The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible

Michael Heiser's "The Unseen Realm" has been a long time coming. In many ways, Heiser was the one who introduced me to study of the Old Testament in the first place. I remember listening intently to his lectures on the divine council and reading with amazement his articles on the "Angel of Yahweh" or the "Word of Yahweh" in the Old Testament. He showed how to find Christ in the Old Testament, and how to discover how God's war with Satan is not an NT innovation, but is rooted all the way back in the book of Genesis. This book represents Heiser's biblical-theological development in its maturity, and I heartily recommend it. I truly want to give it five stars: because the insights are definitely worth five stars- but Heiser says enough things I find problematic that I'm giving this four.Before evaluating, I'll briefly summarize the thesis of the book. The thesis of "The Unseen World" is that the divine council forms one of, if not the major thread uniting biblical theology. God's council in the Old Testament is a host of created divine beings (like angels) surrounding God. Some of these beings went bad, and they sinned with human women in Genesis 6:1-4. After the fall of humanity at the Tower of Babel, God divided mankind and turned them over to the jurisdiction of these fallen divine beings. Because Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says this explicitly, Heiser calls this the "Deuteronomy 32 worldview." Immediately after Babel, however, God called Abram to bless all the families of the earth and stitch humanity back together. Psalm 82 calls the “gods” to account, and declares that God would judge them, they would “die like men” and He would “inherit all the nations.” From day one, He took Israel as His own portion so that He might one day defeat the fallen divine beings. The victory of God occurs in the Cross of Christ, so that now humanity, joined to Christ, is "seated in Heaven" and becomes "sons of God." We are now members of God's heavenly council.It's a very compelling thesis, and it's well argued. The benefits of the book far outweigh the problems, but I disagree with enough aspects of the book that I'll start with the problems: but feel free to skip to the good bits, because I want to end on a positive note.Problems:1. Heiser's hermeneutic is extremely heavy on the idea of Israel's "adaptation" of Near Eastern ideas, with many of the descriptions of God being described as "polemic." Take the idea of the council of God itself. Heiser sees this as a Near Eastern idea which the biblical authors appropriate and modify. In other words, there is an objective truth which is communicated in the language of the Near Eastern worldview, even if that language does not convey the truth with exactness. Heiser is unclear to what degree this affects the objective truth of certain biblical claims. For example: when Micaiah sees the vision of God's council in 1 Kings 22, is this a true vision of God's throne-room? Or is God "translating" events in Heaven into Near Eastern terms? Or take the idea of the descent of the sons of God to marry the daughters of men in Genesis 6:1-4. Heiser repeatedly states that this is a "polemic" against Babylon. Well, if the story is there for polemical purposes, then did it really happen? Heiser apparently does believe that it happened, but this causes problems with the hermeneutic. If you're going to read the story as a polemic, then you will only find significance where it differs from the "original." If, by contrast, you study it as history, then the Bible provides the pristine account, and later Babylonian accounts are a garbled tradition. You can get more out of the Bible by studying it this way.Just to address these two examples, then. It is abundantly clear that Israel's divine council is a feature shared with the rest of the Near East. If this belief was concentrated in the Near East, then it would lend credence to the idea that this is the "husk" God uses to communicate the real "seed" of divine truth (see Peter J. Leithart's comments on this hermeneutic in "Deep Exegesis"). However, the divine council is actually found outside of the Near East as well. For example, traditional African religions speak of a council of God headed by the Creator in the same way that Near Eastern peoples do. This indicates that the Bible is not borrowing from the worldview of the Near East so much as the Bible reflects the pristine form of a common cultural heritage for all mankind stretching back to Noah. The same is true with the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men before the Flood. Stories like this are found all over the world. There are Native American tribes which speak of a race of half-human giants overrunning the Earth before a global flood. The Greeks spoke of a race of Titans catastrophically destroyed. And so on. Charles Martin has written a short book addressing this important question.2. Heiser is not well-acquainted with Biblical theology as a discipline. This doesn't mean that Heiser isn't a good biblical theologian, but only that he's not well acquainted with others who study the Bible as theology and not just as academic scholars. He references G.K. Beale's marvelous works on the Temple a few times, but Beale's insights could have been appropriated at a much more profound and structural level. There is no interaction at all with the mind-blowing work of Peter Leithart and James Jordan. I can understand not referencing Jordan (since, despite being a genius, he is very little known- but he needs to be read), but Leithart has written some truly fantastic books on biblical typology and theology