I love, and have a very large library of, DVD sets from The Great Courses, which I first learned of from their advertisements in World Magazine and other Christian periodicals. I have learned over the years, though, that their many theological courses are useless except as a guide for understanding the modernist opposition. Professor Bart D. Ehrman, a graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary, has recorded one such course, 24 half-hour lectures titled “How Jesus Became God.” Ehrman is a prolific author, boasting many published books with provocative titles, all based on a common theme, that the Christianity taught by Conservative Evangelicals like me is a lie, based on faulty, unprovable history and a completely unreliable Bible.
Skeptical scholars often make a big deal of the fact that “Jesus never called Himself the Son of God”, only the “Son of Man”, that is, a “human being.” This, they say, means that He never meant to present Himself as such, and it was only later that Christians “deified” Him.
But is that true?
“Son of God” in the New Testament
“Son of God” in Greek is υἱός θεός (huios theos). As a Trinitarian title, I don’t think there is anything about that that I need to explain here.
The term is used freely in reference to Jesus in Acts; in Paul’s letters to Rome, Corinth, Galatia, and Ephesus; in Hebrews; in John’s letters; and in Revelation. The confusion arises from its appearance or absence in the Gospels.
In the Gospels, Jesus is addressed as Son of God by others: the Angel who announced Mary’s pregnancy; John the Baptist at and after Jesus’ baptism; the Tempter in the Wilderness; various demons; His disciples in periods of particular awe; Martha after Lazarus was resurrected; some Sanhedrin members and other witnesses of His crucifixion (mostly in sarcasm); and by Roman soldiers who felt the earthquake as He died.
When appearing in plural form (υἱοὶ θεός), Sons of God in the New Testament always refers to Christians. Galatians 3:26 explains that we are “sons of God through faith.” A clue to why we share the title with the heavenly host (see Gods and Demons) is found in Jesus’ answer to a scribe who tried to trip Him up with a loaded question about marriage in heaven:
Luke 20:35 (CJB) emphasis mine [35] but those judged worthy of the age to come, and of resurrection from the dead, do not get married, [36] because they can no longer die. Being children of the Resurrection, they are like angels; indeed, they are children of God.
In the Synoptic Gospels
It is certainly true that Jesus Himself avoided the terminology right up until His trial, but there was a practical reason for that. Although there was a strain of Hebrew theology that speculated on the Messiah as deity, that was a minority view. Most of the sages were expecting a human Messiah who would defeat the Roman oppressors and usher in an age of spiritual renewal, prophecy and miracles. To openly claim deity would have, and indeed ultimately did, lead to Jesus’ arrest by the Sanhedrin for blasphemy. Pilate was evidently not overly concerned about a political threat from Jesus and His followers, but to openly claim Messiahship could nevertheless lead to arrest by the Romans as a potential revolutionary. In fact, under duress from the Judeans, that was the charge that Pilate used to justify His execution.
Not only did Jesus avoid using the terminology Himself, He also frequently told others not to speak of it. For example, in Capernaum:
Luke 4:40–41 (CJB) [40] After sunset, all those who had people sick with various diseases brought them to Yeshua, and he put his hands on each one of them and healed them; [41] also demons came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But, rebuking them, he did not permit them to say that they knew he was the Messiah.
There were a number of occasions when Jesus’ exhortation for silence was ignored, and there were a few where He commanded someone to go ahead and speak freely. Notably, in Gadara, after chasing the legion of demons into a herd of pigs:
Mark 5:18–20 (ESV) [18] As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. [19] And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” [20] And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
Jesus and the Demoniac, copyright unknown
The difference on this occasion was that the Gadarene people were chasing Him out of the country, but He wanted to come back later. They were scared of the Jew who could heal so effectively and cause the suicidal stampede of their swine herds. And of course, angry at the economic consequences of the latter. But this was Decapolis, a pagan territory outside of Judean jurisdiction where the risk of arrest was low. Since Jesus was planning to return to the region very soon, He wanted the healed “demoniac” to prepare the way for His return. Which the man evidently did very effectively! Attitudes in the Gadarene region had completely changed when He returned. “Multitudes” of the Gadarenes turned out eagerly to hear Him preach. That could only be due to the tireless work of the dedicated new convert.
Note: Parallel versions of this story mention not one, but two possessed Gadarenes healed by Jesus. As is frequently the case in the Gospels, the authors mentioned only what they individually found important in the circumstances. Just as in the story of the ten healed lepers, I think that only one reacted with gratitude. Mark ignored the one who proved inconsequential. In the case of the lepers, both the gratitude of the one and the ingratitude of the nine were integral to the moral lesson.
