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All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal

A week or so ago I blogged about Dr. Peter Gentry’s attempt to divorce the Nephilim from the supernatural sons of God via a YouTube video he created. His argument isn’t coherent because it implodes on itself, as I noted.

In more recent days (Is there some reason the Nephilim have become popular in Christmas season?) folks have sent me links to another person (I can’t recall if he’s a pastor or a professor somewhere) denying the reality of the Nephilim in the conquest narratives. The argument is a time-worn one (nothing new) that is as incoherent today as it’s always been: Numbers 13:32-33 don’t endorse Nephilim after the flood (or that the Nephilim were unusually tall) because the Israelites spies that told the people about them were lying.

Yes, you read that correctly: the report of the spies was bogus. (Curiously, only the stuff about very tall Anakim is considered a contrivance that didn’t correspond to reality). So there . . . run along citizen Bible student – nothing to see in Num 13:32-33.

This argument is painful for two reasons: (1) It demonstrates deeply flawed thinking, and (2) it forces us to conclude that biblical writers outside Numbers 13 are liars. It’s hard to imagine anyone with a high view of Scripture would make such an argument. I can only reason that they make it because they don’t think well about where it leads.

So let’s take a brief look at why this argument is a non-starter.

I’ll begin by noting that I didn’t say anything specific about this argument in The Unseen Realm. That’s because I presumed that no one serious about the subject would still make the argument. I was wrong (or was I?). At any rate, here’s what I wrote in a footnote in The Unseen Realm (p. 192):

Some try to argue that the report of the spies was a lie or deliberate exaggeration motivated by fear. This is a poorly conceived idea, since it requires either ignoring all the other biblical references to giants (Anakim or otherwise) or considering them to be lies as well. It also requires removing the term nephilim from its context and ignoring the morphology of the word (see chapters 12–13). There is no sound exegetical support for this idea.

True, but not satisfying for our purposes here.

Let’s take a look at Numbers 13:32-33. Here’s the passage in a bit wider context:

25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (ESV)

I’ve put one line in bold, as that is the basis for the “spies were lying” argument. The spies “brought to the people of Israel a bad report” (v. 32).

The assumption here is that the Hebrew word translated “bad” here means “false” – does it? Well, it would be nice (for starters) if the people making this argument actually looked up what’s behind the English translation. Here’s a screenshot of the passage using the Logos Reverse Interlinear pane:

 

The Hebrew word in question is dibbah. The word is not used often in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, here is the complete list of occurrences:

Gen 37:2

 
These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

 


Num 13:32

 
So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

 


Num 14:36

 
And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—

 


Num 14:37

 
the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord.

 


Ps 31:13

 
For I hear the whispering of many— terror on every side!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

 


Prov 10:18

 
The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.

 


Prov 25:10

 
lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.

 


Jer 20:10

 
For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.”

 


Ezek 36:3

 
therefore prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Precisely because they made you desolate and crushed you from all sides, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and you became the talk and evil gossip of the people,

 

Let’s think about these occurrences (saving the ones in Numbers 13 and 14 for last). We need to ask ourselves two questions as we do:

Does the passage make sense if we presume the dibbah refers to a falsehood, something untrue?
If we interpret the dibbah as untrue, does that conclusion produce theological coherence?

Genesis 37:2

These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

This is the instance where the young Joseph gives an unfavorable report / assessment of his brothers job performance in tending the flocks of their father, Jacob. Are we to assume the report was false – that Joseph lied to Jacob? On what basis? I think not, namely because of Joseph’s sterling character through the entirety of the Genesis story (chs 37-50), often under tremendous duress. It seems unthinkable he’d just lie to get his brothers in trouble. On the other hand, it seems quite evident that his brothers were men of low character. They threw Joseph into a pit and then lied to their father about Joseph being killed after they’d sold him into slavery. It’s utterly incoherent to think that Joseph’s bad report was a misrepresentation of such men.

Psalm 31:13

For I hear the whispering of many— terror on every side!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

Psalm 31 is a psalm of David. Verse 13 has David concerned about whispering / rumors (dibbah) he has heard—specifically about plotting against him that puts him in harm’s way. Should we believe David was paranoid, that there were no such rumors, or that such rumors were false? Hardly, David spent much of his adult life fleeing from enemies and plots to kill him.

Proverbs 10:18

The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.

This seems to give us at least one instance where dibbah could refer to something false—at least if we accept the semantics of the ENGLISH “slander”. But is that required? What if (per Psalm 31 – and per Prov 25:10 below, the next occurrence) the thing uttered is true but ought not be spoken. Yep, you’d be a fool for doing that. So even this instance isn’t a slam dunk for falsehood—unless you allow an English translation choice do the semantic work for Hebrew. Needless to say, that’s either lazy or bad hermeneutics.

Proverbs 25:10

lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.

Taken in isolation (which is never a good idea for biblical interpretation), cut off from the immediately preceding verse (9), this occurrence again looks like the Hebrew term dibbah might be a falsehood. But here are verses 9-10 together:

9       Argue your case with your neighbor himself,

and do not reveal another’s secret,

10       lest he who hears you bring shame upon you,

and your ill repute have no end.

Once we see this tandem, the point being made might be quite different than the falsehood we presumed. There’s no reason to conclude that the argument against one’s neighbor is a false argument. The point being made by the proverb is the wisdom or privacy—keeping an argument private. If the biblical writer is arguing that personal matters should be kept personal, then it’s actually more likely the secret is real – in which case you’d earn a bad reputation / report about yourself (“ill repute” – dibbah) not because you said anything false, but because you’re a gossip, spreading information that ought to remain private.

Jeremiah 20:10

For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.”

This one is akin to Psalm 31:13 – rumors about some impending doom. Are the rumors false? The answer is easy once we know who is being whispered against or about: the prophet Jeremiah. Again, let’s add some verses for some context. Jeremiah laments:

10       For I hear many whispering.

Terror is on every side!

“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”

say all my close friends,

watching for my fall.

“Perhaps he will be deceived;

then we can overcome him

and take our revenge on him.”

11       But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior;

therefore my persecutors will stumble;

they will not overcome me.

They will be greatly shamed,

for they will not succeed.

Their eternal dishonor

will never be forgotten.

12       O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous,

who sees the heart and the mind,

let me see your vengeance upon them,

for to you have I committed my cause.

Fortunately for us, the point here is obvious. Jeremiah is speaking the Lord’s word as a prophet in the days before Judah’s fall to Babylon. He has plenty of enemies who want to either shut him up or invalidate his message. One could conclude that this means those enemies are making up falsehoods about him – and so the term dibbah here would point to a lying report. But when we look at what they are actually saying (“Terror is on every side!”) those words are correct!  Jeremiah is saying these things, and he’s right. They are the ones in denial. When they verbally whisper their hope that “Perhaps [Jeremiah] will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him,” they’re being honest. They hope they can charge the prophet with falsehood to invalidate his status as a prophet. Then he’d be in their power. Jeremiah prays, though, for the Lord’s help, since he’s doing the Lord’s work (vv. 11-12).

Ezekiel 26:3

therefore prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Precisely because they made you desolate and crushed you from all sides, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and you became the talk and evil gossip of the people,

The key here is to ask a simple question: What talk is being referenced by the line “you became the talk and evil gossip of the people”? In context, Judah and its people are the “you” being talked about (the verb is second person plural). Who is doing the talking? Israel’s enemies – the nations around her (who are also under judgment). So are Israel’s enemies saying false things about her? Let’s let the report of Lamentations inform us here. Once Jerusalem fell, Israel’s enemies, the peoples all around her, had a lot to say:

15       All who pass along the way

clap their hands at you;

they hiss and wag their heads

at the daughter of Jerusalem:

“Is this the city that was called

the perfection of beauty,

the joy of all the earth?”

16       All your enemies

rail against you;

they hiss, they gnash their teeth,

they cry: “We have swallowed her!

Ah, this is the day we longed for;

now we have it; we see it!” (Lam 2:15-16)

Israel’s enemies aren’t telling falsehoods about her – they are MOCKING her. The English “evil gossip” is a pretty poor translation of dibbah in Ezek 36:3 given this parallel (actually given this eye witness report) of what happened. It’s a classic instance of letting English wordings influence one’s semantic interpretation of Hebrew wording.

So, what we’ve discovered is that there are NO INSTANCES where dibbah refers unambiguously to a falsehood. Most of the time it clearly does not refer to some contrivance; at other times it might be there is an equally viable (more viable) reading to the contrary. So this argument against taking the Nephilim / Anakim encounter in Numbers 13 at face value is already undermined. But it gets worse for those who cling to it. Now we come to the occurrences in Numbers.

Numbers 14:36-37

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—

the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord.

These two instances refer back to Numbers 13:32-33, the report that the Nephilim naysayers insist was a lie. They would argue that God is judging these men in Numbers 14 for lying—for discouraging the people. It’s time to ask ourselves the OBVIOUS question that the naysayers don’t seem to raise:

If the 10 spies were lying about the Nephilim / Anakim, were Joshua and Caleb telling the truth? They were the only two among the spies that God spared in his judgment (Num 14:38). Their report was true. They never say that the 10 spies were lying. They object to the faithlessness of their comrades and the people, not their report.

So did Joshua and Caleb consider the Anakim unusually tall?

The answer is obvious: yes. Why? Because both men had traveled with Moses up through the Transjordan where the conquest began. Moses had written this about the Anakim—chronologically AFTER to the Numbers 13 incident, which allows us to discern quite easily that the spies weren’t lying:

Deut 1:28

28 Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’

The point here is that, after 40 years of wandering in the wake of the faithless response to the spies’ report in Numbers 13, Moses drops the note that they still had to face the Anakim. And how did Moses described them? Read on …

Deut 2:9-11

9 And the LORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.’ 10 (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. 11 Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.

Deut 2:17-21

17 the LORD said to me, 18 ‘Today you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar. 19 And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ 20 (It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim— 21 a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place,

Deut 9:1-2

1 “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’

We’ve learned an important item in these references—that the Anakim were like the Rephaim and vice versa. Both people groups (if there’s a difference that extends beyond the names) were unusually tall. Moses writes about one of these Rephaim (and also uses the description “Amorites” of them – more on that in a moment) in Deuteronomy 3. Throughout that chapter we learn about Og, the king of Bashan, who was the last of the Rephaim and king of the Amorites:

Deut 3:11

11 (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)

That’s quite a bed! Would it fit in your bedroom? While, as I noted in Unseen Realm, these measurements can’t tell us exactly how tall Og was, the measurements telegraph an even more important idea to which the biblical writers wanted to tie Og, and to which, if you are aware of the significance of the Amorites, Og would want to be tied to. At any rate, it’s quite oversized.

The book of Joshua informs us of the same thing that Og was one of the Rephaim:

Joshua 12:4

4 and Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei

I could cite a number of other verses here about Og the Rephaim king of the Amorites. He had a buddy, Sihon, who was another king of the Amorites that Israel defeated. There are ways to establish that Sihon also hailed from “giant territory,” but I won’t digress. Here are the verses for those interested to look up that identify Og (and we’ll loop Sihon in here) as not only Rephaim, but Amorite (Num 32:33; Deut 1:4; Deut 4:47; Deut 31:4; Josh 2:10; Josh 9:10; 1 Kings 4:19; Psa 135:11).

This identification of Rephaim, who were tall like the Anakim, who were also Amorites, is significant for yet another passage: Amos 2:9-10. Was Amos also lying, like the spies?

Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them,

whose height was like the height of the cedars

and who was as strong as the oaks.

Is Amos a liar? He has the height of the Amorites (= Rephaim = Anakim in Deut 1-3) “like the height of the cedars.” His description would have aligned with that of the spies. Oops.

