A Look at Michael Heiser’s Book, “Demons”

One of the books I read over the summer was Michael Heiser’s book, Demons: What the Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness. In many ways, it is very similar to his earlier book, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. A few years ago, I wrote a short book analysis of The Unseen Realm, and if you care to read it, here are the links to the posts…

Part 1: Let’s Get Introduced

Part 2: Eden and the Serpent

Part 3: Rebellious Angels

Part 4: Jesus Casts Out Demons

Part 5: Letters of Paul

Like I said, Demons is a continuation (and dare I say “rehashing”) of much of what is in The Unseen Realm. That being said, because The Unseen Realm does challenge the reader (even a relatively biblically literate reader) to view certain parts of the Bible through a new lens, sometimes the information isn’t going to really stick in your head. You sometimes need to go over it again, perhaps from a slightly different angle, to get a better grasp of it all. That is essentially what Demons does, at least for me. As I read the book, I was reminded of many of the things Heiser wrote about in The Unseen Realm, and it helped me solidify my understanding of his arguments, particularly how the Old and New Testaments portray demons and where they come from. And so, what I want to do in this solitary blog post is to crystalize the most fundamental points Heiser makes regarding demons in the Bible.

That being said, whenever talk of demons comes up in the modern world, the default starting point for most people is to ask, “Well, do you really think demons exist?” Those discussions often reflect a person’s fundamental worldview and assumptions regarding the reality of the supernatural to begin with, and they often get confusing and muddled because most—indeed all—of us tend to work from certain caricatures of “demons” that include red beings with goatees, hooves, and pitchforks, dancing around fiery pits in hell and hideously laughing as they put all those sinners on Satan’s barbeque, relishing the sight of the eternal torment of the damned. Or, for shorthand, our understanding of demons comes from Dante’s Inferno or Keanu Reeves’ movie, Constantine. And on top of that, we throw in ideas of demon possession akin to The Exorcist.

This post is not going to be about that. For that matter, I do believe in the existence of demons, but at the same time, I believe the description of the demonic in the Bible (particularly what I’m going to cover in this post) are literary creations that attempt to explain the reality of demons in language that we can sort of get our minds around. In blunt terms, even though I believe in the existence of demons, I do not think that they literally “came from” the events described in Genesis 6:1-4, where divine beings literally had sex with woman, who literally gave birth to giants, whose spirits were literally released into the world when the giants died. Does that sound confusing? Of course it does, because I haven’t explained the book yet. So let’s jump in, and hopefully thing will be clearer by the end.

A Few General Observations
In his opening chapter, Heiser takes the time to articulate something that most of us who read the Bible tend to gloss over. Simply put, he points out that there are actually different types of beings under that broad category of “demons” or “fallen angels” most of us are content with. You know what I mean. You’ll find yourself reading a passage that mentions things like the Anakim, or Rephaim, or Azazel and “goat demons,” or a host of other odd creatures you don’t really know what to do with in your head, so you just say to yourself, “Oh, that must mean some kind of demon who was a fallen angel,” and you move on. Now, that’s fine to do if you’re just trying to get your head wrapped around the larger biblical story—save the harder stuff for later, sort of thing. But at some point, it is good to get a better handle on those things, and that is where Heiser’s book can help.

Therefore, Heiser categories these general kinds of “evil spirits” into three types: (1) Supernatural beings associated with the realm of the dead, (2) Territorial spirits associated with specific geographical regions, and (3) De-mythologized pseudo-demons associated with the forces of chaos and the forces of nature. In the course of his book, he goes through most, if not all, of those odd passages involving these types of “evil spirits” we tend to gloss over and explains them in greater detail. Instead of going through his book chapter by chapter, though, I want to come at it by highlighting the three major rebellions he discusses in Genesis 1-11, and then showing how they serve as the foundational stories by which later biblical writers understand demonic activity.

The First Rebellion and the Original Rebel (Genesis 3)
Genesis 3 tells us about how the serpent tempted Adam and Eve and caused them to sin by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in attempt to gain wisdom. Heiser argues that Eden was understood to be God’s Temple at the heart of His creation and the location of His heavenly council that included lesser divine beings. That is why, when mankind is created in Genesis 1:26-27, God says, “Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness.” The goal of the human race was to be a community patterned after the community of heaven.

Yet one of the divine beings in the heavenly council decides to try to set himself up as the divine authority—as God Himself—and get humanity to obey him, not God. That is what we see in the temptation story in Genesis 3. The serpent should be understood as a serpentine guardian cherub (see Ezekiel 28:13-16 and Isaiah 6: 2,6) who, because of his rebellion and his getting humanity to sin, is thus cast out of the heavenly council (Isaiah 14:12-15). So, when one reads Ezekiel 28 or Isaiah 14 and sees each prophecy is addressed to the King of Tyre and to the King of Babylon respectively, one needs to realize that both Ezekiel and Isaiah are prophesying about the destruction of Tyre and Babylon by using the mythological imagery and story of that original divine rebel. Now, we may want to immediately jump to our current notion of, “Okay, that is Satan!” but Heiser advises us to hold off on that a bit. Yes, over time, that association becomes clearer, but within the course of the Old Testament, that association isn’t so cut and dry. It is therefore better to just see the “tempting serpent” in Genesis 3 as a rebellious divine being formerly in God’s heavenly council who is cast out because of his trying to set himself as God.

