In this book, Heiser suggests that Eden was up a mountain as mountains in ancient times were thought to be places where the gods met with the Earth. The text doesn't say one way or another. Later in the book the author liked to think that the transfiguration took place not at the traditional location of Mount Tabor but at Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon was known for its worship of pagan gods of the time so the idea that the transfiguration happens here is like Jesus taunting those gods. The text doesn't say one way or another. Latter, there are some Hebrew to Greek transliteration to English to explain the word "Armageddon". Depending on how you work the sounds and substituting vowels it could come to say "Mount Megiddo", and symbolically it could mean Jerusalem, Mount Zion. These points are all kinda interesting, and the book isn't really about mountains, but these examples highlight some of the methodologies used in the book: appealing to what culture thought of the time and complicated Hebrew wordplay. (Neither of which are necessary illegitimate methods).
In broad strokes, Heiser tries to look at all the tricky passages in the Bible concerning, angels, demons and other gods (elohim) and tries to fit them into a coherent picture that fits within the wider Biblical story. His into at the start had me hooked when he described the issues and cheap explanations of Psalm 82.
God has a divine council where God has delegated some of His authority to these lesser "gods". (see 1 Kings 22:19-22). There is potentially an issue of God's sovereignty if He delegates certain decisions or processes to lesser characters on the council, but I would guess it is no different when He deals with us. God allows us to make decisions, but He is sovereign over all, even in 1 Kings 22:23 after one council member suggests to send a deceiving spirit, the Lord is deemed to have done it.
Interestingly, Heiser lets Deuteronomy 32 (v8-9) frame a whole bunch of things. He sees God disinheriting all nations and then setting each member of the divine council to rule over a territory. This does give borders more significances as certain lands are now ruled by other "gods". This was a common idea back then. When Naaman was healed, he wanted to bring back soil from Israel back to his country to still be able to workship the God of Israel (2 Kings 5:17-18). The rest of the Bible story is God's mission to retake, conquer and restore all the nations back under Himself, via His chosen people.
The Nephilim from Genesis 6:4 get a little bit of a look in. It is suggested that these Sons of God are offspring from the elohim who were giants. Tracing this "race" in the Bible we see that in Numbers 13:33 the Nephilim are linked to the sons/descendants of Anak. This does mean the Nephilim somehow survived the flood. In Deuteronomy 2:11 this "race" is also called the Rephaites. Something I never really noticed before, in the book of Joshua the last half of the narrative has a subplot of removing the Anakietes. They as they are mentioned 7 times in the last half of the book and Rephaites are mentioned three times, in particular, to say that they were wiped out (Josh 12:4, 13:12). While I get that Joshua may have this sub-point as he was one of the spies back in Numbers 13, I do wonder how big a Biblical storyline it really is and if it really matters. When the Lord often talks about those in the Promised Land the recurring nations are always the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (and sometimes the Girgashites - I just like that name). The Rephaites, Anakites or Nephilim are not mentioned at all in the book of Exodus and I don't think their names are ever put in the mouth of God when talking about His covenant promises or about other nations.
Heiser knows the ancient near eastern culture, and it is all very interesting to learn about ancient beliefs, their emphasis on territory, gods they worshipped, etc. Leaning strongly on the Ugaritic texts found in the 1920's, he sees these as a great resource in Biblical studies. Using all this archaeological background information Heiser can tell you what the original ancient Jewish reader would be thinking in a passage, even if the text doesn't explicitly say so. His reasoning may fit in with the ancient world view back then, but I am not sure if that means it is objectively true. Ideas from that world view may have been used to help with the audience to understand the idea, to help get a point across (eg that the Earth has corners) but it might not be exactly how things are, especially when dealing with the things that are unseen.
It does also make me wonder about the sufficiency and clarity of scripture if we need these 1920's discoveries to help us understand the Bible. What did the Church do for the previous nineteen hundred years without these discoveries? Don't get me wrong, I think extra Biblica ancient sources do help with our understanding as we are so far removed from that time (Heiser's take on the tricky passage in 1 Peter 3:19-20 with Jesus preaching to the spirits in imprisoned from long ago was helpfully explained in light of a typology account from 1 Enoch); but overall I think background texts help is only minor and not even necessary for the understanding the main things of the Bible. Heiser does demonstrate a good Biblical theology when summarising and moving between sections of the book. In these summy sections, he hits the main points about God's rescue plan, promise and fulfilment of the messiah.
There is a minor section on theosis or divinization - how the elect are going to become gods, not in some sort of Mormon sense, but in that, we are going to have bodies that will last forever and judge angels. I think that section on our resurrected bodies could have been fleshed out a bit more (also a pun).
Heiser is also a bit sympathetic to the Jews of Jesus' day in their struggle to see Him as the Messiah because the Old Testament texts are a bit obscure and really only later in hindsight can you put the pieces together. Heiser argues that the Old Testament texts on the Messiah had to be obscure otherwise the fallen divine counsel, or demons or the devil could have caught on to God's saving plan and wrecked it. This was an interesting take. Pretty much when Jesus encountered every demon they call Him the Son of God, and Jesus frequently is quoting scripture to people (like His first sermon or to John the Baptist followers) indicating He was the Messiah. Four times in Luke Jesus leans on Moses and the Prophets to give an account of Him.
I was surprised to find there is a layman's version of this book, Supernatural, as I thought it was well written and already clear. Heiser is an academic with loads of footnotes and an accompanying website for more technical/detailed discussion of points but still is able to explain things well. One of my favourite quotes on the book, which I think shows a bit of the level of discussion Heiser has and his attitude, is on the bottom of page 105 when discussing the meaning of the Nephilim to be "giants" or "fallen ones" (Heiser leans towards "giants") he says:
Despite the uselessness of the argument, I'm not inclined to conceed the point.Quarks are a thing. They are things that are inside protons and neutrons. There are "up" quarks and "down" quarks. I'm sure they are good things to have and they probably help with electricity or gravity or something significant, even though we knew about electricity or gravity before we discovered quarks. I felt like this book was a little bit like finding out about quarks. It is interesting and I am sure it affects something, but I just didn't really know what to do with it all.
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