Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome back to another episode that is centered on the Divine Council worldview, or the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, or however you want to say it. We're going to be talking about the work of Dr. Michael Heiser from the lens of Heath Henning. Heath Henning has written a book, contra Heiser, basically. His book is called The Unbiblical Realm, Refuting the Divine Council of Michael Heiser's Deuteronomy 32 Worldview. For transparency's sake, I will say that I actually received a free copy of this book. I was watching a live stream of Heath Henning [00:01:00] talking about his book on the channel Christian Road Warrior. It's a several part series, and I happened to catch one of the conversations that they were having live, where they were giving away a copy of the book. So, I put my hand up and said, hey, you can send me a copy of your book. So, they did. I got a copy of this book for free, and I was asked to review it.
So review it, I shall. I've actually already put a review up on Amazon, and I've done a live stream review of this book already. In fact, this was my first live stream on my own channel. So if you go to YouTube, and you go to Genesis Marks the Spot, and you go to the live tab there on my channel, you can find that live stream that I did about this book. Some of the stuff I'm going to talk about today will be quite similar to some of that conversation, but I think some of it will be a little bit different. [00:02:00] But we'll have to see how far I get into this, because there's a lot that I can say.
And first of all, I want to say that I'm not actually opposed to the idea of people critiquing Dr. Heiser. In fact, that's what he did. He was in the academic realm. He did peer review stuff, which means that he put his cards and his work on the table for other academics to actually pick apart and say, Well, we agree with this. We don't agree with this. That's part of that academic peer review process.
Criticism is not a bad thing, and in fact, I tend to try to search out criticism, because I want to see where the best arguments are for dismantling somebody's ideas. I think that's a very useful thing to do. I don't mind it at all when people do that. I have no problem with critiques. I have no problem with people disagreeing with Dr. Heiser.
Now, I personally agree [00:03:00] with most of what Dr. Heiser talked about and taught. I don't agree with everything that he says. And to be honest, I'd find it a personal problem if I agreed with somebody all the time. Because I'd be like, well, we're both wrong somewhere. Where is it? And so what you need to do when you have an idea, and you have a set of worldview conceptions yourself, my personal opinion is that it's a really good process to try and dismantle your own worldview and critique it. So there's nothing wrong with that.
But what Heath does in this book is really quite a bit beyond that. And I think you'll see what I mean here as we get into some of this . I'll go ahead and give you quotes from his book and I'll summarize a lot of it because otherwise we're not going to get very far in this conversation.
Most of what I'm going to say today is from his book, but I will bring out some points that he was making in the live streams that I saw. [00:04:00] I watched the one that I got the book from, and I've watched some more, although I haven't watched all of them. It is, again, at least a seven part series, and he goes through a lot of his book, so if you're interested in actually hearing what he says about his book and the information from his book, you can probably go watch those and get it right from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
Now, I will say that he did a lot of research for this book. He has definitely gone into Dr. Heiser's academic writings. In the livestream I saw, he said that he really hadn't listened to the podcast or Dr. Heiser's popular level presentations that are not his academic work or his writing. So we're talking about his dissertation. His journal papers, The Unseen Realm, his Angels book, his Demons book, and his book Reversing Hermon. And I can say that Heath has probably read all of those things because he quotes from all of those things. He's [00:05:00] got footnotes all over the place in this book. Most of the footnotes are from Dr. Heiser's work, but he will also quote from other works to make his own points as well. Which, that's great.
And again, drawing upon what I saw in the live stream, both Heath and Christian Road Warrior said that they had gotten a lot of pushback from Dr. Heiser fans who claim that they don't know what they're talking about, that they're misrepresenting him, and their natural response is, We're not misrepresenting him, we've read his work! But look, you can read somebody's work and you can still absolutely and totally misrepresent them. So I'll be getting into some of that.
Now, this book is self published, and that in and of itself is not necessarily a problem, okay. But if you're going to do a review of scholarly [00:06:00] material, then whether or not you're going to publish it yourself, you need to get feedback from others. You need to involve other people in this work that you're doing, in reviewing this work, and checking up on some things that you say. Like, that's just a natural process that everybody should be doing if they're producing work that they want other people to believe them in.
What Heath did was he wrote some blog posts, and he got some feedback from that with people who were like, yeah, that's great. We want more of that. And then he turned it into a book. There's nothing in this book that leads me to think that this is anything but his opinion and his personal work. So, you can go ahead and self publish, and you can go ahead and critique scholarly level work. But you shouldn't just be writing a blog post and then deciding, Hey, I've gotten good feedback from people who agree with me, so, let's turn these blog posts into a book [00:07:00] with no review from the other side at all, or from anybody who might be knowledgeable about Dr. Heiser's content beyond his academic work.
And you especially shouldn't be doing things like that if you're going to go calling somebody a liberal Gnostic heretic, I think. I mean, if you're just calling them a liberal Gnostic, okay, have at it, I guess. But the charge of heresy has traditionally been decided upon by more than just one person. You yourself do not get to go and say somebody else is a heretic.
That's like a church wide thing. You don't just get to decide who's a heretic and who's not based on your own personal opinion. But, you know, we can cut people some slack, okay? So let's compromise, and let's say that if you're going to do something like this, then you should have the attitude that you would want your work to be critiqued in kind, and that when and where it's found wanting, you could be willing [00:08:00] to revise, backtrack, apologize, whatever it's called for, once it's clear that you have actively misrepresented someone. And that would be fine.
So if you want to self publish with no review process, no one who's double checked any of your work, who might be slightly more unbiased than you, then go right ahead. But where you're wrong, then that's when you need to own that you're wrong and either republish, or retract, or whatever you have to do. That's a hard challenge. I get it. I mean, Heath even communicated with Dr. Heiser directly. And when he was told that he wasn't reading accurately, he just chose to double down on what he was doing instead of stepping back and deciding to rethink his work.