that could have strengthened Heiser's thesis. We need to integrate the various disparate threads that these authors identify in the Scripture.3. Heiser isn't a preterist (I am speaking of the view that Revelation 1-19 is fulfilled, that Revelation 20 is now, and that Revelation 21-22 are future), and this damages his reading of Revelation. When Satan is placed in a pit in Revelation 20 for the duration of the millennium, this is the fulfillment of Isaiah 14. When St. John speaks of a "star fallen from Heaven", he is quoting Isaiah 14, a massively important passage, as Heiser recognizes. By putting the fulfillment of this text off to the future, Heiser leaves us confused as to how victorious Christ actually has been. Is Satan still in God's council? A preterist would say he was cast out in Revelation 12:7-9. James Jordan has pointed out that the entire structure of the book is about the elevation of men to God's council. The twenty-four elders in Revelation 4-5 are angels, as we see by the fact that exactly twenty-four angels act throughout the book- only once you subtract "Another Angel" who appears several times with characteristics reminiscent of Old Testament theophanies. Each of them acts once and walks off stage: and in Revelation 20, the beheaded (those who were marked on the head with a Nazirite vow in Revelation 7) are given the authority to judge and replace the angels. Revelation confirms Heiser's thesis wonderfully in such a diversity of ways: but Heiser doesn't recognize it. Readers of this book should consult James Jordan's "The Vindication of Jesus Christ", with his massive 204 lecture series on Revelation for a detailed look. These are available on wordmp3.4. Heiser strangely rejects the view that the Satan in Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3 is equivalent to the Serpent of Genesis 3 (whom he recognizes as NT Satan, on which see below). He cites a number of scholars on this, but their arguments are quite weak. The figure of the Satan in Job 1-2 is moving in the council of God. As Heiser points out, the prophecy of the Serpent's being placed under the Earth is a prophecy of when the Serpent is finally cast out of the council (as in Isaiah 14). We should expect to see him in God's council in the Old Testament. The clincher is that the figure of Satan is linked with Leviathan in Job 41. Leviathan has eyes "as the Dawn", just as the Bright One (see below) in Isaiah 14 is the "Day Star, Son of the Dawn." Zechariah 3 is a divine-council scene, and the Satan is rebuked. Revelation 12 makes allusion to Zechariah 3 and refers to Satan as the "accuser of our brethren." There is little question that the authors of the New Testament linked the figures of Genesis 3, Job 1-2, Isaiah 14, Zechariah 3, and Ezekiel 28. Had Heiser challenged the conventional academic reading of these texts, he could have made his case stronger.Okay. Done with the bad. Notice how the review has four stars? That's because the book is still really, really good.Good:1. Heiser is the first person I have read to actually integrate Genesis 6:1-4 into a cohesive biblical theology. Most proponents of this view note that "sons of God" refers to divine beings in the Old Testament, conclude that it means the same in Genesis 6:1-4, and move on. But wait. Isn't this a weird event? Surely it must have some implications for the rest of Scripture! Heiser argues that it does. The fallen sons of God wish to prevent the birth of the Seed who will crush the head of the Serpent. As such, they attempt to pollute the human family. We discover them again when Israel is on the verge of conquering the land. Indeed, Heiser demonstrates that Joshua was only required to "devote to complete destruction, leaving none alive" areas dominated by these giants. While this does not fully resolve the moral quandaries surrounding this commandment, it most certainly adds additional and important insight. Furthermore, the remnant of the Nephilim come down to Goliath and his brothers, whom David slays. There is a lot of fun stuff one can do with this important theme.2. Heiser, by far, provides the best treatment ever written on the Serpent (Nachash) of Genesis 3. I cannot count how many times I have read a secular scholar (and occasionally, even a traditional Christian scholar) say that there is no evidence that the Serpent of Genesis 3 is Satan. Heiser eviscerates this idea. He points out that "Nachash", when translated according to its adjectival form, means "Bright One." This is a heavenly being who is serpentine in appearance. Indeed, the same is true of the seraph: when translated according to its noun form, it means "Serpent" and when translated adjectivally, it is "Burning One." Yet nobody doubts that the seraphim of Isaiah 6 are heavenly beings! This is why, Heiser points out, the story of Isaiah 14 is indeed about Satan. The "Bright One" is the "Day Star, Son of the Dawn." Isaiah 14 is not so much a narrative about Satan's fall as it is a prophecy written in prophetic perfect, much like Isaiah 53 (which, as David Dorsey points out, it is chiastically linked with). When God tells Satan that he will "eat dust", He is prophesying that Satan will one day be cast out from the Heavenly Council (above the stars) and be placed beneath the Earth: where his only food will be dust. This is why Hell, or eternal death, is prepared for the Devil and his angels.3. Many, many fascinating insights about how this narrative shows up in the rest of Scripture. Heiser notes how the region of Bashan is dominated by Rephaim-giants throughout the Bible. The Tribe of Dan, who inherits Bashan, is called in Genesis 49 a "serpent by the way" and is scrubbed out of Revelation 