The Israelite spies were not lying. If they were, then we have biblical writers lying with them. It’s simple: If the writer of Deut 1-3 gets the Anakim correct in those passages, then we have zero warrant to say the spies were lying in Numbers 13:32-33. And if the Anakim were unusually tall like the Rephaim and Amorites, then the writer of Joshua and Amos the prophet were liars as well.

Sorry, but the spies weren’t lying any more than these other biblical writers were lying. For those desperate enough to argue this way I doubt the fact that the view lacks coherence or merit in any regard will matter. They’re already in the business of protecting people from their Bible, so coherence isn’t going to matter.

 

 

 

 

The post All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal appeared first on Dr. Michael Heiser.

Peter Gentry on the Nephilim

Several people have sent me a link to a video made by Dr. Peter Gentry about the Nephilim. Many of you will know that I know (and like) Peter. He’s a serious biblical scholar and good guy all around. You should all read his work. You’d learn something for sure. I have and do.

Peter accepts the supernatural view of the sons of God but is troubled by the matter of the Nephilim (taking them as giants at face value; i.e., as quasi-divine offspring). He doesn’t like the idea that they were the giant offspring of the sons of God. In an effort to put forth this objection, he argues that Peter and Jude don’t specifically mention the Nephilim in their “angels that sinned” comments (2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6). He presumes the absence of the Nephilim in Peter and Jude somehow warrants rejecting the giant offspring in Genesis 6.

I enjoy Peter, but this is an amazingly weak argument, especially coming from him. The reason is simple and straightforward: That a NT writer doesn’t give us all the details of an OT passage they cite or allude to does NOT mean that we are supposed to reject the parts in the OT passage that aren’t mentioned. In many (most?) instances where NT writers cite an OT passage they don’t do so with absolute, exhaustive precision. They cite part, or perhaps cite from memory, or a different text, or combine part of a passage with another part of a different passage, etc. Peter knows this well, as he is an expert on the use of the OT by NT writers. So it makes little sense to me why he would employ a method for Peter and Jude that would get him in serious trouble elsewhere.

As an example, take Jesus’s citation (via Luke) of Isaiah 61:1-2 in Luke 4:18-19. If you compare the two passages, one can see that Jesus / Luke omits this line from Luke 61:1:

“he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”

Are we to conclude that we are free to disregard this part of the OT verse because the NT writer doesn’t include it? Of course not.

Another example, even more germane. Hebrews 11:17-19 reads as follows:

17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

This is the NT writer’s allusive citation of Genesis 22. But (O dear!) the writer of Hebrews doesn’t include the lines about the intervention of the angel of the Lord (Gen 22:10-12). Are we to conclude that there was no “real” angel on the scene when Abraham was prepared to offer Isaac? If we use Peter Gentry’s method, it would seem so.

I could cite numerous other analogous examples of how Peter’s approach and its underlying assumption aren’t workable.  I presume you all get the point.

The issue here is that Peter apparently thinks he has an argument against taking the Nephilim portion of Gen 6:4 at face value because Peter and Jude don’t include it in their description of the angels’ sin. This isn’t coherent. My response is that (a) the NT frequently doesn’t cite an OT passage with complete precision, and (b) employing this approach yields some demonstrably poor results in other places.

My guess is that Peter is just uncomfortable with quasi-divine Nephilim, perhaps because he can’t explain that to himself or someone else. I understand completely. He’s not alone there. But it’s time we face the reality of the biblical text in this regard. We also can’t (biologically) explain the incarnation (how God became man in Jesus), or the hypostatic union (how Jesus was 100% God and 100% man at the same time), or how we are filled with the Holy Spirit, or how the death of Jesus affects not only our sin, but the entire cosmos (Col 1:16-20). To be blunt, most of what the Bible affirms that is core to our faith cannot be explained in any scientific, materialist way. That doesn’t mean it isn’t intellectually coherent. These ideas are coherent, not because they conform to biology or any other science, but because they extend from theism itself (e.g., Is there a God? If so, can that God do anything? If he can, could that God create beings like himself who, like him, could assume flesh? Note that there is no scriptural statement in Scripture that forbids this ability to lesser spiritual beings).  Theism is demonstrably coherent in terms of logical analysis. That’s been born out by millennia of discussion. When the supernatural invades the natural, such things need to be weighed in light of the coherence of biblical theism. We do not need to abandon what the text says.

The post Peter Gentry on the Nephilim appeared first on Dr. Michael Heiser.

Gandalf and His Ministry Going Forward

Many of you will know that by “Gandalf” I’m referring to myself. The label came about some years ago during an interview about how I view the believing Christian world (the Christianity that is rooted in the actual gospel) functions in three realms, one of which is “Christian Middle Earth.” The term refers to the “middle realm” that exists between the local church and the academy. It’s the destination for Christians who can’t penetrate the evangelical wing of the ivory tower (or don’t know it exists) and aren’t getting content. Rather than quitting church, they decide to teach themselves. I blogged about that here (“What is Christian Middle Earth? A Brief Explanation”; the post includes an audio file of the part of the interview where the metaphor of Christian Middle Earth was born).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. Some things seem pretty predictable to me, while others are uncertain. I’m no prophet, but I think I perceive some things taking shape and want you, my audience, to know about those perceptions and consider praying about them.