So, I'm not holding my breath here any more than Doreen Virtue gave a legitimate apology after her mischaracterization. The moral of the story might [00:09:00] be, Hey, maybe heresy hunting shouldn't be a hobby. Just an idea. And as far as the charge that he doesn't understand Dr. Heiser, and the fact that he scoffed at that, look, I get that he's spent a lot of time with this material, but that doesn't guarantee that he understands it.
The most basic thing I can say to show definitively that he doesn't get it, is that he doesn't understand how Heiser even defines Elohim.
Throughout the book, Heath uses the correlation of " elohim" equals "disembodied", equals "god." And he's claiming that this is how Dr. Heiser has defined the term Elohim, or rather, that Dr. Heiser has redefined the term Elohim. Heath also doesn't seem to understand the change of terminology, and the fact that words don't just completely cover the meanings of [00:10:00] words in a different language when you translate it.
Heath says, the sons of God aren't gods, they're angels. And he says that as if this defeats Dr. Heiser's view, but anyone who's read all of Dr. Heiser's work and is familiar with how he discusses things will say that doesn't make any sense because of the change of terminology between the Old Testament and the New Testament and going from Hebrew to Greek. You simply can't take a translation gloss in one language and say it means the same thing as another gloss in another language. Plus, even once you get to the Greek, people get confused with this term angel. On the one hand, it's clear that the word angel means messenger. But, on the other hand, it's also clear that the term angel is used for ontological beings. Those aren't necessarily the same thing, because the term angel is used for John, the Baptist. Right? He's a messenger. [00:11:00] So, the term angel is a really confusing one, because it can have so many different meanings.
So the way that Heath starts this book is very illustrative of his attitude in general towards Dr. Heiser and the type of work that Dr. Heiser does. There's a logical fallacy called poisoning the well. There's several problems with this presentation that he gives right from the beginning. He talks about Dr. Heiser, he talks about liberal scholars, and he's obviously using this in a derogatory, negative way. He poisons the well for the rest of the book by saying that Dr. Heiser went to a school that is known for its communistic propaganda, he says. And then he mentions people who went to this school who were Marxists.
And it's like, what does that have to do with Dr. Heiser's work if people in the 60s went to this school and they were Marxist? [00:12:00] I don't really understand that. Do you know how many people were in school in the 60s who were Marxist? So we have poisoning the well, we have genetic fallacies, we have fallacies by association, And, look, if I can get money for every time he uses the term liberal in this book, then I could go and buy myself something kinda nice.
Heath clearly doesn't like things like textual criticism, which, okay, fair enough, but mere association with an idea or a trend in scholarship doesn't mean that you have to take all of those ideas on board just because. Like, using textual criticism as a tool does not mean that you then believe everything that every textual critic says.
For instance, you have J E D P, or the documentary hypothesis, and it's kind of nonsense, but it's also actually a little bit helpful to look at things like [00:13:00] priestly influences on the text, and things like that. So we can presume that the people who were dealing with the text through time had different goals and perspectives and mental orientations at times and somehow all of these various people in all of these different time periods with all of these different goals still produced a uniform text, which is I think one of the better apologetics for the unity of the Bible being under an ultimate author, you know, God, who used proximate authors, people, in the production of the text.
So using textual criticism as a tool doesn't mean you have to buy into some kind of worldview.
Okay, so let's talk about a couple of points of agreement that I can agree with Heath on. One thing that Heath brings up is how Dr. Heiser talks about messianic prophecies being hidden or veiled, because if they weren't, [00:14:00] then the powers of darkness wouldn't have killed Jesus. That's the kind of thing that Dr. Heiser would say.
And honestly, I can see a point in having some caution when we say something like that. If we're saying this because it's possible for the dark powers to thwart the ultimate plan of God, then yeah, that's a big problem. But, at the same time, would we expect the powers to go along with the plan that would lead to their downfall and defeat? So, I'm not sure why it's really all that controversial in the end to say that the plan was hidden.
What that's not saying is that God could be ultimately defeated. Heiser's on record for saying that many times in many ways. God's plans aren't going to be thwarted, and he's not actually threatened by the powers of darkness as if they're going to win, or they're a [00:15:00] legitimate threat. Like, that's how Dr. Heiser has taught, like, yes, he will say that the plan was veiled so that they wouldn't know. But he's not saying that that is because God had to do that that way or else he would be defeated.
Let me just go ahead and read a quote from the unbiblical realm where Heath says, quote, Heiser teaches God has to win his role as king of gods. In order to accomplish his plan of redemption, God had to cover the Messiah's mission with secrecy from the powers of darkness so they would not know God's strategy. This is why the Old Testament prophecies were veiled with cryptic expression, to trick the opposing sons of God. He emphasizes his idea that God is not sovereign over rebellious spiritual beings, repeating such an opinion in multiple books. This position of his gives a way to open theism, which he has not bluntly [00:16:00] confessed, but subtly implies to his readers. End quote.
Does Dr. Heiser in fact teach that God has to win his role as king of the gods? No, he doesn't. This is not part of Dr. Heiser's teaching.
Does he teach that God is not sovereign over rebellious spiritual beings? Again, no. This is why Dr. Heiser used the term Yahweh is species unique. Yahweh is an Elohim, but not all Elohim are Yahweh. God was the creator of it all. God is sovereign over it all.
It's misrepresenting Dr. Heiser to say that this is what he's talking about when what he's really talking about is a specific instance in a specific time. Do we really expect that if God told the bad guys, hey, this is what I'm doing.... are we going to expect them to just [00:17:00] go along with that and be like, ah, okay Let's kill Jesus then! No they wouldn't just go along with that. That doesn't make any logical sense. Does that mean that God couldn't have gotten his will done? No, but he would have to have done it in a different way or something. I don't know.
