Troublesome Topic: MY CRITIQUE OF HEISER’S THEORY OF A COUNCIL OF GODS

Is 48:8 & 11 say that God will not share his glory with any other. That leaves no room for other divine figures, even ones that He supposedly created.

Either the God of Israel is all-powerful, or He is not. The presence of a council of gods indicates their leader is not all-powerful.

Michael Heiser made a big deal about the plural form of the name Elohim, often saying it refers to the members of the council, not to the God of Israel. But he failed to mention that the verbs which accompany that plural name are usually singular verbs. Heiser pointed out the singular and plural uses of words when it was helpful for his message, but he did not mention them when they contradicted him.

Heiser wrote about good members of the divine council helping God with various parts of Israel’s history – the giving of the law, and other things. These gods were to be trusted as benevolent and wise. But who were they? Why do we not know any more about them if they played such an important part in Bible history?

Heiser interpreted many of the instances in which angels are mentioned in the Bible to mean “members of the divine council”.

On page 168 Heiser called the members of the divine council the “enforcers” of the covenant at Sinai. In this he is totally, 100% wrong, therefore I cover it under the topic I call Fatal Flaws in Michael Heiser’s Worldview.

Michael Heiser wrote that the phrase “council of Elohim” in Psalm 82:1 is referring to a council of the gods (pgs. 11-13). But it is the rest of psalm 82 that indicates to us how we should interpret the phrase “council of the Elohim’ in verse 1. He stated that the idea of them being human judges is weak, because Jewish judges were never given authority over all the earth. However, in Psalm 82, the whole earth is only mentioned in conjunction with God exercising His authority, which is indeed over the whole earth. Understanding the “council of Elohim” as human judges appointed by God is the most natural reading.

I believe Michael Heiser misused texts or twisted them by assuming they were proof of his theory. For example, regarding Dt 32:17 he assumed that this verse refers to demons as Elohim when the verse starts by saying the demons were not gods. It seems more natural and in agreement with the rest of the Bible that the verse shows that demonic forces are behind the false “gods” that people often worshipped. That does not mean that demons can rightly be considered “sons of Elohim” or Elohim (gods) themselves. His statement was an overreach in my opinion.

Terms like “hosts” and “holy ones” are usually seen to refer to angels, and there is no need to change that. It is consistent with the rest of the Bible. We are given a good picture of angels and demons in the Bible. Everything fits together. There is no need to take another category from the pantheons of the pagan religions and add it to the Bible.

In Job 1:6, the reason the angels were presenting themselves before the Lord seems to have been because they had to answer to God, not give Him counsel.

On pages 273 – 275 Heiser wrote that God called on the divine council to send someone to announce the appearance of Yahweh in the man Jesus of Nazareth. They called John the Baptizer. They were also the ones who called Isaiah, (p. 273), Moses, Paul and other prophets. What else did the divine council do that we have always thought God did?

When has there been cooperation between the pagan gods?  Isn’t there usually competition? If the Nephilim were deity, they would not work together with each other and with the Creator God. They would not play nicely with others.

The reason we see the phrase “council of the gods” in the Bible is because it was speaking in human terms the way people often thought of things. God sometimes used popular phrases from their cultures to express His ideas, but that does not mean their phrases were fully accurate, nor that such phrases should be taken at full value. They are simply a point of connection, much like a word-picture. For instance, the phrase “God remembered him” does not mean that God had forgotten for a while, and then finally remembered. We need to see such phrases for what God meant by them, not what man means by them. And we should never build theological frameworks or worldviews around such figurative phrases.

The next lesson in this series is IMAGE BEARERS.