The Naked Bible Podcast 2.

0
Number 82
“Q&A 8”

Dr. Michael S. Heiser

With

Residential Layman
Trey Stricklin

January 10, 2015

 Q&A 8

Our 8th Question and Answer episode!

TS: Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 82, Q&A 8. I’m your layman, Trey Stricklin,
and he’s the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey Mike, how are you doing this year?

MSH: Very good. Happy New Year.

TS: Are you still following through with your resolutions, no smoking?

MSH: Yeah, I’m still trying to do all those things.

TS: Good, well, this is our eighth Q&A so we probably got about a bunch of questions here from
over 6 people, so you just want to jump right into it? And then after, we have a bunch of updates
and news we’ve got to cover that’s happened over the holiday break.

MSH: Yeah, that sounds good to me. Let’s just jump in.

TS: So the first one is from Mark, and his question is, the scene with Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32
was one of those that stood out to me as odd when I first read it. Now he wants to know, and he
has about five questions here, so I’m going to read them all and let you attack them. He wants to
know, in this situation of Jacob wrestling with God, a unique biblical story or is it based on
something else for the sake of theological messaging?
If it is unique, do you believe it happened, as in, did God take human form and allow
Jacob to physically wrestle? If it is based on some other story or event, what is the writer taking
from and what is the message? What is the significance of the anatomical location of injury to
the hip? Is the story event a kind of telling of man's free will in that God allowed man to wrestle
with him or foreshadowing of what is to come in Israel's future in the Bible?

MSH: Okay Genesis 32 is this incident where Jacob wrestles with the man who, when we go
over to Hosea 12, we find out, and even in the Genesis 32 passage, we find out this just wasn't an
ordinary man. Hosea uses the term Elohim there. And when the name of the place happens in
the Genesis 32 passage when it's named Peniel, I've seen God face to face, you get an indication
this isn’t just a normal guy. So with that as a backdrop, I'm not really sure what the questioner
means by is the story based on something else. I don't know if that means another text, some
external text from some other civilization, so I’m not really sure there.
Despite that uncertainty I would say I don't think that this story itself is based on
anything. I don't know of any evidence that would suggest it's taken out of some other literary
text or it’s borrowed in some sense for a polemic purpose like you see in other places. So I don’t
think it's based on anything. I think it’s part of a series of theophanies and angelic appearances
as men in the book of Genesis. So in that sense, it's normative. For those who read Unseen
Realm would know that yeah, I accept what the biblical text says in these instances, that God not
only can but did appear in human form. An appearance of God in human form isn't unique. It
actually happens in a number of places.
For those who have not read the Unseen Realm, you’ll get a bunch of those, appearance
of the Angel of the Lord or just other angels in human form, again, nothing unique. There are
plenty of examples. Now, what's unique here one aspect of it is the wrestling, is the struggle.
Granted, Genesis 19 you have angels physically handle Lot, Genesis 18, so they do physical
things but we don't have any sort of fight or struggle in another episode. So that part of it makes
it unique. And that's part of the story, that you have this episode that is a way to illustrate or
maybe cast in a different light, because Jacob's name is going to be changed to Israel, but sort of
the things that he's encountered in life, the difficulties abstractly, that he's encountered in life,
struggles so to speak.
And really his strivings with God because the whole episode stealing the birth right and
some of the other stuff he's done, this sort of gives visual or in this case corporeal form and for
the sake of Jacob, a sort of visceral time and place reminder of really what he's been doing
spiritually, struggling with God and against God. And so it becomes kind of a living object lesson
for him. And we can pick up on that because we can go back and read the account. Now what
about the injury to the hip? The hip is specifically mentioned in verse 32. That’s important. Let
me just read it.

32
Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the
thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's
hip on the sinew of the thigh.

MSH: Now the reason I say that's important will become evident in a moment here. But just
generally, what we have here is this is a comment by the writer to sort of cast an explanation for
why later Israelites, the phrase, unto this day, therefore to this day the people of Israel don’t eat
this or that, so later Israelites had a custom of not eating this part of the thigh that is on the hip
socket. That doesn't come from Leviticus.
It was something customary and so the writer living post-Jacob is explaining this custom
in light of this event so it provides an explanation for the custom. That’s an editorial note added
to the Torah, either when this portion was originally composed or something later but it gives a
justification or explanation for the custom. Now I want to read just a statement here from one
commentator. A lot of the explanation's kind of long and windy but this one brings up
something that I think is worth addressing in light of some of the stuff we’ve talked about in
Leviticus. Westermann says,

“The reason given for the prohibition which does not occur elsewhere in
the Old Testament is difficult. The prohibition is concerned with the part
of an animal's body whereas the event that gave rise to it was concerned
with a person, Jacob. The most likely explanation, according to
Westermann, is that this part of the body was subject to taboo because it
was regarded as belonging to the reproductive area, the loins, because it’s
the thigh that joins the hip.”