So, sure. I can see that we need some caution in the way that we talk about these things so that it doesn't lead people to think that God is not sovereign. But at the same time, I don't really think it's that hard to see that that's not what Dr. Heiser was saying.
But, trying for another point of agreement, the sons of God are spiritual beings. And Heath agrees with that. He says the sons of God are angelic. So he's not going with the Sethite view of Genesis 6. But he seems to think this is a major difference somehow because they're not gods.
[00:18:00] But, Dr. Heiser didn't actually claim that the Sons of God in Genesis 6 were the gods of the nations. This was a different group.
And this is a really common misperception. We see it all over the place, that the Sons of God in Genesis 6 are the same as the gods of the nations, according to Dr. Heiser. Now from an objective standpoint, could they be the same? Yes, actually, there is an argument you can make there. T. J. Stedman from Answers to Giant Questions says that that's his position, and I can absolutely see his argument. But Dr. Heiser never claimed that the beings in Genesis 6 were the gods of the nations. His presentation, is that they are separate beings. They're different groups. They have the same ontology because they are created beings in the spiritual realm, but they're not the [00:19:00] exact same.
Back when I was doing my live stream on this book, I can't believe I didn't show my Elohim chart. But I actually have a visual chart that describes Dr. Heiser's presentation of the Three Falls and the different spiritual beings and what is an Elohim and what's not.
I can't believe I didn't show that on the live stream. But I'll probably do a whole video or a stream explaining that chart and showing it. However, I'll probably make a nicer version. So I just haven't decided how I want to do that. But once I do, I'll make an entire video on that.
But anyway, the sons of God of Genesis 6, according to Dr. Heiser, are not the exact same beings as the gods of the nations. So, sons of God doesn't have to mean gods.
But we need to define the English term "god" accurately. And so let's do [00:20:00] that. What is a god?
There's actually different ways you can use the term. Is the term "god" something that refers to an ontological reality? Like, a type of being? Or, does it have a broader range than that? If it's ontological, then we expect it to come along with a set of attributes, but if it has a broader range of meaning, then it will not come along with a set of attributes.
My argument is that the term "god" is going to sometimes be ontological, though never does it have a single set of attributes that is applied across the board. It has a set of attributes in that these beings are spiritual, they reside in the spiritual realm, they have some sort of authority, they have some sort of characteristic that is going to allow them to do what they need to do.[00:21:00]
But they don't have the same characteristics as capital G O D. We call the Sovereign Creator God, capital G O D, and he has a set of attributes and qualities, but we'll also call Zeus or Hades a god, and they don't have the same set of attributes and qualities. At least according to our Christian understanding of them.
Now, in some ways, in their stories, might they have similar characteristics to God? Yes. Do we have to accept that they actually have those characteristics though? No! Because those are pagan stories, and pagan stories aren't going to be accurate.
Often, the term "god" can merely refer to something that is functioning as a god. [00:22:00] While we might talk about the gods of Greek mythology as a whole set of beings who have related attributes, because they're actually related by family structure and things like that, the Greek gods are not always gods who are worshipped. But I think that one of the most common ways we use the term "god" is in a functional sense.
Something that's worshipped is a god. Or one's relationship is figuratively related to worship. Like you can have a god of the stomach, etc. Worship is key to the definition of "god." If someone worships a god, we're going to call that a god whether it exists or not. And so the presentation here should be sometimes they exist and sometimes they don't, and sometimes they're deceptive, and we can't always tell what's going on. But something is going on a lot of times.
So, the conversation about the reality of these [00:23:00] beings doesn't have to hinge on the definition or the use of the term. One can say something about a god without acknowledging the existence of that thing, for one thing.
So, if the disagreement is that Heath doesn't think these beings exist, then that is a conversation that can be had without spending all of the time on the definition and use of the term, because we can agree that the term is being used while still arguing against the existence if you want to go that way.
That's a modern idea, because in the ancient Near East, and the world of Israel, the world of the Greeks, there was clearly the cultural understanding of real beings, and the people of the Bible had this understanding. They did. We know that they did, because why would Israel [00:24:00] have turned to idolatry if they didn't think those beings existed?
The Israelites turned to idolatry because they believed that these beings were real and had existence and had power. They thought that just like everybody else in the ancient Near East. Atheism, in the sense of, we don't believe these gods exist, wasn't a thing.
I think much of Heath's consternation is that he doesn't want people thinking that these beings have a legitimate path to being worshipped, that God is okay with that. And you know, fair enough. But, the point of these polemics in the Bible is that they don't have legitimacy. That only Yahweh is to be legitimately worshipped.
And Dr. Heiser brings this out. And Heath actually quotes Dr. Heiser in saying that. So, he can't claim ignorance that Dr. Heiser didn't [00:25:00] say that, when Dr. Heiser clearly said, Yahweh is the only one worthy of worship. He said that straight out.
Now, let's talk a bit about redefinitions here, because Heath claims that Dr. Heiser redefined the term Elohim. Now, if he interprets phrases that identify Elohim, or Heath says, gods, that go beyond his own definition, then that's really an indication that he's the one who's redefining it. I mean, okay, Heath, let me just talk to you for a second in case you're listening.
It's ironic that you're complaining that Dr. Heiser redefines things, but over and over, you choose to redefine what Dr. Heiser says himself, in his own definitions. Heath, you don't accept or understand how he defines Elohim. You refuse to accept that he rejects your definition of [00:26:00] polytheism. So, you want to make him fit into your category, which is a category that he rejects, but that you insist he fits into. And look, the problem with this isn't that you can't disagree, and that you can't tell him he's wrong if you want. You can say that you don't like his terms or his definitions. But, it's bad faith interaction to say that you refuse to acknowledge someone else's definition.