Some Context

Those of you who have followed me over the years know the fundamentals about who I am and what God has called me to do. My role is to provide biblical content, especially to people who hunger for it and aren’t getting it in church, and who will never pursue a degree in biblical studies. For me, good content requires a couple of things. First, to really understand the Bible, we need to interpret it in light of its own contexts, not post-biblical contexts. The Bible was written for us, but not to us. It wasn’t written with modern questions and the modern worldview in mind. The right contexts for interpreting the Bible are the contexts in which it was produced. Second, I’m interested in interpretations that the biblical text can sustain when interpreted in its own contexts. That means I think it something of a waste of time to study Scripture to perpetuate Christian sub-cultures (e.g., denominational preferences and theological systems). None of those things are self-evident from the text. To say they are is to be dishonest (all the opposing viewpoints to your denomination or system will presume their conclusions are self-evident). Third, bringing “every thought captive” requires we embrace the supernatural worldview of the writers. This worldview is one of the ancient contexts of Scripture. I single it out because modern Bible believers frequently resist it. They do so because they are moderns and feel more comfortable filtering a number of biblical passages about the spiritual world (and that’s an important qualifier) through the rationalism of the Enlightenment and modern science. By definition, the spiritual world doesn’t conform, and is not subject to, such things. For more thoughts on this, see my FAQ (it’s the last question).

When it comes to the mission of the Church—which means my mission as a believer—my goal is to be useful to believers everywhere, recognizing their knowledge of Scripture may vary widely. It’s also to spread the gospel and give Jesus a good reputation. That means I am open to partnering with most (not all; see below) believers who clearly understand the gospel and whose lives, churches, and ministries present it without any dilution, amendment, or re-definition. This is a fundamental point of biblical authority. You can’t obey the Great Commission by preaching a pseudo-gospel.

The above is why I venture into all three “realms” of believing Christianity—the academy, the local church, and what I affectionately call Christian Middle Earth, the “between realm” where some strange (and wonderful) stuff is said, published, and done in the name of the Lord. My goal is to do something useful in all three realms at any given point that in some way gets people back to the text of Scripture and back to the Great Commission. And so I write journal articles, academic books, and popular books. I host podcasts about biblical studies (Naked Bible Podcast). I have a presence in Middle Earth via the “postmodern apologetics” YouTube Channel (FringePop321) and my Peeranormal podcast. I do lots of interviews on podcasts, TV shows, radio shows, etc., Christian or not, mainstream or fringe. I want to help Christians think more critically about the need to read the Bible in its own ancient contexts. I want to help unbelievers realize that they often don’t think critically about their beliefs, especially fringe ideas put forth on the internet. They need to think more carefully about primary sources, one of which is the Bible.

Consequently, I spend next to no time taking sides on things like eschatology, creation views, spiritual gifts, women in ministry, etc. I’ll tell anyone who asks where I’m at on such things and why, but I’ll leave it to other ministries to fight with Christians who don’t take their view! I not only refuse to engage in that sort of “ministry” because it’s a poor use of my time, but it’s a poor use of God’s time. Whether you think so or not, the believing Church is in crisis. It has bigger problems than these peripheral debates. They are not as important as those who promote fighting about them want their audiences to believe. The gospel is what’s important, as is seeing the believing Church thrive in a post-modern and (now) a post-Christian culture. The Great Commission isn’t about winning such debates. To be blunt, it’s about time the believing Church comes to grip with this.

An Example

Let me illustrate how this works with an issue-example. I’m not a charismatic. I’m also not a traditional cessationist. I’m in the academic category of “cautious but open” when it comes to supernatural (“miraculous”) gifts and acts of God today. That doesn’t mean I’m cautiously open to the modern charismatic movement. I’m not. I think 95% of what happens in today’s charismatic / Pentecostal / signs and wonders movements is self-induced or contrived nonsense (with some outright deception sprinkled on top). But that doesn’t mean God cannot and has not acted in miraculous ways all around the world today. I know people who were supernaturally enabled to speak in other languages on the mission field in some tight circumstances (not the gibberish many call “tongues” today). The number of conversions in Muslim countries today, prompted by dreams and visions, where many of those converts literally risk (or give) their lives in response, are demonstrably real when judged by the sort of spiritual fruit the New Testament puts forth as the basis for such judgment. I don’t think for a minute God is prohibited by cessationist theology from acting, or that cessationist theology has a good case for God not being free to do these things. I know the data used to support such ideas. They aren’t persuasive, and I’m not a newbie to the biblical text. But what passes today for the movement of the Spirit is frequently nothing more than a show or can’t be distinguished from manifestations of the same “giftings” seen in transparently non-Christian religions.

I land where I do because I choose to stop where the text stops and let the ambiguities be what they are. Sure, I’m going to lean one way or the other, but I’ll tell people (and often do) why I can’t say some other view is totally wrong. I’d rather focus on the core meta-narrative of salvation history. I truly believe if God cared more about such things he was perfectly capable of providing more detail on them to resolve those issues. But he didn’t. That tells me they are peripheral to God’s goals in providing Scripture and directing the mission of the Church.

The peripheries are interesting and fun. God expects us to wrestle with them. He doesn’t expect us to be fragmented over them. That’s basically the state of the believing Church. And right now that’s a luxury in the West. Unless you’ve been living in a cloister, the Church is headed for some dark times. The culture isn’t moving toward paganism; it’s decidedly already at home there. The day is fast approaching when we’ll be glad to find others who believe regardless of their views on the things Christians fight over. Believers will need each other more and more as the culture gives way to limiting individual liberty and to intolerance for Christianity.

In case you’re wondering, my thinking here applies even to positions I take in Unseen Realm. I’ve provided peer-reviewed literature in abundance in the footnotes to demonstrate that they’re all quite defensible. I’ve also shown how the positions I take connect to each other. The Word of God ought to make sense. All that said, I don’t care if everyone agrees with all my positions. I care far more that people start engaging the text in its own contexts instead of filtering it through a tradition whose distinctives become rationales for fragmentation. We’ll find out none of us were omniscient soon enough. I’m good with that. So let’s try and focus on getting people back into the text, not a tradition, and then remind them Jesus actually gave us a mission that ought to define us—and keep us from defining our purpose in some other way.

