Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 15 hours and 44 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Lexham Press
Audible.com Release Date: December 18, 2015
Language: English
ASIN: B019HI25I0
Best Sellers Rank: #56 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity #79 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Bible Study & Reference > Bible Study #128 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology
I finished reading Unseen Realm last night. It was an intriguing book and it was refreshing to read a point of view striving to stay close to the Hebrew and Greek contextual witness as well as the Ancient Near East understanding of “spiritual things” without bias to previous “systematic theologies”.Heiser does a great job connecting the dots in support of his thesis. I especially appreciate his insight as to the WHY of God’s harsh command to annihilate the seven Canaanite nations (cf Deut 20:16-18, Joshua 6:21, 1 Sam 15:2-3, etc). I always wondered why God would command that babies and animals be annihilated (what the heck did they do??), but the answer he proposes makes sense in light of the biblical cosmology he presents.I also appreciate Heiser’s ability to connect the dots regarding the biunity of YHWH and the Malak YHWH (Angel of the Lord) in Tanakh (aka: Old Testament). Being a Jewish believer myself (and one who engages frequently in messianic apologetics), Dr. Heiser has a good command of the textual and contextual understanding.However, the book in many ways leaves me with more questions than answers. If Heiser’s thesis is correct, then it introduces many more mysteries heretofore unexplored by the general evangelical mainstream.Below are some of the questions that I found myself asking as I was reading through the book. (I would love it if someone else would weigh in here):1) Did Satan fall BEFORE he tempted Eve in the garden (as we are accustomed to thinking) or was his fall CONCURRENT with his seduction of Eve (in Gen 3)? Note: We don’t see Satan “cursed” until Gen. 3:14-15.
Michael Heiser's "The Unseen Realm" has been a long time coming. In many ways, Heiser was the one who introduced me to study of the Old Testament in the first place. I remember listening intently to his lectures on the divine council and reading with amazement his articles on the "Angel of Yahweh" or the "Word of Yahweh" in the Old Testament. He showed how to find Christ in the Old Testament, and how to discover how God's war with Satan is not an NT innovation, but is rooted all the way back in the book of Genesis. This book represents Heiser's biblical-theological development in its maturity, and I heartily recommend it. I truly want to give it five stars: because the insights are definitely worth five stars- but Heiser says enough things I find problematic that I'm giving this four.Before evaluating, I'll briefly summarize the thesis of the book. The thesis of "The Unseen World" is that the divine council forms one of, if not the major thread uniting biblical theology. God's council in the Old Testament is a host of created divine beings (like angels) surrounding God. Some of these beings went bad, and they sinned with human women in Genesis 6:1-4. After the fall of humanity at the Tower of Babel, God divided mankind and turned them over to the jurisdiction of these fallen divine beings. Because Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says this explicitly, Heiser calls this the "Deuteronomy 32 worldview." Immediately after Babel, however, God called Abram to bless all the families of the earth and stitch humanity back together. Psalm 82 calls the “gods” to account, and declares that God would judge them, they would “die like men” and He would “inherit all the nations.
In Dr Michael Heiser's book "The Unseen Realm" He takes you to a place very few have: The ancient Semitic worldview.Not merely a grammar or a text book on archaeological discovery, but a genuine look into the mind of an ancient Semite.For someone like me that is significant, let me explain why,As someone that studied their Bible when I was younger I had questions that no one could answer for me, and it was frustrating!I remember reading reading 2 Samuel 1:18, because I loved reading about young David, it reminded me of Robin Hood! realizing that I wanted to read the rest of the story I turned to the table of contents to find the book of Jasher, as I was instructed by the Bible to do.I couldn't find it! The table of contents had to be wrong, it said right there to read it!I turned and looked for it between the books, maybe they missed it during printing. Nothing.I asked my mother about it, and she said it was not inspired, so we couldn't read it.What?! I thought she must be crazy, because the Bible isn't going to tell me to read something I'm not supposed to!If that wasn't bad enough I found it in the book of Joshua as well!What the hey!I started finding more weird things in the Bible; for example it talks about angels doing odd things in the book of Jude and imprisoned spirits under the desert.What was going on, and why were there no good references to these things?No one wanted to talk about this stuff, I kept asking, no one was answering.Sure I would get pat answers, but they were merely deflection, because either they didn't know or didn't want me to know.
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