Michael S. Heiser's Blog, page 69

Bulletin for Biblical Research (BBR) Online

Here is a link to the first 19 volumes of BBR, courtesy of the Ancient World Online blog (Chuck Jones). I *think* you can download the articles for the first 18 issues, while issue 19 is not freely available.

This is a quality academic journal. You should take the time to comb through the issues.

Do You See Hebrew and Greek?

If you see Hebrew and Greek here, let me know (and if there are problems). I think I found a way to display them both on the blog. I played a bit with the font size to make them reasonably readable.

Hebrew

 מִזְמוֹר לְאָסָף אֱלֹהִים נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת־אֵל בְּקֶרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט׃

מזמוֹר לאסף אלהים נצב בעדת אל בקרב אלהים ישׁפֹט

Greek

 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

Naked Bible Podcast 029: Prophecy and Apocalyptic Genre

In this episode, we’re going to talk about two genres: prophecy and apocalyptic. The reason for doubling up will become apparent as we proceed, but basically we need to talk about these two genres because most modern Bible students don’t realize there are clear differences between the two. That is, most people assume that “prophecy” has something to do with predicting the end times – but it actually doesn’t – that’s the apocalyptic genre.

Technorati Tags: apocalyptic, genre, literary, New Testament, Old Testament, prophecy

Israelite Kingship: Good or Bad in the Eyes of God?

When God tells Samuel, Israel’s judge, to anoint a king for Israel according to their demands with the words “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam 8:7), many Bible readers and students assume that the institution of kingship was theologically disallowed for Israel. That’s a common assumption, but it’s wrong. The laws of Deuteronomy (Deut 17:11-20) outlined laws for a king. Anyone who assumes that Deuteronomy was written before 1 Samuel (e.g., those who embrace Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy) therefore have  an explicit problem with a negative view of kingship. But even those who don’t presume Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy have plenty of reasons to believe that kingship was not forbidden for Israel. Rather, the issue was the type of king, defined in terms of what the king was supposed to be/do and not be/do.

One of the most readable explanations of this issue that rebuts the “anti-kingship” notion is that of David Howard: “The Case for Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets,” Westminster Theological Journal 52:1 (Spring 1990): 101-115. I regularly assigned this article to students when I taught courses in the OT historical books or the history of Israel. Howard discusses the work Gerald Gerbrandt in this article, another Old Testament scholars whose Kingship According to the Deuteronomistic History (SBLDS 87; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986) is Howard’s specific point of interaction.1 Please have a look at it (it’s not that lengthy); I think you’ll find it makes good sense, and that the institution of kingship was not inherently wrong for Israel.

Note that the term “Deuteronomistic History” is the academic term for the books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings. See footnote 3 in Howard’s essay for how he and Gerbrandt use the term. ↩

Technorati Tags: deuteronomistic, Deuteronomy, history, Israel, kingship, Old Testament, Samuel, Saul, theology

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 028: The Comedic Genre and the New Testament

This episode of the Naked Bible podcast features Dr. Heiser’s interview with his friend Dr. Sam Lamerson about the use of the comedic genre in the New Testament. Dr. Lamerson is Professor of New Testament at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He has a specific research interest in the comedic genre in ancient Greek literature. Have a listen!

Technorati Tags: comedic, comedy, genre, New Testament

Logos (Lexham) Bible Guides

I want to alert readers to a recent resource that Logos Bible Software has produced and is in the process of producing — something we’re calling Bible Guides. These are not  Sunday School resources. They are designed to be of academic assistance in studying a given book of the Bible. By way of illustration, here’s some of the description for the Genesis Bible Guide:

The Lexham Bible Guide is your starting point for study and research. It surveys all the relevant literature on a passage and brings the summary back to you.

This guide summarizes a broad range of views on a particular passage—views you may or may not agree with, but in all cases, views you will encounter as you critically study the text. A complete introduction to each literary unit in the Bible, it will bring new thoroughness to your research. . . .

