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Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and SWRC.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things. Today, Micah Van Huss and Mac Dominick will begin a discussion exploring the unseen realm.

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From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is filled with accounts of angels, demons, giants, heavenly councils, and spiritual battles. But what do these mysterious passages really mean? Today on the program, authors Micah Van Huss and Mac Dominick sit down for a fascinating discussion of Dr. Michael Heiser's influential book, The Unseen Realm. Together, they'll explore Heiser's supernatural worldview of scripture, examine some of his most provocative ideas, and discuss how understanding the unseen realm can help believers better grasp the message of God's word. Here is Micah Van Huss and Mac Dominick.

Micah Van Huss: Welcome to the show today. I'm your host, Micah Van Huss. I host Marginal Mysteries here at Southwest Radio Ministries, studying all the weird stuff from a biblical perspective. Today, Mac Dominick and I are going to be discussing the late Dr. Michael Heiser's book, The Unseen Realm. Mac, purveyor of mysteries himself, is also with us. Mac, how are you doing today?

Mac Dominick: I am doing very well, Micah. Thank you very much.

Micah Van Huss: Awesome. We have our copies of Dr. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm. Southwest Radio Ministries is selling the expanded edition. This is a work of Dr. Michael Heiser's, The Unseen Realm. I read the original. It was a fascinating book about the spiritual realm, but we are selling an updated, expanded edition. There are over 17,000 new words in this expanded edition.

For those of you that knew Dr. Michael Heiser, he passed away two or three years ago, so this new expanded edition comes from his other works, things that have never been published. There are 24 new chapters in this hardcover expanded edition. The materials draw from his website, from his books, and his studies. He's got a lot of YouTube videos. A number of you may know Dr. Michael Heiser from YouTube. I've watched a ton of his videos.

This is the new expanded edition hardcover, and you can get your copy at Southwest Radio Ministries' website by going to SWRC.com or calling 800-652-1144. So I want to start a bit of the discussion, Mac. I'll ask you first, but Dr. Michael Heiser really opened my eyes, so I want to hear your take on your study of Dr. Michael Heiser and who he was as a man.

Mac Dominick: Well, my interaction with Dr. Heiser's material was extensive and still is extensive going forward. I was introduced to him through Derek Gilbert, another one of the authors that we support at Southwest Radio. I read The Unseen Realm, I started listening to his Naked Bible Podcast, which I listened to every week. I took notes on the podcast.

I also took his college courses online of Unseen Realm 101 and 102. Actually, I paid $400 for each one of those courses to get college credit for them, but I have to say that I have an immense amount of respect for Dr. Heiser's teachings. When he passed away, though I never had the privilege of meeting him, I felt like I'd lost one of my best friends. I miss him terribly because I listened to him weekly on his Naked Bible Podcast and learned so much. He opened so many doors by introducing other people that I didn't know and their works, and it was just incredible.

But I will say the main thing that I garnered from Dr. Heiser's work is his mantra of being faithful to the text. If we are going to be people of the book, so-called people of the book, we need to start acting like it. Because so much of what we as Christians say or think we believed all these years is sourced more in tradition, whether it be denominational tradition, church tradition, or something we got from grandma and grandpa, than it is in the text.

The number one thing that Dr. Heiser taught me that I have just been able to plant my feet on and get my arms around is we must be faithful to the text of the word of God. When we listen to people who are exercising a critical analysis of the word of God, we shouldn't take that as an affront to inspiration. We shouldn't take that as an attack on the word of God.

Some people who fall into that realm are being unjustly critical of the word of God because they want to disprove it and all of that. Basically, what we should do in looking at the word of God is do everything we can to get back as close to the original as we possibly can. That's very difficult for us because we know that a lot of the ancient documents were written on papyrus, which has deteriorated and is gone away.

We have to exercise textual criticism, as they did with the Majority Text in the New Testament, in combining a lot of the fragments of what we have into a coherent text. We need to do the same thing with the Old Testament because most of our English translations of our Bibles are based primarily on the Masoretic Text, which is from 1000 AD.

The translators of our English Bibles, Tyndale, Coverdale, and those people who many times gave their lives to translate the word of God into English, they drew from not only the Masoretic but the Greek Septuagint and other ancient codexes. But one thing they didn't have was the Dead Sea Scrolls when they did the translation. So we have another source of textual criticism where we can find a majority of the ancient documents that can change our view of things.