MSH: I don't really buy that. And I mention it because other listeners might come across that,
and we've had sort of these abstract laws and rules and customs in Leviticus as we’re still going
through the book of Leviticus, but we’ve run into these things before. And they've made sense in
their own context but there's some problems here. On the one hand, it's true that various
references in the Old Testament to the “thigh” in English translations are actually euphemisms
for the genitals. That is true. For instance, let me just give you an example. Eliezer, the servant
with Abraham, this whole thing about put your hand under my thigh and vow to me that you’re
going to find a wife for my son so that my lineage can live on and I can produce an heir and all
this kind of stuff. Without getting into the details, this was a familiar expression because there's
nothing sexual going on between Eliezer and Abraham but the idea of putting the hand under
the thigh, really putting it under the genital area.
Specifically, this vow was taken to ensure the survival of the lineage. Abraham was
looking to continue the bloodline through Isaac. Isaac needed a wife. So there are certain
contexts and this is an Ancient Near Eastern, Middle Eastern custom of antiquity as to how you
would take a vow because it sort of linked your success in the vow, not only in this context with
someone else's line but abstractly you were binding yourself to an agreement and the well-being
of your own family, either in terms of retaliation or in terms of success or failure, depends on
your ability to carry this sort of thing out. So that does happen. It's true but I don't really think
that this kind of works in the Jacob passage.
It seems better to say that the struggle left Jacob with a permanent injury to perpetually
remind him of the event and the focus of the event is his name change. So he has this physical
infirmity now and every time his attention is drawn to that, his intention will be drawn to this
struggle and the fact that you’re no longer Jacob, you’re Israel, just the whole episode and what
happened to him physically and spiritually through that, and then later generations, by adopting
this custom, would also be reminded of the event. So the food taboo here sort of commemorates
the event as well. As far as foretelling something about man's free will or what’s going to happen
to Israel in the future, I’m not sure which future were talking about. Is it the bondage in Egypt? I
would say no. It doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Blessing, maybe but I'm dubious of that. Exile, I don't really see this foreshadowing
specific future events. I realize why the question’s being asked. You could say well, this
conceivably conveys the idea that it’s Yahweh’s people, Israel. Persecution is going to come.
Physical harm is going to come. But I would say that is a bit odd because this was an angel, and I
would argue likely the Angel of Yahweh, who inflicted this and it wasn't a punishment. It was
leaving him with a physical reminder. Of all the biblical figures that might need reminding of a
relationship they have with God and their responsibilities, it might be this guy Jacob because
he's continually just flip-flopping all over the place with his loyalties, his own ethics, that kind of
thing. So I think it just makes better sense to go with something like that rather than try to
abstract it too far out.

TS: Mark has a trey of Enoch questions, which means three. The first one is, was the Enoch of
Genesis 5:21-24 a character based on someone or something and used by the writer of Genesis
5:21-24 for some purpose he wants the reader of the time to understand or did this Enoch first
show up in this biblical writing Genesis 5:21-24? Second one is, if Enoch was unique to Genesis
5:21-24, do you believe he really existed? And the third one is, if Enoch was a character based on
something else, who is it and what do you believe was the purpose/message?

MSH: Well, there are two Enoch’s in the early chapters of Genesis and they’re distinct people.
There's Enoch who’s the son of Cain and the father of Irad, that’s Genesis 4:17-18, and then
there's this one the question’s really directed at, Enoch, the son of Jared, Genesis 5:18, who’s the
father of Methuselah, verse 21. I don't think the one in chapter 5 plays off the one chapter 4, so if
that’s sort lurking behind the question, I don't think there's a relationship there. Now, we’ve
talked a little bit about the genealogies and I've posted some things on the blog before. The
genealogies of Genesis 5 in which this particular Enoch occurs, the one who live 365 years, the
one who was taken by God, the one who walked with God, that sort of thing, that figure is
nestled in with a bunch of these other pre-flood figures. And their genealogies are given, these
long age spans and whatnot.
There is a striking parallel to the genealogies of Genesis 5 and the long ages from
Samaria. It’s known as the Sumerian King list. So in that sense, the Enoch figure occupying
position seventh, the seventh from Adam, is going to have a number seven parallel in that list.
And it's true in the Samaria King list there are some explicit connections by virtue of names with
things, people that show up in Genesis 5. So the Samaria material would predate the Genesis
material by a considerable amount but even if there is some sort of, borrowings are not really
the right term. What I think we have going on here and you’d have to go up to the blog those of
you who are listening here. I recently, it’s been in the last week, posted an article by a guy named
Lloyd Bailey that proposes what I think, to this point anyway that I've seen, is the best attempt,
it’s not a conclusive kind of piece of work or article, is the best attempt I've seen to make sense of
the numbers of the long age spans in Genesis 5 through some mathematical cipher or
mathematical pattern or device.
I really do think something is going on there because you can do the same thing with the
Samarian King list and there's this very obvious relationship between these two things. So
instead of just sort of borrowing, we’re writing Genesis 5 today, whether you think that’s Moses
or somebody else, they’re not sitting there thinking like I need a King list here and I need some
genealogies and I like math. Let’s throw some of that in there. Oh, here's one from Samaria. I’ll
borrow this and now I can get to work. That isn't the point. What I think’s going on, Genesis 1-11
is very Mesopotamian in its flavor in all sorts of ways. It is a re-writing or a re-casting in a
number of cases for polemic purposes, for theological purposes, a recasting, a retelling of pre-
flood and post-flood events, specifically not from a pagan viewpoint, specifically not from a
Mesopotamian religious theologizing of history.
It's an Israelite, it’s a Yahwehistic theologizing of history. For the sake of analogy, that’s
how I’ll talk about it. So in that sense there’s some relationship to this. But in terms of somebody
just sort of liking something they read and I’m going to borrow that and have one of my own,
there's more to it than that because there is this pre-flood imposed post-flood history. And there
are theological messages that can be conveyed when you are, as a writer, when you are reacting
to or responding to some other piece of literature, in this case the Samaria King list, that your
readers who were familiar with that will know better, maybe not completely because in this case,
the mathematical ciphering is still something of a mystery, even though you read Bailey's article,
there are a lot of patterns he detects that are pretty apparent you once you follow what he’s
saying. But in some way, they would know that the writer of the Torah here is responding and
replying to, in some cases for theological reasons, to this other version of events. So in that sense
there is a relationship and there is a purpose.
As far as did Enoch existing, I don't think there's any reason to deny the existence of a
person named Enoch before the flood event. That’s wouldn’t really be any point of uniqueness in
and of itself. There’s nothing special. If you have an Israelite writer who is writing about Enoch
and he’s number seven, number x in the list, any of these guys, there's nothing special about
being the only you. So in this version, the name is Enoch. Now there could be, people have
argued for the idea that, well, both lists, even though they’re composed at different times, both
writers, even though there’s this considerable gap of time between the two, both writers are
thinking of the same individuals, the same this guy or that guy. That's quite possible but it would
still be that guy. It would still be a historical figure in that instance. So what I'm trying to say
here is the fact that there could be a mathematical cipher going on in Genesis 5 with these
genealogies does not rule out that these were real kings or real people and that God could
interact with one of them, Enoch, and take him prematurely or give him some kind of special
point of information.
So I don't view those ideas as mutually exclusive. As far as the question about the
purpose of this and what the messaging might be, since I’ve already said that I think the
numbers in Genesis 5 are some sort of mathematical cipher. There are specific conceptual and
theological ideas that the writers trying to convey through this technique. Since I embraced that
idea then I do think there is some sort of message. What it might be, people are still trying to
figure out. Now here’s a quote from Bailey, the article I mentioned I posted on my blog a short
time ago. Bailey says this,

