Michael S. Heiser's Blog, page 60

Free Temporary Access to Scholarly Journals in Biblical Studies and Theology

[Addendum: After you create an account at SAGE, go to this link and then click on the link that says "Free online access to all theology and biblical studies journals until 30 November!"]

 

It’s that time of year again! SAGE is offering open access to a list of solid journals until Nov 30. All you need to do is register. Important journals of relevance to biblical studies that are available include:

JSOT (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament)
JSNT (Journal for the Study of the New Testament)
BT (Bible Translator)
JSP (Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha)

This is a good opportunity to get PDFs of two of my own articles on elohim, both of which appeared in Bible Translator:

“Does Deuteronomy 32:17 Assume or Deny the Reality of Other Gods?” Bible Translator 59:3 (July 2008): 137-145
“Should אלהים (elohim) with Plural Predication be Translated ‘Gods’?” Bible Translator 61:3 (July 2010): 123-136

Technorati Tags: access, elohim, Heiser, journals, online, SAGE

Podcast Interview on the Divine Council

I did an interview a few days ago with The Resurrection & The Revolution podcast show. They interviewed me about the divine council. I think it’s a good introduction to the major ideas. You can listen to it here.

Technorati Tags: council, divine, Heiser, Psalm 82, sons of God

MEMRA 2014 Language Courses: A Video Overview

There are only three weeks left to register for MEMRA language courses at a discount. Thanksgiving will be the last day to save money on registration. Enrollment will remain open until Christmas, however.

If you’re thinking about registering to learn an ancient language online, this video overview (8 minutes) will interest you. It shows the new MEMRA environment and gives you an idea of what to expect in a MEMRA language course.

Technorati Tags: greek, hebrew, language, online, study, Ugaritic

The Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16: A Goat for Azazel

I recently offered a distilled response to the question of what’s going on in Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) chapter, which mentions (correctly) in some translations that one of the goats was “for Azazel.” Azazel, the comment noted, was a demonic figure. So what’s up with that? I have copied in two responses below. The first is a pre-edited version of an article published in Bible Study Magazine. The second is drawn from the draft of my eventually-to-be-published book on the divine council worldview of the Old Testament. Enjoy.

Short Version: A Goat for Azazel 1

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16, is an important element of Judaism familiar to many Christians. Though not practiced today as it was in ancient times in the absence of the temple and Levitical priesthood, this holy day is still central to the Jewish faith. But while numerous Christians have heard of the day, most would be startled to learn that a sinister figure lurks in the shadows of Leviticus 16. There’s a devil in the details.

The Day of Atonement ritual required a ram, a bull and two goats (vv. 3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering, a general offering aimed at pleasing God (Lev. 1:3-4). The bull, taken from “the herd” served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. The purpose of the sin offering was purification—restoring an individual to ritual purity to allow that person to occupy sacred space, to be near God’s presence. Curiously, two goats taken “from the congregation” were needed for a single sin offering (v. 5) for the people. Elsewhere the sin offering involved only one animal (e.g., Lev 4:1-12). Why two goats?

The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, resulting in one being chosen for sacrifice “for the Lord.” The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed and was not “for the Lord.” This goat, the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness, was “for Azazel” (ESV; vv. 8-10).

Who or what was Azazel?

The Hebrew term azazel occurs four times in Lev 16 but nowhere else in the Bible. Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase: “the goat that goes away” (the idea conveyed in the KJV’s “scapegoat”). Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The former option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” occurs in parallel to “for Yahweh” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.

Two other considerations argue in favor of Azazel being a divine being—in fact, a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. First, Jewish texts of the Intertestamental period show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure.2 The Mishnah (ca. 200 AD; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over to kill it, ensuring it would not return. This association of the wilderness with evil is evident in the NT, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Mat 4:1). Second, in Lev 17:17 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to “goat demons.” The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.

It is important to note that this goat was not a sacrifice—it was not sent into the wilderness as an act of sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. Rather, the act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness—unholy ground—was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—the demonic domain. By contrasting purified access to the true God of the first goat with the goat sent to the domain of demons, the identity of the true God and his mercy and holiness was visually reinforced.

Longer Version: Yahweh and Azazel 3

The Day of Atonement ritual provides a fascinating convergence of all the ideas we’ve discussed to this point in the chapter: holiness, realm distinction, restoration, sacred and profane space, and Yahweh and his family versus the nations and their elohim.