Despite what I have said above, I think that Jesus most likely did speak freely about His sonship when there were no hostile spies present (see my article about the Pharisees). After the crucifixion, Jesus was “gone”, but His followers were no doubt considered heretics by the Sanhedrin. Since the Synoptic Gospels were written and circulated while the Sanhedrin still existed, I think their authors remained circumspect about reporting His use of the term.
In John’s Gospel
John, however, wrote his Gospel after AD 70. The Temple, the Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin were gone, and the Jewish resistance temporarily suppressed. Jesus was gone and His disciples largely scattered. Caution was no longer necessary. John recorded several instances where Jesus, at least by clear implication, claimed to be the Son of God:
John 3:18 (CJB) [18] Those who trust in him are not judged; those who do not trust have been judged already, in that they have not trusted in the one who is God’s only and unique Son.
John 5:25–27 (CJB) [25] Yes, indeed! I tell you that there is coming a time—in fact, it’s already here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen will come to life. [26] For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son life to have in himself. [27] Also he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man [the Messiah].
John 10:36–38 (ESV) [36] do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? [37] If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; [38] but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
John 11:3–4 (ESV) [3] So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” [4] But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
All of the above are “red letter” references. Those who say that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God are either biblically illiterate, or disingenuous.
“Sons of God” in the Old Testament
This term appears only 6 times in the English Standard version of the Old Testament, and each time as a plural, בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ (Bənē hāʾĔlōhīm, “the Sons of God”). In all cases it refers to higher-ranking members of the Heavenly Host (messenger “angels” are the lowest rank):
In Genesis 6, two verses refer to “Watchers” (a class named only in Daniel and a number of extrabiblical works), who take on human flesh and rebelliously mate with human women.
Deuteronomy 32:8–9 refers to rebellious beings who God exiled to earth and gave oversight of the pagan nations (some English translations incorrectly render the Hebrew, Bene haElohim, as “the sons of Israel”, because their grasp of angelology is deficient).
Three passages in Job speak of God’s Divine Council, where The Accuser appears at the throne to report on conditions on earth and is challenged to find fault in Job.
“Son of Man” in the Old Testament
The Hebrew term, בֶּן־אָדָם֙ (ben adam), or its Aramaic equivalent, בַּר־אֱנָשׁ (bar ‘enash), both meaning “son of man”, is used many times in Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and in Daniel 8 to mean, simply, a human being. That’s the default meaning, certainly. But in Daniel 7:13, the prophet is given the following vision:
Daniel 7:13–14 (CJB) emphasis mine [13] “I kept watching the night visions, when I saw, coming with the clouds of heaven, someone like a son of man. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. [14] To him was given rulership, glory and a kingdom, so that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His rulership is an eternal rulership that will not pass away; and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Someone who looks like a human is led into God’s presence and is given an eternal rulership over the entire world. This is the definitive prophecy of the coming Messiah, and it is the reason the Jews were expecting a warrior-Messiah. Other prophetic writings and traditions filled in detail, but this was considered the formal and most clear announcement. For understanding both the Old and New Testaments, I consider this to be perhaps the most important Christological passage in the Bible.
“Son of Man” in the New Testament
In all of human history, I seriously doubt that there are many humans who have gone around referring to themselves as “the son of man” or as “the human” on a regular basis. I, for one, only use the term “human” for myself when speaking to my cat. Jesus spoke frequently of “the Son of Man”, and when He did so, all of His hearers would have immediately realized that He was talking about Daniel’s expected Messiah, even if a few might have been slow to catch on that He was adopting that persona for Himself.
Messiahship claims were frequent in Judea, so one of the tasks that the Sanhedrin took on was to evaluate anyone who seemed to be making the claim or who they thought might eventually do so. That’s why a contingent of scribes and Pharisees were assigned to follow Jesus around. He knew that when He eventually made an explicit claim, He would have to “put up or shut up.” Consequently, He waited until the time of His own choosing and did it in a way as to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that He was doing so. That was at His trial.
The bottom line
By speaking of the Son of Man in the third person, Jesus avoided unambiguously declaring Himself to be Messiah, but it would have been obvious to any practicing Jew that He was referring to Himself. His signs and miracles reinforced the unspoken claim. Therefore, it is ignorant to say that Jesus never claimed to be God!
Liberal colleges and seminaries teach a simplistic and biased theology that ignores the cultural realities of life in ancient (prehistory through Persian) and classical (Greko-Roman, i.e., Second Temple era through early Rabbinic) Judaism. Unfortunately, the traditions emerging from these institutions are not being adequately debated because, though more benignly biased, conservative educations also tend to be simplistic, and often bound to unwarranted medieval traditions.
Note: When I first published this post back in mid-2023, as explained below I was new to Dr. Heiser’s work and a novice in terms of Ancient Near East scholarship. As of two years later, I have read much more on the subject and am fully convinced. I have written several subsequent posts that reference both this post and the source material.
Heiser’s understanding of God is based on: “The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly – a pantheon – of other gods” (p. 11 Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, 2015).
