Michael S. HeiserWe are prone to make assumptions about God and his favor when life has us down due to sin, mistakes, or incomprehensible circumstances. Of all the Scripture passages we might turn to during these times, the bizarre vision that opens the book of...
This post is excerpted from Dr. Michael Heiser’s course Problems in Bible Interpretation: Difficult Passages IV, available now from Logos Mobile Education. *** The Old Testament is filled with odd stories that take us by surprise. One of those...
Most children who’ve attended Sunday school classes can tell you what happened at the Tower of Babel. King Nimrod wanted to be famous, so he convinced the people of Babylon to build a great tower that would reach heaven. God could see that the...
Does the Bible talk about sea monsters? Are they literal? In this excerpt about sea monsters in the Bible from his book I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible, Dr. Michael Heiser explores the mention of “sea monsters,”...
The Bible is clear that women followed Jesus—Joanna, wife of Chuza, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus’ mother are just a few. But did he have female apostles? Dr. Mike Heiser explores the answer in this article excerpted from his book I Dare You Not...
Dr. Michael S. Heiser is the author of The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible and has taught many Mobile Ed courses, including Problems in Biblical Interpretation: Difficult Passages I. In the excerpt from his book I...
This excerpt on the return of Jesus is adapted from Dr. Heiser’s book I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible (see all Dr. Heiser’s books). *** Few things in the Bible attract more attention than prophecies about the end times. Even people...
This excerpt on circumcision in the Bible is adapted from Dr. Heiser’s book I Dare You Not to Bore Me with the Bible (see all Dr. Heiser’s books). *** Circumcision is a topic mentioned nearly 100 times in the Bible. It is a central focus for...
We all have watershed moments in life, critical turning points where, from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same. One such moment in my own life came when I rediscovered the word elohim. It was in church on a Sunday morning while still in...
Who are the Nephilim? In the sixth chapter of Genesis, we’re confronted with a curious reference to the Nephilim. Who are they? Were they a race who came to be through the mingling of divine beings and the daughters of men? Were the Nephilim...
Elisha’s healing of Naaman in the Bible (the leper [and] commander of the army of the king of Syria) is a familiar story to many (2 Kgs 5:1–27). Naaman hears that Elisha, the prophet of Israel, can heal him, so he makes the trip. When the two meet...
Most of us have probably gone through a period in our Christian lives (or are still there) when we thought about little else than what the Bible says about end times prophecy. In this post, Dr. Michael Heiser offers his thoughts on why there is so...
What is the Septuagint? The Septuagint, of course, is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The Septuagint was the Old Testament of the early Greek-speaking Church, and it is by far the version of the Old Testament most frequently...
If they haven’t read it, most people have at least heard the story of David and Goliath of Gath (“the Gittite”). The names of the hero and villain have iconic status. But how many people know anything about the giant Goliath, other than that he lost...
Everyone familiar with the Bible knows it talks about angels and demons. But most would be surprised to learn that there’s no verse in the Bible that explains where demons came from. Christians typically assume that demons are fallen angels, cast...
Are demons fallen angels? Is the Satan figure as the archnemesis of God foreign to the Old Testament? Did a third of the angels fall from heaven before humanity’s fall? The following excerpt from Demons by Michael S. Heiser is adapted from the...
Students of the cultural context of the Bible are familiar with the association between animals and idolatry. The idolatrous worship of the golden calf (egel; Exod 32:1–24) makes the connection explicit. Even after the Israelites entered into a...
The New Testament’s rejection of earning God’s favor by works and its emphasis on salvation by grace through faith (e.g., Eph 2:8–9; Gal 2:16; Rom 4:1–12) has led many people to presume that the Old Testament teaches that people could merit...
This post is excerpted from The Bible Unfiltered by Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14 has been spectacularly depicted several times for television and movies. But anyone who retraces the steps of Moses and the...
This post has been adapted from The Bible Unfiltered by Dr Michael S. Heiser. We’ve all heard the old saying that certain things get better with age—wine, cheese, common sense. Anyone who’s watched Antiques Roadshow also knows that the longer you...
Christians are often taught to interpret the Bible literally, which can lead to some pretty interesting questions like, “Did Yahweh Father Cain?” I wrote about the problems that can come out of overemphasizing literal interpretation, but...
There’s no shortage of advice on how to interpret the Bible. One maxim that I’ve already mentioned advises, “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” I’ve heard it quoted when it comes to biblical prophecy—encouraging people to...
How should we think about Marxism and Biblical Theology? Does the New Testament support Marxism? *** I’m a biblical scholar by training, but what most people don’t realize is that I’m also a political junkie. My undergraduate degree is actually in...
The seventh chapter of my book The World Turned Upside Down marks the transition of Stranger Things from season one to season two. Basically, chapter seven takes us from before Eleven’s sacrifice to after Eleven’s sacrifice. The initial episode of...
If you’ve been a Christian for very long or were raised in a Christian church, chances are that you’ve heard that the Bible is really all about Jesus. That cliché has some truth to it, but it’s misleading. The truth is that there’s a lot in the...
I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m exposed to more than my fair share of interpretive incoherence because I’m known on the Internet for my paranormal fiction and for blogging on strange things people believe about the Bible and the ancient...
Anyone who teaches the Word of God wants people excited about exploring Scripture. Ultimately, you want to turn listeners into competent students so that they can teach others. Along the way, you have to deal with a lot of mistaken methods and...
As a biblical scholar, I’m often asked for advice on how to interpret the Bible. I could refer people to tools (like Logos study platform) and techniques for analyzing the original languages, even for people dependent on English. But neither of...
In my previous post, I noted that the right context for interpreting the Bible accurately isn’t the history of Christianity in any of its creedal distillations or denominational forms. But I went even further—I said that the biblical context isn’t...
Dan Brown’s bestselling conspiratorial thriller The Da Vinci Code seems like ancient history now. At its peak of popularity, the novel set records both for sales and for irritating scholars with its view that Jesus and the 12 apostles held to...