Dr. Michael Heiser - Beit Tefillah Gig Harbor - May 4, 2013

Brent tells me that most of you are new and so I have I don't want to make it sound like I I make a living at going to places where while I'm lecturing people look at me like I have two heads but that happens a lot and you'll figure out soon why but don't be frightened I'm not here because I disagree with your doctrine I'm here because I agree with it and I think I can add a little bit of a perspective to it as Brent mentioned earlier I did my dissertation on material related to the divine council specifically I did divine council material in intertestamental more properly known as second temple Jewish literature on up to the New Testament I did it under a Jewish adviser but that won't seem so shocking the first hour but when we do the second hour we're going to spend some time on what is called the two powers in heaven idea that was the Jewish teaching until about a hundred ad or so that there was a Godhead in their Bible now after the church was born and people were running around leaving Judaism and converting to Christianity and praying to Jesus the same way they prayed to the God of Israel that sort of wasn't popular anymore with the Jewish community because they were losing people to Christianity so somehow again in the Providence of God I got away with that dissertation under a Jewish adviser in a Hebrew and Semitic department at a university so that will be again the tale of the second hour so that's my way to preview now what I want to do first hour is as the first slide says an overview of the notion of the divine council so next slide we're off to a good start preliminary thoughts next slide there are a few things that if I tell you upfront will sort of orient you to how I think so I think that's only fair and by way of preliminary thoughts and this slide will have effect so you may have to hit the arrow a couple times we like to talk about interpreting the Bible in context and we talk about grammatical historical exegesis and if you actually look that term up in a book reference book you'll see something like this this is from L Wells Evangelical dictionary of theology grammatical historical exegesis is the idea that each biblical document in each part of a biblical document must be studied in its context both its immediate literary context and the wider situation in which it appeared this calls for an understanding of the following elements Eero biblical languages next types of literature represented genre historical background in geography and life setting those are the four things on that slide now doesn't this sound great this sound logical yeah you know we go to the Bible we need to interpret it in its original context and all this stuff's important we need to learn the languages we need to think about literary genre because believe it or not genre is something you're familiar with an encounter every day maybe even every hour of the day depending on what kind of job you have you will interpret words differently depending on what type of document they show up on you have a receipt you have your tax form you have a parking ticket you've got a marriage contract divorce you know sort of divorce papers you got a newspaper you got a text message you got an email okay all the I could sit up here and give you 50 different genres that you run into regularly and they all have one thing in common they all use words but when you see a word a particular word might mean something different if it's in a court document as opposed to the receipt you get its Starbucks it might mean something different and in most cases it will so that's all that's important to think about what is the mode of delivery of that particular piece of literature so again all this important historical background yet we we talk about this a lot and I I bring this up to ask the question how seriously do we do it next slide there are some things that are pretty obvious to me again I'm just sort of prepping you with how I think here and I think these are very obvious they might be uncomfortably obvious I would suggest to you that the context for understanding the Hebrew Old Testament is a matter of its original context therefore it is not the Roman Catholic Church the Protestant Reformation pre or late 19th century Christianity which would include the Apostolic fathers of course 20th 21st century evangelicalism none of those is the context of the Bible in fact they are foreign contexts when it comes to the Bible they are alien contexts the biblical context lo and behold is the one that was around when the thing was written how profound is that well you know in our day and age that's pretty profound because we all you know I'm no different I mean I didn't like live above this or anything like that you know I became a believer at a certain point in high school I had no real spiritual background and so I tended to interpret to read the Bible through the filter that was given to me at the time and that wasn't a bad thing I mean it helped me helped me get from one place in my spiritual life to the next place but somewhere along the line it occurred to me that you know my church probably is the context for the Bible it really isn't and if I really want to sort of wrap my mind around it I need to start thinking like the biblical writers did and that is a mountainous task I mean I've been through graduates I don't want to discourage anybody but but I still feel like I'm about this far you know up the mountain I mean it the more you sort of run into and get exposed to the more you realize that boy you know it's really a difficult task to try to think like they did but that's also what makes it fun it's also what relieves you of the notion that well I'm going to go to church and I can be bored today because I basically know everything that should not be your experience and if you're trying again to think like an Israelite to think like Phil in the century you know first century Jew whatever it is not an easy task and when you do that next slide you run risks you run risks of people not liking the things that you might come to believe you again if you're me you run the risk of people looking at like I feel like you got two heads half the time you might lose a job then there you know it people are comfortable within the context that they are part of their church yeah it's just the way it is just human nature and so when you try to tell people well this is okay but you know you to really understand it you kind of need to go back like two millennia okay and and there are things that you can understand better if you do that you try to make