Yep, that is definitely a startling statement coming from a conservative Christian Bible scholar! But completely out of context. Yes, Heiser did say that about a pantheon, but it was in a book introduction, where he was describing his initial knee-jerk reaction to Psalm 82 when he first encountered it as an ignorant student. The mature scholar Dr. Heiser, when he wrote the book, was neither pantheist nor polytheist. He was an unapologetic conservative believer in the one true God, creator not only of the universe, but also of the “angelic host” ruled by that God.
Personal musings
Before I get into that, let me dredge up some related musings from my own distant past:
Many years ago, it occurred to me that the pagan “gods” of secular history and of the Old Testament must have been something more than fables. How else can one explain the ability of the Egyptian magicians to duplicate the first three Mosaic plagues?
10 Moshe and Aharon went in to Pharaoh and did this, as ADONAI had ordered — Aharon threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and his servants, and it turned into a snake. 11 But Pharaoh in turn called for the sages and sorcerers; and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same thing, making use of their secret arts. 12 Each one threw his staff down, and they turned into snakes. But Aharon’s staff swallowed up theirs. —Exodus 7:10–12 CJB
20 Moshe and Aharon did exactly what ADONAI had ordered. He raised the staff and, in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, struck the water in the river; and all the water in the river was turned into blood. 21 The fish in the river died, and the river stank so badly that the Egyptians couldn’t drink its water. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same with their secret arts, so that Pharaoh was made hardhearted and didn’t listen to them, as ADONAI had said would happen. —Exodus 7:20–22 CJB
2 Aharon put out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 3 But the magicians did the same with their secret arts and brought up frogs onto the land of Egypt. —Exodus 8:2–3 CJB
I simply don’t believe in magical arts by humans, unless there is some type of supernatural intervention. Certainly, it wasn’t Israel’s God helping Pharaoh’s magicians. The logical alternative, in my mind, is that it must have been some demonic power. It is a small step for me to conjecture that if there was some supernatural power behind at least some of the Egyptian “gods”, then why could there not be similar power behind other pagan deities? Consider the following:
[17] They sacrificed to demons [shedim], who were not God [eloah], To gods [elohim] whom they have not known, New gods [chadashim, literally, to new things] who came lately, Whom your fathers did not know. —Deuteronomy 32:17 (NASB)
Another thing I’ve been aware of for many years, is that the definition of “monotheism” has changed over the millennia. That change started as a Talmudic “defensive theology” with the rise of Trinitarian Christianity. Today, Merriam-Webster defines monotheism as, “the doctrine or belief that there is but one God.” But in ancient times, it meant, “the worship of but one God.” It is abundantly clear, from Scripture alone, that Israelites before the Babylonian captivity not only believed in other gods, but also were quite willing to worship them, alongside Yahweh. After the return from captivity, most Jews were unwilling to test Yahweh’s patience on that matter, but Second Temple Era (Intertestamental) literature makes it clear that even if the worship of “foreign gods” was rare at that time, belief in their reality was not.
Part of Merriam-Webster’s definition of “god” is, “a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship.” I have both heard and read many sermons, lessons, and devotionals that claim anything that a person values more than God is in fact that person’s god. I’m sure there is some truth to that, but I’m also sure that, if so, then all human beings are from time to time guilty of idolatry, and I think that harping on that subject trivializes a much more heinous sin: worshiping demonic beings!
Although the prophets sometimes polemicized against “gods made with human hands”, only the most unsophisticated among the ancient peoples believed that idols themselves were divine. Rather, like Yahweh’sArk of the Covenant, they were the focus of contact between the demons and their worshipers.
One final related observation from my own mental data bank is that I long ago read discussions of whether or not the dictionary definition of “god” would also encompass angels. I don’t recall the conclusion reached, but it seems to me that, with respect to having “more than natural attributes and powers“, angels certainly qualify, and if said angels demand worship or are in fact worshiped, then the shoe fits.
In a recent email exchange with an old friend, I was introduced to an author I was unfamiliar with, the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser, and a branch of theology I didn’t even know existed as a separate scholarly specialty. Dr. Heiser, among other places, has been professionally affiliated with Liberty University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, both of which I believe to be theologically sound on most issues. Wikipedia describes him as an “Old Testament scholar and Christian author with training in ancient history, Semitic languages, and the Hebrew Bible.”
Dr. Michael S. Heiser (February 14, 1963 – February 20, 2023), from Logos.com.
According to my friend, Heiser taught that, when God scattered the people of Babel, He “…created nations for them with separate borders and languages and assigned gods over each. Israel, his portion, was to be a light unto the Nations.” Honestly, that sounded really hokey to me at first; but not completely, in view of my previous mental ramblings mentioned above.
