Opus 2024-175: Book Review: Unseen Realm

Several months ago I stumbled across some podcasts by a man named Michael Heiser.  I had never heard of him before but that could just be a reflection of my limitations.  His doctoral studies were in Hebrew.  He had taught at the university level and I eventually found that he was employed by the Logos Bible Study Software people.  He mentioned it but I never saw him shilling the product.  He wrote book called The Unseen Realm which gives a feel for his focus.  I eventually bought that book and read through it.  He seems to have died in the last few years from pancreatic cancer.

A phrase that becomes a foundational concept for him is “the divine council”.  He gets the phrase from the ESV,

(Psa 82:1 ESV) A Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

As far as I can tell from the translations on my software, the ESV is the only one that puts it that way and I cannot find the phrase anywhere else.  Compare,

(Psa 82:1 KJV)  A Psalm of Asaph. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
(Psa 82:1 NAS77) A Psalm of Asaph. God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.

I picked this up from the podcast but it is peppered throughout his book.  I think a more literal rendering would be “congregation of gods,” but I don’t have a Ph.D. in Hebrew.

From that precarious perch he begins an interesting voyage of constructing a view of the spiritual world that at times seems insightful and other times sounds like heresy.  At first I was onboard with what he was teaching.  By the time I finished the book I had some serious doubts.  When I tried to work through it again, it raised too many questions.  I may get around to looking at some of them in the future.   

Heiser, Michael S.  The Unseen Realm.  Bellingham, WA:  Lexham Press, 2015.

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