that leap that will help inform not only that passage but a whole lot of other things around it and in this thing we call the Bible and some people will just say well it's not in the Westminster Confession so you must be a heretic okay I mean I see how you got that see how you arrived at that conclusion but that really isn't the case but I know I'm not going to be able to talk you out of that I would suggest again we need to think along these lines God did not create this is the next button a new culture for Israel that was far into the rest of the known world at the time when God decides to step into history and have people write this thing that we now call the Old Testament or the Bible lo and behold he actually his people and they lived it a certain time in a certain place in a certain context and that was here's the key thought that was God's business that was his decision he doesn't come to them let's hit the next button here he doesn't come to them and say hey you know I'd really like to use you to write this book you know part of this thing that people later are going to call the Bible and I'd love to do that but first of all you need to sort of know what they're going to know in the 21st century so let's go to school or I'm going to put you in a trance and I'm going to download something into your head so that when you write the people who are living 2,000 years from now will think hey that was just for us that's how we need to interpret the Bible now again God isn't caring to change who they are he makes a decision I'm going to prompt this person I'm actually not going to just I don't view inspiration as an event prophet wakes up starts making breakfast gets zapped his mind goes blank he wakes up you know ten minutes later looks down there's a scroll they're like wow I didn't know I was capable of that you know that's really good stuff okay that's inspiration for the x-files okay that's inspiration as paranormal event inspiration is a process where God used many hands at many different times and God had to be interested the whole way from the time this guy was born that God knew would write this particular book at some point God was preparing that person for that occasion all the way through failures through his sins you know just he was preparing that person for that occasion and he did that with every biblical writer he did that with every hand that touched the text along the way it wasn't you know gods as well you I'm going to fit in inspiration I got 15 minutes here because I'm ruling the cosmos so I'm going to zap this guy we'll get that done and move on to the next thing I need to do okay we tend to view inspiration like it's just this series of zapping x' where people's minds are not engaged that's act that's x-files stuff so God doesn't change people he doesn't change their culture he doesn't say you have to be different before I can use you to do this God just says I'm going to now is the time okay Israel my people is in a specific circumstance I need you I've prepared you your whole life to do this one thing leading up here now I need you Paul or whoever - I need you to write this letter so you know against God's steering them providentially the unseen hand of history getting them to the point where they sit down they dictate that letter they write that letter it goes off to where it needs to go and then God can can use that again with the people who read it the Spirit can affect what he wants to affect God doesn't demand that they be different before he does that the revelation you know if you think about it if it wasn't this way if God zapping people in their heads with material that is just beyond their own audience it defeats the whole purpose because the whole purpose of giving revelation is to communicate okay if it's if it if it really means that black helicopters you know like you know that that's what the book of Revelation is about I'm picking it an odd example here but if this is really what it means I mean really really really then that would have really been meaningless to a person in the first century what am I supposed to get out of that no matter what I get I'd be wrong because it really means black helicopters okay so you're really you're really leaving people prior to the 20th 21st centuries without a meaningful text is what you're doing that is not the way scripture works otherwise there's just no point to it so inspiration operates next slide next button within a cultural context chosen by God God gets to make the choice doesn't he always and next button we honor God's decision to reveal truth to humanity when where and in what culture what time to whom God decided to do it we honor that by just letting it be what it is so that's a nice pithy way of saying we should interpret the Bible in his original context translation let it be what it is and what it is is an ancient Mediterranean document ok the people who produced it and who received it initially thought certain ways had things going around in their head that helped them decipher next slide so the context for the Bible is this world right here this again it's a sort of an arbitrary slide I wanted to find something that showed the whole eastern Mediterranean and here it is so you're familiar with the geography no doubt the yellow circle that you can barely see there is ancient Boogaard ancient Syria lugar it also known as Ross Hamra was an ancient city in what was ancient Syria I have that circled just to the south of course is Jerusalem I've got circled for a specific reason because some of that material provides the easiest connection to the external world to the external to the biblical writer in terms of what goes on in the Bible and note in a number of places the stuff from a GU garde they were clay tablets it's a kunia form script when that was discovered in the late 1920s that provided the most convenient window into the broader ancient context for a lot of the passages I'm going to show you tonight and the reason it did was because their language and today as lugar it ik how originals it's found the new guard we'll call it Google Hritik that language is the in ancient terms the closest kin to biblical hebrew to the hebrew of biblical times and so a lot of their vocabulary overlaps now let's talk about the next slide would be foundational passages and we'll hit the next button right away we're going to go to psalm 82 so here we get into divine council stuff so now you know what this guy in front of you is is thinking about I care that we try and that's all we can do nobody's omniscient here but we try to read the Bible through Israelite eyes and if we're