It's a bit of a different outlook, to say the least...

My contention is that, if our theology really derives from the biblical text, we must reconsider our selective supernaturalism and recover a biblical theology of the unseen world. This is not to suggest that the best interpretation of a passage is always the most supernatural one. But the biblical writers and those to whom they wrote were predisposed to supernaturalism. To ignore that outlook or marginalize it will produce Bible interpretation that reflects our mind-set more than that of the biblical writers.—Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 18 (emphasis original)

A Supernatural view

New book, well not really new, I've had it on my shelf since it was published ten years ago(!). I excerpted from the shorter version way back then. I also started this one about that time, but when I came to his questionable assertions about a certain mountain, I set it aside until I had time to research it. Guess what? That time never came. So, I decided to read the rest of it anyway. For the next couple of weeks, I'll pull some quotations from it.

Let's start out by saying that I agree with his basic premise and have since being an undergraduate and being exposed to the reality of the heavenly council. Where we differ is in how cleanly and smoothly that idea is carried out in the Bible. He sees a very straightforward, literalistic interpretation throughout. I tend to see things a good bit messier.

That being said, I think the book is definitely valuable and should be read by the typical nonsupernatural-type Christian. I used to do a two-day guest lecture at the YWAM base in the Twin Cities about this stuff. The two-third world students caught it immediately. The Western world students were a bit more skeptical for the first hour or two. But when I sent them out for their lunchbreak with the assignment to find an example in the Bible, they came back amazed. It was everywhere. Exactly.

OK, enough background. Here's the first excerpt:

My goal is simple. When you open your Bible, I want you to be able to see it like ancient Israelites or first-century Jews saw it, to perceive and consider it as they would have. I want their supernatural worldview in your head.

You might find that experience uncomfortable in places. But it would be dishonest of us to claim that the biblical writers read and understood the text the way we do as modern people, or intended meanings that conform to theological systems created centuries after the text was written. Our context is not their context.—Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 13 (emphasis original)

footnote: Mike Heiser died last year of pancreatic cancer, which is a sad loss. Even though I disagreed with much he said, he was an asset to the Christian community.

Sabbath

This corresponds with the parallel observation throughout (especially) Genesis-Exodus that human efforts are not especially good at establishing and maintaining order or understanding the covenant as God working to establish and maintain order on humanity’s behalf. This idea represents one of the most significant divergences of Israelite thinking from its broader context (where humans are usually delegated to sustain their own order on behalf of the gods) so it is not surprising that the festival encapsulating this idea has no direct parallel [Sabbath].—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 252

Stolen (divine) identity

The name is equivalent to the identity of the deity, and the divine identity can be commandeered for illicit use. We are familiar with identity theft today, when a symbol such as a credit card number or social security number can be used to abuse or exploit the economic power or authority of an individual. Commandment three works on the same premise and prohibits divine identity theft (used for empty, vain purposes).—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 248

It is, but it isn't

From the preceding discussion we can conclude that the material image was animated by the divine essence. Therefore, it did not simply represent the deity; it manifested its presence. We should not conclude, however, that the image was therefore the deity. The deity was the reality that was embodied in the image.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 242–43

<idle musing>
In my experience, this is the most difficult thing to get across to people who are unfamiliar with the ANE. It is a way of thinking that they have never encountered before, but it is the default view in the ANE.
</idle musing>

But it seems wrong!

In accordance with suzerain treaties, no other god (read: ruler) was to be recognized in Yahweh’s territory. The significance of this is that the pantheon/divine assembly concept carried with it the idea of distribution of power among many divine beings. The first commandment becomes a simple statement that Yahweh’s power—at least within the boundaries of Israel—is absolute. He is not one of many who share in the distribution of divine authority. It is understandable that the Israelites would struggle with this concept. First of all, it removes Yahweh from the community of the gods. In the ancient world people found their identity in their place in their community. They assumed the gods did the same. To separate Yahweh from such a community identity would have been a confusing concept. Autonomy and independence were not valued in ancient society, and to ascribe these qualities to their God would have seemed impious.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 237

About that First Commandment…

The availability of the ANE literature brought an increased recognition that the commandment dictated only monolatry or henotheism rather than what we now call monotheism—relating as it did to the question of whom the people worshiped rather than to whether other gods existed. Earlier interpreters had made this same point, but the ANE material tended to push interpretation more firmly in this direction.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 234

You need to know the territory!

The value of the Torah for us does not consist in requiring us to do anything. The value is to see the reputation that Yahweh has established for himself, read through the lens of the ANE context. From the Torah, we can know that the God we worship is not petty, arbitrary, co-dependent, indifferent, or (conversely) cruel, tyrannical, or monstrous. The Torah and the covenant establish these qualities (reputation) in the context of the ANE cultural environment. This is useful to know because many modern people often do not know this. Unfortunately, misreading the Torah usually gives us the opposite impressions because we do not understand the context.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 228

What kind of God?