“It is often pointed out that Enoch's life span of 365 years equals the
number of days in the solar year. The connection between the two lies in
the identity of his counterpart in the Sumerian King list. They’re both in
the seventh position. The name there is Enmenduranna. Another text tells
us that he was summoned to heaven to be instructed in the lore of the
baru-priesthood. His cult city, according to the King List, is Sippar, well
known as a seat of solar worship. Further connection between the two
persons (Enoch and Enmenduranna) may be found at Gen. 5:24 where the
former is likewise taken to heaven (‘Enoch walked with God; and he was
not, for God took him’).”
 
MSH: So there's this relationship and you say well, why would the writer of Genesis 5, what
would be the point? The point would be to deny that the baru-priesthood of Samaria had special
knowledge from their god or gods. It would deny that we should be worshiping the sun as the
sort of progenitor of the way the heavens work, the way the year works, the calendar year. It's
Yahweh of Israel. You go back and read Genesis 1, it's God, the God of Israel who created the
sun, moon, stars for times and seasons and all this stuff.
So there’s some theological jousting going on in that but it's actually bigger than that. Let
me read you a selection. This is going to be a fairly lengthy selection from book by Rachel Elior.
And for those of you who do have access to the Divine Council bibliography, this is not available
in PDF. It's a book that I couldn’t find in PDF. It’s called The Three Temples, and it's basically
about astral religion in Israelite and Jewish religion, biblical and inter-testamental second
period Jewish thinking theology. So here's what she says. Follow along. It’s really kind of
fascinating. She writes here, this is the beginning of chapter 4 in that book. She writes,

“Time as conceived by the authors of Qumran literature, the Dead Sea

Scrolls, in particular the Temple scroll, a text known as MMT, the Songs
of the Sabbath Sacrifice, the Damascus document, the Blessings of Psalms
scroll, the Calendars of the Priestly Discourses and certain
psuedopigraphic works, namely Jubilees and first and second Enoch. A
time was conceived by these people as something not arbitrary. It was not
an arbitrary man-made structure or human order dependent on unstable
observations and determinations influenced by external conditions,
 adjustments, and errors. Time was of divine origin, a cosmic pattern
obeying preordained immutable laws, a cycle that had been recurring since
sacred time was imprinted on nature during the seven days of creation and
consecrated through the Sabbath day. Time was envisaged as the
reflection of divine order in the universe, so designed as to perpetuate the
cycle of life, blessing, and fertility, an order in which time and space are
sanctified and interdependent from the earliest stages of creation which
took place in time divided into seven days and in the space formed during
those seven days. The calendar was not entrusted to man subject to
adjustment and change, dependent upon human calculations or terrestrial
considerations, for it represented the concept of a profound comprehensive
reality, a divine reality beyond the reach of the senses but reflected in the
cyclic numerical harmony revealed in the passage and changes of time.
The calendar, based on a cycle of Sabbaths and seasons, embodied the
eternity of the primeval order based on the eternal cycle of the sun and the
cyclic motion of the celestial bodies which could be precisely predicted by
numerical calculation. The calendar also related the secrets of the cyclic
nature of procreation depended on accounting and calculation.”

MSH: I’ll just stop there. In other words, it refers broadly to nature, there’s planting and harvest
ideas like that, but also a certain fairly regular set of time for conception and childbirth, those
sorts of things in both the human and animal kingdom. So back to Elior,

“The calendar also related to the secrets of the cyclic nature of procreation
dependent on counting and calculation, purification and oath, ensuring the
continuity of abundance life and fertility. Any infringement of this sacred
cyclic pattern as expressed in the fixed numerical proportions of its
component parts, any attempt to ignore the divine pattern based on number
and counting would generate impurity, bringing in its wake curse, death,
and oblivion. The calendar of weeks and seasons of Sabbaths and
covenants with its eternal cyclic numerical pattern was taught to humans
by divine angelic revelation.”

MSH: Now if you’ve read the Book of Enoch, that's very explicit, how teaching humans how the
celestial heavens work and time encounters. This is laid at the feet of the watchers. And so she's
referring to this Second Temple material that discusses that. Now with respect to Enoch, she
writes,

“The aim of Enoch literature, whose hero described as Enoch have you
chosen from among the sons of Adam and called a righteous man,
repeatedly transcended the boundaries of time and place. It was designed
to link cosmic with the ritual simplicity to elucidate in detail the
relationship between divine sevenfold structure of heavenly time, as
reflected by sign and oath like Sabbath’s son, the number seven, son of
righteousness, these sorts of phrases. Enoch, son of Jared, was the seventh
in the list of generations from Adam to Noah. This is stated in the biblical
record of Adam's line and in the list of patriarchs of the world in a prayer
 found at Qumran. The length of his mortal life, 365 years, was exactly
parallel to the number of days in the solar year, specified sometimes
elsewhere as 364 and sometimes as 365 in the various calendar traditions.