Dr. Heiser has made it clear. He has defined things himself. And when you purposefully engage in a discussion of his work, and you don't allow him to define his own terms and what he means, well, by continuing to insist upon your definition instead of his, then it's impossible for you to understand him in good faith.
It just is. You will not be able to understand someone if you don't allow yourself to understand them [00:27:00] in the way that they want to be understood. Because there's a meaning behind the things people say and if you just go, nah, I'm not gonna accept your meaning, then, that means you cannot understand them, or you refuse to accept what they're saying. That's bad faith interaction right there.
Now, the reason I say that is that Heath absolutely takes the definitions to an absurdio reductum argument that makes no sense, well, let me just give you an example. This is something that he brings out in his book. He says, Jesus is God. So if God is Elohim. And if Elohim means disembodied, which again, that's not what Dr. Heiser says, but that's how Heath is presenting Dr. Heiser's definition, then that means that God is disembodied, right? So, let's take Heath's definition for a [00:28:00] second. So, if Elohim means disembodied, and God is Elohim, and Jesus is God, then logically, We come to this kind of a logical structure, okay?
A. All Elohim are disembodied. B. All gods are Elohim. C. Jesus is God. Therefore, Jesus is disembodied.
So, the statement that Jesus is God means that Jesus is disembodied. Ergo, Heiser says that Jesus has no body.
Heath really says this on page 221, along with the idea of the resurrection of humans being disembodied because of this.
So he's really teaching that Dr. Heiser taught that resurrection is disembodied and that Jesus had no body.
In fact, let me quote Heath saying this on page [00:29:00] 221. He says, quote, or, if Heiser thinks Jesus Christ remained as God on Earth, then by his definition of God, Christ would have to be disembodied. Hence, Heiser would in such a case be docetic, like some ancient Gnostics. Somewhere he has to have major theological issues to hold to his disembodied definition of the word gods. If he views Christ remaining as God, then he does not have a physical, glorified resurrected body. Thus Heiser would be denying an actual resurrection for a spiritual resurrection, like many liberals and cults, end quote.
And later on in that paragraph, he says, quote, Since the saints are said to be like Christ at the resurrection, 1 John 3, 2, Heiser deification doctrine with his definition of gods implies we become disembodied spiritual beings in heaven. [00:30:00] End quote.
Okay, I can't get any clearer on how Heath is misrepresenting and misunderstanding Dr. Heiser. He refuses to let Dr. Heiser define the term Elohim, or he doesn't understand how Dr. Heiser defines Elohim. Which, for those who are not aware, Elohim is just a place of residence term.
It means that your natural place of residence is in the spiritual realm. It doesn't mean you have to be disembodied. It doesn't mean that when you come to earth you're not embodied. So anyway, because Heath has fundamentally misunderstood the definition of Elohim, how Dr. Heiser presents it, Or, again, he just wants this to be the one thing so much that he won't allow any disagreement, even from Dr. Heiser himself, then he totally misrepresents Heiser.
Like, you have to allow other people to [00:31:00] define their terms in order to understand what they're trying to say. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean that you have to insist that they go along with your definitions. You need to let people define their own terms.
You can choose to define your own terms yourself, and say that this is how it fits into categories for me. But good faith communication should be that if you're interacting with someone else's ideas, then you have to accept their definitions, at least for a moment, in order to interact with them.
Again, you can disagree all you want. Trying to force somebody else into your own boxes is disingenuous. And the problem with your redefinition of Heiser's redefinition is that it leads to faulty understandings of his theology and teaching across the board.
On page 23 of this book, The Unbiblical Realm, [00:32:00] it says, quote, The glorified body in Heiser's theology apparently means a disembodied state of humanity becoming gods, end quote.
Well, it can only mean what you just wrote there, Heath, when it means that Elohim means disembodied, means gods, means divine.
The only connection that Dr. Heiser made with all of that was that Elohim equaled divine. That's how he used those terms. Not to keep beating this point, but it's really core. If Elohim means something else other than disembodied, then deification doesn't mean disembodiment, but something else entirely.
And that by itself changes so much of what Heath asserts here. And I feel like it should be clear that Elohim doesn't have to mean disembodied [00:33:00] or gods. So, I just don't know how he gets here, but, again, to clarify it here, to make it as clear as I can, in case you're not familiar with what Dr. Heiser does say, or in the case that Henning himself is listening to this, I feel like it should be so clear that Elohim doesn't have to mean disembodied or, gods, when you read Dr. Heiser's work. But apparently, it's not that clear for some people. Because Heath is not the only one who has come out with this argument.
And again, I have that visual chart that I mentioned, that I think will help to clarify it when you see it visually. But in Dr. Heiser's words, Elohim is a place of residence term. That means that a being would be properly called an Elohim if their proper and usual residence is in the unseen realm.
That doesn't mean they can't [00:34:00] or they don't cross over into our physical realm physically, because I think it's obvious it happens. Dr. Heiser talks about the two powers in heaven and the visible Yahweh. So Elohim doesn't mean disembodied, though potentially an Elohim is disembodied as compared to our physical realm.
But we could just as well say that Elohim means spiritual being, and if there's any ontology associated with the term Elohim, it's that an Elohim has the ability to reside in the unseen realm. But that's about as far as the ontological elements of the word really go. There are several groups or types of beings that are referred to as Elohim, or that fit within the usage of the word as used in the Hebrew Bible. We have God the uncreated, sovereign, triune creator, and, well, let me just list a whole range of terms that could be considered synonyms based on how the [00:35:00] word is used. We have the gods of the nations, and sometimes this includes references to their idols. We have angels. We have throne guardians. We have powers and principalities. We have Satan, the devil, the serpent. We have the angel of the Lord. We have the sons of God. We have demons, or unclean spirits, the heavenly host, and the human dead who have not yet been bodily resurrected as we see in 1 Samuel 28.
