Michael S. Heiser's Blog, page 25

Secret Defense Department Investigation into UFOs

Here’s a pretty compelling UFO video — from the cockpit of a Navy F/A 18 Super Hornet:

As the captioning notes the UFO video comes to the public via the Department of Defense (DOD). I found it reading an article in the NY Times about the DOD’s secret program to investigate UFOs.  It was called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. It cost an annual $22 billion and was hidden away in the $600 billion DOD budget. The program was pushed through to approval by Nevada’s former senator Harry Reid. The Nevada billionaire Robert Bigelow — whose name is well known to UFO enthusiasts — benefited directly from the program and provided the DOD with documentation of incidents such as that in the video.

The article is well worth a read.

 

Voting for the Title of Mike’s Next Novel: UPDATE

So far just over 900 people have voted between the four choices for the title of my third novel. Here’s where we currently stand:

 

 

It’s a pretty tight contest. Voting will continue until the end of the year. If you want to vote, subscribe to my newsletter. That puts you on my email list. I’ll be sending out an email Sunday night to remind subscribers to vote — there will be a link to the survey in the email that subscribers will receive.

Why FringePop321? Watch This Video

Want to know why my non-profit, MIQLAT, is partnering with AllAboutGod.com to create our “fringe / Middle Earth” video show Fringepop321? Watch this video (and get a peek).

By helping AllAboutGod.com, you’re not only helping a Miqlat ministry effort, you’re doing evangelism and discipleship in meaningful, quantifiable ways. I’ve seen the “under the hood” stats and responses myself. Get a glimpse of what’s happening — and can happen — by watching the video.


 

AllAboutGOD’s Largest Outreach Strategy Ever! from AllAboutGOD.com on Vimeo.

Mike talks Unseen Realm on the Eric Metaxas Show

My interview on the Eric Metaxas Show airs today (2-4 pm Eastern time; I’m in hour 2, starting at 3pm Eastern).

I’m a newcomer to Eric’s show (about two months now). I enjoy its eclectic nature and the fact that he’s unafraid to make the faith orientation of his show clear to listeners. Who would have thought … an intelligent Christian radio show from the heart of New Your City! Here’s the archive link for those encountering this later than today (look for December 13).

On a personal level, this was an interesting interview. Those of you familiar with The Unseen Realm and divine council content in general will note how Eric reflexively assumes Psalm 82 is about humans. His background is Greek Orthodox (not sure how he defines his faith tradition now), so that may have something to do with where his thinking went once we got into Psalm 82. Orthodoxy places significant emphasis on theosis — human believers becoming divine (what evangelicals call glorification, and what scholars call deification). We spent a lot of time on the psalm, with me explaining that the ‘elohim there aren’t people — and that matters for what Jesus says in John 10.

In a nutshell, not the kind of conversation you’d expect from a mainstream Christian talk show. But I’d guess that’s why his show is popular. A lot of believers — a lot of people in general — are hungry for intelligent content and conversation.

Mike Talks About the Bible Unfiltered With Shaun Tabatt

The short interview lives here. Enjoy and pass it on!

Want to Help Mike Title His Next Novel?

You can vote on the title … if you subscribe to my newsletter. In the next issue (that will go out early next week) there will be a link to an online survey to choose the title. I’ve been thinking about four options and can’t decide — so I thought I’d let the audience do that!

Subscribe to my newsletter to get the link and vote!

MEMRA 2018 Registration Open Now Until January 7

I’ve gotten a couple recent emails about whether MEMRA courses will be available in 2018. Some folks on the livestream asked about it as well. It was good timing, since I had it on my list of things to think about this weekend.

I’ve decided to open up a module for 2018. I don’t know if there will be a second one in the summer. Registration is available until January 7, 2018. The courses begin on January 15, 2018. As before, courses are 52 weeks and cost $120. You will not lose access to course videos after 52 weeks. Cost of the grammars we use is not included. They must be ordered via Amazon. Click here for registration and here for information on the courses, including the required textbooks.

MEMRA courses are on ancient languages via video. Students pace themselves through the units and ask me questions about content when they like via the course platform (Canvas). The content is taught via the grammar and video. Courses offered are:

Beginning Biblical Hebrew
Beginning Biblical Greek
Beginning Biblical Aramaic
Beginning Ugaritic

Naked Bible Podcast Episodes 190, 191, and 192: Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Interviews

The interviews from the 2017 SBL meetings had to be broken up into three episodes:

Episode 190 (SBL, Part 1)

We get caught up with David Burnett, now in his first semester of doctoral work at Marquette University. We also chat with Marina Westerdahl, a former student of Mike’s at Knox Seminary about to begin doctoral work in Old Testament. Marina’s research interests involve the divine council. Lastly, we visit with Sam Lamerson, professor of New Testament at Knox Seminary and fellow traveler with Mike in helping Christians think well about the paranormal.

Episode 191 (SBL, Part 2)

In our second set of interviews from SBL in Boston, we talk with Ben Giffone about how to earn an advanced degree without going into debt, teaching overseas, and his own interest in Unseen Realm content and Israelite religion. We also chat with John Schwandt, director of Mobile Education for Logos Bible Software (Faithlife). John and Mike talk about the unique benefits of Mobile Ed courses and how they are a great tool for anyone interested in learning Scripture and theology from some of the country’s best professors — all without uprooting your life and incurring debt.

Episode 192 (SBL, Part 3)

Our final set of interviews at SBL includes discussions with Tim Mackie from The Bible Project, and we learn about opportunities for biblical studies education in the UK from Dr. Matthew Lynch, a scholar in the UK familiar with the podcast and Mike’s work.

 

Fake 2011 Video of UFO Over Dome of the Rock on the Jerusalem Temple Mount is Still Fake

Breaking news …

Sigh.

Please don’t send this to me or post it on social media where I’ll see it. It’s fake, folks.

Here’s the video. Watch it and you’ll see something very odd (not the “UFO”) that tells you it’s a fake:

What’s the tell-tale sign? The star-shaped lights in the foreground never move or flicker. NOTHING in the video ever moves or flickers or reflects light. It’s static — except for the UFO. That tells you it was superimposed on a still photograph and then made to look like a video. Anyone who’s ever looked at a city skyline at night will know how unnatural the video looks.

I can recall the first time this was circulating on Christian ministry “research” sites. Embarrassing. Still is.

Mike Talks Unseen Realm on the Frank Sontag Show

This was a fun interview.

Frank was enthusiastic about the content. His show (KKLA, Los Angeles) has a large audience, to hopefully people new to the content will read the book!