MSH: Now what she's alluding to there is in some Dead Sea Scrolls, there is the number 365 for
the calendar year and there's the number 364. And it's a long-standing academic debate as to
why there's a difference in the numbers. Is there something being communicated there? Elior
has a footnote here. She says,

“The real solar year comprises 365 1/4 days that a full cycle of the sun's
apparent motion covers that but the schematic year in the Qumran
calendar consists of 364 days, which was 52 weeks, 52 sevens. The
calculation comes out to 364.Tthe number of days in the solar year was
quite well known in antiquity. We learn from Egyptian literature and
Second Enoch, and the authors of Enoch and Jubilees were well aware of
this discrepancy, 365 versus 364. We do not how the priestly community
actually coordinated the real and ritual numbers but there are cyclic
calculations involved in a calendar of 364 days and an additional day was
included in the ritual count, which was perhaps added once in four years to
compensate for the difference.”

MSH: So I’m going to stop there but you get the idea that Jewish writers and theologians looked
at Genesis 5 and they produced a lot of this other material in this stream of Second Temple
Jewish tradition, books like Enoch, and that material tells you that they're looking back at Enoch
and they’re thinking something is up here with Enoch, with this 365. So to those people, there
was a purpose. There was a message and to those people, as Elior commented, they linked that
number because he was the seventh from Adam. Seven is important, seven days, six days and
then the Sabbath, that's a week.
They linked that number and his age number at 365, Enoch became for them both a
symbol and a cipher and a figure through whom the truth about time and calendar and the
movements of the heavens, the celestial objects, all the stuff associate with time and keeping
time, Enoch became the central figure in understanding that, and tracking it, and mapping it,
and looking at it, trying to discern meaning out of it. Because the belief was, and I’ve commented
on this before, the belief was that the God of Israel is the one that created this system. And when
we observe this system, when we tap into it, not only are we trying to mimic it with our rituals
on earth to observe it and keep in sync with it through Sabbaths and festivals and seasons and
all this stuff, not only are we trying to do that but we believe as the Jews at the period did, we
believe that God can be communicating certain things he's up to through celestial events.
I’ve talked about this before relation to the birth of Jesus and all that sort of thing. So in
that sense, this is what's going on with Enoch. So in Enoch's case, the mathematical cipher was
taken very clearly to relate to timekeeping and the way the heavens work. They’re doing what
God made them to do and when something unusual happens or when we observe certain
positions of certain things and the ancients attach certain meaning to certain stars in certain
positions and whatnot, that that telegraphs something to us. We’re eons removed from this way
of thinking but this is what was going through their head. So I just wanted to give an illustration
of what some of that involves. And at the end of our episode today when we talk about what
some things Mike is working on, if I remember I'll bring this back up because there is something
I'm working on that relates to this specifically, but at this point, we’ll just move on to the next
question.

TS: Alright. The three are from Lindsey, and the first one is, should we imagine the vision of
Daniel 7 to be literal in a sense that the beast he sees are more than merely symbols representing
kingdoms but actual divine beings in heaven receiving authority for their respective nations to
rule the world for a time?

MSH: I don't think so. I think they are just visions. They are artificial composite beasts that
telegraph symbolically the character of the nations in question. I say that because the text makes
it pretty clear that the beasts are nations. They are to be understood as nations.

TS: The second one is, Yahweh allocated the nation's to sons of God, but what about new
nations that rose up after the event? Would there have been a new son of God allocated to newer
nations, like Rome for example?

MSH: No, I would say no to that because the issue is the geography. The geography stays the
same even when the place names change and even when we have a change in which human
population gets control over the geography. The geography is the same. So I think the fact that it
can change hands and it can get other names doesn't really change sort of the outlook or the
worldview of Deuteronomy 32.

TS: The last one from Lindsey is, what do you think of the language of cosmic upheaval in the
Olivet discourse and how it appears to draw from Old Testament texts about the judgment of
nations? Would the stars fall from heaven and heavenly powers that are shaken refer rather to
heavenly upheaval and something like meteors preceding the Lord’s return?

MSH: I wouldn’t read too much into making a distinction like that since the judgment of the
nations is part of the eschaton. It is part of the end of the world, if you want to use that language,
the day of the Lord, that kind of thing. So I don't think we can make a neat distinction between
the two things. That's what I heard in the question, so I wouldn’t do that.
On the other hand, you get this reference to the judgment of the heavenly powers and I
do think that there is something to viewing the judgment of the heavenly powers and the nations
they control being both geographical regions and entities, if I can call it that, and these cosmic
celestial spiritual powers. I think there is a connection there. If you go to a passage like Isaiah
34, you actually have them mentioned in tandem. This passage draws on some things from
Psalm 82, which is going to be familiar to a lot of my listeners. But in Isaiah 34, I’ll just start at
the beginning. It says,

Draw near, O nations, to hear,

and give attention, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes from it.
 2
For the LORD is enraged against all the nations,
and furious against all their host;
 
MSH: Now, you can take that language there, host, but elsewhere, and I can't remember if I’ve
actually ever posted this paper but, not this last year but the year before at the academic
conferences, there was a guy who wrote a paper, part of his dissertation, on this passage and it
links to Psalm 82 and to Deuteronomy 32. And he made the observation in that paper that their
host in Hebrew, that phrase when it occurs elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible frequently denotes
divine beings, like the heavenly host, cosmic spiritual beings. So you read that, the Lord is
enraged against all the nations and furious against all their host, you think that this refers to
human armies, probably not. It’s not that it can't but it's not only that. It continues in verse 2. It
says,

he has devoted them to destruction, [MSH: which is an interesting

phrase, again, it's charam, which those who’ve read Unseen Realm
know that that sort of a packed verb there] has given them over for
slaughter.
3
Their slain shall be cast out,
and the stench of their corpses shall rise; [MSH: Now we’re talking
about something physical]
the mountains shall flow with their blood.
4
All the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
as leaves fall from the vine,
like leaves falling from the fig tree.