Now, I may have missed some things in that list. In fact, I'm sure that I did. But look, it's a big list. They're not all the same type of being. The attribute they all have in common is that they are capable of residing in the spirit realm. They might be disembodied, they might not. The sons of God aren't going to have intercourse with women in a disembodied state. [00:36:00] Angels who come and eat with people aren't disembodied. The human dead are not going to remain disembodied.
So my challenge to Heath right now, after I've said all of that, go back, read Dr. Heiser's work with all of that in mind. It's like, if you want to understand someone else, you need to put on their lenses and go read or hear what they have to say. You have to put your presuppositions down for a moment, as much as that's possible, and just listen, or read, with good faith. And the presumption that, hey, all of these Christians around the world, evangelical or otherwise, find Dr. Heiser's work to be perfectly orthodox. And then go and read what he says with the presumption that he really does fit into the historical faith just fine, instead of starting out with the boogeyman of, oh no, he's from a liberal school and he uses words in ways that [00:37:00] I don't like.
If you're reading something like that, you're starting out on the wrong foot. And, look, Dr. Heiser called you an inept reader, Heath, and I get that that stings, but the fact is, you are. Because what makes an inept reader is someone who refuses to take what someone else says seriously and engage with the work itself ,in the way that it's presenting itself. And it's obviously what you're doing. Dr. Heiser twists this and is foolish about that and is a false teacher. And he says he's not a polytheist, but I know better. Heath, all of that is nonsense. All of that puts on display how badly you're coming at this.
Again, I'm not saying you can't disagree. By all means, continue to disagree after you've engaged fairly. If you can't do [00:38:00] something as straightforward as engage with someone's material as they present it and first work to find the common ground, then you are by definition an inept reader because a reader is expected to take someone they're reading seriously.
If you can't be a good faith reader and accept, just for the sake of reading and understanding what someone is saying, then I would agree that "inept reader" is a legitimate label. Inept might be kind if you have ulterior motives, actually. And frankly, if your goal is to find Gnosticism under every rock, then I have to wonder.
Regarding the term Elohim and people, if we further understand that what happens to people in Christ is a new, unprecedented thing that's never happened before, then that necessarily means that the old terminology doesn't or won't fit perfectly. [00:39:00] So the term Elohim is not even the best term to be using at that point. It's not at all certain that people "become Elohim" when we're resurrected. And it just doesn't even seem to apply, because we'll still be humans who live in embodied new creation, and not the spiritual realm. Though, you know, we're gonna be changed in a way that that distinction might be gone.
I don't know. But really, the term Elohim is a Hebraic term, it applies to things in a certain time, and now we have Jesus and we have things that are happening differently, people are going to have bodily resurrections. So does the term even fit anymore? And I would say, no, it just doesn't. It's not going to make any sense to continue to use that word.
But all of that's speculation, and Heiser didn't even bother talking about it, because, again, [00:40:00] Elohim is a Hebrew term, and once you're out of working within the Hebrew by the time of the New Testament, well, we're gonna have to start using different language then.
All right, so in the spirit of letting people define terms, Heath defines a polytheist as someone who believes in the existence of other gods or deities. He also uses that as part of the definition of Gnosticism, which surely makes the term Gnostic a very unhelpful one, but that's a different point. Now, in that broadest sense of polytheist, believing in the existence of multiple deities, then, okay, Heiser's a polytheist, but I'm not sure how that's a problem, since the Bible is, then, polytheist.
The people of the Bible are polytheist. While you might want to use Isaiah to "prove" that the other gods don't exist, you simply cannot [00:41:00] insist that the people of the Bible didn't believe in other deities or that many in the people of the church have, and so on. I mean, look at Paul in 1 Corinthians 8 and 1 Corinthians 10, you have to look at both.
And if you want to say, Hey, those are demons, not gods, what does it matter what word you choose? They're real. They exist. You can participate with them. The principalities and powers. Satan as the god of this world. Jesus defeating the dark forces. There's a multiplicity of spiritual entities and whether or not the Deuteronomy 32 worldview is accurate in how it describes things, Paul says that people participate in worshiping these beings.
And those are called gods, by the way. When someone worships something or someone, that thing or that being is a god. That's the functional definition of [00:42:00] god, which is arguably the most helpful. And again, however you want to understand them in an ontological fashion, whether you think they're real or not, Paul presents these as real beings who are doing real things in history, and people worshipped those beings, and Jesus defeated them.
And honestly, I don't see how that's really that controversial unless you go down the path that these beings are genuine challenges to the Creator himself. Which again, it's a good thing that Dr. Heiser never suggested that. But that is within the construct of what was going on with Jesus in a particular localized place.
But I already said all of that. If you want to get all pedantic and say that you demote these beings from being gods to being demons or angels, then your problem with the idea really isn't fixed. It doesn't go away. Because, as I said, a [00:43:00] functional definition of the term god is that it's someone or something that's worshipped.
So if you're going to hinge together the words God and polytheist and then say that the plain, simple definition of a polytheist is someone who believes in a plurality of gods, well, then anyone who says there is a god of the belly is a polytheist. Which, I don't know, I can't say, but I think maybe Heath would say that's a ridiculous claim. And I'd agree with him. Maybe he wouldn't think that's ridiculous though, I don't know. I'm not trying to speak for him. But so much of his book is about defining things in ways that Dr. Heiser doesn't, and admitting that he's doing this, so it's just a non starter to begin with. If you're the one who gets to choose what someone else is actually saying, then congratulations, you have the ability to make them say whatever you want them to say, just by redefining their words, [00:44:00] or misconstruing what they say, and not accepting or understanding their intentions and meanings. Congratulations, that's a great way to interact with people. No, it's not. I'm being sarcastic.