trying to think like an Israelite we also have to understand what an Israelite was exposed to and Israelites have neighbors they have friends they have enemies they have people they trade with they work with there's lots of cross-fertilization of culture going on just like it is today and we don't often think of ancient canaan as a melting pot or this sort of cosmopolitan you know culturally cosmopolitan place but it was they intersect all the time either because they're trying to save their own lives they're trying to make money or again they have friends from these other regions they just can't help it to be exposed to what other people in their own contemporary world are thinking again this is no different than us so Psalm 82 the first verse says God and you'll notice that's in blue or at least it's shaded well you can't really see the shading there okay take my word for it I have the word God in a different color there this is a screenshot from our software when you click on a word it'll turn it blue and what we have here is the first verse God and this is the ESV has taken his place in the divine counsel now in Hebrew that first word God is Elohim specifically the verses Elohim nits sob it's a participle singular participle baaaa dot L God Elohim has taken his stand or has taken his place sore stands in the counsel of L or the divine counsel hell there may be an adjective used that way a couple times in the Hebrew Bible but I'm not going to lapse into grammar here point to recognize here is that the first word is Elohim as we go on next slide I also if you could actually see the highlighting have the word gods in the second line clicked and highlighted because that word see if this will work for me right here is also Elohim okay so let's go back here's this word R big G capital G OD Elohim and the Elohim in the next line of the same verse come on please all right you know yeah I'm messing you up go to the next one next one yep got it okay there we go we'll go back here so we have the second G ODS the plural also Elohim now I don't know what English translations you use maybe you don't use an English translation but this verse gets tampered with or obscured in a number of translations some of them it's actually pretty good they bring out the fact that both times it's Elohim and the second one is plural but other times they obscure the second one the plural one was stuff like mighty ones or strong ones or something like that the issue is again here you have God taking his place or taking a stand standing them in and you know amid this council this administration this bureaucracy this assembly and who's the Assembly composed of or comprised of Elohim plural gods now this sounds like a pantheon and you know what it is okay it is a pantheon Pantheon is not a dirty word it's a dirty word if you're talking about you know polytheism and paganism he said what wasn't this polytheism they I mean we've got plural Elohim running around any brew Bible here that sounds probably theistic to me we'll get to that in a moment it's not but nevertheless you have plural Elohim next slide now I put Psalm 89 up here verses 5 through 7 for a very specific reason if you look at a commentary typically an evangelical commentary and definitely a fairly conservative Jewish commentary on Psalm 82 you might either see the translation that God Elohim takes his stand in the divine council in the midst of the judges okay he passes judgment you might actually see that second term either translated judges or commented about in that way and the idea is promoted and we know this is very ancient because this is what's going on in John chapter 10 when Jesus quotes Psalm 82 again for a specific reason I don't know if we'll get to that or tonight or not but there's a long tradition that says well there's these other Elohim they're just really human judges they're the judges of Israel they're the elders you know there are those guys and people can write a whole lot about that and sound real impressive of course the problem is if you actually go back to the the passage in Exodus 18 where Moses again appoints the elders they are never called Elohim the word Elohim is in there five or six times and it's always with reference to God himself not them there is no passage in the Bible old or new testament that actually refers to the judges of Israel as Elohim zero okay that is a contrived interpretation to avoid what you're looking at what your eyes are telling you is there now I put Psalm 89 here for a specific reason because of the same counsel language let the heavens praise your wonders O Lord your faithfulness in the Assembly of the Holy Ones for who in the skies can be compared to the Lord who among the heavenly beings you know as the footnote there numbers 13 and 14 in the interlinear that's been a a Liam Bonet sons of a lien is a plural for L God the sons of God or the sons of the Gods the divine ones whatever divine beings where's their counsel in the heavens in the skies it ain't on earth okay these are not Jewish guys okay they're not the 70 elders from Moses Day and you know subsequently on forward and unless you're going to say that well they're really Jews like on earth and they kind of spend some time in the air and they ruled everything and less you're going to really sound absurd that's what you got next slide you continue in the psalm the speaker again of the saw who is God according to the first verse at least he's speaking at this point in the psalm says I said you are gods and again you'll see right here Elohim I said you are God's sons of the Most High El Elyon Orban al Eon excuse me sons of the Most High all of you nevertheless like men you shall die will fall like any prints now the point of this slide is this is the second time we get plural Elohim in the psalm and they referred to as the B'nai ele on the sons of the Most High okay if you do a study and you look at Bonet Elyon Bonet Elohim all these these phrases in the Old Testament that phrase is consistently going to be used of non-human beings divine beings who serve at the behest of Yahweh the God of Israel why because he made them they didn't make him nobody else made him he made him he made everything all things visible and invisible again we know the language of creation and it certainly applies here now question next slide doesn't saying that there are many Elohim mean polytheism see I've anticipated this question because I get it all the time next slide short answer is no but you know I can't leave it there and I shouldn't this is a really again you're going to be able to draw this conclusion because I think you're going