Post 37, Part 1-Biblical Context, Dr. Heiser, and Life’s Priorities

Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 10:00 PM

Hey Dana

            I’ve been re-reading our post on is the church relevant today.

http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/post-14-part-2-relevant-or-business-as.html  I’ve copied something from it that has been sticking in my mind. It’s inserted below. You wrote, “Dr. Heiser advocates our reading the Bible in the context of the time it was written, the place where it was written, and the people to whom it was written, instead of the through the contexts or “filters” of our denominational or theological traditions and distinctives. “ I’ve been trying to figure out what that means. Unless the regular Janes or Joes in-the-pews buy an expensive Bible that gives the reader the information you were writing about, how does one do this?

 

     This past Christmas (something else we’re not supposed to say) a friend of mine gave me a copy of Dr. Michael Heiser’s “The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.”  http://drmsh.com/  Dr. Heiser advocates our reading the Bible in the context of the time it was written, the place where it was written, and the people to whom it was written, instead of the through the contexts or “filters” of our denominational or theological traditions and distinctives.

     In other words, we need to study in such a way so that the things that 1^st Century and before Jews had going through their heads, are going through ours as well, when we approach the Scriptures, and read what the text actually says. We’re hands down guilty of always trying to determine or interpret what the Bible says through our Protestant, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Brethren, Calvinist, Arminian, Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, Post-Trib, Premillennial, Postmillennial, Amillennial, or what have you “filters.” To read the Bible in its original context cannot help but to remind us of just how supernatural our Christian faith actually is.  We, as a church, have forgotten that, or worse, ignored that because we don’t want to be seen as out of step with modern cultural mores.

     That is not to say that our church traditions or theological beliefs are wrong. Not at all!  In my own life, through times of stress, sorrow or the storms of life, God, through my theological beliefs was a rock, and anchor to hold me firm, keep me afloat, and give me a framework with which I could make sense out of said events.  But in re-reading the Bible after being exposed to Dr. Heiser’s view on things, I am seeing that we, the church have, in dramatic ways, cut ourselves loose from our supernatural moorings. 

 

Can you explain this? Thanks, John

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Dana responded Tue, May 2, 2017 at 10:21 AM

Hi John,

      My question would be what’s wrong with buying an expensive Bible, or books that shed light on what I wrote about?  People spend money on hobbies, social activities, concerts, going out to dinner, and all kinds of other things that dispose of disposable income.  And if the disposable income doesn’t amount to much, what would be wrong with fasting a couple of meals or a couple of activities to save up to buy said Bible, or other equally beneficial study books?  To me it seems to be a small price to pay for Biblical knowledge that could pay huge dividends in one’s spiritual quest.

      I live in a very modest house (an 80+ year old $45,000.00 wood frame house in need of myriad repairs) and drive a previously owned 1997 Toyota Corolla.  My salary allows me to pay the bills (of which there are many) and eat, and keep the wolves at arm’s length, but more times than not I’m out of money before I’m out of month. That is not a complaint, just an observation.  Yet I buy books for study, because growing in the knowledge of the Word of God is a life priority for me.

     All of this world’s treasures and pleasures I will not get to take with me when I die, and some of them “could” likely serve to lead me to ruin in this life.  When I stand before God and give an account of my life (really thankful for grace here) it might be a cool thing if I could intelligently speak with my Creator, Savior and King about things regarding His Word, upon which I was supposed to meditate day and night.  Or I could plead ignorance, because I couldn’t give up a month’s worth of Taco Tuesday money to further my Biblical and Theological education.

     That said….

     Dr. Michael Heiser’s “Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches About the Unseen World – And Why It Matters” is selling on Amazon in paperback for $12.67 and shipping. (This is sort of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of “The Unseen Realm” shown below. Great as an introduction to the material.)

     Dr. Heiser’s “The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible” sells in hardback on Amazon for $18.60 plus shipping.

     And, his latest book, “Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ,” is available as a trade paperback on Amazon for $15.71 plus shipping.

     All three books together and shipping come to about 50 bucks.  Most Americans spend that much or more on coffee or junk food in a month’s time, or they spend it on entertainment, which may or may not be edifying to the soul.  Those three books if read and digested could advance one’s Biblical understanding immensely. The question comes down to just how important is growth in Biblical knowledge to one’s Christian life?

      Why am I emphasizing this so much?  It is because Dr. Heiser is the only readily accessible scholar talking about this important material on a lay level. Bible scholars explore this material a lot, but their research and publications tend to stay in the upper echelon vaults of peer reviewed scholarship, most of which the mainstream Evangelical Church is largely, if not totally, and sadly ignorant.

     That's not a slam on Evangelicalism, because much of this scholarship is highly intellectual in its tone (given it is designed for other scholars to read,) it is steeped to the max in ancient languages, and seriously, seriously technical.  Some of it is just plain hard work to wade through--and I have the advantage in that I study a lot, and yet some of it is difficult for me.  I wouldn't expect Joe or Jane Christian to take much interest in it.  And that's a shame.  Because there are gold nuggets to be found in mountains of dirt--not that scholarship is dirt—but you get my drift.

