I would like to draw your attention to someone I have discovered in the last few months. His name is Dr. Michael Heiser . He is a biblical scholar and has written a number of books, papers and blogs. He has a number of websites and podcasts including one on fringe topics that you may not hear about much in the church eg. UFO’s and aliens. He also has a YouTube channel which involves him, his pugs and his son.
Maybe like me you would like to be able to understand the bible better. I don’t consider myself as an academic or intellectual so I have been surprised that I actually like this guy! The more I have listened to him, his colleagues and friends the more I begin to understand about the bigger picture of the bible and some of the smaller details that fill that out.
One of his aims is to take peer reviewed articles about the bible that are not easily accessible in the public domain and make them accessible to the lay person. He loves to take that which we may find weird or strange in the bible and explain it and not gloss over it. His argument is that it was put there in the text for a reason.
So far I have listened to his main book on Audible. This is quite hard going as it deals with a lot of Ancient Near Eastern history and can be quite technical in places. The book is ‘Unseen Realm; recovering the supernatural worldview of the bible’. He has written a layman’s version called ‘Supernatural; what the bible teaches about the unseen world and why it matters’.
I am catching up on his Naked Bible Podcast (turn off TLS security settings due to name as it may not open website!) which has a lot of episodes, over 200. Episodes are on chapter-by-chapter bible exposition, what the bible is, interviews with other scholars and topic studies such as: What day was Jesus born? Episode: 138. Each of these episodes have accompanying transcripts if you don’t want to listen you can read those.
I have read his two fictional works in the sci-fi genre: The Facade and The Portent. They are very mind stretching and use a lot of research all around the subject of UFO’s. His characters are very likeable and all have some kind of skill or ability. The first book has more action, the second more dialogue.
And finally a word or two about his little book called ‘What does God want?’ He states there is a simple answer to that – God wants you! He wants you to be part of his earthly and heavenly family. The book is dedicated: To all those beginning their faith in Jesus, and to those who began it long ago, but feel like they’re still at the same place.
For me Michael has inspired me to go back to the bible try to look at it not from my perspective but to try to understand the contexts of those who wrote it. I recommend his material to you.