7. In Bashan is Mt. Hermon, which was the location from which Og, the king of Bashan, ruled. When Jesus predicts that the "gates of Hades" will not prevail against his Kingdom, He is standing right under the nose of Mt. Hermon. The Kingdom is on the offensive against the Gates of Satan's Kingdom, represented by this mountain of giants. Likewise, the bulls which attack the Davidic servant in Psalm 22 are "bulls of Bashan." This is the root of the NT idea that it was Satan and his angels who attacked Jesus. The same is true of the "cows of Bashan" in Amos 4, where allusion is made to Psalm 82, discussed above. And of course, the heart of the book is how the fallen angels are replaced by men. The members of God's council are the "sons of God" and they are seated in Heaven. But now, in the Eternal Son, we are the "sons of God" and we are "seated in Heaven with Christ." This was God's intent from the beginning: to mold and divinize the human family into a council for Himself. Heiser recognizes the connections with the Orthodox doctrine of theosis, which of course tickles me as an Orthodox Christian.Altogether, this is a mind-blowing, amazing, incredible- and infuriating- book. Heiser is a deeply gifted scholar, and he has the capacity to see worlds that nobody knew were there. His work ought to be thoroughly integrated into the biblical-theological paths paved by scholars such as James B. Jordan, Peter Leithart, G.K. Beale, and N.T. Wright.

There are some books that come along that truly grab my attention. Be it the subject matter or simply the quality of writing, these attention grabbers more often than not leave a lasting impression upon the reader. In the world of theology, there are some topics that while important, seem to be avoided. So to come across a book that grabs my attention while at the same time digs in with salient theological aptitude not only a subject of great importance but also something that has greatly interested of me of late is shall we say a veritable treat. Dr. Michael Heiser’s latest effort The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible fits the aforementioned description of an attention grabber and a theological powerhouse of a book. Let me explain why I can make such a statement.Scripture is full of terms, events, and concepts that are often either overlooked or misunderstood. This is typically because the underlying purpose of those terms, events, and concepts can be lost in the proverbial shuffle of the high level action of the text in question. Furthermore, there is the temptation to set aside what can be termed as the spiritual undercurrents of events in Scripture. Perhaps this is due to the tendency of some to spiritualize everything with the opposite extreme being that of looking at everything at the most literal level possible to avoid spiritualization. Arguably, a more overarching reason for this approach is the reality that we often view the Bible and its contents from a modern perspective.In his excellent book, Dr. Heiser seeks to reorient the reader to the important underlying currents found throughout Scripture, most notably the concept of the divine council and the truly fundamental element of all of Scripture, that of redemption, specifically the movement of a return to Eden and the spiritual battle that ensues as God’s divine plan is unfolded.Heiser aptly notes at the beginning of his book something that sets the stage for how to grasp what he is about to discuss. He rightly notes:“We talk a lot about interpreting the Bible in context, but Christian history is not the context of the biblical writers. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is not Augustine or any other church father. It is not the Catholic Church. It is not the rabbinic movements of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is not the Reformation or the Puritans. It is not evangelicalism in any of its flavors. It is not the modern world at all, or any period of its history. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is the context of the biblical writers—the context that produced the Bible. Every other context is alien to the biblical writers and, therefore, to the Bible. Yet there is a pervasive tendency in the believing Church to filter the Bible through creeds, confessions, and denominational preferences.”This lengthy quote is of great importance given Heiser’s efforts to share with the reader how to view the events of Scripture which form the locus of his discussion from the perspective of the biblical authors and those who lived in that period of history. It is a bit of a paradigm shift for most and a necessary one. Those who put on the correct biblical glasses will begin to see the truly interesting mosaic of activity taking place all though the pages of Scripture.While Dr. Heiser is certainly an accomplished biblical scholar, this book, while very deep in content, is not a difficult read. It is a fun mix of a book that you want to race through because you are excited for what will be presented next and a book that deserves several additional reads in order to fully dig into all the material and concepts. Having spent some time of late reading about subjects such as the Nephilim, Mount Hermon, redemption as it relates to a return to Eden, and having some familiarity and background with the battle between the seeds, I found myself having several additional connections made by Heiser in regards to these issues and how they play out in Scripture.In order to grasp this idea of what is going on behind the scenes in Scripture and history for that matter, it is an absolute necessity to begin in Genesis and then to walk the progression of through all the way to