Heath quotes Dr. Heiser as saying that we have to start with the biblical text. And I believe that that's what Dr. Heiser does. But I lost track of the number of times that Heath said something to the effect of Heiser reads everything through pagan mythology. I mean, does Dr. Heiser use a lot of comparative literature? Oh, you bet he does.
And I'll even say, does Dr. Heiser use extra biblical literature to fill in gaps in our understanding? Yes, but here's the key to why he does that. Notice what I just said. There are gaps in our understanding. Why are there gaps? Because we aren't in that culture [00:45:00] anymore, and we've lost the thread. We've lost the point and the background of thought, so we use other material to fill in those parts of our understanding.
Not because we presume those other texts are inspired, or that these are where the Bible's getting its ideas from, but because if the biblical authors didn't explain something in detail, which means we're confused by it, it's probably often because those are the things that were so commonly understood that they simply didn't need to be any more detailed at the time. But fast forward to today, and we don't quite get it. So when you go to other texts, which might hold some keys to the commonly understood backgrounds, then that's gonna allow us to fill in the missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle of the past. That is what biblical theology is, and does, and what Dr. Heiser was doing.
He's not [00:46:00] redefining anything, he's getting us less wrong. And look, as I've said before, but I need to be sure to say it in this episode, the fact that we need to understand the text better does not, in any way, mean that we haven't understood God, or Jesus, or mankind, or the purpose of the Messiah before this knowledge.
It doesn't mean that we can't understand the narrative arc of Scripture and all of these things. The concept of the perspicuity of Scripture doesn't mean that we can understand everything in the Bible perfectly well. Go ask a number of people what the meaning of the fig tree in the Gospels is and see how many people know or can even wrestle up an answer.
The perspicuity of scripture means that everything that applies to salvation is clear, and that's not any kind of a problem or a thing that Dr. Heiser ever argued against. And, by the [00:47:00] way, I could easily come up with several clips of Dr. Heiser saying that the dirty little secret of the Unseen Realm is that Mike never had an original thought.
And so, no, he wasn't saying that he alone found a secret that no one else had, or that the stuff he taught wasn't seen by anyone else, or any of that kind of nonsense. Again, it's just an example of how Heath refuses to listen, refuses to understand. Because, okay, I could grant that when he wrote his book, maybe he misunderstood things because of the way that Dr. Heiser wrote, and the way that Heath Henning read. Fair enough, but once he starts getting on YouTube and doing live streams and having people tell him how he's misconstruing Dr. Heiser's work, I'm sorry, but you'd no longer have an excuse. You can't hide behind the claim that, oh, I never listened to the Naked Bible podcast or Heiser's lectures or [00:48:00] interviews. No, you can't do that. I'm sorry, but that doesn't work.
All right, so I'm going to go ahead and pick out a few quotes to just read from the unbiblical realm so that you can see the kind of things that Heath is writing about here.
On page 24, he says, quote, Heiser effectively sets himself as the only scholar able to read the Bible properly due to the need of critically analyzing the text to adjust its grammar, when necessary, to read the Bible through his divine council worldview. He further implies that only Hebrew scholars can identify a pantheon in scriptures. End quote.
One of Heath's problems is that Dr. Heiser had a paper that was published in a Mormon journal. And that paper, I've discussed previously on an episode. When I was talking about the Divine Council worldview versus LDS theology, I mentioned this paper.
And Heath has read this paper. [00:49:00] And Heath presents some of the points that Heiser gives, but he leaves out other points, very conveniently.
He says on page 25, quote, Heiser should be questioned as to how and why he presents himself as an evangelical when we read the following comment in his Mormon paper, quote from Dr. Heiser, Psalm 82 and the divine counsel, which many evangelicals would probably disagree, and which many Latter day Saints would likely agree, end quote. Heath, again, says, So how exactly do the Mormons know he's not a Mormon? End quote.
I will just point you to episode number 100 that I did on that.
On page 28, he says, quote, This text also reveals that contrary to Heiser, it is cities that have patron gods or goddesses, not nations as his theology expresses. . This fact is also depicted in the Bible against Heiser's [00:50:00] view, Jeremiah 2, 28 and 11, 13, end quote.
Okay, so, again, I think that's over literalizing what Dr. Heiser is saying, and it's funny that the Bible actually depicts the things that Dr. Heiser talks about. How about that?
Regarding sons of God and angels, he says on the same page, quote, From this and similar expressions from other Near Eastern texts, Heiser is emphatic to claim that the Bible's use of the term sons of God must mean actual gods instead of what has been historically understood to refer to angels. Genesis 6, 2 and 4, Job 1, 6, 2, 1 and 38, 7 with closely related Hebrew terms in Psalm 29, 1 and 89, 6. Heiser specifically depends on Psalm 89, 6 to interpret Psalm 82. End quote.
Which that's an [00:51:00] interesting one because Heath talks quite a bit about Psalm 82 being about humans.
On page 30, he says, quote, The Bible itself has very little for Heiser to hang his divine council idea on, outside of his misinterpretation of Psalm 82, the best proof texts he can offer are Job 1, 6 7, and 2, 1 2, and 1 Kings 22, 19 23. The passages from Job simply states that the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them, followed by a dialogue between God and Satan. Without a presupposition of a divine council, this text would not be understood to identify such a doctrine. There is no indication that a council is held, only that the sons of God gathered before the Lord. End quote.
What does he think a council means? That is literally the definition of a council.
[00:52:00] One of the things I wonder about is if he understands what biblical theology is. Biblical theology is a method. It is not just theology that's biblical. And the reason I wonder if he understands biblical theology is he'll talk about valid biblical theology.