So, I’ve been cramming on Heiser’s books and videos, and reading the opinions of others on his work. His books are scholarly and heavily footnoted, so they aren’t easy reading. I have been checking all of his Scripture references, which is very time consuming. I’m not close to done with my evaluations, but I’m off to a good start, and I believe that, with respect to his teachings on “the unseen realm” of angels and other spirit beings, his arguments are so far very compelling. As for his theology in general, he was a Presbyterian, and held many Reformed views that I do not accept.
Criticisms of Heiser’s theology by online reviewers
Critical reviews of Heiser’s theology range from laughable to thoughtful. The quote at the very top of this post comes from theBereanCall.com, among the laughable.
Then there is someone on YouTube going by JackSmack77. According to him, Heiser is “a false prophet, unsaved devil and a liar…an unsaved fool…an unsaved devil who works for Satan”. Okay…
I can’t say that some of the more measured critical comments by more mainstream reviewers didn’t give me pause, but none of them convinced me.
I don’t believe anybody on earth (including Heiser) about everything, and I believe almost nobody about some things. God gave me an analytic brain, an inquisitive mind, an engineer’s insistence on meticulous accuracy, and a reluctance to take any human opinion at face value.
More than once in my blogs I have suggested that there are important interpretive Church traditions that do not in my opinion meet strict Biblical standards, even within Conservative Evangelical academia. Every Christian denomination has at least some beliefs that are based more on tradition than on Scripture. That is why there are “denominations” in the first place! Some of the traditions I question originated in the Hellenism of the 1st Century, some from two millennia of Christian antisemitism, some as a defense against the oft-hated Catholics and of course “Evolutionists”, and some simply from early translational errors.
With regard to translational errors, I don’t think there are any English translations that are free of them. Almost all translations are done by good Christians—with presuppositions. They may be top-notch linguists, but few have a really in-depth historical knowledge, including familiarity with ancient extrabiblical literature, which has long been incorrectly considered too flawed to consider (see below). Hebrew is a difficult language, and too often translators fall back on older translations like the King James.
On account of the constraints of time, Bible translators tend to rely on other people’s studies, which ultimately enter the reference books and standard commentaries. —Edward L. Greenstein, Bar-Ilan University
This isn’t to say that I endorse all of what I’m describing below. But I’m not dismissing it either.
The theology discussed below has come to be called by some, the Deuteronomy 32 Worldview.
8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. —Deuteronomy 32:8–9 LXX-B (emphasis mine)
You may recognize this as the “hokey” topic I mentioned above. I’ll mention it again under “Angelic Rebellions.”
The Table of Nations, from Genesis 10. Noah’s descendants.
The Greek term correctly translated “angels of God”, is eggelon theou (ἀγγέλων θεοῦ). The quotation is from the Septuagint, aka, LXX, a 2nd Century BC translation from Hebrew into Greek of the Old Testament and part of the Apocrypha. Since the Apostle Paul was a missionary to the Greek-speaking world, he used and quoted from the LXX. Most English translations follow the KJV and render the original Hebrew text as “children of Israel”. I think that that is an early 17th Century error in interpreting the ancient customary meaning of b’ne Yisra’el. Having not spent enough time in the LXX, I had missed the topic entirely.
There is a lot of material to absorb from Heiser’s work (and the work of other scholars he quotes), so I am just going to comment on some key concepts that fall under this theological umbrella, particularly issues that have aroused the contempt of some of his critics.
Since a lot of what follows is my own analysis of the subject, I am showing what I specifically gleaned from Heiser (whether quoted or paraphrased) in
Heiser’s primary, though not sole, source is the Bible. He and a number of like-minded colleagues contend that there are many clear and/or highly suggestive Scriptures, particularly in the OT, that shed light on angels, demons, Satan, the Divine Council (see below), angelic rebellions, and the “spirit world” in general. These are largely unfamiliar topics because translators and scholars for the most part have long been unwilling to consider extrabiblical evidence from Second Temple Judaism (the Second Century BC through the First Century AD) and the later Rabbinical Period.
Even less so are they willing to consider gleaning from pagan texts. Understandably. But the Ancient Near East (ANE) was a dynamically interconnected milieu that, stripped of mythology, shared many memories of their own common histories going back to Babel.
This literary blindness has always puzzled me, because off the top of my head, I think there are some 100 Biblical references to non-canonical sources actually cited by name by the Scriptural writers (see this for examples).
The fact that the large body of pre-Christian Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Jewish literature is rightly considered to not be Inspired does not mean that it was written as fiction and has no bearing on Judeo-Christian history. Aside from citations, the writers of the New Testament either quoted or paraphrased from The Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), The Wisdom of Solomon, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Tobit, 2 Esdras, and 1 Enoch.