Revelation. If one skips over sections or does not take the time to see how the Old Testament and New Testament are revealing the movement of God in history to restore that which was lost due to sin, then misunderstandings and confusions will ensue. Heiser does a marvelous job throughout this book of tying together key words and concepts that are more often than not overlooked. His insight into the original biblical languages is clearly evident and throughout this book I was amazed at the numerous connections in the biblical corpus and drama that I had overlooked or had not realized were right there before my eyes.Believers often quote passages such as Ephesians 6:12 which notes the reality of the warfare for which we are engaged. What is arguably overlooked is how this battle has played out in history. Heiser outlines the repeated polemic presented by God in Scripture against those rules of darkness. Some of those polemics might be more familiar than others. For instance, most likely understand the plagues poured out on Egypt were a display of God’s power and authority over the gods of Egypt. Dig a little further and you will also realize as noted by Heiser that “The reason for Israel’s circumstances was that it wasn’t sufficient that only Israel new Yahweh was Most High among all gods, and that Israel was his portion. The other nations had to know that as well. Scripture makes it clear that Israel’s deliverance had that effect.”The conquering of Canaan was also a polemic, this time against the Nephilim. Heiser does a great job of nothing the failure of the Sethite view in relation to the Nephilim, thus providing the reader for the proper backdrop of why God commanded Israel to completely wipe out much of the inhabitants of the Promised Land. God was asserting his rule through His chosen people. Unfortunately, as the story unfolds in the history of Israel, failure to fulfill God’s mandate ensued. Heiser properly walks the reader through why God called the prophets and why they were more than just tellers of the future. They were setting the stage for the coming of the messiah.Heiser concludes this important book by noting the spiritual war brought directly to earth by the coming of Jesus. One of the most interesting elements of the New Testament discussion was that of Heiser’s description of the baptism of Jesus. Many wonder why Jesus was baptized. While many have presented some valid submissions, one element is often missed to which Heiser aptly digs into. Once again, word usage and connections to Old Testament events are in focus. Mark 9:10 describes the heavens being split apart and the Spirit of God descending on Jesus like a dove with God noting Jesus as His beloved Son. There is much to note in that verse; however, Heiser hones in on the word split noting the Greek word schizo is used in that passage, the same word used in the Septuagint for the parting of the Red Sea. Why is this so important? It is vital as Heiser notes because just as the entrance into the Promised Land through the parting of the Red Sea was God doing battle and reclamation, so to was the coming of Jesus as the God-man to earth. His baptism was immediately followed by him doing battle against the enemy as the beloved, a specific reference to Jesus as “the king, the legitimate her to David’s throne.”I could go on and on noting the plethora of insights provided by Heiser throughout this book. Suffice it to say, these few examples are merely the tip of the iceberg as to the extremely interesting and truly important issues Heiser examines in this book. Reading it resulted in a number of light bulb moments for me and I anticipate returning to this work a number of times in the future to examine in further detail various issues that are discussed. Thus I can highly recommend this book and I also recommend those who read this book take the time to check out the companion website located at http://www.moreunseenrealm.com for additional insight into several key topics that Dr. Heiser was able to only brush upon at times in this book. I have read a number of books this year and I can honestly state thus far, The Unseen Realm resides at the top of my list of recommended books for 2015.I received this book for free from Lexham Press and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The author opens to us the riches of so many Bible passages that we have known but superficially. Those seemingly odd biblical narratives make sense now.

Dr. Michael Heiser was not only a great investigator, but also excelled at communicating down his work to the less academic people like myself. This book helped me understand better some nuances about the spiritual world narrated in the bible.

To gain a deeper understanding of the Bible, it is important to read it within the context of the beliefs and perspectives of its authors. By understanding the historical, cultural, and theological background of the texts, passages that may have been previously unclear may become clearer. So it is helpful to study the Bible in the context of its historical and literary background. This book is a great help to achieve this goal and to see God's love for us in a deeper and clearer way.

Davvero interessante. Finalmente un autore che ha il coraggio di affrontare un tema che troppe volte si cerca di evitare, ovvero il soprannaturale nella bibbia. A volte anche i credenti leggono la propria bibbia con scetticismo e cercano di trovare spiegazioni alternative a brani difficili. L'autore affronta semplicemente questi brani alla luce di ciò che dicono e il risultato è decisamente interessante. Da leggere.

Packed with insights. I recommend it for a better understanding of the unseen realm