If you’ve at least flipped through Leviticus on your way to another book of the Bible you may know that the Day of Atonement ritual is described in Leviticus 16. Part of that description goes like this:

7 Then [Aaron] shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, 10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. (Lev. 16:7-10; ESV)

Why is one of the goats “for Azazel”? Who or what is “Azazel”? Here’s where things get a little strange, unless you are acquainted with the cosmic geographical ideas we’ve been talking about.

The word “Azazel” in the Hebrew text can be translated “the goat that goes away.” This is the justification for the common “scapegoat” translation (NIV, NASB, KJV). The scapegoat, so the translator has it, symbolically carries the sins of the people away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness. Seems simple enough.

However, “Azazel” could also be a proper name. In Lev. 16:8 one goat is “for Yahweh” while the other goat is “for Azazel.” Since Yahweh is a proper name and the goats are described in the same way, Hebrew parallelism suggests Azazel is also a proper name, which is why more recent translations, sensitive to the literary character of the Hebrew text, read “Azazel” and not “scapegoat” (ESV, NRSV, NJPS). So what’s the big deal?

The point of importance is that Azazel is the name of a demon in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Jewish books. In fact, one scroll (4Q 180, 1:8) Azazel is the leader of the angels that sinned in Genesis 6:1-4. The same description appears in the book of 1 Enoch (8:1; 9:6; 10:4–8; 13:1; 54:5–6; 55:4; 69:2). Recall that in Intertestamental Judaism, the offending sons of God from Genesis 6 were believed to have been imprisoned in a Pit or Abyss in the Netherworld. As we saw in Chapter 6, he apostle Peter uses the Greek term Tartarus for this place (2 Peter 2:4). Tartarus is translated “Hell” in some English versions, but the term actually refers to the lowest place in the Netherworld, which was conceived as being under the earth humans walk upon. In Greek thought, Tartarus was the prison for the divine giant Titans defeated by the Olympian gods. In Jewish theology, Azazel’s realm was somewhere out in the desert, outside the confines of holy ground. It was a place associated with supernatural evil.

I believe Azazel is best taken as a proper name of a demonic entity. In the Day of Atonement ritual, the goat for Yahweh—the goat that was sacrificed—purifies the people of Israel and the Tabernacle/Temple. Sins were “atoned for” and what had been ritually unclean was sanctified and made holy. But purification only described part of what atonement meant. The point of the goat for Azazel was not that something was owed to the demonic realm, as though a ransom was being paid. The goat for Azazel banished the sins of the Israelites to the realm outside Israel. Why? Because the ground on which Yahweh had his dwelling was holy; the ground outside the parameters of the Israelite camp (or, nation, once the people were in the Land) had been consigned to fallen, demonic deities back at Babel. Sin could not be tolerated in the camp of Israel, for it was holy ground. Sins had to be “transported” to where evil belonged—the territory outside Israel under the control of gods set over the pagan nations. The high priest was not sacrificing to Azazel. Rather, Azazel was getting what belonged to him: the ugly sinfulness of the nation.

Taking Azazel as a proper name explains another weird statement in the very next chapter of Leviticus (17:7): “So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore” (ESV). The Day of Atonement ritual was part of the solution to the practice of some Israelites to sacrifice to “goat demons.” We are not told why they did this, but the period of bondage in Egypt may have introduced them to deities identified with goat sacrifices, or they conceptually thought the demons of the wilderness needed to be kept at bay while on the way to the Promised Land. The latter has an Egyptian flavor to it, since Egyptians considered territory outside Egypt to be full of perils and chaotic forces. For Israelites, such sacrifices were ineffective and could descend to idolatry. Restrictions and prohibitions had to be made with respect to sacrifice. All sacrifices needed to occur at the tent of meeting (Lev. 17:1-7), and the Day of Atonement ritual was the only sanctioned “expulsion of sins” ritual.

 

 

[1] Jewish texts of this era spell the name “Azazel”, “Azael”, and “Asael”. The figure is cast as either a fallen angel or the serpent of Eden in texts like (1 Enoch 8:1; 9:6; 10:4–8; 13:1; cf. 54:5–6; 55:4; 69:2; Apoc. Abr. 13:6–14; 14:4–6).

