[This is Part 3 of Stephen Huebscher's series on the divine council and heavenly worship. See Part 1 and Part 2. -- MSH] We now move on to the second group of texts relating to our topic, the OT biblical texts. Over the next several posts, we are will look at nine...
Divine Council & Supernatural Worldview
Introduction to the Divine Council
Dan McClellan on “What is Deity in Septuagint Deuteronomy?”
Well, finally got around to re-reading Dan's paper from SBL of last year. I had attended the paper and taken notes, but I wanted to run through the paper once again. My thanks to Dan for sending me a copy (and for the heads up from Matt - and congrats to him and his...
Bible Project Video on “Elohim”
Here's the second installment of the Bible Project's video series tracking on content items in my book, The Unseen Realm. Another job well done. Check it out!
New Cherubim and Seraphim Video
Here's the latest video (thanks to Shaun's work!). It does a good job summarizing how to parse the cherubim and seraphim (and how not to over-read that material).
Mike Heiser’s ETS Paper: The Divine Council in the Pentateuch
A week ago I presented this invited paper in the ETS Pentateuch section: ets-2016-divine-council-in-the-pentateuch The paper isn't an academic work per se. It's more conversational. I took that route because of the time limitation. However, it does have some different...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 2
Part 1 of this series can be found here. To introduce the topic and get things moving, there are two points to remember. First, the responsibilities of the divine council include (1) administrating Yahweh’s will to the nations, (2) administering justice, and...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 1
Editor's Note: This is the first post in a series by my friend Stephen Huebscher. Stephen is a doctoral student in Hebrew Bible and is very acquainted with my work and the divine council in general. I hope you enjoy his contributions to the blog! -- MSH “Heavenly...
Unfiltered Fridays Post: Sincerity and the Supernatural
The second installment of my Friday series on the Logos Academic blog was posted today under the title, "Sincerity and the Supernatural." Have a look> Note that I won't keep posting these here. I may do one more. If you want to follow my weekly posts ("Unfiltered...
The Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16: A Goat for Azazel
I recently offered a distilled response to the question of what's going on in Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) chapter, which mentions (correctly) in some translations that one of the goats was "for Azazel." Azazel, the comment noted, was a demonic...
Abba Doesn’t Mean ‘Daddy’
Earlier today I saw something come up in my Twitter account that I appreciated. It was a tweet from New Testament professor Will Varner. The link Will provided led me to this online post at the Gospel Coalition site: "Does Abba Mean 'Daddy'?" The brief post outlines...
Did the Religion of the Biblical Writers Evolve from Polytheism to Monotheism? A Paper and Response to Thom Stark
[Note: For other posts on Mike's work on the divine council, click here for the archive.] Here is my second ETS paper, entitled, "Does Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible Demonstrate an Evolution from Polytheism to Monotheism?" My answer is "no, and the question is...
Heiser, Mormonism, and the Divine Council of Psalm 82
I just got an email from someone who asked very sincerely if Mormons are using my divine council material responsibly. Apparently the answer is (predominantly) "no" so I thought I'd post on this. Many of you are aware that my academic specialty is the divine council...
A 30-Point Overview of the Divine Council Worldview by Ronn Johnson
One of the challenges of introducing people to the Divine Council worldview is that the subject can sound stranger than it actually is. For modern readers, talk of gods, sons of God, heavenly councils, cosmic geography, spiritual powers, sacred space, and the...
New Motion Graphic Video: Gods of the Bible, Part 2
Thanks to Shaun for producing this second installment: Part 1 can be viewed here: