Exploring Michael Heiser's Theological Insights

•

It's 2023, and I finally decided to read Michael Heiser. Here are some scattered thoughts: (1) The good theological insights he makes already are present within the church fathers and often the medieval doctors. On divine hierarchies, think of Dionysius, Eriugena, etc.

(2) He explicitly claims to read the Bible without creed or tradition. Okay, but why not do both? One may goes behind the Bible to reconstruct an historical context to make sense of the text (history, grammar) or in front of the Bible (tradition) to make theological conclusions.

But the benefit of tradition is that it usually is the conclusion of a hundred or so years of exegesis and churchly thinking. Jesus said he'd build his church, and he gave it the Spirit. It's worth pausing and seeing how Christians have concluded exegetically certain truths.

(3) I am pretty sure he wishes 1 Enoch was canonical as it is in the Ethiopian church. But it's not considered as such by most.

(4) His big moment is reading Psalm 82 in Hebrew. K, but literally this is the key text for thinking about deification in the ancient and medieval church. It's not a hidden text. It's legit everywhere. He makes it sound like it HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN 4EVERS!!!

(5) I am weird, because most of his views are familiar to me. I did OT studies: Aramaic, Hebrew, Akkadian, etc. So, I guess I didn't realize that I am basically a weirdo who thinks the demon view of Gen 6 is normal, etc.

(6) Does he deny original sin? If he does, he shouldn't. Look, there is a reason why the Fall of the Watchers is implied but not narrated with detail in the Bible. The purpose of the Bible is salvation, life and godliness.

God wrote the Bible for limited reasons, and it only says what God intends it to say. It mostly focuses on human sin and God's salvation of humans. Lots of others are true. Gravity, black holes, quarks. The Bible does not aim to teach on these things, even if they may be implied.

Likewise, Heiser IMO front loads what the Bible does not (Fall of the Watchers) even if it's historically true.

(7) I am weirder than Heiser, I think, because I think spirits are both rational (Satan, Demons) and irrational beings like wind, fire, and more. But so did John Calvin and the vast majority of all Christians everywhere.

(8) Heiser claims we all ignore the so called problem passages like Psalm 82. But there is an entire genre of writings on obscure passages! They are called Ambigua. They are all over the place. We should read Christians, notjust Ugaritic scholars all day—though both are fun.

(9) I am learning a lot from Heiser. I am thankful for his keen arguments and eye to the historical details of the ANE.

(10) His view of head coverings is one example of building an historical background and linguistic (grammatical) to go, as it were, behind the text to explain what it must literally means. But his view is rather bizarre. Tradition can help check our weird takes.

(11) It's fine to conclude against tradition if we do the work and are sure. But most traditional conclusions ("we are saved by faith") were discussed for many decades by many Christians and end up being true because they are obviously upon reflection. So be careful.