are using are hopelessly out of date and mis-informed. Anyone commenting on Gen 6:1-4 hereafter will have to account for this article or else be academically inept.” - Michael Heiser

This is Heiser explaining that because there is a Mesopotamian mythology of deific beings having sex with women before the flood, that Gen. 6 MUST be read with that context. That we must be CERTAIN not only that this myth existed but that Moses was aware of this myth and was interacting with this myth in his writing.

Heiser leans on second Temple literature to interpret the New Testament (and through that, the Old Testament).

Heiser really leans hard on 1 Enoch to explain things.

Jude 14-15 does quote a portion of that work and attributes that quote to Enoch.

I don’t think that means this whole book is now verified as being a true account.

I believe Hebrews 11 likely makes reference to Maccabees. But that doesn’t make that inspired history.

I think you can make a textual case for angelic beings being the sons of God without importing every additional aspect of extra-biblical speculation about that which the Bible does not address.

Heiser sees confirmation of those extra-biblical sources everywhere.

He Condemns Systems and Then Creates One

I also believe systematic theologies are bad for Bible students on the whole.

“The content I learned was filtered through certain presumptions and traditions that ordered the material for me, that put it into a system that made sense to my modern mind. Verses that didn’t quite work with my tradition were “problem passages” that were either filtered out or consigned to the periphery of unimportance.” - Unseen Realm Chapter 2

But Heiser creates a whole system from his speculations and then presses that on everything.

Deuteronomy 32:8 is ground zero for this system.

He takes this to mean that God divided the nations up among the heavenly beings at Babel and God’s portion was Israel.

The Sons of God goes backward to Gen 6:1-4.

Many of them are corrupted and he traces that forward through mentions of Nephilim, giants, and demonic powers associated with the nations (in Daniel for instance).

Mt. Hermon becomes a key element here (he assumes Mt. Hermon in several places).

All of this leading to Jesus claiming reversal at the Mount of Transfiguration (one of the assumed Mt. Hermons).

Then a reversal of Babel at the day of Pentecost.

He builds a large framework from Genesis 6, Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82, Babel, the Nephilim, the conquest, Bashan, Hermon, demons, territorial spirits, Pentecost, and the mission to the nations all begin to lock together into one interpretive structure.

It is the system that sets all of these conclusions on the same level of certainty.

The number of leaps necessary to arrive at a conclusion ought to correlate with your confidence level about that conclusion.

But Heiser only points to how a passage adds to his pattern and almost never acknowledges how a passage creates problems for his view.

Systematic theologies wipe out layers of humility in our knowledge.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

There are often discussions of what is at the center.

For Heiser, Deuteronomy 32, Gen. 6, 11; Psalm 82 are all at the center.

Everything is run through this filter and eventually, nothing is allowed to challenge that filter.

He is Overly Fascinated with the Strange

“I’ve always been interested in anything old and weird.”

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with being interested in old and weird things.

The issue is when that drives our interpretation.

An overexercised fascination with the strange can be just as dangerous as an undue aversion of the strange.

Do you want it to be weird even when it isn’t?

Everything can’t be a paradigm shift.

Every chapter of his book is riddled with claims of seeing everything differently now.

It is a constant state of something new.

We need to be careful about rejecting something that sounds new but we also need to be careful about getting addicted to that feeling where we crave the new.

Seeing deeper connections should strengthen what can be seen initially not always overturning it.

Knowing more about the word grace doesn’t deny what I have always taught about grace, it reconciles it more deeply.

Understanding faith as allegiance makes sense of claims the Bible makes about faith and works.

Seeing the unseen realm should overturn everything you know about God, it should confirm much of it.

Mostly, I can accept what Heiser claims without changing any central doctrines I believe.

I am reminded of the book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.

That book claims that we get the nativity all wrong.

He corrects some details and then says this changes EVERYTHING when in fact, not much changes.

I think the biggest thing that SHOULD change with Heiser’s claims is comfort with supernatural realities and awareness of their current existence and activity.

But that doesn’t mean we have to “rebuild everything” we ever knew.

Conclusion

The Bible’s center is not hidden in the margins.

When you approach scripture, be ready to maintain varying levels of confidence.

There is a modernist danger of thinking that right methods applied correctly will lead to certain conclusions.

But the reality is that some things will stay mysterious until the end.

Many things will remain somewhere in between mystery and clarity.

Be a good steward of the time and ability God gives you to explore. But the farther you get from the text, the more humble (“maybe”) you ought to get about what you are reading.

Be careful about creating systems.

Even our “five steps” can be a created system.

That system can distort the role of each of those five things so that they fit neatly into an “easy” five step program.

They become central:

I was told, “you didn’t preach the gospel” when I didn’t end a sermon with “the five steps.”

Even though I held up a Bible and said this is our one true standard that does not change. It is our one true revelation from an all knowing and all wise God. And if you have not followed this book to the one true King and we can help you do that tonight, then come.

Systems try to make everything fit more neatly than they actually do. They try to explain details that aren’t explained. They try and give mono-faceted explanations for multi-faceted realities.

I want you to want to learn. But be careful of being dissatisfied with what is plain.