I first started thinking about the Divine Council many years
ago when reading the works of Meredith Kline. In particular his 2001 commentary
on Zechariah's night visions proved a thrilling read and stirred me on several
investigative fronts. To this day it remains a favourite and I frequently
re-visit it. Not only did it feed my already growing interest in
Redemptive-Historical hermeneutics, it started me down a path of investigating
typology and symbols and subsequently I discovered there were vast untapped
riches to be found in the Scriptures, a treasure trove of revelation concerning
the celestial realms and the mechanisms by which God has ordered the universe.
Thus when I first encountered Michael Heiser in 2015, I was
already familiar with some of his concepts. Like Kline he argued that
Armageddon (mentioned in Revelation 16) had nothing to do with the plain of
Megiddo in Northern Israel but was in reality a transliteration of Har Magedon,
the mountain of Assembly or Divine Council referred to in Isaiah 14. While
Kline hinted at some of the greater concepts of the heavenly realms, he seemed
restrained in what he was willing to say. Heiser on the other hand has
demonstrated a great eagerness to open up the discussion regarding the
implications of Isaiah 14 as well as that of the elohim or gods in passages
like Psalm 82 and other Divine Council motifs found in both the Old and New
Testaments. Some have unfortunately misunderstood these doctrines and believing
them to be an endorsement of polytheism they all but shut down and refuse to
listen and thus miss out on substantial categories of Divine revelation.*
Heiser also not only revisits the issue of the Sons of (the)
god(s) in Genesis 6 and the question of the Nephilim. He re-affirms the
overwhelming and well attested historic view that it was in fact an angelic
intrusion. But he also demonstrates that its themes carry on throughout the
Scriptures and form something of a backdrop to numerous Biblical events. From
the Canaanite conquest to Christ's proclamation at Caesarea Philippi, to the
imagery of Bashan and the spectre of Hermon the antediluvian influence of
Genesis 6 looms large.
Kline's view of the Sons of the gods was to my mind something
of compromise. Too much of an Old Testament exegete to accept the textually
unsustainable Sethite-Cainite theory (which today has become the majority
Evangelical and Confessional position), Kline focused on human kings claiming
divine status and authority. He was unwilling to discount a demonic element but
he didn't particularly emphasize it either.
On the contrary I had become convinced long before I
encountered Heiser that the Sethite view was not only incorrect but
unsustainable and un-Biblical. Again, Heiser does well in arguing that the
events in Genesis 6 actually overshadow a considerable amount of Biblical
narrative and indeed is echoed in the New Testament. Apart from Heiser other
authors have proven that the Early Church is virtually unanimous in its
understanding of the passage... fallen angels left their rightful abode and
transgressed creational lines by taking up with women. The result was literally
demonic. Both Jude and Peter base their arguments of coming judgment on an Enochian
narrative and interpretation of Genesis 6 and seem to embrace what might be
called its wider worldview or understanding of the celestial hierarchy and it
cosmologic structure. 1 Enoch is of course not part of the canon and as such
cannot be exegeted in some kind of authoritative sense. Nevertheless it's clear
the Apostles and the early Church accepted its cosmological model and
narrative. And with regard to the Genesis 6 incident, 1 Enoch is unequivocal.
For some time I had grown uncomfortable with the Evangelical
and in particular Reformed reticence to deal with such issues. Embarrassment,
fear of being labeled unscholarly and unscientific or in the case of Calvinism,
theological difficulties prevented many Christians from fully embracing what
the Scriptures teach on these questions. In that sense discovering Michael
Heiser in 2015 and getting his book 'The Unseen Realm' was an encouragement.
But I had my doubts. There were things I had read and was
hearing in his podcasts that made me pause. I decided to suspend judgment until
I actually read his book which I was quick to purchase. While I did enjoy
reading it, my fears were confirmed.
Heiser is almost a casebook study of the kind of compromise
Iain Murray focuses on in his work Evangelicalism
Divided. Murray talks about the various comprises made by Evangelicals in
order to stay within the fold of the academy. They use the academy's language
and concepts and largely operate off their unbelieving and critical
assumptions. They will often come to conservative conclusions but by means of a
theologically liberal road. In other words they don't resist the assumption of
the unbelieving theological liberals, the claims of science and the so-called
science of text criticism. They embrace the concepts but then keep pushing to
the right and land at a place that might be called the 'liberal fringe' of
theological conservatism. Of course you could also just as easily call them
conservative liberals.
This is how I think of men like CF Keil, Franz Delitzsch and
the Mercersburg theologian Philip Schaff. These men were basically theological
liberals but with very conservative proclivities. Schaff usually (but not
always) landed within the boundaries of Biblical orthodoxy but the sickly
foundation was already established and within a generation of his work
theological liberalism was fully embraced by those who had shared his circle.