MSH: So here you have an example where this celestial upheaval language, this cosmic
upheaval language is used both in probably astronomical terms. It includes judgment of the
nations and then lurking behind the background, because the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament,
uses astronomical language, just the phrase host of heaven, sun, moon, and stars, host of
heaven, for those who are familiar with the Divine Council stuff, you trace that language through
Deuteronomy, it gets linked to the gods, to the gods of the nations in Deuteronomy 32.
It sort of culminates there so all of these things I would say are in play since the
presumption was that celestial objects either were heavenly powers or were connected to
heavenly powers or whatever the relationship was. It’s going to be different in the mind of
ancient people. Nobody's thinking of the same thing all the time but you have all these ideas on
the table so we can't rule out any of these things. Only God would really know what measure of
each possibility is in view, but for me, I think all of these things are in play.

TS: Okay, the next three are from Eric from Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. The first one is, I have
no formal credentials to back it up but I do a fair amount of Bible teaching junior high to adult. I
have to admit that your knowledge makes me feel inadequate to the task, which is why he
appreciates your blog posts on June 25, another sign of how anemic evangelical pulpits have
become. Can you expound on what you feel the role of the not as educated as you Bible teacher is
and what he has to offer to those willing to listen?
MSH: It's a great question. I would say just do the job. The job is important and, full disclosure
here, I would once have been your student and lapped it up. So the amount of knowledge really
has nothing to do with the need to do the job and the need for the job to get done. It has more to
do with who your audience is and who your audience might be in the future, in other words,
what would kind of ministry you envision yourself having. If you are, I hate to say it this way
because it’s going to sound negative and I don't mean to sound negative or not overly negative
but, if you are a dedicated student of Scripture that puts you ahead of most people in your
church.
That sounds bad but it's blunt and it's true. If you are a tenacious dedicated student of
Scripture, most people are not. Now this is a conclusion that I personally had to be drawn to
kicking and screaming. I did not want to believe it. But life has taught me and ministry has
taught me that it's true. I remember when I became a Christian in high school and on into
college, I went to Bible College, a Christian school, and I dabbled in seminary. But I remember
thinking that, again, I didn’t have any background. I was unchurched. I didn’t have any
background so take this for what it's worth. But I remember thinking and assuming that every
Christian was into the Bible as I was, and God basically had to in some cases, disturbing ways,
tell me, no Mike that is a misguided thought.
That is just not true. You can wish it was true and you can try to live in this fairytale
world where it is true but it is not true. So I would say to Eric look, if you're a dedicated student,
you are already ahead of this curve that you might feel like you're behind. Don’t worry about it.
Just do the job. Most of the people in church are going to be fairly low information. What I mean
by that, that sounds pejorative but what I mean by that is they don't assign a real urgency or a
need to knowing lots of Bible stuff. It doesn't mean they're unfaithful, doesn't mean that at all.
They have made the decision to follow Christ and so they’re content with that. They’re dedicated
to it. They’re not going to change their mind about it. They’re not going to waffle, but they're not
going to be like you, and they're not going to be like me.
So do the best you can, learn as much as you can, and you are already ahead of this
curve, so don't let the low information folks sort of ignore what you say, don't let that bother
you. The people who are there to learn will thank you for the effort. They're the ones you're
really there for in terms of depth, but you can get everybody. And teaching somebody something
about Scripture, it’s all important. So don’t worry about your credentials, don't worry about I
don't know as much as this guy, that guy, who cares? You are in a place to do this job. It's an
important job so do it. Don't use it as an excuse to not do it or to do it less than your capable of
doing it.

TS: I’d like to add to that. If I was in junior high, speaking from a layman point of view, and
somebody exposed me to this way of thought or ideas or the context Scripturally, I would've
loved it. Just the fact that you’re exposing it to people, it's up to them to go on and learn as much
as they can or they want to do but just the mere fact that you’re exposing people to these ideas
and way of thought is more than enough that, hopefully, will last the rest of their life on Bible
study.

MSH: You will not capture everybody. You won't even capture the fascination of the majority.
Look, this is me talking. This is Mike Heiser talking. This is what I try to do on the web. I have
had to come to grips with the fact that the sweet spot of my ministry, it's not the masses of
people in church, even though I wrote a book like supernatural to try to spark interest in this
sort of thing with just the average new believer, the average low information believer. We try to
do things like that and with my books, the 60 Second Scholar, all that, it's all aimed at those
people. But the reality is the sweet spot of my ministry are the five or six people in every church
who are just starved for content.
Those are the people that when I think of, if I had to focus on just one audience as being
the primary for what I do or what I can do with the rest of my life, it's those five or six people.
It's not the masses. Someone else can reach them and I can give them material to help spark an
interest in Scripture. I realized this just sounds bad, like, we have to work hard at getting
Christians interested in the Bible. But the fact the matter is, yeah, you do, and for me, and I'm
saying for Eric look, if you're worried about I just don't know; if I knew more, I’d get more
people interested. Forget it. Do not let that define your ministry. Learn as much as you can,
dispense as much as you can, realizing that it will be juicy. It will be chunky biblical theological
goodness to only a few. But the ones who aren't in that group, you can still teach them
something. And if you don't, who's going to? So just do the job.

TS: And as with anything, the more you learn, the more questions you have. It never ends. It
just keeps going and going.

MSH: It never ends for me. Exhibit A to that is the Divine Council bibliography. The project’s
complete now but there are lots of things that will get added to that, I could add to that. I don't
have a photographic memory so I don’t remember at all the contents of everything in there.
Even if I did, a lot of that content would still generate questions that I'm still thinking about, and
I am, so it never ends but you are going to be the product of the result of cumulative affect,
cumulative effort.
And you have to take the long look and not halt yourself or impede yourself by thinking
oh, I could be more effective, God would be happier with me or have a better ministry if I knew
XYZ like this other person does. That’s just the wrong way to think about learning Scripture and
it's the wrong way to think about ministry.