to be able to think well think clearly here let's go let's let's approach it this way in the Hebrew Bible the word Elohim is used of more than one thing okay here's the list we've got God that's the easy one it's the one you think of right away we also have these plural whatever they are in Psalm 82 and the Elohim of Yahweh's council whatever that is third Elohim is also used of the gods of other nations I have just one example here from first kings 11:33 ashteroth even it's kind of interesting there's no Biblical Hebrew word for God s Elohim actually gets used for that there are Semitic words for goddess but not in Biblical Hebrew so ashteroth shamash milk comb they're all Elohim you know just scatter around the Hebrew Bible deuteronomy 32:17 the word elohim is applied to the word shading which is typically translated in english versions as demons you know i don't want to rabbit rail too far on this but it's a very rare term in the Old Testament it only occurs twice Deuteronomy 32 and then Psalm I always get the Septuagint numbering around it they get Psalm 106 in English around verse 37 I have it in here in another place I'll give it to you when we get there only occurs twice a shadow was a guardian spirit a guardian deity which is very suggestive because when we get to Ezekiel 28 and we get the Fallen cherub who was also a throne Guardian you kind of get the idea okay one of those guys so but it's a divine being we also have the disembodied human dead in 1st Samuel 28:13 this is when saul is conversing with the medium at Endor and he says I'm in big trouble I need to talk to Stan and she says well there's two problems here Samuel is dead and Saul the king of Israel has said if we try to contact any of the dead we're going to be with them okay we're going to be dead too and so I don't worry about it just come on but I need to talk to Samuel or we know the rest of the story she does whatever she does were not really told but she says when it works I see an Elohim coming up out of the earth and then she freaks out because when they start talking and and and Saul asks her to describe him and when she does yeah that's him that's Samuel I got a question okay and then she knows that boy am I in trouble but of course we know the rest of the story so Elohim is used for spirit of the human dead and lastly depending on what you think Genesis 35 when you read that what that episode refers back to either a group of angels or a specific angel that also happens to be aa way okay there you also get the word Elohim now here's the question listen carefully this question has stumped Bible commentators for centuries and I think you can do better if the biblical writer uses the word Elohim of more than one thing with the biblical writer have thought that the term meant only one unique set of attributes and duh of course not aunt Rivka who's living with the Lord now who is now an Elohim is not at the same power level an attribute level as the God of Israel that would not have stumped an Israelite I don't know maybe she is maybe she can go off and create her own world now but no I mean this is clear to them they're not going to assume that an angel is at the same level of the God of Israel they sure ain't going to assume that the gods of the nations are at the same level because of the shelah at other passages here's the point when I when I show lots of people Psalm 82 and I start talking about plural Elohim it really freaks them out because they think it's it's polytheism it's more than one God and that's because we right here we when we see the letters g.o.d next to each other because we're so used to thinking g.od as the God of the Bible we assume that the term carries with it a specific unique set of attributes that is not the way the biblical writer uses it all you need to do literally is do a search on it and look at the results and then give the Israelites some credit okay they are not polytheists they do not think again their deceased loved ones are at the level of Yahweh I mean come on let's be real and that begs the question though well if the term wasn't about attributes you see what I'm doing here I'm asking you to let the biblical writers define the term for you not the Westminster Confession not Roman Catholicism not 21st century evangelicalism you let the biblical writers define the term for you what does it mean next slide hopefully this little wonderful piece of artwork I can use that term really loosely here will show up what Elohim signifies what it is is what I call a place of residence term it does not describe what a thing is its powers and attributes it describes where a thing is from what its natural abode is and in the case of all eloheem all Elohim are inhabitants of the spiritual world they are by nature disembodied think about it when you die you don't take your body with you you go to the and we think about all the terminology we use you go to the spiritual world you go to the other side you go to glory you go you know heaven hell we use all this we use the language of geography because we have to and because you know it's part of the biblical text too but we go to this place this afterlife place good or bad where we don't have bodies now we believe that we will get glorified bodies this is a New Testament thing it's also Old Testament thinking but if you live over there you are by nature disembodied that's what it means so Yahweh o Yahweh is an Elohim he's one of them but none of them are like him Yahweh is an Elohim but no Elohim is like Yahweh and this is the point throughout the Old Testament of these phrases comparing God with other gods and basically there's none like him there's none besides you got to be kidding of course there's no one like him they can say that then they turn around they and they use Elohim of five or six different things are they nuts do they not know the Westminster Confession well no they don't okay and they wouldn't care what they do know is they know how to use their own terminology that's what they know and we have received it and again since we're separated by this gulf both in terms of chronology and in terms of you know culture we have to try to get into the text sufficiently enough and other resources again that help us do that to be able to think like a biblical writer thought so that we can understand what in the world is saying so Elohim is a place of residence term that refers to a realm now in that realm there is rank and hierarchy next slide now I'm going to use Google it ik here as a comparison point and I'll I'll get to a few slides later you just to sort of show you how how close you get ik is to