A pre-edited version of the article, “There’s a Devil in the Details,” Bible Study Magazine 5:6 (Sept-Oct, 2013). ↩
Texts of this era spell the name “Azazel”, “Azael”, and “Asael”.  The figure is cast as either a fallen angel or the serpent of Eden. See 1 Enoch 8:1; 9:6; 10:4–8; 13:1; cf. 54:5–6; 55:4; 69:2; Apoc. Abr. 13:6–14; 14:4–6. ↩
Drawn from the first draft of my Myth That is True book. ↩

Technorati Tags: ark, atonement, azazel, blood, goat, high priest, Leviticus, ritual, yom kippur

Update on Joseph Atwill’s Josephus Code

I blogged recently about Joseph Atwill’s research, which asserts that Jesus was a Roman invention. Now that his PR launch (disguised as a conference) is history, I decided to post an update of some reviews of Atwill’s work.

Joel Watts asked, “Was Jesus a Roman Invention?” over at the Huff Post
Robert Price (who doesn’t think Jesus existed) debunks the book (This review alone, coming as it does from someone sympathetic to at least the idea that Jesus never existed, should tell you how poor Atwill’s work is)
Historian Tom Verenna writes, “No, Joe Atwill: Rome Did Not Invent Jesus“
James McGrath echoes my own sentiment with his title, “As Bad as Mythicism: Jesus as Caesar“

Technorati Tags: Atwill, caesar, Josephus, review, roman

First the Josephus Code – Now the O’Reilly Code?

First it was the Josephus Code. Now I’m getting emails about Bill O’Reilly’s new book, Killing Jesus.

Let’s take a deep breath. O’Reilly’s book is just another book on Jesus written by someone who doesn’t know much about the academic study of the gospels. Neither O’Reilly nor his co-author are biblical scholars, so what should we expect? That’s about the nicest thing one can say after reading that O’Reilly thinks Jesus went to the cross over taxes. That’s astonishingly ignorant, especially coming from a Catholic. Nothing like using one’s political predilections as a hermeneutical tool (but that’s where the Gog = Russia nonsense derives from, too; plenty of hermeneutical twaddle out there in evangelical land).

Anyway, here are some reviews of O’Reilly’s book — mostly from people who know more about Jesus and the gospels than he does. Hope readers find them useful.

Killing Jesus; review by Dr. Andreas Kostenberger
Dr. John Byron: “Why O’Reilly’s ‘Killing Jesus’ Nearly Killed Me“
The Stand to Reason blog’s review
YouTube interview of Darrell Bock and Gary Habermas about the book (Part 1 of several with John Ankerberg)

 

Technorati Tags: book, gospels, Jesus, killing, O'Reilly, review

Doing Archaeology Without the Bible?

The ASOR (American Schools of Oriental Research) blog by archaeologist Steven Collins entitled, “Has Archaeology Gone Overboard in Throwing Out the Bible?” It’s an interesting take on the tense and terse relationship between biblical maximalists and minimalists. For those unacquainted with the terminology, see here for an older post of mine (and its links). The article presents a more optimistic view than offered by minimalism while avoiding extreme maximalism.

Technorati Tags: archaeology, bible, maximalism, minimalism

Open Access Books on Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism

A couple books by well known Judaic scholar Lawrence Schiffman are now available for open access:

download or read online: The Jews in Late Antiquity
download or read online: Challenge and Transformation: Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism

Jesus and the Morning Star

One of the questions I get with some frequency concerns the phrase “(bright) morning star.” The gist of the question usually concerns some presumed relationship between Jesus and Lucifer (the question, as we will see, is something of a misnomer all on its own). That’s really not what’s going on in biblical theology here. I’ll have to unpack all that a bit before I get to the “morning star” question.

In Isa 14:12 we read about one ḥêlel ben shaḥar (“shining one, son of the dawn”). The phrase “son of the dawn” refers to the (astronomical) “morning star” – the small light first visible above the horizon when the new day dawns. This was, in ancient terms, a way to refer to Venus, as it was that first light in terms of real naked eye astronomy. The ancients knew Venus was a planet, but often referred to it as the largest star (see Pliny, Hist. nat. 2.37). Venus appears just before the sun, heralding a new day — thus it was termed “morning star.”

At issue first is the terminology and character in Isaiah 14. In LXX the phrase  ḥêlel ben shaḥar, ḥêlel (“shining one”) is rendered as ἐωσφόρος (“morning star”), derivative of Φωσφόρος (the wrod used for Venus). In Latin, this word is translated “Lucifer.” The ḥêlel figure in Isaiah is some sort of tyrant, described in terms of some tale about a divine being who wanted to be like the Most High, snubbing his authority. Combine that backdrop tale, a story about a divine being who over-stepped the highest divine authority, with the Latin Vulgate’s “Lucifer,” and you get the presumed picture of Satan’s rebellion.