The Lexham Bible Guides are complete Bible guides re-imagined for the digital age: a hybrid between a handbook-type commentary and an annotated bibliography, built on technological resources available only in Logos.

These guides are written from the ground up to take full advantage of Logos’ platform. The interconnectivity of the Lexham Bible Guides within the Logos library provides you with relevant, curated content at a click, produced by professional researchers. There’s no need to flip through pages, pore over commentaries, or search through dictionaries. You get access to the best content available—instantly.

Check out the currently available guides (some for OT, others for NT). This is a long-term project aimed at producing guides for each book of the Bible. It will serve as a great time-saver for serious students, as well as guiding students to the best discussions on a range of items within a biblical book.

Technorati Tags: Bible, digital, guides, Logos, study, tools

Some Book Reviews of Note for Biblical Studies

The online Journal of Hebrew Scriptures announced a few new book reviews today. Some are noteworthy for material covered on this blog:

Michael Hundley, Keeping Heaven on Earth: Safeguarding the Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle (FAT II, 50; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011)

I reference Hundley’s work in my recent article in JESOT on how divine plurality is not evidence of monotheistic evolution. I’m actually working on a more in depth article of some themes covered there to which Hundley’s work contributes.

Alice Wood, Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim (BZAW, 385; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008)

The most recent work on cherubim

Anne Moore, Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth: Understanding the Kingship of God of the Hebrew Bible through Metaphor (Studies in Biblical Literature, 99; New York: Peter Lang, 2009).

Bruce Harvey, YHWH Elohim: A Survey of Occurrences in the Leningrad Codex and their Corresponding Septuagintal Renderings (LHBOTS 537; Hebrew Bible and its Versions 6; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2011)

Send Mike Lame Bible Prophecy Predictions for 2012

I just read through the comments and one reader asked about Ezekiel 29 — how the passage is being used to predict yet future events (turns out in this case, before the 2012 doomsday; how ominous).

I’m speaking at a conference in 2012 that may surprise some of you: Future Congress 2. If you go the speakers’ profiles, there I am, right under the picture of Hal Lindsey. It’s not a fake page.  Better take a screen shot of it.

The conference itself has a number of popular prophecy speakers, though the focus isn’t supposed to be prophecy (some of the prophecy speakers are doing other things). I can only tell you I agreed to this after getting a clear thumbs up from the organizers that I can say what I think. I can and will, if there is some point to make. I’m no loose cannon, but I don’t like people being taught poorly.

The organizers let me know the date for the event was deliberate — it’s after December 21, 2012, scheduled on Jan 4-6, 2012, in Dallas. So they expect to still be there (and of course, so do I, at least as that concerns the non-credibility of the 2012 hoopla — Christian hoopla included).  One of my topics will be familiar to readers of this blog (“What You Know May Not Be So: How Biblical Prophecy is Unclear and Why”). The others actually pertain (in certain respects) to research I’ve been doing for the sequel to my novel, The Facade.  The sequel will be my chance to go after why all this “prophecy becomes clear when we read the newspaper” stuff can (and I think will) be so damaging to the believing church. I’ll use fiction to get the ideas across.  But back to Future Congress 2 …

I’m thinking about showing some specific examples of absurd and misguided predictions made by Christians in regard to the 2012 doomsday nonsense. The link I saw this morning on the Comments page gave me the idea to ask for more. So, if you find any, please send (by email: mshmichaelsheiser@gmail.com) links to current 2012 Bible prophecy predictions. Especially “valuable” will be examples of prophetic interpretation like the Harbinger twaddle — but 2012 needs to be their focus or I can’t use them.

 

Technorati Tags: congress, future, Heiser

The Harbinger: Ode to Biblical Illiteracy

I’ve been asked by a couple of readers if I’d read the best-selling book by Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger. It reminded me of a day back in an apologetics class that I took with Norm Geisler. An enthused student asked Geisler when he came into the room whether he’d read Tim LaHaye’s latest book (not sure of the title). The answer? “I haven’t finished Aquinas yet, why would I bother reading LaHaye?” Thanks for the memory, Norm!