some of the stuff in terms of the terminology used the theology is quite different but the terminology is is the same in at a guard at the top of the council a new guard uses the word council divine council council of elevate all the same terminology you had L then he was he had a goddess wife and then you have this sort of is he the son of L or not Bale again the Old Testament bad guy underneath that you had the sons though okay and believe them you had Maliki same word as in Hebrew that we usually translate angel just means a messenger Israel of course Yahweh is at the top and again I believe that the Israelites Old Testament theology had a Godhead it wasn't just one there was a Godhead just like in the New Testament New Testament writers did not make that up okay they got that from somewhere but there's yahweh at the top he is ontologically unique he has a unique set of attributes how do we know that our mike are you just saying that because that's comfortable for your theology now I'm actually saying that because the Hebrew Bible says that and here's how it says it only the God of Israel is credited with certain things creating the world creating all the other Elohim exercising worldwide global sovereignty again omnipotence all these you know these attributes no other Elohim is ever described the same way as that only the God of Israel it's consistent so that tells you to the biblical writer even though I've got more than one Elohim in my worldview because hey that's just a disembodied being from the spiritual world there's lots of different ones of those angels demons you know my aunt my uncle and that kind of stuff even though there's lots of those there's only one of Yahweh there is none like it and so they described him in specific ways that they don't describe anything else and that becomes an article of faith okay that is a do-or-die piece of theology for them again in the second level you have sons of God this terminology and really the ranks are distinguished by their essentially job descriptions they are distinguished by the duties that we can read about that were assigned to them bottom tier is Moloch aim angels or messengers in theory any divine being any Elohim of the spiritual world can fulfill the function of a mohawk of a messenger the angel of the Lord does and he is going to be called Elohim in fact he's going to be equated with Yahweh but when Yahweh God the Father needs the Moloch out and I who I believe is the son role God the Son when he need him to do something he does it just like the New Testament the father has sent me I'm sent one messenger here so there again there the rank and hierarchy really refers to tasks now the middle task we're going to go into Deuteronomy 32 and I'm only going to mention Daniel 10 now if you're familiar with Daniel 10 let's just bring that out here because I'm going to spend my time really on Deuteronomy 32 Daniel 10 is that passage in Daniel that links certain divine beings they're called princes in ten to certain geographical places on the planet Prince of Persia Princip Greece okay and it's clear from Daniel ten that we're talking about cosmic divine beings we're not talking about guys that need to ride horses or in chariots or something like that okay so that's an important role I'll say a little bit more about it as we go next slide you might have and then hit it once more you might have noticed actually four more times so that looks like this you might have noticed well in that little pyramid thing you know there's I'm looking for some familiar characters and I don't see him the word demons isn't there specifically again demon would be sort of at the bottom because in lugar it ik literature throne guardians are servants in the throne room waiting to get sent somewhere so a demon is actually or the shading that kind of person a throne Guardian person is actually at the bottom of the job hierarchy now again I'm not going to really rabbit trail much tonight unless we do it in QA about Satan Satan he was not a high roller in the spiritual world but nevertheless he was a divine being and very powerful and rebelled but don't get the mistaken notion that this was like God's right hand dude or something like that and he just lost him the terminology is not the case you'll also don't see anything about the underworld here hello Ben Shekar is again a a phrase that's going to get used later an idea later used of the cosmic enemy means son of the dawn hello The Shining one the son of the dawn that's not here again because really this this individual and the denizens of the underworld again are not doing important tasks okay you have to think of the hierarchy in terms of tasks they are there because when you're in the underworld you're in the spiritual world and and you're sort of if you're human beings you're waiting you're waiting for the redemption of the body if you're among the righteous if you're among believers and you're promised certain tasks in the book of Revelation and elsewhere that today these guys are doing there's a reason and down we'll get to in a moment there's a reason why sons of God is a New Testament phrase as well that's applied to people believers because we are destined to reclaim the nations of the earth that they presently rule that is the biblical story I'll show you how we get there in a moment we are destined to rule the nations that at present are under the Dominion of the sons of God we displace them we are God's family it it's not a mistake that the New Testament uses family terminology and the Old Testament does too and when the Old Testament does it uses it of two things other divine beings and Israel okay you throw in the King you know but he's is real - yeah we'll get there in a moment so next slide or yeah let's go back here I just want to quickly show you just by way of a few examples the divine counsel idea does not depend on Psalm 82 or Psalm 89 it has threads running through lots of places in the Old Testament here are the descriptions of the divine abode the divine council meets where God is he doesn't go to them they don't call the meetings he does okay he runs the headquarters they are where he is they wait for him to say jump okay and they do they report to him so there's this concept in the ancient world and a little Testaments part of this that where the gods are in Israel's case where Yahweh is that is the place where the counsel is because his home is also the headquarters of the cause it's not a difficult idea and if you look at the terminology again just by way of parallel illustration at a garden when you have Ellen Vale at the top they live at a place that's well watered source of two rivers found through the double deep they also God's live on in the best places they live in Oasis like you know conditions well watered gardens always enough water always enough to eat lots of variety it's just the best place to live so naturally of course the gods live there they also live on mountains why because back then people didn't climb mountains like they do today there was no equipment they were the most remote places the deserts the mountains but if you're going to pick one of the two it's always the mountains because you can't get there you can run around the desert all you want you might die but you can't really get on top of the mountains and so this is why ancient religions of the Near East and all over the world thought they just assumed that well if God ever comes to earth that would be the hotel he's staying in because that's the one that's most distant from us he is not like us we hope he shows up hope he's not angry when he does we hope he shows up we want to relate to him but you know there's a there's a difference between us and him and so it was just this conception again we have these kind of conceptions to about that's why when Jesus comes it's so incongruous it doesn't have a pillow to lay his head on I mean he's homeless and again there's just this great incongruity that's very deliberate but in the Old Testament again they live in the best places so you get mounts Afon oh okay the illustrations here are obvious you have Eden in Zion referred to as well watered gardens eden is also referred to as a mountain Ezekiel 28 you arket AIT's a phone the heights of the north Zion is called the heights of cellphone well Boyd is that saying that that Jerusalem was the really the home of bail no ok the biblical writers saying it isn't bail who inhabits the heights of the north it's Yahweh he kicked him out ok again a lot of these are theological statements designed to diss bail specifically he's often sort of in the crosshairs of a lot of this and elevate Yahweh the mount of the assembled council LaPook room o aid a new critic the harem Oh aid in Hebrew next slide again tents they live in tents this is real familiar with the tabernacle the terminology you know oh hell no aid we have a Halim mich Mich cannot mich con you know the house the temple bait we have hey Cal hey claim here again even the way they're described the courtyard paved bricks you know courtyard of lapis lazuli the whole the whole description you can find elsewhere and again that's because of a common shared conception the gods live in the best places in the most remote places because they're not us we are not them they are not us they're different now let's talk about worldview two slides it should be the one that says Deuteronomy 32 at the top there we go 32 8 9 now you'll notice Deuteronomy 32 8 the first section I have the NIV at the top and I have the ESV below it you'll notice a difference starting in verse 8 when the most high gave the nations their inheritance when he divided all mankind he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel verse 9 for the Lord's portion is his people Jacob is a lot of D heritance if you go down to the ESV you get all that when the most high give the nations their inheritance he divides mankind fixes the borders of the people accorded the number of the sons of God sons of Israel sons of God there are different readings but the Lord's portion is as people Jacob has a lot of heritage what's going on here is there is a textual manuscript difference a manuscript discrepancy the oldest without again if you want to read this I have an article published article and that would just numb your mind I'm sure on Deuteronomy 32 8 the sons of God and why text critically there is no good reason to opt for sons of Israel just on the basis of textual criticism the Dead Sea Scrolls read sons of God the Septuagint reads sons of God here but you don't need any of that you know why what event is this referred to when do the nations get divided Tower of Babel that's Genesis 10 and 11 specifically 11 but 10 counts because it's the table of Nations did his really exist yet no so why would they say why would some manuscripts say sons of Israel PR he are no it's really that has a lot to do with it because again it reflects an aversion on the part of some scribes to divine plurality because who believes in divine plurality those weird Christians ok the text as we know at the Masoretic text was standardized that means it was created I mean I'll just back up you know do you ever get tired of how many English Bibles there are ok ok their problem wasn't quite as bad but we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that there were at least three versions of the Hebrew Bible in existence there was the one that would become known as the Masoretic text for the most part there was the one that was the basis for the Septuagint which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament that was done a few centuries before Jesus that text does not always agree with the Masoretic text so there were two distinct editions the third one was the Samaritan Pentateuch okay there's the Samaritans only accepted the first five books of Moses as sacred but they had their own version of them all three of those are evidenced among the Dead Sea Scrolls along with a number of other versions of the Hebrew Bible that scholars today just put in a category called unaffiliated texts which means now they don't agree with any of the other ones but we don't know how many there are in other words this is the guessing box okay we're just going to throw that in there so there were at least three came out like a hundred like we have English Bibles today but eventually the Jewish community prompted I'm sure to some extent by kind of being annoyed that you know when we got more than one version out here you know we got to do something about this but not coincidentally they didn't like the Septuagint because the Christians used it 80% of the time when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament it quotes the Septuagint not the Masoretic text why because it's written for Greek speakers and that's just kind of the way you do that that just makes more sense you don't translate on the fly you use a version that they can read themselves and go check what you're saying so the Christians use it and there are certain passages in the Septuagint that are really convenient in terms of again having a different text of the Old Testament they're really convenient for arguing for Jesus is God so the Jewish community is like well we don't like that maybe we can like use this text tool like all these different versions and we can use that sort of as an excuse to get rid of the Septuagint and they had another reason again the two powers idea the two powers of heaven so around 100 AD all these things converge and the Jewish authorities get together and say look we're going to standardize the text we're going to take all this other stuff out here we're going to decide what our Bible is and from that point on its going to get copied you know world-without-end and that's what we're going to go with and that thing becomes known as the Masoretic text so when you read about the Masoretic text today that's the thing you're reading about the thing that was established and published and then began being professionally copied by scribes around 100 AD okay it was a bit of a rabbit trail next slide tower Babel we're familiar with that so we'll go to the next slide tower Babel is also interesting because if you need to know sort of what a ziggurat meant ziggurat the tower kind of tower that was there these were conceived of again the gods lived on mountains and in the ancient mind there was this belief that if you look over here there was this belief that the world again is again you get this from Genesis to Genesis cosmology round and flat resting on you know either some waters or you'll get this tree language and supposedly there were gateways to the underworld and this mountain here of course led to the top and this up here is where the gods live somewhere and there's sort of this this pole running through heavens the earth down into Sheol so on and so forth this is a very common ancient Near Eastern take on cosmology it's called the axis mundi okay the world you know tree the world axis now a ziggurat hit the next button right here we have a ziggurat a cigaret was a place that you built one of these mountains so that the gods would come and meet with you they were the gateways they were the places they were the stopping kind of like a rest stop they build a rest stop people to stop here yeah now we build a ziggurat the gods will show up and then we can commune with them we can sacrifice to them maybe we can make deals with them they come you know the priesthood really likes this idea of course again this is just the way they conceived of things so the Tower of Babel this is why when God says look you're supposed to disperse how clear can the covenant with Noah be I keep repeating it and you just don't get it he tells them to disperse and what do they do we're going to gather we're going to build one of these towers you know and then like you know God will come down and and we can here's the key thought we can meet with God on our own terms I'm sorry but you can't the Babel incident was actually very similar to the logic of idolatry if you've never thought about idolatry what in the world are they doing what are they thinking what they're thinking with idolatry all right they're not they're not idiots okay it's time to stop slamming the Babylonians they're not idiots okay they know that this thing they're making out of wood didn't make them they know that you know where babies come from at the very least okay they're not dumb what they believe though is that when you make one of those that the God will inhabit it will in dwell it that's why in Babylon and an Egypt and in other places they had a ceremony where they give birth to the God to the idol and they open its mouth why the mouth because you breathe through the mouth and that is the breath of life so you animate the idol the God comes down why do you want the God come down because now that God comes to you and you can make demands on it or try to make deals with it you are trying to control the engagement this is why when it comes to Israel God says what thou shalt not make any graven image because I can't be tamed I'm not coming to you you're not going to make this thing and I'm going to I'm supposed to go you know show up here now and then we have this conversation I will dictate to you how I will meet with you you don't get to make one of these so think of another plan and while you're at it you might want to carry out the plan that I'm actually going to give you all right it's the same sort of logic you're trying to control the encounter and it's just not you know it's forbidden in the Old Testament there's a reason for that next slide Deuteronomy for echoes the thought of Deuteronomy 32:4 Deuteronomy 32 what's going on God divides up the nations and he does them well he does one he divides them up a corner the number of the sons of God what does that mean it means he assigns the nation's to be under the authority of other divine beings not himself why because just go back to Deuteronomy well go forward to Deuteronomy 32 I think I listed again yeah I do the point here if we look at the wording down here he fixes again the number of nations 1/4 the number of the sons of God but the Lord's portion is Israel Israel's my people I referred to this as the Romans 1 event of the Old Testament number Romans 1 God gave them up to whatever they want to I dot del whatever you know you're not going to listen to me whatever you know just give you up to idolatry and all these other things this is the Romans 1 event of the Old Testament where God says to the people after the flood look I want you to disperse we've cleaned up the problem I'm forgiving you I'm accepting Noah's sacrifice I'm going to give you the Covenant the same one I gave to Adam be fruitful and multiply and I want you to spread the over the earth and you'll be my people and they snow no we're going to do it this way God says okay if you don't want me to be your God I'll give you your he divides up the nations puts them assigns them to other deities other Elohim sons of God and he says now you know what I'm going to do it kind of looks like I'm without a people now because I've taken all a you sad sacks and put you under the authority of inferior divine beings so you know what I'm going to do I didn't lose here I'm going to go over to or and I'm going to call this guy called Abraham and I'm going to just give him a voice in the dark and I'm going to call him and I'm going to take that guy and make for myself an entirely new people so how about that that's my portion this is why the rest of the Old Testament is Israel against the nation's and Yahweh against the other gods it becomes a competition it becomes a fight for authority now god the think about the Abrahamic covenant Genesis 12 you know I will bless them that bless you I'll curse them that curse is you but in you through you all nations all families