Already Happening and Yet To Come

Over the past several years my books have sold well. The podcasts and channels have grown. Producing content has been a blessing, not only to me but to people all over the world. Part of why I left a wonderful job with Logos Bible Software to join Celebration Church was the very obvious opportunity there to grow exposure to my content globally (you can listen to the story here). God’s providence has been in it all in many ways. The success of the content isn’t hard to assess: it’s been useful, it meets a need (for many believers it’s their first exposure to studying Scripture in its own original contexts), doesn’t focus on the peripheral items Christians are taught to fight about, and isn’t personality driven (if you’ve seen or heard me, that’s sort of obvious).

The amazing success of The Unseen Realm and its “lite” version, Supernatural, have created an interesting circumstance:  my content is being absorbed, liked, and re-purposed by a great many people. That’s great news. But some of those people are already using it to try and articulate ideas that are unbiblical and build their own kingdoms in the process.

The most obvious region of Christian Middle Earth in which this is beginning to occur and might continue to occur is the charismatic wing of the Church. That’s no surprise given my academic focus on the supernatural worldview of the biblical writers. Writing about the wide variety of biblical figures and terms that are part of the its densely-populated spiritual world inevitably draws questions (or invites mis-applying my content) related to spiritual warfare, spiritual gifts, demonization, etc.

As I noted earlier, I’m open to supernatural gifting being in God’s toolbox today but put almost no stock in the modern charismatic movement. In a nutshell, I’m skeptical of everything and willing to believe anything—when it survives critical thinking and doesn’t violate what the biblical text can sustain. Scripture itself commands us to judge such things critically:

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream. (Jer 29:8)
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)
Test everything; hold fast what is good. (1 Thess 5:21)

The Lord naturally never tells us to do something he didn’t do. In that regard, Rev 2:2 rarely gets referenced in claims of alleged apostolic gifting and authority. The Lord reminded the church at Ephesus that people who claim to be apostles—even in the apostolic era—could be false teachers:

“ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. (Rev 2:2)

God never expects us to reflexively disengage our brains and just believe. We were created as God’s imagers. One of the tools to enable us to represent our Creator, to image him, is rationality. That quality and faith are not incompatible and shouldn’t be treated as such.

When a fellow Christian tells me they experienced something I’m therefore willing to believe, but I’m always evaluating what’s said, whether I tell them that or not. God can do amazing things today, but I’m looking for any claim to align with scriptural patterns and purposes.  Dropping “Holy Spirit” to justify some reported experience doesn’t move me. The same Holy Spirit whom someone credits with some experience or event operated in conjunction with God’s providence to produce the Bible—and so what’s reported must and will align with Scripture.

Biblical conformity is absolutely essential to evaluating any claim of “Holy Spirit” activity for another reason: most of what passes for miraculous gifting or activity today can be (and has historically been) self-induced or imitated and reproduced in cults, occult groups, and eastern religions. Most Christians aren’t going to be aware of this since they don’t do research on these things. I do. Any “manifestation” of the “Holy Spirit” needs to be judged by Scripture to see whether it aligns with biblical patterning, bears legitimate spiritual fruit, and doesn’t lead to spiritual abuse. Then there’s also the fact that Deuteronomy 13 is still in the Bible. Take a look at the first five verses:

1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

This passage is routinely ignored by Christians and ministries who mistakenly define the faith by signs and wonders. Basically, they saw it or experienced it, or know someone who did, so whatever the claim is, it must be true and of the Spirit of God. Not according to Deuteronomy 13:1-5. The passage very clearly puts forth the idea that someone—even a prophet—can actually do a sign or wonder, or have some revelation that actually comes to pass, and not be God’s messenger. The point of the passage is unmistakable: The message must match the manifestation. A sign or wonder in and of itself is not proof that the Spirit of God is behind that sign or wonder. And so claims of supernatural acts of the Spirit that produce or involve unbiblical theology are not from God. The penalty meted out to such individuals in Israel’s theocractic context was severe—so we can be sure God cared about his people being led astray by such people, even though the offender’s sign or revelation was not fake.

But to return to an earlier point, I don’t think most of what happens today in traditional charismatic and Pentecostal churches is for real. We don’t even get to Deuteronomy 13. At best what passes as a visitation of the Holy Spirit is nothing more than emotionalism, sensationalism, and contrived nonsense that pressures people to “have an experience” or “work the gifts” so that people around them will think they’re spiritual. At worst it’s outright deception or the presence of spiritual evil.

Putting My Cards on the Table

The reader who is familiar with why I approach things the way I do and, the breadth and variety of my work, will discern some implications already. That’s why I’m blogging this today. I want to put my cards on the table. You may see my name and my work referenced in favor of things I don’t believe, and which my content doesn’t support, by people (believers or otherwise) I would not endorse. So let’s be clear. What follows is written in regard to public ministry figures, but it applies to any pastor or lay person who wants to legitimize some point they want to teach using my content. I want readers to know precisely where I’m at.

To begin, I reject any attempt to alter or redefine the gospel. If some “spiritual teacher” drops the ball here, I want nothing to do with their ministry, no matter how many people are following him or her. I care about the gospel, not popularity. The former impresses me; the latter does not.

How do I define “gospel”? Paul defines his message, the gospel, as follows:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God . . . concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. . . . (Rom 1:1-5)

The content of the gospel emerges clearly in these passages. Here are the elements:

God sent his Son . . .
Who was born in the line of David . . .
As the man Jesus Christ . . .
Who died for our sins . . .
Who was buried . . .
And who rose from the dead . . .

I’ve shared my thoughts about what the gospel (the “good news”) is, and is not, in my book, What Does God Want? Here’s a sampling:

. . . If this is the good news, why is it good? Lots of reasons. It’s good because our salvation doesn’t depend on our own performance. You don’t see anything about your amazing track record or having a clean rap sheet in those verses. The content of the gospel is not about what you’ve done, or might do, or need to do. It’s about what someone else did for you. That’s good news for all of us, because none of us is perfect. None of us pleases God all the time. None of us is fit to live in his family and be called by his name on our own. We have to be made acceptable to God. The content of the gospel tells us how that happens.