We believe that the Torah also provides revelation for Christians today. As we have noted, however, since the Torah is situated in the ancient world, in the covenant with Israel, and in the context of sacred space, the revelation that we receive (we could call it the canonical revelation) takes on a different focus. The purpose of the Torah was to give Israel—and through them, the nations—an understanding of their God. If we want to understand the value of the Torah today, we might ask what our understanding of God would be if we did not have it. Imagine what Moses might have thought if confronted by Jesus and the New Testament writers in the second millennium BC. Without any further resources, he would have assumed that the God Jesus was claiming to be was more or less the same as the gods he knew from his culture—self-interested and exploitative, expecting Israel to provide for his needs but willing to offer benefits in exchange.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 215

But it all changed in the Hellenistic period…

It was only when Torah was adopted as legislation in the Hellenistic period that a community discussed the idea of keeping all the law as if it were legislative and comprehensive. As we have seen in our previous discussion, in both Mesopotamia and Israel, the only form of divine law is found in the decrees issued by the gods that maintain order in the cosmos. In contrast, the Greek concept was that law emanated from the gods in the sense that the divine realm was the source of rationality and reason, which in turn served as the foundation for an understanding of natural law. In their view, this law is universal and unchanging, and resulted from general revelation. The model seen in the ANE fits the Torah data better. If that is the case, Torah can be considered neither divine legislation nor a manifestation of the inherent functioning of the world. This is important to recognize if we are interested in reading the text in accordance with its genre and context.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 124–25

Situated Torah

To say that the Torah is situated in the ancient world is another way of recognizing that its communication and conversations are embedded in the ancient world. Consequently, every aspect of it must be interpreted within that ancient context; extrapolation outside of that context is hazardous. That does not mean that we cannot extrapolate, only that it has to be done very carefully with full knowledge of what we are dealing with (genre) and how extrapolation can take place effectively (methodology and hermeneutics). One cannot seek to extrapolate it on the assumption that it is legislation or a moral system. It is neither a question, then, about the unchanging law of an unchanging God nor a presumption that morality is relative. If the Torah is neither a law code nor a moral system (more discussion in proposition twenty-one), then its lessons cannot be learned from following those pathways.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 100

Quid pro quo? Not so much

In Israelite theology, Yahweh, unlike the gods of the rest of the ancient world, has no needs. The gods of the ANE created the cosmos (and eventually people) for themselves; Yahweh created for the sake of the creation, not to provide people to meet his needs. He is taking care of them, but not for the same reason that drove the Great Symbiosis. Many responses that Israel might make to Yahweh are appropriate (e.g., praise, glory, worship, order), but he does not need them, and he did not enter into the covenant relationship to get them. Likewise, Yahweh has not initiated this relationship in order to give something to Israel (e.g., blessing, enlightenment, happiness, prosperity, salvation, or morality). Yahweh is proclaiming his reputation as suzerain of Israel, his vassals. Quid pro quo is abolished.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 71–72

Divine favor?

In summary, divine favor was always the objective. Both justice and ritual were time-honored means for gaining that favor, and wisdom was at the foundation of both sets of practices.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 69

Where is your identity?

The kings of the ancient world desired to label the things that were theirs. Bricks were stamped with their names, their images were placed in conquered territories, and their treaties were inscribed and displayed prominently. A vassal was a showpiece of the suzerain’s grandeur. This labeling was a way to place one’s name on something, just as Yahweh placed his name on Israel. For a suzerain to extend his name to a vassal was construed as an act of favor. Both in international treaties and in the Torah, this was described as the suzerain’s love for his vassal. It has long been established that this love was not sentimental, emotional, or psychological. Instead, it showed that the suzerain had expressed gracious preference for the vassal by extending his identity to this vassal.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 49

Descriptive—or Prescriptive?

Specifically, we began to treat the Torah as if it were prescriptive, codified legislation, though that concept did not exist in the ancient world, As commonly happens, interpreters were inclined to read the biblical text through the filter of their own cultural river—their own cultural context. As a result of such reading, people began thinking that the Torah dictated the law of the land to Israel. And since it was considered divine revelation, it was therefore construed as God’s ideal guide to society and morality. And if it is God’s guide to the ideal shape of society and morality, then all people everywhere are obligated to apply it; one must merely determine how to deal with idiosyncrasies and anomalies in order to apply it to today.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 22

Read the text!

