The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms

by Michael S. Heiser

Publisher:

Lexham Press

, 2017

Scripture on Its Own Terms

The Bible is mysterious, surprising—and often deeply misunderstood.

In The Bible Unfiltered, Dr. Michael Heiser, an expert in the ancient Near East and author of the best-seller The Unseen Realm, explores the most unusual, interesting, and least understood parts of the Bible and offers insights that will inspire, inform, and surprise you on every page.

Dr. Heiser has helped to remind the church of the supernatural worldview of the Bible. In The Bible Unfiltered, you will see his methods and expertise applied to dozens of specific passages and topics. Gleaned from his years working as Faithlife’s scholar-in-residence, this is some of the very best of Dr. Heiser’s work.

Contents

• Part One: Interpreting the Bible Responsibly
  • Serious Bible Study Isn’t for Sissies
  • Getting Serious—and Being Honest—about Interpreting the Bible in Context
  • Sincerity and the Supernatural
  • Let the Bible Be What It Is
  • Bad Bible Interpretation Really Can Hurt People
  • Unyielding Literalism: You Reap What You Sow
  • Everything in the Bible Isn’t about Jesus
  • Bible Reading and Bible Memorization Are Not Bible Study
  • Marxism and Biblical Theology Aren’t Synonyms
  • How to (Mis)Interpret Prophecy
• Part Two: Old Testament
  • Did Yahweh Father Cain?
  • All Your Genesis Commentaries Are 8-Track Tapes
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Lost at Sea
  • The Slave before “Elohim” in Exodus 21:1–6
  • The Angel of Yahweh in the Old Testament
  • Salvation in Old Testament Israel
  • Where the Wild (Demonic) Things Are
  • The Secret Things Belong to the Lord
  • The Ongoing Battle of Jericho
  • Scripture’s Sacred Trees
  • Boaz—the Lawbreaker?
  • Of Mice and Manhood
  • Samuel’s Ghost and Saul’s Judgment
  • The Politics of Marriage
  • Defeating Ancient Foes
  • Yahweh and His Asherah
  • Angels Aren’t Perfect
  • From Intercessors to Advocate
  • Jurassic Bible?
  • Proverbs: The Wisdom of Egypt?
  • Heap Burning Coals on their Heads
  • Denial of the Afterlife
  • Solomon’s Bride or Jesus’ Bride?
  • Gog of the Supernatural North
  • Filtering God
  • God of Fire and Storm
  • Zechariah’s Divine Messiah

• Part Three: New Testament
  • Mark’s Use of Isaiah
  • Demons, Swine, and Cosmic Geography
  • Strange and Powerful Signs
  • Is Exorcism for Everyone?
  • The Word was God
  • The Table of Nations and Acts 2
  • Paul’s Missionary Goals
  • Divine Misdirection
  • Who is the God of this World?
  • New Testament Language of Spiritual Adoption and Sonship
  • The Lord, Who Is the Spirit
  • Paul, Puppies, and People with Tattoos
  • Watch Your Language!
  • No Longer Slaves
  • The Relationship of Baptism and Circumcision
  • Disarming the Powers of Darkness
  • Inspiration Was a Process, Not an Event
  • The Father of Lights
  • What do Demons Believe about God?
  • Jesus, The Morning Star out of Jacob
  • Relying on Our Preconceptions
  • Jesus, Our Warrior

Top Highlights

“The right context for understanding the Bible is the context that produced the Bible.” (Page 16)

“But understanding Scripture isn’t about making it palatable or comfortable to modern readers. It’s about discerning what the biblical writer believed and was seeking to communicate to readers who thought the same way.” (Page 17)

“But you must remember that, while the Bible was written for us, it wasn’t written to us. What they wrote is still vital for our lives today, but we can only accurately discern the message if we let them speak as they spoke.” (Page 19)

“The biblical context includes its supernaturalism. The biblical writers believed in an active, animate spiritual world. That world was home to a lot more than the triune God, angels, Satan, and demons. It included other gods (i.e., the gods of the nations were not merely idols) and territorial spiritual beings that were not demons—and were, in fact, superior to demons.¹ It included what we think of as ghosts, who could appear visibly, and even physically, and communicate to the embodied living world of which they had once been a part (1 Sam 28:3–20). For the biblical writers, divine beings could eat, drink, fight, and produce offspring with humans (Gen 6:1–4; 18:1–8; 19:1–11; 32:22–32; Num 13:32–33; 2 Pet 2:4–10; Jude 6–7).” (Page 16)

“I’m suggesting that the path to real biblical understanding requires that we don’t make the Bible conform to our traditions, our prejudices, our personal crises, or our culture’s intellectual battles.” (Page 19)

Product Details

• Title: The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms
• Author: Michael S. Heiser
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Publication Date: 2017
• Pages: 272
• Format: Logos Digital, Paperback
• Trim Size: 5x8
• ISBN: 9781683590408

About Michael S. Heiser

Dr. Michael S. Heiser was a former Scholar-in-Residence for Faithlife Corporation, the makers of Logos Bible Software. He then served as the Executive Director of the Awakening School of Theology and Ministry. His varied academic background enabled him to operate in the realm of critical scholarship and the wider Christian community. His experience in teaching at the undergraduate level and writing for the layperson both directly contributed to Logos’ goal of adapting scholarly tools for nonspecialists.

Dr. Heiser earned his PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic languages and holds an MA in ancient history and Hebrew studies. He was the coeditor of Old Testament Greek Pseudepigrapha with Morphology and Semitic Inscriptions: Analyzed Texts and English Translations, and he was able to do translation work in roughly a dozen ancient languages, including Biblical Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Ugaritic cuneiform. He specialized in Israelite religion (especially Israel’s divine council), contextualizing biblical theology with Israelite and ancient Near Eastern religion, Jewish binitarianism, biblical languages, ancient Semitic languages, textual criticism, comparative philology, and Second Temple period Jewish literature. In 2007 he was named the Pacific Northwest Regional Scholar by the Society of Biblical Literature.