Michael Heiser’s Origin of Demons
| A number of years ago I taught a class at a local church on Jesus’s rescue of us from sin and Satan. Midway I paused and invited comments and questions. A man stood up, read Genesis 6:1–4, and said, “This passage teaches that angels and women had sex and produced the Nephilim who were giants. When the giants died, their demon-spirits unleashed evil on people. This explains the origin of demons.” “That can’t be true. Most conservative Bible scholars believe that God created the angels when he created the heavens. The angel Satan rejected God sometime before his appearance in Genesis three. Others followed. Angels are asexual spirit beings—neither male nor female. Though they appear as men in the Bible, they are not actually human and cannot procreate” (Mt 22:30).[1] I privately wondered how someone could explain the origin of demons from this difficult passage. When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown (Ge 6:1–4). Commentators and Bible scholars offer three interpretations of this passage, but none include the origin of demons. I later learned that Michael Heiser had argued for the Nephilim origin of demons. So I read his The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible and Demons: What the Bible Really Says About The Powers of Darkness. Frankly, I was shocked that Heiser relied on ancient Near East (ANE) writings and myths to support his theories. These extrabiblical writings, aka the Pseudepigrapha, provide insights and information on the beliefs and practices of ANE people. They reflect what they believed, but the writings are not authoritative on supernatural phenomena. Scripture alone is the inspired Word of God and the sole authority on matters of biblical faith and the spiritual realm. I asked a friend, who loves Jesus and the Word, why he valued Heiser’s work. He said, “It’s his scholarship, expertise in Semitic languages, and his bold explorations of the supernatural realm. He made it real! I liked it.” Others obviously agreed. Who is Michael Heiser? Michael Heiser was an Old Testament scholar and author with expertise in Semitic languages, extrabiblical writings, and ANE myths. He interpreted Scripture through the lens of the Mesopotamian flood story, 1 Enoch, Second Temple Jewish writings such as Tobit, and the Qumran manuscripts. He argued that these writings provided the crucial context for understanding the origin of demons. Neither Jesus nor the Apostles quoted from these writings and the Reformers excluded them from the Protestant Bible.[2] Heiser argued that western scholars had stripped Scripture of the supernatural beliefs of the ANE people, particularly in regard to the powers of darkness.[3] He dismissed centuries of scholarship and Creeds, because he believed the pastors, theologians and scholars had failed to understand the importance of the Semitic languages, context of the original readers, and the worldview of ANE people. He wrote, “I want their supernatural worldview in your head.”[4] This is an amazing statement. Christianity is the most spiritual, supernatural life a person can know and live. We are spiritual beings who live in Jesus. We want his worldview to fill our heads. All other spiritual sources are counterfeit. The people of the ANE were animists. They worshipped their great gods at annual festivals, but of immediate concern in daily life were spirits that inhabited nature, the spirits of the dead, and personal spirits. If a man hit his head on a tree branch and was knocked unconscious, he assumed a tree spirit had hit him. He would set up an altar in his house and make food offerings to the tree god to prevent future attacks.[5] The people also relied on magicians, necromancers, miracle workers, exorcists, and healers who used elaborate rituals and incantations to manipulate the spirits and avert disasters. Is this the supernatural worldview Heiser wants in our heads? It’s demonic! God commanded the Israelites not to worship the gods of the Canaanites, Assyrians, and Babylonians; and not to participate in their practices (Dt 18:10–13). The chosen people of God worshipped Yahweh, the One true God. He warned his people that their neighbors worshipped false gods, later identified as demons (Dt 32:17, Ps 106:37, 1 Co 10:20, Eph 2:2, Rev 9:20). Undoubtedly, they knew exactly what he was talking about. It’s ironic that Heiser relied on writings inspired by demons to develop a theory on the origin of demons. One of Heiser’s sources makes my point. 1 Enoch is an embellishment on Genesis 6:1–4.[6] 1 Enoch: Book of the Watchers And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them (daughters of men), and said to one another. “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves.” . . . And they began to go in to them, and to defile themselves through them, and teach them sorcery and charms, and to reveal to them the cutting of roots and plants. . . . Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from the men (humans) and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin. . . . They shall be evil spirits on earth . . . And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on earth and cause trouble.[7] God’s Word The Bible tells us that God is immutable: he does not change, contradict himself, or change his mind (Nu 23:19). He would not inspire writings that advocated sorcery, charms, and devilish practices involving roots and plants, but Satan would. The Bible warns us not to be ignorant of the devil’s devices (2 Co 2:11) or fascinated by writings he inspired. God plainly tells us who he is, what he expects of us, and how to discern what is and is not of him. Based on Heiser’s sources, Christians should reject Heiser’s work on the origin of demons. Here are writings and videos that offer a more in-depth critique Heiser’s work.[8] [1] Sharon T. Beekmann, Angels, Demons, and the Dead: Casting the Light of Scripture on Spirit Beings (Littleton: Illumify Media Global. 2020) 40-41. [2] Old testament pseudepigraphal writings are falsely attributed to prominent Old testament characters such as Enoch, the great grandfather of Noah. They were written during the four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments. They expanded the role of holy and evil angels. God is depicted as a distant figure while angels direct human beings. The writings promote the practice of magic. [3] Michael Heiser, Demons: What the Bible Really Says About The Power of Darkness (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2020) xv. [4] Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2015) 13. [5] Sharon T Beekmann and Peter G. Bolt Silencing Satan: Handbook of Biblical Demonology (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2012) 13. [6] Heiser, Demons, 141-144. [7] 1 Enoch 6, 15 in Everett Ferguson’s Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984) 70. [8] Dee Virtue interviewed Hebrew scholar Dr. Wave Nunnally, Systematic Theologian Dr. Jordan Cooper, Marcia Montenegro (CANA) and others https://youtu.be/X6ih2uBh0Is and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6ih2uBh0Is; also read Gary E. Gilley, The Unseen Realm: A Critique, https://tottministries.org/the-unseen-realm-a-critique/; R.C. Sproul, Who are the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6? https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/who-are-sons-god-genesis-6?srsltid=AfmBOoqEd9zR0DeTRrQMK2zBBugoI8izyE3AaH0LsrEx3oJmXUTKp-Es. |