Dr. Heiser was particularly good at this and bringing in these other ancient sources because Dr. Heiser was an expert in ancient languages, whether it be Hebrew or the other languages of the Ancient Near East. In putting all this together for us, when he did that, he many times said that he wasn't introducing anything new, he was simply connecting the dots. He was a dot-connector.

We also need to be a dot-connector when we start evaluating these sources. We want to get as close as we can to the original text of the word of God. Another thing Dr. Heiser was big on was context. We not only have to take the Bible in context of what it says, but as to who it was written to, when it was written, and we need to try to put ourselves and attempt to put ourselves in the mode of being a Second Temple Jew, because that's who most of the Old Testament was written to.

As a result of all this—I know I said a lot to get to a final point—as a result of all this, I will say I have become an Old Testament junkie because I had so much respect for Dr. Heiser and his evaluation of the Old Testament. We have preachers today, and I don't need to call any names, but there are very popular preachers today that are coming out and saying, "Well, we just need to get rid of the Old Testament because we're Christians, we don't need all those Jewish scriptures."

Yes, we do. We need the Old Testament because, as Chuck Missler said, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed, and the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. So we have to take the whole of scripture, put it all together in context of itself, and if we do that, I believe that we can get what God wants for us and we don't dismiss large portions of his word. That's what Dr. Heiser was really an expert at doing and why I appreciated him so much.

Micah Van Huss: Mac Dominick has been given his view on Michael Heiser and his works. If Mac sounds familiar to you, Mac's a regular on this program. I've interviewed him on two of his books, Cosmic Conflict and Shadows of Evil. Mac and I speak at a number of conferences together. Mac's a good guy.

My knowledge of Dr. Michael Heiser: he is one of the top four people that I miss that have passed in this world. My father, Rush Limbaugh, Chuck Missler, and then Michael Heiser. So he makes that top four list. Michael Heiser was a very intelligent man and, as Mac said, the thing that I appreciate, one of the things I appreciate the most about Dr. Michael Heiser was he was unafraid of taking the Bible for what it says.

As Mac was talking about, there's a lot of people who look at harder pieces of scripture, chapters in scripture, and they're like, "Well, maybe it doesn't necessarily mean this because it doesn't fit with the preconceived notions that they have that tradition has taught them." Mac touched on another point that I want to touch on. I challenge all Christians to value the text of the Bible over tradition. Let me say that again. Value the text of scripture over tradition.

We have all been raised in tradition, and if you haven't dug really deep into scripture, tradition is what you know. But the Bible is the word of God. For me, the Bible is my foundation. It is absolute truth. Of course, we're talking about the 66 books that we have contained in scripture. God says, "My word will never pass away." I trust him when he says that.

He is the being that is powerful enough to create the entire universe, everything out of nothing. I think he's powerful enough to preserve his message to us in whatever way he chooses. So I'm okay that men recorded what God inspired them to record. I take the 66 books that we have as inspired. There are a lot of other books, not just Michael Heiser's books, Mac Dominick's books, my books. Angels Eternal being my latest. But we're talking ancient books, the Book of Enoch, other books. I don't take them as inspired by God.

We should take everything as a study through the lenses of the Bible. There are certain books of ancient times, even modern books like Dr. Michael Heiser's books, that have a lot of truth in them, though we don't call them inspired. His three books that I have read that I've thoroughly enjoyed is this one that we're talking about, The Unseen Realm, but also Reversing Hermon. It's probably my favorite book of his, the three reasons that Jesus came to the earth. Also his book Angels. So I've read all three of those and, again, watched a ton of his YouTube videos. Dr. Michael Heiser is just an excellent person.

Before we get into his first chapter, you can get this hardcover expanded edition of Dr. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm: Discovering the Supernatural World of the Bible at SWRC.com, SWRC.com, or by calling 800-652-1144, 800-652-1144, and ask for Dr. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm.

In his first chapter, he talks about Psalm 82. This is a passage that if you're familiar with my works, Angels Eternal and my other books, or Mac Dominick's books, Psalm 82 is foundational to a study of the unseen realm. He starts out his book with Psalm 82. It's only eight verses long, one of the most fascinating chapters in all of scripture. Mac, in light of Psalm 82, tell us a little bit about what Psalm 82 talks about. But then the second question is going to be: what happens when we Christians skip the weird stuff in scripture?