This identification is not so simple as it sounds for a number of reasons; namely, the term “satan” is never used of the serpent (naḥash) of Genesis 3. The identification of that figure with God’s arch rival, the Devil, came along in the second temple period. It isn’t until the last book of the Bible (in Rev 12:9) that you actually see the words serpent, devil, and Satan actually connected. Granted, the ideas are all interconnected much earlier, but as far as the use of the terms, it’s pretty late. Readers of my Myth book know that I believe (a minority view) that there are good textual connections besides these terms between Isaiah 14 and Genesis 3, along with Ezekiel 28. I think they all draw on the belief / theology of the rebellion of a non-human divine figure against the Most High, who is Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible.1

So, the question about the use of “morning star” terminology in Jesus usually brings this backdrop with it. Some people like to rant about Jesus being Satan here, or about the nasty Jewish writers who satanize Jesus, or how Satan and Jesus are brothers (Mormons, though their argument usually comes from a different flawed trajectory). All of these notions are nonsense. They are good illustrations of ignoring context and producing non sequiturs.

The point of the terminology isn’t hard to figure out. It has to do with (drum roll, please): brightness. Stars were bright. Brightness is a common description of divine beings throughout the ancient world. They are often described as luminous or fiery (biblical examples include Ezek 1:13; Psa 104:4). Divine beings were therefore associated with, or identified with, objects in the sky — stars or planets. This idea is all over the ancient Near East. In terms of the Old Testament, Job 38:6-7 is the best example (and note that it pluralizes “morning star”):

On what were its [the earth's] bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Why the plural? Because there were more than one (I know, I’m on a profundity roll now). Why the metaphor? Because it’s the dawn of a new day — the first day, as it were; the day of earth’s creation. Now back to Isaiah 14 …

While the focus in Isaia 14 is a human king, the king of Babylon, the description of that king’s arrogance is drawn from a story of a divine being’s rebellion. Like all divine beings, that being was shining / luminous / bright — like the morning star.

To my mind, that’s pretty simple. Now here’s where we need to think a little — with respect to the use of the “mroning star” terminology of the New Testament, linked as it is with Jesus. On the surface, it would be easy to just say “well, the resurrected Christ is certainly divine, so the description fits.” (Note: all the morning star occurrences with respect to Jesus are about the risen Christ or his re-appearing). We even get discussion about the manifestation of Jesus’ glory before the resurrection, connected of course with the very presence of God (John 1:14 2:11; Acts 7:55; Titus 2:13). That’s true, but there’s more to it — and it concerns not the shining appearance of the morning star, what it visually looked like to the eye — but what it denoted: the dawn of a new day, the new kingdom come to earth.

Let’s take a look now at how that theme — the coming again of Jesus to earth to consummate the new kingdom of God, the new Eden — is always part of the context of the “morning star” references when used of Jesus.

There are three morning star references in the New Testament. Here they are with a little verse-context:

2 Peter 1:17-19

17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts …

Rev 2:26-28

26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Rev 22:16

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

Let’s start with the last one first. It’s clear that the reference to the morning star has something to do with kingship — why else link it to “I am the root and descendant of David”? (Recall that David was from Bethlehem of Judah). Coming where it does — the unveiling of the new Jerusalem and new Eden — the context couldn’t be clearer. This is why basically all NT scholars since the description here as hearkening back to Num 24:17: “a star shall rise out of Jacob” (“Jacob,” of course is another term used for Israel throughotu the Bible, the last portion of which left after the exile and return was Judah). Numbers 24:17 was interpreted messianically in Judaism apart from the New Testament writers (T. Levi 18:3; T. Jud. 24:1; 1QM 11:6–7; 4QTestim 9–13; CD 7:18–20). In other words, everyone would have known this morning star reference was not about brightness; it was about the dawning of the returned kingdom of God.

That’s also the point of Rev 2:26-28, working backward through our references. But this passage is even cooler. You divine council worldview junkies should like this one. Notice how in this case Jesus isn’t the morning star — he gives the morning star. Look at it again:

26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Who are the ones that overcome in Revelation? Believers. What do they get? Authority. Over whom? The nations — you know, the nations that are at present under the authority of the corrupted sons of God (Deut 32:8-9, with LXX and DSS; cp. Deut 4:19-20; Psalm 82). That’s right. Believers share in the kingdom (see Daniel 7:27-28, another divine council passage). They will “ruler over angels” (1 Cor 6:3) because they displace them in God’s hierarchy in the last day. Verse 27 has Jesus ruling (“he”) with a rod of iron (Psa 2), but it is Jesus who gives to mere believers — the overcomers — the morning star. What is the morning star? The divine authority to rule in the new kingdom.