TS: Eric's last question is, you mentioned 70 or 72, depending on how you count for the number
of nationalities divided at Babel. Has it occurred to you or do you see any significance that 24,
the number of human elders in Revelation, is exactly 1/3 of 72, and Satan fell and took one third
of heaven with him?

MSH: It has but the gods over the nations are not said to be the result of a satanic fall so I see
no correlation between the two. In the same way, I wouldn’t see correlations between all the
things in the Bible associated with the number 70. There are a lot of them. It doesn't mean
they're all connected or correlatable. I also think the Masoretic Text number 70 is preferable to
the Septuagint 72. The difference between the two, by the way, for those who may not recall this
from Unseen Realm or didn’t read it, the difference is how the Septuagint translator divides two
names in the Table of Nations list instead of keeping them combined.
So both numbers, 70 and 72, derived from the same source, Genesis 10. It’s just a
translator decided to do one thing with a name that the MT didn't do. When you get 70 or 72 in
New Testament manuscripts, it’s because one person is referencing the Hebrew text. The other
one’s using the Septuagint. It all goes back to Genesis 10. It all goes back to the Deuteronomy 32
worldview, which builds off of Genesis 10 and Genesis 11. So there are other problems, too. You
have a third of the stars get cast to the earth, that's actually ambiguous. Are the third conquered
by the dragon? Do they get killed, are they conquered, or beaten, or do they defect with the
dragon? The text isn't really clear.
You could read it either way. Revelation 12, that's the passage where you get this third of
the Angels and falling and that sort of thing. It's comes from Revelation 12. That portrayal is also
associated with the birth of the Messiah, if you go back and read Revelation 12. So it's not
associated with the division of the nations, the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. Another one is 24,
of course, is 12+12, and those 24 are faithful to God. If that number does align to the number of
the sons of Israel and then the 12 disciples, they're all loyal. None of them are defecting or are
evil. So I don't see how it would make sense to correlate them with the fallen 24 of Revelation 12,
the fallen third. I don’t see how that would make any sense. Now, there's something still lurking
behind this.
That’s another possibility because Revelation 12, we have this astral theological stuff
going on there, that we have this astral prophecy stuff associated with the birth of the Messiah
that I’ve talked about before. That's Revelation 12. Well, here we have the 24 elders here is also
in the book of Revelation, Revelation 4-5. So there may be some sort of astronomical thing about
them as well, and I’ll give you an example here. Bruce Malina, who is the guy who wrote a book
called On the Genre and Message of Revelation; subtitle is Star Visions and Sky Journeys.
Malina is a New Testament scholar. His focus is on sociological stuff in the New Testament era.
He believes that Revelation, the book, is a very good example of the literary genre known as
astral prophecy.
If you want to know why, get his book and read the intro at least. I’ve commented on
Malina’s book before. I think he observes some things that I think are really important and that
New Testament scholars need to pay attention to. I think he goes a little overboard. He
minimizes that Revelation’s use of the Old Testament, for example, which is really crucial. It's
not just about astrological or astral theological stuff in the Greco-Roman world but he tends to
sort of get tunnel vision. I've criticized him for that before, but I recommend the book because
he’ll introduce you to things that you’ll never find anywhere else. But he says this on pages 93
and 94, Malina thinks that the 24 might point to something called astronomical decans. I’m not
real sure about that. I’m not committed to the idea. It’s just something I'm unaware of it and I'm
thinking about but here's what he says. This is on page 93.

“In Revelation 4:4, around the control throne, making a circle in the sky
along the celestial Horizon were 24 thrones. [MSH: So you have the 24
elders surrounding the throne of God and of course, they’re
enthroned and so you have 24 thrones surrounding the central
throne.] On the astral thrones are 24 gold reef person's clothed in
garments of light called elders. The astral thrones themselves mark off 24
segments of the horizon while the central throne of God might readily be
identified with a constellation. From where do the 24 thrones derive and
what is a throne in this case? [MSH: And then he quotes Ptolemy, the
famous Ptolemy who says,] The planets are said to be in their own
 chariots or thrones and the like when they happen to have familiarity in
two or more of the four sided ways with places in which they are found.
For then their power is most increased in effectiveness by the similarity
and cooperation of the kindred property of the signs which contain them.
In some thrones are positions of power in the sky. Now why would there
be 24? [MSH: and then he quotes Diodoro of Sicily who wrote,] shortly
before the Christian era, shortly before the AD period, who observes
relative to Babylonian astronomy this. Beyond the circle of the zodiac,
they, the Babylonians, designate 24 other stars of which one half they say
are situated in the northern parts and one half in the southern. And of
these, those which are visible, they assigned to the world of the living
while those which are invisible they assigned or they regard as being
adjacent to the dead, and so they call them “judges of the universe”.
[MSH: So what Malina is getting at, I’ll read you two or three more
every two or three more sentences here. There’s something
astronomical going on here. He says,] In terms of celestial personages,
these elders on their thrones of power would fit the profile of those truly
significant astronomic beings of antiquity, the astral deities known as
decans. The word decan from the Greek deca, 10, is a creation of the
Hellenistic period to designate the astral deities who dominate over every
10° of the circle of the zodiac. These deities are far more ancient than the
Hellenistic period since the decans derived from Egypt in Pharaonic times.
The deities in question often varied in number from 72 to 24, although 36
was the proper decan number given a circle of 360°.

MSH: And then he just goes on and on with more of that stuff. So the reason I'm quoting this is
since we have this astral kind of thing happening in Revelation 12, since there other examples of
John's writing where John uses things like gematria. He uses lots of symbolic language. John is
famous for this. Maybe the 24 elders has something to do with that. I don't know. I'm not
committed to Malina’s view. I think it's interesting and something that I'm reading about
because of something else I'm working on. So probably just best to leave it there along with the
previous comments.

