On dealing with ‘angels and demons’ in scripture

Around 15 years ago, I met a man that would revolutionize by thinking about the Bible. At the time I had graduated from Bible college and was pursuing graduate studies in Hebrew language and Hebrew Scriptures.

I first met Michael Heiser at the Evangelical Theological Society. The ETS is a society of Biblical scholars that meet every year where theological papers are read to have them peer reviewed. The level of scholarship at these meetings is usually high but there was one person whose topics were always intriguing to me.: Michael Heiser.

Mike was writing what would eventually become his first book, “The Unseen Realm,” and ETS is where he would come to try out his material on a national stage. Admittedly the topic of Mike’s papers were things that you would rarely (if ever) encounter in a traditional church or even a Bible study. Since Mike lived close to me, I would have him down numerous times to present his research and it was always well received.

The two basic ideas that Mike presented were 1) The God of the Hebrew Scriptures (YHVH) has a “divine council” that He works with to govern this world, and 2) The “angel of the Lord” and other individuals in the Hebrew Scripture were Yeshua/Jesus prior to the incarnation of the Gospels. In essence Mike was asking all of us to realize that for all we can see in this realm there was an “unseen realm” that was just as important. The seminal work of Mike’s research was “The Unseen Realm” and I recommend this book for everyone. This book will draw together for you parts of your Bible that have remained disconnected from each other. If you want a “Cliff notes” version of “The Unseen Realm” you can read his book “Supernatural”.

Strange passages

What Mike Heiser is doing for the body of Messiah is to force us to deal with passages that seem “weird”, “strange” or just “bizarre”. These are the texts that commentaries and pastors usually skip as they don’t know how to address them, much less integrate them into the big picture of the Bible. For most, a discussion of demons, angels, and “other beings” we can’t seen with the human eye is a little odd. Mike’s philosophy is “if it’s weird it’s very important” and he’s right. Most of use first encounter angels and demons on the pages of our Apostolic Scripture (NT) but don’t realize that the background for these entities is the Hebrew Scripture and Jewish intertestamental literature.

With Mike’s education in the Semitic languages (of which Hebrew is a part) and Ancient Near Eastern literature, Mike is able to integrate language and history into a conceptual framework the average person can understand. All of the Hebrew Scripture was written in Hebrew (with a smattering of Aramaic) and had a cultural context that informed the content and style of what we see in our Bibles.

Mike went on to write another ground-breaking book titled “Reversing Hermon”. In this book Mike addresses “cosmic geology” and how physical places in the Bible were spiritually significant. This book focuses on the intertestamental book of I Enoch as this book was widely read by the authors of the Apostolic Scripture. While I Enoch does not have canonical authority, it was a source that writers of the Apostolic Scripture were using to help us understand the Hebrew Scripture. This book deals with the reclamation of this physical earth for the ultimate kingdom of God as God takes back territory that had always belonged to Him. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites was a big part of this over-arching plan.

Angels and demons

The two most recent books by Michael Heiser are “Angels” and “Demons”. In these two books Mike looks at the language behind the titles of those in the unseen realm along with clearing up many misconceptions that have been fostered over millennia. I highly recommend both of these books as they are informative and helpful in dealing with so much we find in the Bible regarding angels and demons. These books are dense and packed tightly, but the reader is rewarded with a better understanding of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Apostolic Scriptures by doing so.

Mike’s latest venture is a whole curriculum of classes where you can watch and learn from the comfort of home. Mike has an online school called “Awakening School of Theology” and I have been availing myself of these to refresh my memory. If you really want to know how to interpret the Bible and integrate those weird parts into the whole then I recommend this school for your consideration. Here is the genius of Michael Heiser — even if you disagree with him — He makes you think and usually way outside your comfort zone, and we need more of that in Biblical studies!

Brent Emery leads Congregation Beit Tefillah of Gig Harbor. Reach him at torah4today@comcast.net

This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 11:08 AM.