Troublesome Topic: LOYAL GODS OR CORRUPT GODS?

In Michael Heiser’s theory of the disinherited nations, did God give the nations into the control of loyal “gods” who rebelled and became corrupted, or to evil “gods”?  Heiser was not totally clear on this point. He wrote various times in his book The Unseen Realm, that they became corrupted, but he also implied that they were bad at the time the nations were disinherited. This causes confusion.

However, if the Nephilim became demons when they were killed, and if those same demon-gods were the ones God gave the nations over to, then it is obvious that they were evil at the time the nations were disinherited. Either Heiser was wrong to say they “became corrupted” or he was wrong to place great trust in the books of Enoch which call them defiled and wicked.

I did not see any statement in The Unseen Realm indicating that God gave the nations over to the Nephilim. But I believe that 1 Enoch does say it clearly. Heiser relied heavily on 1 Enoch, so it seems to be a way to point people to 1 Enoch without saying the most outrageous things himself – he let the books of Enoch say them, once people come to see them favorably as he did.

According to Heiser, by the time of the conquest of Canaan by Israel, the descendants of the Nephilim were enemies of God and His people, and the nations that inhabited Canaan were “under the dominion of hostile gods” p. 193.

Going back even earlier, let’s look at what Heiser said about the origin of the Nephilim. First he automatically discarded any interpretation that was not supernatural (p. 185). Of the two options remaining, one is connected physically to the giants that Israel would face during the conquest, i.e. enemies of God (p. 185), and the other supposes that rival “gods” produced offspring to oppose Yahweh’s children (p. 188). Notice that in both cases the “gods” involved are rivals and enemies of God.  See also page 115 where he calls them “corrupt sons of God”.

But other times in his book, especially the part about the work of Jesus, he said various times that the “gods” that were over the nations “became” corrupt.

This is another example of Heiser causing confusion by failing to agree with himself.

The next lesson is WHAT IS HE LORD OVER AND WHAT ARE THEY LORD OVER?