The last reference is not difficult to parse in light of all this. Again:

2 Peter 1:17-19

17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts …

You believers — the ones who need to overcome (and 2 Peter has something to say about persecution and false teachers) — you need to follow the truth, that shines like a lamp in a dark place — until the morning star rises in your hearts. Sound odd? Try this paraphrase: “until the new day dawns in you hearts.” What new day? the one that happens after Jesus returns and you’re all resurrected to rule and reign with him, because you are in him and he is you, and you receive the new body promised through the earnest money of the Spirit (borrowing some Pauline terms there). The “in the hearts” idea is communicating something like “until this hope rises in you” — until you see the blessed hope dawning.

So, no . . . the morning star references don’t identify Jesus with or as Satan, and the two aren’t brothers. Lucifer isn’t sharing any of this.

 

I have a published article on Isaiah 14 and its connection to a similar story in Ugaritic religion if anyone is interested. ↩

Technorati Tags: Eden, helel, Jesus, kingdom, Lucifer, morning star, satan

Josephus Code Follies

I’ve gotten a half dozen emails about the new (it’s not really new) Joseph Atwill book and “Covert Christianity” PR launch (er . . . conference). The big media event is really about Atwill’s rehashing of his material in a 2006 book called Caesar’s Messiah. It was supposedly a bestseller — but have you ever heard of it? Well, he’ll make sure you do this time around.

The basic thesis is, from the Amazon description, that:

“Was Jesus the invention of a Roman emperor? The author of this ground-breaking book believes he was. ‘Caesar’s Messiah’ reveals the key to a new and revolutionary understanding of Christian origins. . . . The clues leading to its startling conclusions are found in the writings of the first-century historian Flavius Josephus, whose ‘War of the Jews’ is one of the only historical chronicles of this period. Closely comparing the work of Josephus with the New Testament Gospels, ‘Caesar’s Messiah’ demonstrates that the Romans directed the writing of both. . . . Atwill noticed a series of parallels occurring in sequence between the military campaign of the Roman Caesar Titus Flavius and the ministry of Jesus. His findings led him to a startling new conclusion about the origins of Christianity – that a Roman imperial family, the Flavians, had created Christianity to pacify the Jews’ rebellion against Rome, and even more incredibly, they had placed a literary satire within the Gospels and ‘Wars of the Jews’ to inform posterity of this fact.”

Hence my title for it: The Josephus Code. And for sure that would have been a sexier title. No doubt the media would have pumped it more the first time around had the word ‘code’ been in it. (Or maybe The Josephus Harbinger would have worked better, too).

So what do we have here? Instead of the Zeitgeist conspiracy we get the notion that the NT gospels were written by Romans. And boy, were those Romans ever clever. They decided to mimic Josephus’ accounts of Titus Flavius in their presentation of Jesus. . . . Now wait a minute. . . . So, the Jews were influenced to pacificism by a guy who didn’t really exist . . . but who were they following around?  Not really . . . the gospels were written later, after the fact . . . Gullible people (and of course subsequent early Christians) just read about him and accepted what they read about the guy’s existence . . . in accounts that were patterned after the chronology of a Roman emperor’s life . . . who lived in the past a little later than the guy didn’t exist. . . . as clever propaganda. So the Jewish or Christian readers of the later gospels wouldn’t really have known Jesus didn’t exist. They just took it on faith because the Roman-generated gospels told them that guy existed. . . . And so no later Christian or Jew who believed in, or didn’t like, Jesus would ever have known Jesus wasn’t actually real . . .  because they’d never see the parallels between what Josephus wrote and the gospels that Atwill did . . . because . . . well . . . they didn’t read Josephus . . . no, they did that. . . . It has to be because Atwill is so much smarter. . . . Yeah, that’s it . . . because the early Christians and any of their opponents could have read Josephus. They just didn’t see the coded messaging that would have made the case that Atwill sees. Even Josephus experts haven’t seen that. . . . Or experts in the gospels. . . . Gosh, Atwill is smart.

Clear now?

For other musings about the latest skepto-porn PR event, Larry Hurtado has offered his thoughts on Atwill in a post entitled, “FlimFlam of the Month.” Nice job with that, Larry! I recommend the short piece — it’s both funny and telling, especially with respect to Atwill’s failure to subject his theories to peer review. I don’t have to wonder why.

Technorati Tags: Atwill, conspiracy, emperor, flavius, Jesus, Josephus, roman, rome