Another (perhaps round-up) Michael Heiser post

For anyone reading Michael Heiser and trying to get a grasp of what he is basically saying about God's Heavenly Host, Divine Council and so on (Heiser doesn't seem interested in making it easy to follow his thinking, at least in anything resembling a summation form of his thinking, meaning: unless you want to wade through his Unseen Realm and not find any pithy definitions of the gods he says are not angels but a different creation; or you want to listen to endless hour and fifteen minute long internet podcasts and interviews he's done which all begin with the same info on how he got interested in the subject matter of his book and on and on then ramble through the subjects of his books without really giving a practical presentation, to-the-point, etc.) it is helpful to read a book I came across just on my own but have subsequently found that Heiser references in his Unseen Realm which is titled God's Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? Insights from the Bible and Early Church, by Gerald R. McDermott. Specifically chapters 3 and 4.

McDermott is similar to Heiser as a scholar regarding his approach to the Bible. Liberalish, very confident in a style of criticism that looks down on the Bible as a human document rather than as inspired revelation of God Himself, basically written by the Holy Spirit and a unified whole.

McDermott, for instance, in several places speculates that God (Yahweh, Jehovah) "might have" created the other gods such as the gods worshiped by the various Canaanite peoples. Might have...might not have... I guess McDermott doesn't recognize the Creator/creation divide in whatever language you want to put that in.

Yet McDermott is valuable in that he summarizes things Heiser refuses to (or if he does it's hard to find), and then McDermott is good enough to give contrast such as what apostolic era Christians actually thought of these particular subjects and how they reconciled Old Testament writing with the entirety of Scripture and so on regarding these very subjects.

Yes, the category of 'angels' covers all of it. And yes the angelic creation has a hierarchy of power and rank that we know little of, though we know enough from the Bible to know such hierarchy of power and rank exists. So you don't have to talk about 'gods' as some other creation separate from angels and humans and animals.

There are still some curious things that come up when pondering all this Heiser subject matter, but, for instance, I am one who is not afraid of the supernatural worldview to any degree. I believe fallen angels mated with human women in Genesis 6, for instance. I also, pondering this recently, believe monsters like Leviathan could have been created by a mating of fallen angels with - I don't know - saltwater crocodiles. The main point would be if fallen angels would mate with humans they'd probably have no problem mating with animals.

A curious thing would be to wonder if the angels God is reprimanding in Psalm 82 and sentencing to death are angels that were part of the Satanic rebellion or if they are some kind of different fall/rebellion episode in angelic history.

But as for the Cosmic War in general it is obvious that when God is fighting evil forces they are forces that were created by the acts of fallen angels. Meaning part of God's creation. Whether Satan and his fallen angel hordes themselves, or hybrid (human or animal) mixtures created by the fallen angels, or demons which are probably the souls of dead nephilim (giants) who were created by the fallen angels. It's never a fair fight, of course. But the context (and the Theatre) and drama exist for the benefit of God's creation, humans, good angels, and plays out the way it does in the infinite wisdom of our Creator in what is called the plan of redemption.

So all 'gods' are fronts for Satan, ultimately. Maybe one of his fallen angels in his fallen angel army of evil plays the role of this or that 'god', but Satan probably steps into the role if something big is happening in that part of the world, in that time of history.

One thing that confounds me (as it did Zwingli and Calvin as well) is how to see the Homeric gods and goddesses and that whole Olympic pantheon. Greek myth seems to be a 'through a glass darkly' presentation - fragmented presentation - of all that pre-flood human and angelic and human/angelic activity, but there is the ideal nature of it that also suggests hints of the life of glorification. Calvin gives the Homeric epics a pass when talking about the evil of gods and idol worship; and Zwingli even wrote more along those lines. I guess one could say the Iliad and the Odyssey together form a crude training wheels Bible, recovered from misty, collective folk memory, though inspired as far (and high) as human creations can be inspired. (There is an inner language of the Homeric epics that academics - or even the neo-Platonists, at least in extant writings - don't know, but can be found, if you have discernment for such things, in a book like the Fourth Way by Ouspensky...but that is another subject for another post...)