Theology should not, of course, be gleaned solely from writings that weren’t inspired. But if contemporary non-canonical material can help us understand the material presented only in skeletal form in Scripture, then I think it’s fair to use it non-dogmatically. If that suggestion appalls you, then consider how often you’ve heard Josephus quoted, or Philo, or Eusebius.
The apocryphal book, 1 Enoch is particularly applicable to Heiser’s theology because it mostly discusses “fallen angels” on the antediluvian earth. Though 1 Enoch is included in the canon of a number of Christian denominations, it is clearly not an infallible source. Yet, parts of it have been given a “seal of authenticity” by being directly quoted in Scripture we include in our own canon:
14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” —Jude 1:14–15 ESV
Compare with…
Behold, he will arrive with ten million of the holy ones in order to execute judgment upon all. He will destroy the wicked ones and censure all flesh on account of everything that they have done, that which the sinners and the wicked ones committed against him.” —1Enoch 1:9 PSEUD-CW
Greek is in some respects a language rich in vocabulary, but it has only one word for “angel”, where Hebrew has many that are more descriptive (compare English “love” with the richer set of choices on that subject in the Greek). Because much of the Bible’s Hebrew material can’t be directly translated into Greek, there is much less clarity on these issues in the NT, in the important Greek Septuagint translation of the OT, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The latter are of huge import but have only become available during my lifetime. I personally believe that Greek and Latin cultural influences on the Church have further muddied the water in modern scholarship.
Heiser has made a good case for defining “elohim” as a generic common noun designating all disembodied spiritual beings, from the eternal Triune God at the top, through the created angelic beings (a hierarchy of untold billions of individuals, both loyal and rebellious), and the spirits of the dead. For an example of the latter, read 1 Samuel 28.
Although the elohim are spirits, they can take on form to interact with humans. As such, they can be seen (at least in ancient times), speak audibly (as they did with Abraham, Isaac, Daniel, the women at Jesus’ tomb, and others), touch and be touched (Isaiah’s lips), wrestle (Isaac), and even breed with human women (Genesis 6).
War of the angels, from Revelation 12.
Most Hebrew grammars define elohim as a generic term for “gods“. Strong’s and other grammars also list alternative meanings like “angels”, “magistrates”, or “judges”; but dictionaries derive definitions from actual usage, and I strongly suspect that the last two of those variants are mistranslations that the dictionaries added after the fact (much like English dictionaries now have twice as many definitions for “gay” than they did when I was a schoolboy). Whether we call them “gods”, “angels”, “spirits”, “spiritual beings”, or simply leave it at elohim, is simply a matter of semantics.
[6] Then his master shall bring him unto the judges [elohim]; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever. —Exodus 21:6 (KJV) Emphasis mine
Consider Exodus 21:6, above. The KJV translation reads in part, “bring him unto the judges [elohim].” ESV, on the other hand, reads, “bring him to God [Elohim].” I would take the latter as the correct translation. But it’s a bit moot in this case, since the “judge” before whom he was to be brought was a priest functioning as God’s agent in the matter. I would consider it to be a valid paraphrase that, unfortunately, obscures the role of Elohim.
As I’m sure most of you know, Elohim (capital “E”) is one of the primary terms used for Yahweh in the Bible. But the Hebrew language has no alphabetic “case”, so the capitalization (or not) of elohim is a transliteration device. Elohim is a descriptive common noun, used here (with a capital “E”) as a proper noun, or name, for a particularelohim. When Moses requested an actual name at the burning bush, God did not use Elohim, but rather the term we transliterate to Yahweh.
Chariot Throne? One of many, many failed attempts to depict Ezekiel’s vision.
Elohim (Yahweh) is not just any old elohim, of course. Yahweh is eternal and preexisted all of the Host of Heaven. He created all the other elohim, and He rules all the other elohim. And He is vastly superior, in every respect. Where they have power, it is only because He has granted that power, and when He retracts that gift, they will immediately lose it. These things are non-negotiable to me, and I think they were to Heiser, as well.
The -im suffix on “Elohim” is a confusing issue. It is the Hebrew masculine plural ending for a noun, but it is more complicated than that. According to judaism.stackexchange.com, “both Eloahi and Elohim are the plurals of Eloah, but Eloahi is simple plural ([like] Jurors) while Elohim is a collective plural noun ([like] Jury).” But in practice, the plural forms are interchangeable, and elohim appears in the OT far more frequently than eloahi or eloah. The ambiguity is usually dispelled by the fact that other Hebrew parts of speech also have singular and plural forms. If elohim is grammatically tied to a singular verb or pronoun, then it is singular. If tied to a plural, it is plural. Also, as a common noun, elohim is often prefixed by an article, as haelohim, meaning “the gods.” Finally, according to Heiser, elohim by itself can be used for either singular or plural, like “deer” or “sheep”.