Mac Dominick: Well, let's quote Dr. Heiser to start with on that comment. Dr. Heiser had a mantra that said, "If it's in the Bible and it's weird, it's probably important." I agree with that statement 1,000 percent. Because when we look at something in the Bible that we find unusual or weird, it gives us an opportunity to study the word of God more deeply and learn something new about God, about the scripture, about mankind, about any subject you want that's biblical.

It gives us an opportunity to learn so much more about that and discover truth that we may have just glossed over with a casual reading of the Bible. Psalm 82, if you read Dr. Heiser's book—and by the way, let me back up and give a plug for the new book. I said that I listen to all the Naked Bible Podcasts. I took the college courses, paid money for those courses. You can save yourself a lot of money by just reading this book because a lot of what was included in his Unseen Realm 101 and 102 is now in the new expanded book.

What he did in those courses was he expanded upon what was in the original Unseen Realm. I believe that you have a golden opportunity here to learn an incredible amount of new information just by getting the expanded version, even if you already have the original Unseen Realm.

That said, he starts out both in The Unseen Realm in the original version and this version by speaking of the fact that Psalm 82 changed the direction of his Christian life. He was an instructor in Hebrew in a Hebrew course in a university. He may have been a graduate assistant because he had not yet written his dissertation. He ended up writing his dissertation on the Divine Council, and he used Psalm 82 as a basis.

But you read Psalm 82 and it starts out, and I'm reading the King James: "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods." This is quite an unusual statement because God is standing in the congregation of the mighty, and he judgeth among the gods. That is really a strange statement in English because, number one, who are the mighty? What is this congregation? And he judgeth among the gods?

Most Christians will tell you that the old gods were simply idols, works of brick, stone, or some type of metal and had no substance. They were just things that men worshiped falsely. So how in the world could God be standing in this congregation and judging among gods? Again, if we look at the original Hebrew of this, if you look at the Masoretic Hebrew that comes from Psalm 82, it basically reads—and I'm transliterating a little bit here—it basically reads: "Elohim," translated God, "stands in the congregation of El," or in the assembly of El, "and judges among the Elohim."

Now, that in itself is very, very interesting. This is basically Dr. Heiser's teaching: that we see the word *Elohim* twice in that one verse, and it's not referring to the same entity. How could God, who is *Elohim*, be standing and judging among God, who is *Elohim*? So the translation we see in our King James Bible with a small-g "gods" must be correct. Dr. Heiser in his book explains that the word *Elohim*, which appears approximately 2,500 times in our Hebrew Old Testament, does not always mean the same thing.

Micah Van Huss: Samuel's referred to as an *Elohim* in the Witch of Endor encounter when Samuel is summoned up from Sheol. So we have humans being called *Elohim*.

Mac Dominick: The spirit of Samuel. Yes. So Dr. Heiser defines *Elohim* as an inhabitant of the spiritual dimension. That means God is *Elohim*. Over 2,000 times in our Old Testament, when we see *Elohim* in that context, it must be talking about God or God's name, Yahweh. But this term *Elohim* refers to God in the context over 2,000 times.

But then there are 500 or so times in the Old Testament that the context does not allow this word *Elohim* to be translated as God with a capital G. That's exactly what we have here in verse one of Psalm 82. We have *Elohim* God standing in the congregation of the mighty, and he judges among the gods, which are also *Elohim*.

So Dr. Heiser defines an *Elohim* as an inhabitant of the spiritual dimension, and God with a capital G, Yahweh, that we worship, has to be the chief or supreme *Elohim*, for lack of better terminology, that reigns over the balance of the *Elohim* or inhabitants in this spiritual dimension. And we know that that includes angels. We know, as Micah said, it includes departed spirits of the dead in the case of Samuel. We know that it could include demons. It can include angels that are fallen or unfallen. And so God is judging among other *Elohim*.

The interesting thing here in the congregation of the mighty, the Hebrew in the Masoretic Text has "the assembly of El." If you read your Scofield Bible, you will find that Scofield Bible said that El was another name of God. But guess what? El was also the chief deity of the Canaanite religion. He was the chief god. He was the father of 70 other gods. One of his oldest sons was a god that you'll recognize by the name of Baal. What's going on here is that God is standing in the assembly of the gods, other *Elohim*, and he is reading them the riot act.