We can begin to understand the claims of the text as an ancient document first of all by paying close attention to what the text says and doesn’t say. It is too easy to make assumptions that are intrusive based on our own culture, cognitive environment, traditions, or questions It takes a degree of discipline as readers who are outsiders not to assume our modern perspectives and impose them on the text. Often we do not even know we are doing it because our own context is so intrinsic to our thinking and the ancient world is an unknown. The best path to recognizing the distinctions between ancient and modern thinking is to begin paying attention to the ancient world and at the same time imposing methodological constraints to minimize the impact of anachronistic intuition. This is accomplished by immersion in the literature of the ancient world. This would by no means supersede Scripture, but it can be a tool for understanding Scripture.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 14

Things and power

In this premodern, enchanted universe, it was also assumed that power resided in things, which is precisely why things like relics or the Host could be invested with spiritual power. As a result, “in the enchanted world, the line between personal agency and impersonal force was not at all clearly drawn” (p. 32). There is a kind of blurring of boundaries so that it is not only personal agents that have causal power (p. 35). Things can do stuff.—James K. A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular, 29 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And what makes you think that they don't? It's a widespread belief, rearing its head in the Bible and throughout the ancient world. There's a marvelous book on it, sadly now out of print, that I've excerpted from in the past: Barbara Nevling Porter, ed., What Is a God?

The world is an enchanted place, if only we would take off our materialistic glasses (I mean philosophically materialistic—that the physically visible world is all there is). The mystics know that, and the two-thirds world knows it. But we've lost touch with it. And that's what this book is all about…

Just an
</idle musing>

Cynical? Maybe…

The slogan “Exporting Democracy” summarizes the political mission of American imperialism during the presidency of Bush the elder. This slogan justifies political-military intervention against regimes that do not govern through a parliamentary structure. A preference for democracy over absolutism or “despotism” (seen as a relic of the past) is self-evident in the post-Enlightenment West but is by no means easily transposed to the Orient, where autocratic governments are not imposed from above; such governments are instead supported by much of the population, and tentative steps towards democratization are either taken in the name of religion (as at the end of the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran) or prompted by the armed forces (as in Kemalist Turkey). Moreover, the formula of “exportation” is itself strongly associated with its commercial origins and connotations and leads unfailingly to the idea that financial interests and commercial profits inform the American mission.—Mario Liverani, Assyria: The Imperial Mission, 157

Assyria, remorse, and fools

In a previous study, I suggested that the Assyrians, who were required to provide men for wars and expeditions from which not everyone returned, needed reassurance In relation to two problems that have always confronted soldiers in war: fear of death (open, self-evident) and repugnance of or remorse (more subliminal) for killing fellow human beings.

To counteract the fear of death, Assyrian records relate that enemies die, and their deaths are counted in the hundreds and thousands; Assyrian losses are always omitted. Remorse for killing, buried deep in the human conscience, is exorcised by the conviction that the Assyrians are not to blame for these deaths. Instead, the enemies who foolishly oppose the universal order are at fault; they are the ones who began hostilities (or at least provoked war with their attitude): they force us to kill them. There is no shortage of modern and contemporary parallels.—Mario Liverani, Assyria: The Imperial Mission, 89

<idle musing>
I had read bits and pieces of this book over the years. Back before it was published, Jim forwarded the introduction to me, which immediately sold me on how important a book it is. Because I was the marketing guy at Eisenbrauns at the time, I made sure that the introduction was posted to the book's page. I figured that anyone who read the introduction would want to read the whole thing. It's still posted; you can find it here.

We'll only dip lightly into the book for the next week or two, but if you are at all interested in empire or the Assyrians, this is an excellent resource. So many of the succeeding empires learned from the Assyrians—both positively and negatively!
</idle musing>

Why is Saul deposed?

As the text implies, this [erecting a victory stela after a battle] is exactly what Saul thinks he is doing. He has won a glorious victory and taken territory (1 Sam 15:7) and built a monument to himself (1 Sam 15:12), probably crediting Yahweh with the victory. Spoils are taken, not for themselves, as Achan did, but “to sacrifice to the LORD” (1 Sam 15:15). From a typical ancient Near Eastern perspective, Saul has acted with full propriety, as he himself states in 1 Samuel 15:13. However, by sparing the king, Saul has defeated the entire purpose of ḥerem against a community (see proposition eighteen); he may as well have done nothing at all. More severely, however, he has effectively declared independence from his suzerain by honoring himself in place of the emperor and by taking a vassal of his own (Agag’s thinking in 1 Sam 15:32 indicates that he expects to be subjugated rather than executed). This explains Samuel’s odd reference to divination and idols (lit. terāphîm, NIV “idolatry”) in 1 Samuel 15:23; in covenant ideology, these represent breaches of political loyalty to the divine sovereign (see proposition eight). The divine sovereign’s retribution against Saul likewise follows standard procedure; the rebellious regent is dethroned and replaced.— The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, 227–28