     Much of this scholarly work is inaccessible to many who could benefit from studying it, simply because they cannot find it.  A lot of it is in difficult to locate journals and the stuff of graduate level academic dissertations. It can be frustrating to try and obtain, yet the results of these Christian scholars’ work could and should be vital resources for the Christian's complete understanding of the Bible.  Dr. Heiser has done a lot to get this kind of material to the public, just by including it in his bibliographies, and publishing pertinent excerpts in his books.  But the point is that he is getting scholarship to the people.

     As technology has improved, and grown by leaps and bounds, and has given us all kinds of electronic gadgets that we can no longer live without, so has Biblical scholarship improved and grown.  Their (Christian scholars) depth of knowledge (aided by advancements in technology) is much greater than it was when we were in college, not to mention previous epochs of heightened spiritual enlightenment, such as the Protestant Reformation, the Great Awakening, etc.  The great leaps in Christian thought and Biblical theology were largely accomplished by candle light, and recorded in pen and ink.  What if the Reformers had had computers?

     Well modern day scholars do have computers and their advancements in Biblical knowledge has advanced tremendously as well.  For example, for those who study the ancient Biblical manuscripts [remember, only a small portion of existing manuscripts were available to the King James Translators] access, until now had been limited. There are online data bases which contain, in digitized format, every fragment and complete version of every Biblical manuscript that is in existence today, and they are all cross referenced, and accessible via computer.  Where as in an earlier day (even when we were at VFCC) one would have had to make pilgrimages to numerous world libraries containing repositories of ancient manuscripts in order to study them (if they could have gained permission), now it's all just a mouse click away.

     So there's all this Biblical knowledge out there, but the Church is somewhat clueless about its findings.  So here comes Dr. Heiser.  He is a scholar's scholar, holding several earned graduate degrees, including a PhD in the Hebrew Bible.  But Dr. Heiser's mission is to get this scholarly material out in a format that Joe and Jane Christian can read and understand.  He's bridging the gap between the ivory tower and the pew--and that's as significant as it is important. 

     The Christian Church is losing its relevancy because it's stuck in a rut--same old- same old every Sunday. To me, the exciting thing about having been exposed to Heiser's work, is to see him launch this campaign to get people back into the text of the Bible, free from said “systems,” and to make that time spent in Scripture as new and as exhilarating as it was when we first got saved or got the Spirit and the Bible was brand new to us, and we couldn't get enough of it. 

     Somehow, Bible reading has become sort of a rote activity for the Church.  Regarding those Christians who do read their Bibles, I wonder, how they feel about it?  Are they doing it out of a sense of duty--because they are supposed to? 

     The thing about which I am most concerned (and sometimes it gets my dander up--as my sainted Grandmother used to say) is that outside of my pastor, one particular co-worker, and you, I'm not having conversations with many other Christians who ever turn the conversation themselves, or allow me to turn the dialogue to the Bible.  I honestly cannot remember the last time someone came up to me and said anything to the effect, "WOW! You won't believe what the Lord showed me in the Bible today as I was reading." 

      With my parents being Charismatic before becoming Pentecostal, and my association, in the time of my return to the Lord, with Charismatic and Pentecostal youth who had such a late 60's and early 70's excitement in reading the Scriptures--it was like every day was a new revelation.  There was enthusiasm!  Hippies who were seeking enlightenment through psychedelic drugs, once they found Jesus, became insatiable in their hunger for God's Word.  It was visionary!  It was a glimpse of God Himself, but in a format that wouldn’t kill us, or even make our face to glow like Moses’.  Again--couldn't get enough of it. 

     Where did it go, John?  Is God not the same yesterday, today and for all time?  Shouldn't His Word be the most important aspect of a Christian's life?  How did we lose that?  Has God judged us by sending us a deluding spirit because we loved not the truth? As Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:

 

 ⁹ The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, ¹⁰ and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. ¹¹ Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, ¹² in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

     Do you want something that will keep you up at night?  What if those verses above are talking about the Church? And even scarier, about the church in our day?  My eschatological beliefs tend to lead me away from interpreting Prophetic and End Times passages via the daily newspaper, but even if the Anti-Christ isn't just around the corner, we are still 2000+ years closer to his appearance on the world stage than when John wrote the Revelation. 

     Christians who do not know their Bibles will be ripe to be deceived by the Anti-Christ, or perhaps even his forerunner.  If we go back in the same chapter in 2 Thessalonians to verse 3, Paul says:

 

     "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"

 

     While Paul warns us not to be deceived, yet the implication is overwhelming that there will be those who try to deceive "...even the elect." In Mark13:22, Jesus said,

 

      "For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."