Notice that Paul described his ministry of telling people the good news as “bringing about the obedience of faith.” He wanted those who heard his message to “hold fast” to what he said. How do you “obey” the gospel? Get baptized? Give money? Behave well? Don’t be a jerk? Help the poor? Those are all worthwhile things, but No. God wants “the obedience of faith.” You obey the gospel by believing it.

Did you also notice that Paul didn’t say “the obedience of comprehension”? We may not completely understand things like God becoming a man in Jesus, or how the resurrection could happen. That’s okay. God doesn’t demand we figure it all out and then get back to him to take a final exam. He wants belief. Understanding why these things are rational can wait.

The content of the gospel is God’s offer to forgive you and give you a permanent place in his family. His offer shows his love and kindness. The Bible sometimes uses the word “grace” in the place of those terms. Since there is no greater power, God wasn’t coerced into the offer. No one is twisting his arm. He offers you salvation because he wants you. All he asks is that you believe.

That is the good news of the gospel.

Consequently, if you tinge the gospel with performance—whether legalistic works or “necessary” manifestations of the Spirit to ensure a person is really saved—you preach another gospel that is to be rejected. The gospel doesn’t need tweaking to be culturally palatable or align with new wave spirituality. The gospel is not to be held hostage to your experience or ministry success. It also doesn’t need to be supplemented by Torah observance (see Acts 15:10-11 especially in that regard).

Second, if you want power over people and try to disguise it as Spirit-endorsed, I’ll oppose you and your “ministry”. Scripture is clear. We are all believer priests (1 Pet 2:5, 9). We are to be shepherded by leaders who think and behave like Jesus did, through sacrificial love for the flock (1 Pet 5:2; Eph 4:1-3). Believers are not fodder for your programs and goals. We are not numbers to be tallied. We are not resources to be tapped. We are to be encouraged to discern God’s providence in our own lives as to how we can contribute to the larger goal of accomplishing the Great Commission. Your ministry isn’t the end goal for our lives; instead, it should be a means for us to contribute to God’s kingdom and experience the sort of community / family God has always wanted for us.

Third, if you lie to people and tell them God’s purpose for their lives is prosperity, you make a mockery of the life of Jesus, the apostles, the entire first century Church, and millions of believers today who willingly suffer and die for Christ—as he told them many would do. You preach another gospel, one that is rightly rejected.

Fourth, if you conflate the kingdom of God with State power, or hand over good works for your neighbor (next door and everywhere) to State authority, you don’t understand the kingdom of God. If you marry that belief to your own (or general) new apostolic ministry for conquering the earth, you don’t grasp the Great Commission or other teachings from the One who gave it, like “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The mission of the Church is not converting culture; it’s exposing people to the gospel and discipling them in their believing loyalty to Jesus. State power and cultural clean up isn’t part of the gospel, nor does the gospel need those things to accomplish what God wants. God cares about changing the hearts of people, not using power to change the culture. God cares far more about the culture within the Church, where his children aren’t fragmented and encouraged in their dysfunctions but are instead nurtured, loved, encouraged, and cared for. Instead of looking to the State to meet the needs of people, the Church ought to be playing that role. Instead, many churches not only hand that task over to the State but conflate their surrender with the gospel itself.

Fifth, if you dismiss the need to evaluate spiritual manifestation claims by Scripture, this shows either apathy or fear. Neither will earn my endorsement. And if you think proof-texting a Bible verse for your belief settles anything, you’re wrong. Careful analysis of Scripture for both our doctrine and practice has biblical, apostolic approval (Acts 17:10; 2 Tim 3:17). Your teaching or claim needs to align with what the Scriptures, taken in their ancient contexts, can sustain. I judge my own work and positions by that standard, so I have no qualms about judging yours by the same standard.

What I’m Hoping For

To wrap this up, I hope that my audience will be mindful of the concerns I’ve expressed in this post. My content can be abused. To be real, any biblical scholar knows that’s the case, but I’m very intentional about getting content to the lay person, so I suppose I feel a bit more vulnerable than other scholars. But that won’t curb my enthusiasm for being useful to the Church. I also hope people who have taken an interest in what I produce will also see the opportunity in all this. I’m going to continue to try and find ways to be useful to all sorts of Christians without having my content filtered, distorted, or manipulated. Pray that what I’ve been able to produce to this point, and will produce, will have the desired effect of prompting Christians to think more carefully about Scripture and stay focused on the Great Commission.

 

 

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MEMRA 2020 Module 1 Registration is Open

Registration for the first MEMRA module of 2020 for ancient language courses is now live. Just click here.

The courses are beginning biblical Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

Please read the registration instructions at the link. Start dates and other housekeeping items are described.

Note that the cost of the textbook (digital or hard copy) is not included in the course cost. Books can be obtained via Amazon or (for digital) Logos Bible Software.

Note also that, if you enroll for the course, you will NOT lose access after 52 weeks once the course begins. The courses are self-paced, so you will have access as long as you need it.

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A Tale of Two Unseen Realm Reviews

My bestselling book, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible[image error], was recently reviewed in two places online. The book has been positively reviewed in academic outlets, evangelical or otherwise, since its debut in 2015 (JETS, Themelios, RBL). Sure, there are sometimes misunderstandings of what I’m saying, but that’s normal. Scholars reviewing a book that is not aimed at scholars (yes, that does happen) always want more information on things. In my experience with Unseen Realm, the book draws them in enough to go ferreting through the footnoted sources and, of course, do research on their own. Scholars always need convincing about something — one book is never enough! That’s the sort of thing I hope for. Reviews by folks who aren’t scholars have also been overwhelmingly positive (just look on Amazon — the book is approaching 1000 reviews). But occasionally you get a fear-based review and the results are predictable.