Keil and Delitzsch were by some estimations conservatives and given their time
period and context they most certainly were and yet were also capable of
profound insight. Well meaning and sincere men, they were not nearly as
conservative in method or conclusion as we might wish. This conservative
liberalism is more or less how I understand Heiser and his theology.
While he pays lip service to the hand of God being at work in
the formation of Scripture he clearly has little interest in a supernatural or
'paranormal' construction of the text. He's quite open about dismissing the
very question. Fully embracing the categories of the academy he is quick to
dispense with not only spiritual truths and claims in the face of science and
the supposed discoveries of archaeology but his views of Scripture should
trouble anyone committed to plenary inspiration or Scriptural authority.
Heiser like academics of his stamp has failed to understand
the supernatural nature of the Scriptures and the simple fact that unbelievers
cannot understand its message nor its doctrines. For Heiser what really matters
is one's training as a scholar and he places far more import on the works of
someone with degrees and who has a peer-reviewed article published in a journal
than in the understanding of people that have known God and His ways through
careful, prayerful and Spirit guided or illuminated study of the Word. In Heiser's
world the Scriptures don't belong to the Church, they belong to the academy and
the Church must bend its doctrine to conform to the authority of scholarship.
There's a real irony here. On the one hand Heiser is
insisting the Scriptures must be taken as they're presented and the theologians
need to sit down and stop imposing their contrived systems on the text. On the
other hand his views of scholarship and even theology mean that the Scriptures
must conform to the academy. In other words the Scriptures can never be taken
as they're presented but as the scholars tell us they really are. It is for
this reason that I believe his interest in the 'Unseen Realm' is but an
exercise. I question as to whether or not he really 'believes' as the ancient
Israelites did. He thinks it's important that we understand how they thought
but I don't get the impression he would say they were right or that's how we
ought to think. As far as these ancients being correct or right in their
understanding of celestial cosmology... based on his understanding of how the
Old Testament was constructed I don't see how it's possible he could think that
their views have any real authority.
Heiser argues the Old Testament is replete with the imagery,
iconography and narratives of Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Persia and the like. The
Hebrews and Israelites (it is argued) appropriated these foreign stories and
put a new gloss on them. This is classic text-critical liberal argumentation
used to posit that the religion of the Old Testament is not unique or
supernatural but is the result of cultural appropriation and syncretism.
Now Heiser will say that God steered the hand of the editors
of the Old Testament and He used them to make these points and play a game of
'one-upsmanship' on the worshippers of Baal and other pagan deities. It is at
this point he argues that the Israelites were borrowing concepts from their
neighbours and clearly the Baal worshippers of Ugarit had concepts like the
Divine Council and that of a Holy Mountain, namely Zaphon (the heights of the
north) which is also mentioned in the Old Testament. Heiser like other
theological liberals believes the Israelites took these ideas and appropriated
them swapping Baal for Jehovah and thus sought to demonstrate that Jehovah was
superior. Like the Romantics emulating the ancient Greeks, the Israelite
authors created an alternative and even better version of these stories and
transformed them for their own context.
Traditionally conservatives have argued that similarities
found in the pagan nations and religions were the result of satanic
counterfeiting or perhaps remnants of primeval memory... stories handed down
from the flood and Babel days that influenced world religions. They had hints
of truth mixed with lies. The prophets under inspiration were at times making
the case that Jehovah was (for example) the true God of the Storms and things
of that nature. It wasn't appropriation but correction, or a re-capturing of
Divine prerogatives from the pagan gods which had (as it were) effectively
attempted to steal the narratives and imagery. Heiser, the theologian that
supposedly puts such great stock in the activities of the unseen realm and the
Scripture's abundant testimony to demonic activity... doesn't even entertain
the question. For him the Israelites copied and essentially stole the images
and concepts from their neighbours and God somehow sanctioned and steered this
process. It is in reality a purely human explanation. Again he makes it clear
he rejects any kind of 'paranormal' means of Scripture construction. It's a
strange word choice. It's almost as if he wants to avoid saying the word
'supernatural' because that would show his hand. Paranormal has a negative
connotation and thus his true meaning might escape some listeners. Maybe I'm being
too critical but I must say when it comes to certain topics I find Heiser to be
evasive and even a bit slippery.