I feel the same way about reading The Harbinger.1 No, I haven’t read it, nor do I plan to. My sentiments would be like those expressed in this review, though less courteous. Why won’t I waste the time when I read crazy stuff about the occult, ufos, and ancient astronaut silliness? Because those are more thoughtful, for one.2 But the primary reason is that the author’s thesis is so transparently wrong that only someone with a low level of interpretive literacy would find it persuasive. (I can already hear you now: “that’s most of the church, Mike”; I’m not budging).

How can I be so cold? The above-cited review explains the thesis well, so I’ll quote from that review here:

Isaiah 9:10-11 is the specific text of Scripture that frames The Harbinger. In context Isaiah 9:1-7 is one of the clearest prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the coming of the Messiah, both His first and second comings. This is followed by a warning of coming judgment on Israel because of its arrogance and rebelliousness (9:8-21). We know from subsequent revelation and from history that God’s judgment did fall on Israel just as the prophecy promised.

So far so good. But then Cahn determines that Isaiah 9:10-11 contains a hidden second prophecy directed not to ancient Israel but to modern America. At this point the author massages Scripture and current events in an attempt to prove that God’s judgment on the United States has been hiding in these verses from the day they were given by Isaiah, but have now been unlocked by the careful investigation of Cahn.

Got it? There’s a hidden prophecy about the United States in Isaiah 9:10-11. Let’s see if anything stands out to you in the passage:

8     The Lord has sent a word against Jacob,

and it will fall on Israel;

9     and all the people will know,

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,

who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:

10     “The bricks have fallen,

but we will build with dressed stones;

the sycamores have been cut down,

but we will put cedars in their place.”

11     But the Lord raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,

and stirs up his enemies.

12     The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west

devour Israel with open mouth.

For all this his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is stretched out still.

Did you find it? How about the first verse: “The Lord has sent a word against Jacob, and it will fall on Israel.” Is it really that hard to tell from that who the prophecy in this passage might be about?

How about the next verse?

and all the people will know,

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,

who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:

So, who is it that utters the “key verse” for the entire Harbinger thesis — the prophecy of verse 10?  Hmmm. Hard to tell. We need Jonathan Cahn and his publisher for that one. Without them I couldn’t tell it was the United States. I’d have thought it was Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, the people in whose mouths verse 10 is placed. Silly me.

We need Cahn as well to show us that the dressed stones and sycamore trees are really cryptic ways of referring to the building of the new monument in place of the twin towers, and that the “enemies of Rezin” — listed as the Syrians and Philistines in verse 12, who come against Israel (I mean, the United States) are really the forces of al-Qaeda. What a blessing that Cahn can chase the plain words of the text from our eyes and replace them with hidden truths. Bless you Obi-cahn.

Honestly — the fact that this book is a best-seller in the Christian world is a tragic embarrassment. Cahn basically imposes an idea onto the passage and calls it interpretation. The idea of Bible study is to see what the text says, not to tell it what to say despite the clarity of the words in front of our face. The popularity of The Harbinger demonstrates for all to see the vast number of Christians who can’t even read an English Bible closely, much less do anything that resembles exegesis or analysis. How many Christian adults could name half Christian music’s top ten, or name ten celebrities that profess Christ, as opposed to not being able to think through a passage at even this shallow a level?  A Christian enthralled by this twaddle deserves the label of biblical illiterate.

 

 

It deserves nomination for this year’s Harold Camping Bunkagesis Award. ↩
I’m actually not kidding. The book I just finished reading a week ago on this material was a University of Chicago Press title: Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal by Jeffrey J. Kripal. ↩

Technorati Tags: cahn, harbinger, review

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 027: What is a Proverb?

In the last podcast episode we continued our series on studying the Bible in light of its various types of literature – its literary genres. We looked at parables and offered some guidelines for interpreting them. In this episode, we’re going to briefly look at another familiar type of biblical literature that is at times badly misunderstood: the proverb.

Technorati Tags: genre, guarantee, interpretation, literary, maxim, Old Testament, outcome, prophecy, proverb, saying