of the earth will be blessed God hasn't forgotten about the nations he disinherited that's why it's the Romans one event of the Old Testament God disinherits them takes him out of the will but he hasn't forgotten them because he's going to say look I'm going to start over here and I'm going to use this people to reach you and not only that but there was this other thing that happened in the garden you know like like we still need to take care of that too the solution of that problem is also going to come from this group Israel so the rest of the story in biblical narrative is the process of God trying to rethink think of how many times you've heard these terms God trying to re-establish his kingdom rule on the earth over all the nations lots of problems along the way finally we get the Messiah and what does Jesus do when he shows up he announces what is here the kingdom of God is here you know what he actually meant it and there are lots of things that Jesus does places he goes and what he says at certain places that goes right back to here because what you have in the Old Testament next slide let's skip that one skip that one we'll go right here to the one that has the listing Old Testament cosmic geography there we go what you have with the dividing up of the nations and God calling is really all we calling Israel as his own everywhere they go this is why God travels with them they do not have a homeland yet they've been promised one everywhere he is is sacred ground this is the logic of the tabernacle it's the logic of the Levitical system ok where I am that is a special place where I am you're not supposed to be you can only be where I am if you go through these ritual procedures to make sure that you're purified that you don't pollute up the holy ground ok this whole logic of divine geography as opposed to profane geography well their little camp is the only place where the Lord's portion is that means every other place is under the Dominion of foreign unfriendly Elohim and as they go through to the promised land they fight all these wars different events happen at different places it reflects this division you know it's it's an effort to reclaim the globe to reclaim that which was disinherited and God has a plan for doing that and people his people are part of that plan I love I'll give you one illustration I love the second Kings one Elijah with NAMM in the leper I think we can end here let me just yeah well let we'll end here we can have a fa Q's after this remember the story of name and the leper he has leprosy and he's really kind of down about that like who wouldn't be and he has this little Israelite slave girl in his palace and she hears about the problem and she says decebal if he just go over to the Jordan River and talk to the prophet Elijah or Elijah he he'd fixed the problem and so they do that they go see Elijah and remember the story Elijah won't even come out to see him okay you know I heard your problem and you know go dip yourself seven times in the Jordan go away and he gets mad well listen you know aren't there rivers back in my country better and that the point is it ain't the river it's not the water so he goes dips himself and he's clean he's all excited he goes back to the Prophet and he tries to give him payment and he licenses and I just forget it this is this this one's free it's on the house alright and named and then it asks a very odd question remember what he asks can I take some dirt back with me fill up some bags of dirt put them on the donkey can I do that is that okay because you know like I'm an important guy back in Syria and one of my job's is I have to go into the temple of Ramon with the king and the Kings kind of old and kind of feeble so like when the King bow is you know I got to kind of hold him up and we got it we have to sort of bow together in the temple of Ramon so I just want to know if I can take some dirt back with me Nilay she says sure how to work what is he telling you what's he asking because he's going to take that dirt with him he's going to take holy ground into that temple because that way he has what he has a little bit of Yahweh's turf with him either for protection or to make it known to Yahweh that I'm really not worshiping Ramon I know if you read you know the passage says now I know who the real God is didn't I don't need any other lessons so I want to take some dirt back with me this is cosmic geography deities are attached in this conception to places and I am NOT going on Ramon's territory without dirt from Yahweh's home that's the whole point another example here is Dagon there when Dagon winds up on his face and his heads lopped off and he loses his arms and all he's just a stump okay there's a little line in the narrative when they discovered agon it says and the priests of the Philistines walk around that place unto this day where Dagon was found flat on his face they don't even walk across the threshold they go around it why because it's no longer day God's domain okay we have seen who is mightier than Dagon they don't want to walk on the ground because again of this whole conscious thinking and it stuns from this again this divine council world before God make certain decisions in the Old Testament one of those decisions was to punish the nations of the world put them under the authority of the sons of God and take Israel for himself now you go back to Psalm 82 and we'll end here you go back to Psalm 82 and look at it that is a meeting where God is pretty ticked it begins God takes his stand in the divine assembly in the midst of the gods he passes judgment next few verses God starts railing on them why have essentially is my paraphrase why are you guys so corrupt okay I said that you are gods your sons are the most high all of you but you're going to die like men God is announcing their punishment they are losing their immortality at whatever point God decides I think it's eschatological because of some things in the book of Revelation you're going to lose your immortality because you have corruptly administered these nations that I assign to you the last verse of the song the psalmist says rise up o God and take the nation's for yourself take take the world back that's the whole point of the song but again you have to filter the song through what's going on and Deuteronomy 32 and there's all this other stuff

Channel: Brent Emery

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Keywords: michael heiser, divine council, beit tefillah gig harbor, brent emery, beit-tefillahgh

Id: T2WvZ0AcXi4

Length: 68min 38sec (4118 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2013