Micah Van Huss: We also see God standing among the gods in Job chapter 1 and Job chapter 2. The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and the Satan walked among them. We also have in the mythological story of Atlantis: the gods of Atlantis—which most of them were Nephilim, half-god, half-human, but Poseidon being full-blooded god in that story—Poseidon and the Nephilim, the demigods of Atlantis, they gathered around a pillar of laws in the center of the city of Atlantis, and they judged each other on their treatment of their human subjects.

This is the same picture we are seeing in Psalm 82. And again, as I said earlier, we don't look at the Bible through the lenses of mythology. We look at the mythologies and histories and other things through the lenses of the Bible, but the mythologies are echoes of what we're seeing in scripture. So Mac, continue on with the judgment of the gods in Psalm 82.

Mac Dominick: Okay. We come down here and in verse 6 it says, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men." Wow. God is saying, "You gods have not done your job, and as a result, you're going to die."

The first thing that people will come back and say is, "Well, you know, I always thought if these gods are real, if the gods of mythology are real, then they were immortal." Well, here's the deal, folks. There's being immortal and then there's being immortal. They had—these entities, these *Elohim*—have a contingent immortality based on their obedience to their creator, Yahweh. And so God is saying, "You haven't done your job, you're going to die like men."

Now, there are theologians and scholars who will say, "Well, you know, Psalm 82 is just talking about human judges, the leaders of Israel and so forth and so on." But that makes this verse completely incoherent because it says, "You're gods, but you're going to die like men." If they were already men, everyone would have known this. This would have been no news. Everyone would have known that they were going to die like men.

The final verse says, "Arise, O God"—here he is, *Elohim* again—"judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations." Who is going to inherit all nations in the end? The Lord Jesus Christ is going to inherit all nations because he is going to reign over the entire world from Jerusalem in the Millennium.

Now let's bring all this back into the context of Dr. Heiser. One of Dr. Heiser's main points in The Unseen Realm is that we as 21st-century Christians have a tendency to make the word of God mundane and bring it down to our human level, and we fail to see the supernatural aspect of the word of God. When you see the supernatural aspect of the word of God and you're willing to interpret your Bible as a supernatural document, for lack of a better word, when you're willing to do that, then a whole new world of scripture opens up to you.

You know, we as 21st-century Christians are, as much as we may not like to admit, we are all products of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, basically the philosophy of the Enlightenment is to do away with the supernatural and bring everybody to a seen-reality perspective of the world. Why did they want to do this? Because they wanted to get rid of God. So there's nothing spiritual, there's nothing immortal, there's nothing beyond our life here. It's a very atheistic worldview of life itself. We have had this philosophy drilled into our brains from the time we were old enough to learn.

Micah Van Huss: When I have studied Dr. Michael Heiser's works and listened to how he studies the Bible, it changes the way that you look at scripture and we're able to take scripture a bit more literally than maybe tradition has taught us.

So folks, we've been talking about Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm. We have a new extended edition hardcover. You can get your copy of Dr. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm at Southwest Radio Ministries by calling 800-652-1144, 800-652-1144, or by going to SWRC.com. That's Dr. Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm.

Southwest Radio Ministries: What if some of the Bible's most mysterious passages aren't mysterious at all? What if we've simply lost the worldview of the people who first read them? In The Unseen Realm, best-selling scholar Dr. Michael Heiser takes readers on a fascinating journey through scripture, exploring the supernatural world of angels, demons, the Divine Council, and spiritual warfare.

With careful biblical scholarship and clear explanations, Heiser uncovers truths that can transform the way you read God's word from Genesis to Revelation. And now, this expanded edition takes you even deeper. Released as a beautiful deluxe hardcover to celebrate the book's 10th anniversary, it includes new material from Dr. Heiser never before available in print.

Expanded chapters, additional insights, and fresh content that further unveils the supernatural world of the Bible. You'll explore fascinating questions about the Nephilim, imprisoned spirits, the Heavenly Council, and other often-overlooked passages of scripture. If you've ever wanted a deeper understanding of the supernatural world revealed in scripture, The Unseen Realm is a must-read.

Order your copy today at SWRC.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. More insight and details inside The Unseen Realm are coming up on tomorrow's Watchman on the Wall program. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. Visit SWRC.com.