The above discussion pretty much puts to rest the theological contention that the collective plural form of elohim is a Trinitarian construct. So, too, claims that the Hebrew adjective echad in Deuteronomy 6:4 (“Hear oh Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one [echad]“) is collective and therefore Trinitarian language. This, too, fails. Echad appears with and without modifying prefixes and suffixes 967 times in the OT. Considering just the 471 times that it occurs in lemma form (no attached modifiers, as here), it usually means, simply, “one” or “first“, e.g., “first day”, “one place”, “one flesh”, “one people”, “one of the bushes”, and so on. So, we can’t use these terms to prove the Trinity. We don’t need them to make that case!
Heiser believes in the Trinity, of course, but you really have to dig (in the material I’ve gotten through so far) to find it. He builds up to it, starting with a complicated discussion of “two Yahwehs—one invisible and in heaven, the other manifest on earth in a variety of visible forms, including that of a man.”
It was hard for me to grasp his particular point because I’m really quite used to the idea of the Transcendent God in heaven simultaneously present in a Theophany, like the pillars of fire and cloud; and of the Son appearing on earth as a Christophany while the Father remains in heaven. The OT makes frequent reference to “The Angel of God”, Yahweh mal’ak.
What Heiser was concerned with explaining, though, is how an OT Jew processed the concept of a visible manifestation of Yahweh on earth, at the same time knowing that Yahweh was in heaven. He calls this a “two Yahwehs concept“, taking care to distinguish that from the dualist views of Plato and the later Gnostics (urge and demiurge), and the Yahad of Qumran (Man of Righteousness and Man of Unrighteousness).
I recall reading only one mention in Heiser of the Holy Spirit: “I believe that the evidence for a two-person Godhead discussed in those chapters can in places reveal a third person in the Old Testament.”
In Heiser’s theology, before The Triune God created the universe (or perhaps, per some ancient sources, on Day 1 of creation), He created an immense number of spirit beings (elohim); like Him, incorporeal, but vastly inferior to Him and only more or less immortal (they have no end, but they did have a definite beginning). They were created, and they will live forever unless God destroys them. These beings were created:
To “image” Him—Heiser sees “in His image” as an expression of function, not of attributes. The Host was created to represent Him in the Heavenlies, as man would be to represent Him on earth. Note, though, that man is a soul (nephesh) composed of both body and spirit, while the elohim are spirit with no natural body. Note also that man must procreate, but procreation is not a natural function of the elohim, who have no need of procreation.
To administer the coming universe—Again as Adam’s seed was to administer earth.
To be family to him—along with, yet again, Adam’s seed.
None of the above because God needed these things, but because He chose to share eternity with a vast family.
Terms that describe the nature of these beings:
Like God, they are called elohim.
Like God, they are spirit beings (ruachot), without physical substance.
Like God, they are “Heavenly Ones” (shamayim), dwelling in heaven, not on earth.
Like the stars of the yet-to-be created universe, they are described as “Stars” (kochebim, sometimes boqerkowkbe, “morning stars“), or light bearers.
Like God (but imperfectly), they are “Holy Ones” (qedoshim), set aside for God’s purposes.
Heiser describes a hierarchy among the created elohim: “That hierarchy is sometimes difficult for us to discern in the Old Testament, since we aren’t accustomed to viewing the unseen world like a dynastic household… as an Israelite would have processed certain terms used to describe the hierarchy. In the ancient Semitic world, sons of God ([haelohim b’ne]) is a phrase used to identify divine beings with higher-level responsibilities or jurisdictions. The term angel (malʾak) describes an important but still lesser task: delivering messages. In Job 38, the sons of God are referred to as morning stars.”
The Holy Ones are holy only because of their proximity to God. The way I understand it, they sit on the Divine Council (more on that, below), and some are the “princes” spoken of in Daniel, overseeing affairs on earth and in the heavens. These latter are spoken of by the Apostle Paul:
[12] For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. —Ephesians 6:12 (KJV)
Note that the “angels” are only a subset of the Heavenly Host. They function as courtiers, or messengers. They answer to the archangels, but both groups, together with the seraphim and cherubim (“throne guardians”) are inferior in function to the Holy Ones. All of them together function sometimes as Heaven’s armies, under the direction of the “Captain of the Host.” This latter figure is a fellow created spirit being.
“The term divine council is used by Hebrew and Semitics scholars to refer to [members of] the heavenly host, … divine beings who administer the affairs of the cosmos. All ancient Mediterranean cultures had some conception of a divine council. The divine council of Israelite religion … was distinct in important ways.”
I’m not sure what distinguishes the Israelite beliefs from those of other Semitic and non-Semitic cultures, but from a Biblical standpoint, the concept seems to hold water. The idea is that, though God can of course do anything and everything Himself, He chose to share responsibility with His created beings. For a conceptual precedent, consider that God could have chosen to bring salvation to the World by means of divine fiat; instead, He first chose Israel as His “beacon on a hill”, and since the Resurrection, the Church is recipient of the Great Commission.