On page 33, he says, God rebukes this idolatry that Heiser thinks is valid biblical theology. End quote.
Like that sentence doesn't really make sense in light of understanding biblical theology as a method. If he's trying to say that Heiser thinks idolatry is valid theology, well, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Page 35. He says, quote, Interestingly, Heiser pretends that his views are derived from the Bible. But at the same time, he admits he interprets the Bible through Israel's ancient pagan neighbors religious positions. [00:53:00] Heiser hypocritically says, not surprisingly, understanding what the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, says about the members of God's heavenly host, must begin with the biblical text, end quote.
And yet, interestingly, on page 36, he says, quote, Of course, the Reformers, or ancient creeds, could not obtain the full truth of God's revelation, since theology itself is a process of development through centuries of combating heresies. End quote.
So that's Heath saying that we can't understand the full truth until we start responding to heresies. Well, how are you going to respond to heresies if you don't understand they're heresies? Like, did we not understand the Trinity until well after the New Testament? Does the New Testament not speak to the Trinity? Does the Bible not speak to the Trinity? Why do you interpret Genesis 126 as the Trinity if this is [00:54:00] the case? If it's not clear, then we shouldn't be reading it like that.
Now here's a good quote that I can agree with on page 37. He says, quote. Studying systematic theology ultimately does produce a filter for one's hermeneutic method, which may be good or bad, depending on the theology they accepted as the default interpretive method. End quote.
Cool, that's absolutely something I can agree with. It's just, are we going to start with the Reformation, or are we going to start with the biblical context?
On pages 52 and 53, here is what he talks about Heiser, in his claim of altering grammar. And this is a section about the term nachash, which is serpent, right? The serpent of Genesis. Dr. Heiser brings out the fact that nachash can have an implication of some other ideas.
What Dr. Heiser is not saying is [00:55:00] that this is not a serpent. Quote, I'm not arguing that nachash should not be translated serpent, end quote.
Heath says, quote, but that is exactly what he is suggesting throughout the whole discussion, that the word should not be understood as a literal serpent. End quote.
Okay, yeah, but most Christians, which I believe Heath would agree with me here, is that Satan was involved in what's going on here. So yeah, I don't even know, what are you disagreeing with here?
But he claims in the next page, quote, Heiser does not limit his textual criticism to ignoring vowel points, but he goes as far as altering consonants to completely change words in conjunction with his symbolic interpretation to fit his agenda. End quote.
He says this right after a previous paragraph where [00:56:00] he says, quote, Of course, the similarity of serpent and divination could be just as coincidental, but there are word plays with these similar ideas in scriptures. end quote.
That's literally what Dr. Heiser is talking about. Word play. It's just bizarre. Dr. Heiser never suggested that we translate the word differently. In fact, he quoted Dr. Heiser as saying that.
Here's an interesting quote on page 60. This is about the concept of polytheism and his exchange with Dr. Heiser. He says, quote, He only expressed mockery and sarcasm, even calling me illiterate, as if he should not be classified as a Gnostic and a polytheist. Robert Gundry briefly explained Gnosticism, saying, quote, "To keep the realm of supreme deity pure, later, Gnostics separated it from the material, and therefore evil [00:57:00] universe, by a series of lesser divine beings called Aeons." Heiser's argument against being called a Gnostic is simply saying he has lectures on YouTube about Gnosticism, which simply confirms my point. He is knowledgeable of Gnosticism, just as he is knowledgeable of ancient Ugaritic literature, which he has habitually synchronized into his theology. End quote.
Okay, so Heath is saying, aha, of course Dr. Heiser is a Gnostic because he knows about it. So what, is Heath saying here that because Heiser knows a lot about Gnosticism and has studied it, that, therefore, he's a Gnostic? I don't even know what to say about that.
Page 64 and 65, continuing the conversation about polytheism, he says that Heiser oddly gets upset about being called a polytheist.
Well, gee, I wonder [00:58:00] why. Heath, it's because polytheism is not just the belief in multiple gods. Because there's a problem with it, right? The problem is that it implies a legitimacy to the worship of those multiple gods. And the things that Dr. Heiser teaches are about how the rebellious gods have taken worship to themselves in ways that they shouldn't. And that's a problem. So, yeah, he doesn't want to get called a polytheist because a polytheist is going to say, yeah, these gods are able to be worshipped and it's okay.
Polytheism implies the worship is okay when it's actually not. Because yes, God defined the terms of the nations and the deities and this relationship, but that doesn't mean that what we're saying is that this worship is okay. Okay. Because the Bible is presenting the narrative that, hey, guess what, you [00:59:00] guys, that might have happened, but there's only one God who's supposed to be worshipped, and that's the point.
Okay, so regarding angels versus gods, on page 66, he says, quote, Craig Keener expressed, quote, Jewish people generally treated these spiritual powers as angelic authorities appointed by God, although, in some Jewish sources, God appointed them to lead the nations astray, or they become malevolent powers and would be judged at the end of the age. End quote. Keener's reference to the fact that these powers are treated as angels needs to be noted as contrast to Heiser, who insists on calling them gods. End quote.
Okay. I'm just like, again? I don't know what to say because you're really kind of almost making Dr. He's point.
All right, here's another one that I can't resist, including. This is on page 71 and it is in [01:00:00] regards to what Dr. Heiser talks about in Revelation 12. So he's talking about the host of heaven and the star language and how Dr. Heiser talks about the star language being referenced to deities, to Elohim, to gods, whatever you want to say. And Dr. Heiser never says anything other than that.