The Second Rebellion and its relation to a Mesopotamian Myth (Genesis 6:1-4)
Genesis 6:1-4 is that odd episode where the sons of elohim go into the daughters of men, who then give birth to the Nephilim. For the longest time, I argued that the “sons of elohim” was a reference to corrupt ancient kings who abused their power and oppressed their people. Heiser, though, has convinced me that when one looks at this episode against the backdrop of other ancient Near Easter mythological literature, that the “sons of elohim” should be understood to be lesser divine beings who have sex with women, who then give birth to certain “hybrid creatures” known as the Nephilim, who were considered giants and who further corrupted humanity.

Heiser points to the fact that both II Peter and Jude refer to Genesis 6:1-4 and clearly identify these “sons of elohim” as fallen angels (divine beings) who had sex with women and who were then shut up in Tartarus (prison deep within the earth). He also points to the book of I Enoch that clearly shows that the view of Intertestamental Judaic apocalyptic thought was pretty much the same. The final thing Heiser points to that convinced me is the connection to the Mesopotamian myth regarding the apkallu. Very simply put, in Mesopotamian mythology, the apkallu were divine beings who were responsible for teaching certain points of knowledge to mankind that led to advances in human culture and civilization. They were “culture heroes” who brought the “art of civilization” to the earth (and to the Mesopotamian cultures in particular).

Yet Heiser argues that what we find in Genesis 6:1-4 (much like we find throughout Genesis 1-11) is the taking of certain aspects of ancient Near Easter mythology and completely subverting them. And so, the apkallu cultural heroes of Mesopotamian mythology become the evil divine beings of Genesis 6:1-4 who corrupt humanity. This leads to something else concerning the Nephilim. Heiser points out that in I Enoch, the spirits of the dead Nephilim are known as bastard spirits who end up roaming the earth and being what we would characterize as demonic spirits. Heiser obviously goes into more detail, but I’ve got to say, it makes a good deal of sense.

The Third Rebellion and Dividing the Inheritance of the Nations (Genesis 11)
The final rebellion Heiser points to stems from the fall out of the Tower of Babel. He emphasizes what he calls the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, specifically Deuteronomy 32:8-9, which reads, “When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the LORD’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.” Heiser argues these verses refer back to what God did after the Tower of Babel episode. Since mankind continued to rebel against Him, He scattered the nations and put them under the administration of various divine beings, with Him choosing to Israel to be His people. That is why all throughout Deuteronomy (4:19-20; 17:2-5; 29:21-25), He continually tells Israel to not go off and worship the hosts of heaven. Those “hosts” are the other divine beings who rule the other nations. (SIDE NOTE: That makes me think that maybe the reference to the God of Israel throughout the Old Testament as “The LORD of HOSTS” speaks to that very thing—other divine beings might be ruling the other nations, but YHWH is still over them and is still the one true God).

In any case, given that, Heiser then points to Psalm 82:6-8, which says, “I say, ‘You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.’ Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!” Heiser interprets this as saying that those divine beings whom God appointed to rule the nations after Babel eventually became corrupted themselves and eventually became what we’d call the false gods of the nations. The end of the Psalm looks forward to when God will take back all the nations for Himself, after He deals with those corrupted divine beings.

Conclusion
There is a lot more in the Heiser’s book—much of what I find intriguing, some of which I don’t entirely buy. But given that basic layout, Heiser does take the time to discuss how all that relates to what we find in the New Testament. Very briefly, I’ll touch upon a few things:

1. Over time, the serpent of Genesis came to be identified with the singular Satan, also known as the Devil and Beelzebub.

2. The demons that Jesus casts out and that the apostles encounter would then be understood to be the demonic spirits stemming from the dead Nephilim.

3. The principalities, powers, and thrones that Paul occasionally refers to would then be a reference to those divine beings who rule the nations, but whose power is now being broken in Jesus Christ, who, through his ministry, death, and resurrection, was reclaiming all of God’s creation for himself.

To be clear, this understanding of Genesis 3, Genesis 6:1-4, and Deuteronomy 32’s take on the Babel story of Genesis 11 doesn’t mean one has to believe these events were literal events in history. As anyone who has been reading my stuff over the past five years knows, I do not think Genesis 1-11 is meant to be interpreted as history. I believe Genesis 1-11 to be fundamentally mythological literature, properly understood, of course. Rather than being about history, Genesis 1-11 provides the theological grid through which we are able to discern God’s involvement in human history.

In any case, I thought Heiser’s book was very good. Maybe down the road, I’ll tackle his book, Angels.