 

      That's why I think Dr. Heiser's work is so important.  He's getting people enthusiastic about the Bible again by clearly explaining difficult and misunderstood passages that most preachers and many Seminaries and Bible Colleges have willfully neglected, just because they are difficult in their conceptual nature, and they cannot help but produce questions and answers that are outside of their comfort zone. And I admit, since I've been exposed to his works, I'm seeing Biblical things in a different light. 

      And this is not something new--it's been there all along, hidden in plain sight--the ancient Israelites and the early Church knew this material thoroughly, but our "systems," denominational biases, and venerated (almost idolized) schools of thought have totally skipped over it because it can lead to some troubling conclusions, regarding the spiritual world, which we Westerners would just as soon forget existed.

     The latest scholarly findings could serve to really help to fill in many gaps in people's Biblical knowledge—perhaps cause some spiritual light bulbs to go off over people's heads, but it seems that never the twain shall meet.  Why? Partially because the Church is mired in pop-culture Christianity (what I call Christian entertainment, like the "Left Behind" phenomena.)  While entertaining to many, the "Left Behind" series was highly speculative, while essentially teaching nothing about real end times theology--which it would profit the church to know and understand.  I'm sure the writers meant well, but there is little of value, Biblically speaking, in their writing. When going through times of trouble or when confronted by evil, will people be quoting verses or taking comfort from "Left Behind" #6?  

     The scholars want nothing to do with the "Left Behind" mentality, and the "Left Behind" fans appreciate the easy-to-digest manner of the series, and find scholarly articles as dry as last year’s Christmas tree.  The "Left Behind" crowd doesn’t want to read scholarly materials because they are intellectually challenging, and to be frank, most are not real page turners.  So each side keeps largely to itself.  And again, that's a shame.

     As you brought up in your question, one of the chief things Heiser advocates is a reading and study of the Bible without the filters of denominational trappings, or the lens of a particular school of thought bias.  And that's exactly how we modern Christians read the Bible.  And you would have to admit, we do. We read the Bible from a Calvinistic point of view, or an Arminian point of view.  Or, we read the Bible with Pentecostal or Presbyterian or Catholic or liberal or conservative or whatever leanings.  The point is, as Heiser makes, none of these systems with which we are so enamored, and will even fight to defend and split churches over, were even around back in the days when the Bible was written.

     First century Christians and Jews, and Pre-first century followers of Yahweh wouldn't have read the Scriptures available to them in their times through any of the lenses and filters which we use today, hence the meanings of much of the Scriptures, and our (and their) understandings of how they were to be interpreted, might be, and often are very different.

     Heiser will be the first to tell you that he is not presenting his own personal "spin" on the Scriptures, nor is he giving his readers and listeners his own interpretation which is superior to existing interpretations.  On the contrary!  What he is doing is taking highly researched, peer reviewed scholarship, and making it accessible to the average Christian, and giving us some new ways of viewing Biblical events and writings that add color to a black and white picture that we've tenaciously held onto for most of our lives.  It's not a new theology; it's an enhancement of the theology to which we already subscribe.  It takes our two dimensional understandings and transforms it into one that is three dimensional.

      His work, while accessible, is still challenging. Remember, we have to work at it.  But we can take comfort in that rather than coming off like an egghead, he's a regular guy--likes baseball and football, Star Wars and UFO Conferences.  He speaks our language.  At the same time, his brilliance in Biblical translation and thought is off the charts.  He loves the Church, and wants it to grow in depth, and has devoted his life to helping us get access to and understanding so much material that for the most part goes largely unnoticed or ignored (for stated reasons.)

      Del Tarr used to say the problem with the Church is that it cannot, or it will not achieve the balance between heat and light.  Both sides disdain the other, while at the same time; both sides desperately need the other.  God has given both groups to the Church, yet we remain the spiritual equivalent of the Hatfields and the McCoys. And we wonder why we don't grow and have relevance?  When was the last time we heard something new?

     Dr. Heiser is giving us something new.  Actually it's not new at all; it's millennia old, it's just new to us.  But I find it exciting and refreshing, and something, if embraced by modern Christians, I believe could revolutionize their depth of knowledge in the Scriptures, and perhaps serve to inspire and motivate the Church to action...all by learning to love reading the Bible again, but in a way to which we are unaccustomed. 

     Also as Heiser is not a fan of "systems for systems' sake," he feels that much of the material that he presents has intentionally not been taught over the decades and centuries because it is difficult conceptually, and that many ministers (and schools) have opted for a watered down approach to the Bible that doesn't deal with difficult topics.  Keeping the Church "dumbed down" makes their jobs a lot easier.  It's important to note that Heiser is not an Evangelical anarchist who advocates tearing down all systems, schools of thought, or denominations, but rather presenting viable options to canned theological thinking. And that is something the Church desperately needs.

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To Be Continued With Part 2 Next Week