Theopedia

Michael Heiser

Overview

Michael S. Heiser (1963-2023) was an American Hebrew Bible scholar best known for reading Old Testament texts such as Psalm 82, Psalm 89, and Job 1-2 as depicting a heavenly “divine council” of lesser ʾĕlōhîm under Yahweh’s own authority, most fully argued in his book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (2015).1 Though not a Reformed theologian himself, his reading of these texts is engaged and used approvingly, across several chapters, by Craig A. Carter’s Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, a work of Reformed classical-theism retrieval.23

Life and Ministry

Heiser earned an MA in ancient history from the University of Pennsylvania, then an MA and PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic languages, with a minor in classical studies, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.1 He served as scholar-in-residence at Faithlife Corporation, publisher of Logos Bible Software, until 2019, and later as Executive Director of the School of Ministry at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, while teaching as a distance-learning professor at Liberty University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.1 He produced The Naked Bible podcast and wrote more than ten books before his death in 2023.1

Theological Contribution

Heiser’s central argument, developed at length in The Unseen Realm, is that Scripture assumes a “divine council,” a group of ʾĕlōhîm, divine beings distinct from both Yahweh and from angels in the narrower sense, who serve under Yahweh’s authority and appear at various points ruling, advising, or being judged.3 Carter summarizes the argument from Psalm 82, where “God [ʾĕlōhîm] has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods [ʾĕlōhîm] he holds judgment” (Ps. 82:1): the “gods” addressed there cannot be human rulers, since verses 6-7 threaten them with a death “as if they were men,” so they must be “sons of God” who “are divine beings under the authority of the God of Israel.”4 Heiser extends the same reading to the “sons of God” gathered before the LORD in Job 1-2 and to the “heavenly beings” (bənê ʾĕlōhîm) of Psalm 89:5-7, treating both as further appearances of this council.5

Heiser applied the same lens to Isaiah’s own prophetic visions, arguing that the announcement of a new exodus in Isaiah 40:3-5 is itself “one of several divine-council scenes in the book of Isaiah.”2 On his account this council language reflects a broader biblical assumption of two interacting realms, a heavenly and an earthly one, captured in the Lord’s Prayer’s own “as in heaven, so on earth” (Matt. 6:9-10).2 On the Old Testament’s polemic against surrounding ancient Near Eastern paganism more broadly, Carter calls The Unseen Realm “the best recent book on this important point.”6

Historical Significance

Heiser’s divine-council reading has been taken up directly by at least one contemporary Reformed theologian working on classical theism: Carter cites The Unseen Realm as authoritative across three separate chapters of Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, on Isaiah’s use of council imagery, on the identity of the “gods” of Psalm 82, and on the Old Testament’s polemic against Canaanite religion, each time characterizing Heiser’s argument favorably (“argues rather convincingly,” “an excellent discussion,” “the best recent book on this important point”).236

Related Doctrines

References

  1. “Michael S. Heiser,” Wikipedia, accessed September 12, 2026. Cited directly per the Sourcing policy’s allowance for biographical facts unavailable in the Theopedia Library or from a reachable primary source. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Craig A. Carter, “God as the Transcendent Creator (Isa. 40),” in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 4. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. Craig A. Carter, “God as the One Who Alone Is to Be Worshiped (Isa. 41-48),” in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 6. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2015), 27, quoted in Carter, “God as the One Who Alone Is to Be Worshiped (Isa. 41-48),” chap. 6. ↩

  5. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 29, discussed in Carter, “God as the One Who Alone Is to Be Worshiped (Isa. 41-48),” chap. 6. ↩

  6. Craig A. Carter, “Interpreting Isaiah 40-48 Theologically,” in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), chap. 3, n.47. ↩ ↩2