TS: The next question is from Jason and he is currently reading through Exodus. There seems to
be a pattern when the Lord tells Moses something to tell the Israelites and then Moses tells them
something slightly different and often more restrictive than what God said. So the Lord gives a
simple plain instruction, Moses then embellishes and adds onto it. Is there any theological
lesson here? Jesus chastised the Pharisees for adding to God's law. Did that pattern start with
Moses or am I reading too much into it?

MSH: Well, honestly, I don't see a problem here. God said they could take a day’s portion and
Moses defines a day’s portion as a homer. Since it's his stomach and the stomach of the fellow
Israelites, that's I think just a judgment on his part so I think it's just pragmatic. In other words,
take what you’ll eat. Don't waste it. And don't think about storing up excess. You need to trust
God that you’ll be fed tomorrow so take only what you’ll eat now. I don't think there's really
anything to be read into the difference.
 I don’t think Moses is changing the command. I think he's applying it to their specific
situation in terms of what they'll eat. Don’t store it. You’re not going to waste it. You’re going to
trust God that we’re going to get this every day because that's the point.

TS: The next question is from Matthew in Southern California. First, he thinks he's getting a
handle on the ideas behind the Babel event but he was curious about the mindset of the people
that gathered together in Shinar to build the thing. The phrase in Genesis 11:4, let us make a
name for ourselves, makes him think perhaps the goal was apotheosis.
Is that a reasonable assumption or do you think it was something else like perhaps trying
to contact and/or worship lesser elohim, and if so, this being prior to God separating the nations
and apportioning their overseers, who would these elohim be? I guess the underlying question
would be were Marduk and Ishtar and the rest known and worshipped before God appointed
them over the nations?

MSH: It's an interesting question because of the ramifications for, how do I want to say this,
how you would understand the flood and the geography of all that. I think taken the first part of
it at first, the whole notion of. I think he meant apotheosis. That idea is sort of, for lack of a
better way to put it and do it succinctly, to become divine, divinization, that's sort of thing. So
we’re going to build this tower so we can sort of join the gods and they can make us part of their
family and all that kind of stuff. We can become like them, become divine now. In principle, I
don't see that concept being in contradiction to the concept of they were just building this to do
just normal worship, let’s just put it that way.
They’re not unrelated concepts but I think it's a bit of a stretch to presume that those
building the Tower of Babel have joining the divine, in terms of your becoming divine, in view. I
don't think that they would've viewed building the temple complex that that would lead to
divinization for everybody. Typically in Mesopotamia, that kind of language was reserved for
kings and priests, and in Mesopotamia, king and the priest could be the same person. So I don't
think it's broadly applied to all the workers, that kind of thing. That would be a stretch. Now
Genesis 1:26 is a good example for Israelites thinking that does democratize divine sonship,
every person is God's imager, and we have this family metaphor that's part of the imaging idea
that I discuss in the Unseen Realm. But I don't see Genesis 11 really making that point about the
whole worship thing.
It really depends on how you sort of view the chronology. I think certainly before the
Babel event, it’s how does the Babel event, the Tower of Babel and the flood event before it, had
does that align with certain things that an archaeologist would dig up, some object of devotion
or some figurine of a deity or whatever? And the answer to that really is really hard to know,
how those things fit together. The way the biblical story presents this is that there is at least
knowledge of the one true God up through the Babel account and then that's where this
judgment occurs. So I think the surface reading there, the face value reading there is that this is
the point at which you get other pantheons. This is the biblical rationale, the explanation that
this is an act of judgment.
You could, depending on how you’d think about the archaeology and the chronological
questions and even the question of the extent of the flood, you could presume that while it
probably took a long time to build this thing and the migrations that are described in Genesis 11
took a long time and maybe people were already either adopting the worship of some other
entity that they believed exist because they're going to believe in an animate active supernatural
world, that idea that surely God must have other divine beings that work with him. Let's worship
one of them. Who knows what they're thinking but you could have some sort of precursor ideas
so that when we get to the Babel event, that the Tower becomes a manifestation of not only just
a willingness to depart from the will of Yahweh but also a change in loyalties. Maybe they are
worshiping some other deity or at least that's what they're thinking in their head.
That's what they're doing, they’re aligning themselves with some other force or deity that
they either have been exposed to or whatever. We’re just not told. We’re not told how this
chronology works. So it's possible some of this could have began before the Babel event but the
most transparent reading of it, what you get the biblical text, is that if this is a punitive act on the
part of Yahweh because what happens at Babel. But the mere act of building it could suggest
there’s something else going on. So I think that’s a thought that we need to have on the table and
make part of what we think about when it comes to this particular worldview. Going back to the
divinization question, I think making for themselves a name doesn't really have divinization
apotheosis in view. And the reason I say this is because shem, the word name, is the object of
this verb, asah, nine times the Old Testament.
And each time the notion of achieving renown or achieving fame works really well in the
context and so I don't see this passage as an exception. I don't see Genesis 11 as being the
exception to, oh, we’re not thinking about building renown for ourselves, that this is the place
where we localize the deity and anyone who wants to relate to the deity has to come over here to
us. That would've made them famous. I think that's quite sufficient for the context as opposed
to, oh, if we do this we’ll become part of the divine family. I think that's a bit of a stretch for
Genesis 11.

TS: Okay, the next few are from Chris, and the first one is, what criteria were used to decipher a
person's maturity or ability to read and/or practice various mystical techniques? In articles such
as the Old Testament response to Ancient Near Eastern pagan divination practices and your
Myth draft, you maintain at least two key elements, although these relate not so much to
personal experience as they do being due to binding revelation and prophetic apostolic
authority.
The contact was initiated by God or by a member of the Divine Counsel working on his
behalf and the other is the experience includes a direct encounter with God and his Divine
Council. Is there any sanctioned method for self-initiation into the unseen realm or should one
just accept the fact that if God wants one to be active in both realms, material and immaterial,
that he will initiate the activity? If there are any sanctioned methods, what criteria would be
used to determine one's readiness or maturity?