From time to time, God convenes His Council of upper-echelon Sons of God to discuss the status of events in the created universe, particularly on earth, and to decide on actions to take. For example,
A defining Biblical text is found in Psalm 82. This is a Psalm of Asaph, who King David appointed as chief musician to serve “in front of” the Ark of the Covenant after David pitched a tent for it within the City of David (1 Chronicles 16:5–7). According to 2 Chronicles 20:14, Asaph was also a seer, or prophet, as is evident in the Psalms that he wrote.
In Psalm 82, Asaph is prophetically seeing God convening His Council to criticize those who are unseen princes over worldly realms. Here the word elohim is translated “God” once for Yahweh Himself, and “gods” many times for the corrupt spiritual princes who are “judging unjustly.” Verse 6 defines who they are, the heavenly Sons of God, and verse 7 says that regardless of their status as such, they will still fall like any human prince, and they will die like any mortal human.
1 ¶ God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: 2 “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah 3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. 4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” 5 ¶ They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 ¶ I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” 8 ¶ Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations! —Psalms 82:1–8 ESV
Note that this, like almost all Hebrew poetry, is structured in parallel lines. The second line of each verse expresses the same thought as the first, but in different, and often expansive, terms. Verse 5 here differs only in that it does the same thing in three parallel lines, each expressing the condition of oppressed humanity in harsher terms than the previous.
Psalm 89, a “Maschil [instructional poem] of Ethan the Ezrahite”, contains another clear prophetic view of the Devine Council. Ethan was a priest, and one of four men whose wisdom was compared to Solomon’s in 1 Kings 4:31.
[5] Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! [6] For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD, [7] a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him? —Psalms 89:5–7 (ESV)
The next example is important in that it demonstrates how the Council functions. In 1 Kings 21, Israel’s King Ahab was upset after a harsh prophecy from Elijah, so he repented, and God gave him a “stay of execution”, so to speak. But three years later, in chapter 22, Ahab suggested to King Jehosaphat of Judah that they should unite in war against Syria. Jehosaphat promised to help, but suggested that they consult the prophets first. Ahab brought in 400 prophets to tell him whether or not it was safe to do battle. Being false prophets, they all told him what they thought he wanted to hear, that he would triumph.
But Jehosaphat wanted to hear from a prophet of Yahweh, so the prophet Micaiah was consulted. Micaiah’s words, quoted below, described God’s approach in the Devine Council. God delegates responsibility and takes suggestions but He reserves the final authority. Much as it would be in a business called “Yahweh and Sons.”
[19] And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; [20] and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. [21] Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ [22] And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ [23] Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has declared disaster for you.” —1 Kings 22:19–23 (ESV)
I’ll close out this section with Daniel’s vision of God on His “chariot throne”, surrounded by the enumerable Host and His Divine Council. This shows another of the administrative functions of the Host: keeping records, presumably so that the Righteous God can never be accused of unrighteousness in eternity to come.
[9] “As I looked, thrones were placed [for Yahweh and the Council], and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. [10] A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. —Daniel 7:9–10 (ESV)
The last topic but one I’m going to cover here, but very briefly because the length of this post, is the three “angelic” revolts described in Genesis. You are familiar with all three, but perhaps in a slightly different context.
Heiser connects the Serpent of Genesis 3 with the rebellion of the powerful figure called Satan in the NT, as prophesied in Isaiah 14.
Isaiah 14 is actually a prophecy against Babylon and its king, describing their fall at the hands of Assyria. Hebrew prophetic poetry often layers prophecy within prophecy, and most scholars agree that the verses below are such.
“Lucifer” is a name found only once in scripture. It is a translation of the Hebrew helel, a masculine noun meaning, literally, “a shining one.” The translation I normally prefer, the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB), translates “Lucifer, that rose in the morning” as “morning star, son of the dawn”, but in the Septuagint…
12 How has Lucifer, that rose in the morning, fallen from heaven ! He that sent orders to all the nations is crushed to the earth. 13 But thou saidst in thine heart, I will go up to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven: I will sit on a lofty mount, on the lofty mountains toward the north: 14 I will go up above the clouds: I will be like the Most High. 15 But now thou shalt go down to hell, even to the foundations of the earth. —Isaiah 14:12–15 LXX-B
Heiser suggests that perhaps Lucifer’s rebellion was in part precipitated by Yahweh’s decision to create mankind, a lower race of “imagers”. Primordial racism?
According to Heiser, the Sons of God, below, were “Watchers” (Heb. iyr). These heavenly beings and the incident itself are the subject of a great deal of 1 Enoch, discussed above under “Source Materials“, and widely known to Jewish scholars in Jesus’ day. The function of Watchers is to observe and report to the Devine Council. In the OT, Watchers are mentioned in Daniel 4:13 and 23.