Speaking of Holy Mountains and Divine Councils, this is where
Heiser's Unseen Realm comes into play. Ancient Near Eastern people believed in
a multi-tiered cosmic geography and a realm of spiritual hierarchy comprised of
territorial angelic beings who were members of the Divine Council. Additionally
there were ancient tales of flying serpents, celestial draconic beasts, angelic
intrusions, giants or titans, disembodied Nephilim or demons and there were
gateways to a spirit inhabited underworld, from which witches called up dead
spirits. Angels troubled healing waters and the seas also contained
otherworldly beasts and the stars themselves were angelic beings. While Heiser
doesn't address all these points he argues that we must embrace such readings
(which are all found or hinted at in Scripture) and take them seriously in
order to properly understand the context of the Old and New Testaments. He
believes it's critical to read the texts as the people at that time read and
understood them.
This aspect of his argument is to be applauded. But then what
to do about it? At this point I will bring up a critique I have of Heiser's
theology and that is in his lack of understanding of Redemptive-History,
typology and some of the unity found in a Christocentric understanding of the
Scripture. His theology seems to lack a concept of New Testament supremacy. In
other words Heiser fails to see that the New Testament interprets the Old. He
seems to want to deal with the Old on its own terms. I can appreciate why as a
scholar he might want to do that but a Christian exegete knows such strictures
are not only futile but ultimately dishonouring to Christ. We cannot as
Christians read the Bible in that way. Some would take issue with an Old
Testament-standalone view on the basis of systematics. Nothing can be read in
disconnection to the whole. That's not what I'm saying. I'm arguing that Christ
is the key to understanding and seeking an interpretation apart from Him always
leads to error.
Reading the books of the Old Testament through the lens of
the New Testament doesn't negate the cosmological truths they might reveal (as
some sceptic-theologians might posit) but it contextualises them for us in this
Kingdom age and it teaches in general terms just how to read and understand the
Old Testament. This is the Analogy of Scripture rightly used. Others abuse it
and utilise it to negate doctrinal statements or concepts or explain them away
in light of system and a commitment to coherence. Again it is with some irony
that I must say I think Heiser is guilty of this on some fronts, especially
when discussing doctrine in the context of the Church.
Heiser who denies that Isaiah ben Amoz wrote all the book of
Isaiah, who denies Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, who clearly believes
Daniel was written hundreds of years after the actual Daniel lived and who more
than hints that he doesn't believe in a worldwide universal flood (or much of
any of the historicity of Genesis 1-11 for that matter) represents a practical
rejection of New Testament statements about the Old Testament, its prophets and
prophecies. He certainly doesn't believe the text to be God-Breathed and thus it has to be said that his concept of
inspiration is radically different from what traditional theological
conservatives have argued. I have found much in his teaching to be compatible
with Barthianism and while he doesn't mention the Swiss theologian anywhere I'm
aware of, I am left wondering if his liberal-conservative theological blend and
his views of Scripture aren't in some sense influenced by Neo-Orthodoxy.
Traditional students of Scripture should be troubled by his
views which in large part relegate the Old Testament to being (humanly
speaking) a counterfeit production, a fraudulent creation that utilises made up
and stolen stories in order to communicate truths that are supposedly Divine.
Despite this, Heiser wants to unlock the Old Testament or more properly the
ancient world's conceptualisation of the unseen realm.
He's right, there's a massive amount of Scriptural data and
doctrine available for the student of Scripture. And he's also right that
Protestant and Evangelical Scholasticism have for various reasons suppressed
these teachings. I have felt this way for years and thus I was at first excited
to discover Heiser. It was disappointing to realise that even while he opens up
this world... at the same time he undermines it. I don't think he actually believes
in any of it. And in fact he spends a lot of his other time and academic
energies engaged in 'debunking' conspiracy theories and other paranormal and
supernatural ideas. In other words, he may be a theist or even a Christian
theist of some sort but the wonders of the unseen realm that he speaks of... I
don't think he actually believes them to be true. He just wants us to
understand that Ancient Near Eastern people believed it was true and therefore
to understand their writings we have to take their views seriously. There's a
big difference.
For my part I believe the ideas of the unseen realm are
realities and this understanding is transformative with regard to Bible study,
doctrine, piety and even how we interact with the larger world.
*Indeed for a long time I resisted some of these impulses
having been heavily influenced by what I now consider the near-secular
hermeneutics of certain modern Evangelical and Reformed theologians and indeed
the somewhat reductionist exegesis found in the commentaries of John Calvin.
The Genevan Reformer while in some respects a competent exegete has (in my
estimation) an insufficient grasp of Redemptive-History, typology and prophecy,
thus his tendency to all but 'strip down' certain portions of Scripture and
impoverish them. While he was nowhere near as 'rigid' in his application of
systemic logic as the later Scholastics, he still displayed the tendencies and
at certain times in his works they are blatantly on display.