And yet on page 71, he says, quote, It is further interesting to note that Dr. Heiser only allows this star terminology to identify divine beings when it supports his presupposition, and he ignores it when it does not comport with his opinion. For example, commenting on Revelation 12, 4, he writes, quoting Dr. Heiser from Reversing Hermon, quote, It is equally clear that this passage is not describing any sort of primeval, angelic, demonic rebellion. The third of the stars reference follows the birth of the child, which is clearly Jesus. [01:01:00] Despite its obvious nature, this passage is often referred to by Bible students in defense of some sort of angelic rebellion at the time of creation, preceding the creation of humankind. There actually is no such passage in the Bible for that idea. End quote from Dr. Heiser.
So, the quote he gives here from Reversing Hermon is a footnote that Dr. Heiser is talking about the astrological signs So, he's not going into detail here, so I get it, that it seems like Dr. Heiser is discounting the star language from being about divine beings.
But two things can be true at the same time. The stars in the sky are aligned in some way and associated with the spiritual beings. I mean, Dr. Heiser has many places where he talks about Revelation 12, and in all of those places, he's saying that the stars are representative of divine beings. They're [01:02:00] just not divine beings before the creation.
That's the whole point there. When Dr. Heiser says it's not describing any sort of primeval angelic demonic rebellion, that's what he's referring to. He's saying it's not primeval, not that it's not referring to spiritual beings.
All right. So let's continue looking at this idea of polytheism for a moment because this is interesting. Here we have on page 77, he says, quote, the other issue Heiser has with me calling him a polytheist is that he argues Jehovah is ontologically distinct from the other gods. To make this argument, he has to redefine polyistic thinking to avoid being accused as a polytheist by stating God is unique ontologically with attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, sovereignty, which the lesser gods do not possess. He writes, quote, Israel was [01:03:00] certainly monolatrous, but that term comments only on what Israel believed about the proper object of worship. Not, what it believed about Yahweh's nature and attributes with respect to other gods. End quote for Dr. Heiser. Continuing with Heath, However, no polytheistic religion provides these attributes to all their gods, and most ancient pagan religions we call polytheistic would technically fall under the term monolatry. End quote.
Okay, so this is amusing because he says Dr. Heiser is clearly a polytheist, but then he says, no polytheistic religion will define things the way that Dr. Heiser does. Doesn't that matter?
Isn't that a really big, distinctive difference that means that Dr. Heiser is not teaching the same thing that a polytheist would be teaching? If [01:04:00] Dr. Heiser's teaching something different than a polytheist would teach, then no, he's not a polytheist.
Heath will then go on to suggest that Heiser's polytheism leads to multiple saviors. Let me read this on page 79 and 80. He says, quote, Heiser's polytheistic position inevitably leads to internal contradicting expressions. For example, he refers to Isaiah 43, 10 through 12, but verse 10 would imply no gods were formed before or after Jehovah. If other gods exist, according to this verse, they would have to be equal in their eternal existence with Jehovah. Heiser also references Isaiah 44, 6 8, where Jehovah creates the hosts, which he claims the star symbolism is to be understood as gods, contradicting the implication of the previous proof text from Isaiah 43, 10. How could there be created gods if there [01:05:00] are none formed after Jehovah? If Heiser rejects this verse to mean monotheism, the next verse, Isaiah 43, 11, says there is no Savior besides Jehovah. Does this mean Heiser rejects that only Jehovah can save? How many saviors exist in Heiser's theology? Are the various gods set over the various Gentile nations as the saviors of those nations? End quote.
Listen, Heath, you know for a fact that this is not what Dr. Heiser teaches. So that right there, that's called lying, presenting his arguments in ways that are untruthful, absolutely untruthful. And so I would challenge you to retract all of these false statements and implications that you are making that you know are wrong. And I know that you know that they're wrong and that you're not [01:06:00] just misunderstanding and that some of this is intentional because of places like this. You don't say something like that with the full knowledge that this is not what Dr. Heiser taught unless you are trying purposefully to misrepresent him.
Page 81, you say it's irrational to talk about a hierarchy, but it's only irrational if you insist that it's polytheism in the way that you insist that it is. If you drop the claim he's polytheist, then he's no longer contradictory. He's no longer giving irrational arguments. And what he's saying is what the church has historically held.
Your only real problem is getting hung up on the use of the term God, which is silly. It's a silly semantic issue, which you're refusing to understand the meaning of, like a child who plugs his ears and goes, La la la, I don't hear you.
All right, there is so [01:07:00] much more I could say, so many more quotes I could give, but I think at this point, I've made my point.
And again, if Heath wants to have a conversation with me about this, I am more than willing to talk to him about it. I don't want to misrepresent what he's saying or what he's doing. But at the same time, it's pretty obvious that there is some really unfair stuff going on here. There just is. And I'm going to call it out for what I see it as. If you want to disagree with me, then make your case. And again, I really don't care what your personal position is about the existence of the gods and whether or not the Bible is talking about the Deuteronomy 32 worldview in the way that Dr. Heiser taught about it. I don't really care if you agree with that stuff. But you're crossing a line when you're misrepresenting the teaching of Dr. Heiser, and you're presenting it in such a terrible way so as the people who read this work of [01:08:00] yours, and who are not familiar with Dr. Heiser, will completely misunderstand him and take lies as truth. That's what I'm going to take issue with. And I publicly call you out to look at your work and retract the false statements. I don't care if you disagree, but retract the false statements.
Alright, I'm gonna end the episode here. You can go find my review on Amazon. You can go to my YouTube channel and you can find a live stream that I talked about on this. And shortly after I did a live stream on this book, I also did another critique of another presentation, which had similar arguments. So, you can watch that one as well. They're very similar.
And again, it's not about disagreement. It's not about critique. It's about clearly articulating what Dr. Heiser taught and understanding it in a way that's fair. By all means, feel free to critique the work that you come [01:09:00] across by anybody. You don't have to have a degree, you don't have to be part of academia to have good ideas and good thinking.
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