1 And Noe was five hundred years old, and he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth. 2 And it came to pass when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, 3 that the sons of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose. 4 And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be an hundred and twenty years. —Genesis 6:1–4 LXX-B
This unnatural union of Watchers and human women did not require “possession” of human males by the watchers. The Bible includes a number of examples of angelic beings taking human form and exhibiting human function. The products of the abominable union of angelic males with human females were hybrid Nephilim—giants with spirits that were evidently ineligible for the same fate as humans after death. Heiser equates demons with the spirits of dead Nephilim.
After the abomination of angel/human coupling, sin on earth multiplied until God put an end to it by means of the Great Flood, an event of such vast consequence that it was recorded in the annals of every great civilization of the ancient world, and in a number of Jewish writings from the intertestamental period. After the flood waters receded enough that Noah and his family could step back onto dry land on the Ararat mountaintop, there must have been a slow drying as the water seeped back into the earth’s mantle (see my 2022 article, Fountains of the Deep). During that time, I think that the newly growing family of humanity migrated slowly southeast along the highlands of the Zagros Mountains and reentered the Shinar region near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from the east.
Probable migration route of Noah’s descendants after the Great Flood. Google Earth, annotated by Ron Thompson.
1 And all the earth was one lip, and there was one language to all. 2 And it came to pass as they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Senaar [Shinar], and they dwelt there. 3 And a man said to his neighbor, Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And the brick was to them for stone, and their mortar was bitumen. 4 And they said, Come, let us build to ourselves a city and tower, whose top shall be to heaven, and let us make to ourselves a name, before we are scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, there is one race, and one lip of all, and they have begun to do this, and now nothing shall fail from them of all that they may have undertaken to do. 7 Come, and having gone down let us there confound their tongue, that they may not understand each the voice of his neighbor. 8 And the Lord scattered them thence over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower. 9 On this account its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the languages of all the earth, and thence the Lord scattered them upon the face of all the earth. —Genesis 11:1–9 LXX-B
Heiser contends that at this time, at the Tower of Babel, when Yahweh “confound[ed] their tongue” and “scattered them … over the face of the earth”, He divided them into 70 (or 72, depending on the translation elsewhere in scripture) distinct nations throughout Europe and western Asia, and assigned to each one or more “heavenly princes.” These spiritual beings either were or became corrupt and were subsequently worshipped by the people they oversaw.
8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. —Deuteronomy 32:8–9 LXX-B (emphasis mine)
Heiser may have made this point in something I have not yet read, but I believe that the nations of Deuteronomy 32:8 are the peoples that Paul referred to in Romans 1:18ff. Note, in particular,
[22] Claiming to be wise [engineering and constructing the Tower!], they became fools, [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. —Romans 1:22–23 (ESV)
I had decided not to lengthen this post further by carrying the discussion of the Genesis 11 rebellion one step further, but perhaps I’ve been overruled… I went to sleep last night thinking about Ephesians 4, and I woke up this morning thinking about Ephesians 4. Then, at church this morning, we had a guest preacher in the pulpit, and his text was, out of all the roughly 1,189 chapters in the Bible, Ephesians 4! So, here are the relevant verses:
[8] Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. [9] (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth [or: lower parts, the earth]? [10] He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) —Ephesians 4:8–10 (KJV) Emphasis mine
Paul’s message here was actually a midrash, that is, a metaphorical use of text to illustrate a point that is at most loosely connected to the text quoted. The underlined text quoted above refers back to Psalm 68, in particular
15 O mountain of God [har elohim, mountain of the gods], mountain of Bashan; O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan! … 18 You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there. —Psalm 68:15,18 ESV
Bashan is the region of the Golan Heights, Mt. Hermon and the surrounding area: Caesaria Phillipi with “The Gates of Hell”, the shrines to Pan, the god of the underworld, and Jeroboam’s calf idol at Dan.
This portion of the Psalm is a prophetic picture of Jesus, at His crucifixion and resurrection defeating the corrupt gentile “gods” and leading them captive to Sheol. These demonic captives were the booty of war. Paul is applying the Scripture metaphorically to say that the victor distributed booty to His subjects. That was an introduction to the subject of “spiritual gifts.” Nevertheless, the backstory in the Psalm is that Jesus has reversed the exclusion of the nations that was affected at Babel!
The idea that, when Satan rebelled, he was exiled to earth, and 1/3 of the other angels, who were “his team”, were exiled with him. This is one of those Church traditions that occurs nowhere in scripture. It is no doubt based on Revelation 12, which actually describes a war in heaven between Michael and his angels, on one side, and Satan and his angels on the other.
Satan’s team lost. In the context, this happened, not when Lucifer fell, but when Jesus was born!
The Back of My Mind 