MSH: I don't see any sanctioned method of self-initiation into the divine world. Biblically, we’re
not given any of those, and even if you want to include something that the priest would use,
Urim and Thummim, or something like that, well, those are still given by God. You’re still doing
this thing to get divine knowledge according to directions and instructions given to you. So I
don't see that there's any sort of self-initiated process or method that God has not first delivered
or first outlined, first instructed in Scripture. So that would also revisit the observation that
there's no age for self-seeking divine encounter that would be endorsed in Scripture.
TS: His second one is, is there any detail or source discussion of similar depth as your
Gnosticism series that you could point me to in reference to Kabbalah, whether the Jew’s
version or the Western hermetic version? Could you make some comments and observations
about Kabbalah? Is it studied or practiced in any place in the life of a Christian? I have in mind
your comments on the burning of the books of magic in Acts and the idea that such things have
no place in the life of a follower of the way?

MSH: I have not created anything on Kabbalah. I have a friend, Fred Klett, and this is not the
comedian by the way, who has a ministry. He’s had the ministry for probably 20-25 years,
specifically to Jews in Philadelphia. It’s not a messianic Church. He has sort of an evangelistic
ministry to Jewish people in Philadelphia. He actually spends a good deal of time on Kabbalah
so you could Google Fred Klett and Kabbalah and you’d find some lectures he’s given online.
Fred is sort of a resource for that. I have a number of my own resources, like Introduction to
Western Esoteric Thought that will naturally discuss Kabbalah. But it's not something I've really
jumped into myself as an area of interest. Getting back to sort of the overall flavor of the
question, I don't see any endorsement of seeking mystical knowledge in the Bible.
I don’t see any biblical endorsement of that, if one means by that self-initiation or self-
solicitation of non-human intelligences. I don't see that all. I see the contrary to that, a couple
places in Job, even God doesn’t trust his holy ones, Galatians 1 says even if an angel from heaven
shows up and gives you the gospel, don't believe it. I see the opposite thing going on in Scripture
and I think the rationale for it is because not only are the holy ones potentially, they could
mislead you, but this isn’t your turf. How are you going to know, how are you going to be able to
parse this sort of thing? And so this is why Scripture gives these parameters, because God says I
am trustworthy. I do have your best interests in mind. I love you. I have a covenant relationship
with you, all these things, and if you want to know what I'm thinking or how to contact me, here
you go.
These are the hoops to jump through. Jump through them, that kind of thing because it's
about your protection and it's about you getting information from a divine source that has your
best interests in mind. If you go out on your own, how are you going to judge that? That's
different than a practitioner, someone who wants to have mystical experiences and then they try
different things. So there’s a difference between seeking to be a practitioner of mysticism versus
seeking to understand the outlook, the system, all that stuff, to understand what mysticism
teaches, what it is and what people do and that sort of thing. So practitioner is trying to seek
contact for enlightenment which is a pursuit, historically and I would say inevitably, linked to
either imposing the terms for divine knowledge, inserting your own terms for divine knowledge,
for gnosis, to become enlightened or meriting your own status in the divine presence, in the
divine family.
And that's very contrary to the Gospel. What I mean by access, in other words, you
wouldn't desire to be a practitioner if you were content to have God give you the information on
his terms exclusively. Or you wouldn’t be a practitioner if you didn’t think you were going to get
some reward out of it. But that's all different than just sort of an academic inquiry about western
esoteric systems, western esotericism, or mysticism or all that sort of thing. I read a lot of that
stuff but I'm not a practitioner. I'm not seeking these encounters or anything like that. So that’s
the way I would approach it. Kabbalah is just a form of Jewish mysticism. It's not necessarily to
people who are practitioners not necessarily something overtly sinister or overtly occult. But
why do people do it, because they want to be in control of the terms of their own divine
encounter, their own encounter with the numinous, with the divine presence, and they expect to
get something out of it. So I don't see how that's consistent with the patterning that we get in
Scripture about this sort of thing.

TS: His last question is, at least in certain parts of the Word, the authors seem to almost
presuppose contact with this incarnate being’s. One passage that comes to mind immediately is 1
John 4, and testing the spirits. Since Christians and Jews seem to be prohibited from rendering
in esoteric parlance, how would a Christian, especially after the apostolic air, be expected to
come in contact with elohim, what do you think was going to John's mind as he wrote it?

MSH: Well, testing the spirits doesn't of necessity imply soliciting the spirits or going out
looking for spirits to test. If you read through 1 John, the whole notion of testing the spirits is
linked to false teaching. It’s very clear, very overt. So obviously I would say 1 John wouldn't be
legitimizing self-initiation into false teaching or self-initiation into some sort of episodic
encounter where you could be misled. I think the point of the language is that claims about
spiritual truth, in the context of 1 John it's really focused on Christology, but claims about
spiritual truth that contradict apostolic teaching are presumed to come from competing spirits,
competing opposition, opposition in the spirit world. So those claims need to be evaluated. They
need to be judging.
They need to be tested. If you look at 1 John 4:6, right there in the passage. it juxtaposes
the Spirit of truth with the spirit of air. I think all that illustrates Scripture’s elevation of
revelation over personal experience. Now the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive but if
the source of both is the true God then both of those things will not be contradictory. Scripture
consistently moves us to judge personal experience by the revelation given by God through
inspiration to the masses. In other words, this whole idealized I’m doing my own thing here to
tap into the divine knowledge or to have an encounter with God is quite contrary to both explicit
passages and the whole patterning of what's going on in both Testaments I would say.