The two recent reviews illustrate both sides of this equation. The first one to mention appeared on the Logos Academic blog. It’s written by Rev Dr. David Instone-Brewer, a senior researcher at Tyndale Fellowship in the UK — an organization I highly recommend supporting. Dr. Instone-Brewer is a specialist in rabbinic and New Testament interpretation. He has done pioneering work in creating accessible, high-quality online tools for biblical research. His review is thoughtful and appreciated. Since reading it we’ve chatted a bit by email. He considers Unseen Realm an important work, and for that I’m grateful. That’s what you want from fellow scholars. The other review sent to me in the past week leaves me wondering how I could be so misread and misunderstood. I’ve actually had other readers (including one pastor) apologize to me for how inept the review is. Lest you think I’me over-reacting, at one point the reviewer charges that I don’t believe in the sovereignty of God and deny omniscience (he thinks that I think God doesn’t know all things). I’ve said many times on the podcast and in personal speaking events that God knows all things real and possible. What isn’t clear by “all things”? I refer to God in the book as omniscient. I affirm that God knew what was going to happen when he created humans with freedom (one of the communicable attributes). God wasn’t surprised, nor can he be. I presume that what troubles the reviewer is that I don’t believe foreknowledge necessitates predestination.

Prof. Dr. Captain Obvious

Let’s do a brief exercise in affirming the obvious:

– God knows all things real and possible. Check.

– Are all possibilities predestinated? No – that would mean all possibilities would be actualities, and all those actualities being ordained would mean myriads of contradictory circumstances simultaneously being real and actual. That’s utterly absurd, and even Calvinists know it. Check.

– So, if all possibilities are not predestinated, and God knows all possibilities, by definition God’s foreknowledge cannot necessitate (the key word) predestination.

Thank you, Professor.

But this is what happens when you write books that challenge traditional thinking. It’s expected. People, even some pastors (and that’s tragic) don’t want to take the time to really digest biblical theology, or even the biblical text. (Why worry about Hebrew words like ʾelohim and Psalm 82 when we have English translations and tradition?)

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Naked Bible Conference Tickets are ALMOST GONE!

If you’re considering attending this year’s Naked Bible Conference (Oct 12, Dallas, TX) the time to act is now. Tickets are almost gone. The venue cannot accommodate more than 300 people. There is no overflow space.

Please use the link above if you want to get one of the remaining tickets!

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Awakening School of Theology & Ministry With Dr. Michael S. Heiser

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Divine Council Worldview for Kids!

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of a children’s book by Sue Knefley and Laurel Roth that re-purposes material from Supernatural and The Unseen Realm for pre-schoolers and early grade school children:

One Big Family: In the Heavens and On the Earth [image error]

This is the first book published under the newly-created Naked Bible Press. You’ll be hearing more about NBP in the weeks to come. The short version is that we’re looking for books like One Big Family, youth material, and book-length manuscripts that tie in to the content of my books in some way. In addition, we will be gathering academic papers from seminary and graduate students to build a repository of academic material that would otherwise be impossible to access.

Stay tuned for more details — and buy a copy of One Big Family!

 

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Mike Talks Satan, Demons, Principalities with Frank Viola

Frank Viola recently posted three interviews for his Insurgence Podcast that we recorded while I was in Florida. They are a three-part series on spiritual warfare (from a biblical perspective, naturally):

Episode #30: Spiritual Warfare and the Kingdom (Satan)

Episode #31: Spiritual Warfare and the Kingdom (Demons)

Episode #32: Spiritual Warfare and the Kingdom (Principalities)

My thanks to Frank once again for his sustained interest in my work!  I think you all will enjoy these!

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Response to Dr. Thomas Howe’s Thoughts on The Unseen Realm

I’ve been asked by a couple of people to respond to Thomas Howe’s thoughts on The Unseen Realm. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Howe, he teaches apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, a school deservedly well known for important work in that field.

In what follows, I’ll pull some portions of his “review” (I’m not sure if it was intended as an official book review) and respond. I’m not going to go point-by-point to it as I have published articles on the things he brings up, and readers can get the information as to why he’s incorrect in those sources.

Dr. Howe begins by taking issue with this statement of mine early in Unseen Realm (p. 12):

Was my loyalty to the text or to Christian tradition? Did I really have to choose between the two? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that what I was reading in Psalm 82, taken at face value, simply didn’t fit the theological patterns I had always been taught.

Dr. Howe writes:

Now, what does it mean when he says “face value”? Does “face value” mean what the text says apart from any interpretation? This cannot be the case for him since he says the “face value” did not “fit the theological patterns I had always been taught.” If he surmised that the face value did not fit, this can only be because he had understood the text in a certain way that caused this conflict in his mind. But, to take the text in a certain way is not “face value.” It is the meaning that he got from the text when he understood it, interpreted it, in a certain way. This already reveals a hermeneutic philosophy that predisposed him to arrive at a certain conclusion. Whether this initial interpretation was wrong or right is not at present the issue. What is at issue is that it reveals his latent hermeneutic philosophy.

Dr. Howe’s musing essentially sets up a straw man. He presumes what I meant and then proceeds from that point. I didn’t mean that the text has meaning apart from interpretation. I don’t know anyone who would think that way about any text. So Dr. Howe is incorrect that this method (one he assigned to me which I don’t hold, nor that I know is held by anyone) was my method. Consequently, his criticism lacks merit, as it was based on a flawed assumption that he himself assigned to me.

He goes on to ask (of Psalm 82, which the first pull quote was referencing):

How does he come to know how the biblical writers would have understood the spiritual realm? The only access, if he in fact is loyal to the text, is the text itself. But, there is no place in the text that specifically instructs the reader on how the biblical writers would have understood the spiritual realm. So, to what sources would he have gone to discover these facts?

This last question (what were my sources) is answered in the book – indeed, in the same and the ensuing chapter. My sources were the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Psalm 89 is a clear commentary on the meaning of Psalm 82. The same council language found in Psalm 82 appears in Psalm 89 (as I noted in the book), and the latter psalm specifies that the council and its sons of God are “in the skies” (the spiritual realm; Psa 89:5-8, esp. v.

I reference other parallels to Psalm 82 within the Old Testament, where meetings between God and his heavenly host are in view, where the members of the assembled group are clearly spiritual beings (e.g., 1 Kings 22:19-23), so my sources are sufficiently (indeed explicitly) clear. I’m not sure how Dr. Howe missed them. Nevertheless, he presses on with an important assertion that introduces readers to an important question / issue:

He would have to have an always-already-present hermeneutic grid, that is a hermeneutic philosophy, in order to discover the hermeneutic grid in the text.  To claim that he went to the text to discover how they would have understood the spiritual realm is therefore circular. I go to the text to discover how they would have understood the spiritual realm, I interpret the text in such a way that I grasp how they would have understood the spiritual realm, then I use these conclusions to show how they would have understood the spiritual realm.

I did indeed discover my hermeneutical philosophy in the text, and it is evident everywhere in Unseen Realm. It’s actually pretty simple. Here are my interpretive assumptions (my “philosophy”) that helped me discern my “hermeneutical grid”:

I assume Scripture’s re-purposing of Scripture should guide what we think about the meaning of the text. Hence my approach to Psalm 82 via the path of Psalm 89, 1 Kings 22, etc.
I assume that the Scripture writers were communicating to people intentionally – people that lived in their day and who shared their same worldview. This assumption is in place because I’m sensitive to imposing a foreign worldview on the writers.

This is anything but circular, as Dr. Howe charges. Thousands of readers reading Dr. Howe’s paragraph above would have quite a bit of trouble understanding how I don’t do what Dr. Howe describes himself doing. It should be apparent that I did what he recommends as his own method. I suspect that my conclusions are what trouble him, and that he can’t see himself coming to the same conclusions, and so he must “see” something wrong with my method.

Frankly, my method (and so, Dr. Howe’s) is simple and uncomplicated. If I was reading a book by Dr. Howe I would be quite influenced in my interpretation of it when I saw him commenting on something he’d written in the book in a subsequent portion of the book. It would seem quite evident that I need to let him interpret himself and then make that part of my “hermeneutic” for understanding his work. This is the first bullet point above clearly illustrated.

Dr. Howe proceeds with an astonishing statement next:

Heiser says that we need to understand the culture in which these statements are made, and I understand and agree with this fact, but one must also interpret what one reads about the culture. All we have are things and texts that remain, and all of these are subject to interpretation. If one’s interpretive methodology is flawed, then his interpretations of these other matters are as flawed. Additionally, there are no extra-biblical Hebrew documents to which we can appeal for clarification, at least not until you get to the writings of the Essenes.

 I can’t find another way to describe this than to say it’s demonstrably wrong. It’s as though the material of Ugarit, which all Old Testament scholars (evangelical or otherwise) know is the closest linguistic and conceptual kin to passages like Psalm 82, simply didn’t exist. Well, it does exist. So do other ancient Near Eastern data points that mirror Psalm 82 (and Psalm 89, 1 Kings 22:19-23, etc.). How Dr. Howe leaped a millennium of data to get to the Essenes is a complete mystery to me. We can’t just say data don’t exist. There are literally tens of thousands of pages of published scholarship on these data.

The above points to the real disconnect between the method of Dr. Howe and myself. Though we employ the same strategy of the first bullet point, it is the second bullet point that separates us. Dr. Howe is simply unfamiliar with the contextual material that would help his thinking in bullet point one (i.e., it would help him notice things in the Hebrew text that would inform him of how to read the text). This is no comment on a flaw of intelligence or commitment to the enterprise of understanding the biblical text. Dr. Howe has had a long career that has helped a multitude of people think well. Rather, it reflects the fact that his field isn’t the interface of the Old Testament with ancient Near Eastern material. As a result, his comment about the Essenes would shock anyone in Old Testament studies. The thought simply does not correspond to reality.

The rest of Dr. Howe’s post reflects a common misreading on his part about elohim. I make it clear in Unseen Realm that its meaning (its semantic) depends on grammar. He’s therefore arguing my point for me when he brings that up. His foray into Exod 22:8 and John 10 tell me very clearly that he didn’t follow either my peer-reviewed articles in Unseen Realm footnotes to check on such things, or those  articleswritten by other scholars on those points. For readers at this juncture, with respect to Exodus 22:8 you can read my Bible Translator article “Should Elohim with Plural Predication Be Translated ‘Gods’?” Bible Translator (vol 61, no 123): 123-136. On Jesus’ use of Psalm 82 in John 10:34, and how the supernatural elohim view reinforces Jesus’ claims to deity in the gospel of John, you can listen to Episode 109 on the Naked Bible Podcast or read my 2012 regional SBL conference paper on the subject. If readers do not have access to the Bible Translator article because they don’t have access to scholarly journal databases, they can sign up for my newsletter here and view the article behind a protected folder (the link is at the bottom of each newsletter; issues go out every 3-4 weeks). For general thought on elohim, readers are encouraged to peruse the archive of my published articles on that point and the Chapter 4 tab on the book’s companion website, More Unseen Realm (also repeatedly referenced in the footnotes).

I think these replies are sufficient to demonstrate that Dr. Howe has missed some crucial things in his review and that his rebuttals are very weak. I should point out for him and for readers that I delivered conference papers at both evangelical and non-evangelical scholarly societies on all these points and passages, and then successfully submitted those papers for publication under peer review. The point is that my work isn’t idiosyncratic, is embraced in evangelical Old Testament scholarship, and isn’t arbitrary in any way. I went through the conference and peer review process to have field experts catch any errors in method or data. I’m successfully on the other side of that now, and the work is reflected in Unseen Realm.

I’d like to end on a positive note. Though I think Dr. Howe’s criticisms are misplaced, let there be no mistake in the minds of readers that I value the fact that he took some time with the book, and that his own ministry of scholarship has served the cause of Christ well. Many in my audience will be served well by his work in apologetics and philosophical theology.

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