A review of Michael Heiser’s “The Unseen Realm” 

Christians believe in angels, demons, the incarnation, and the virgin birth, yet we struggle with certain bizarre Old Testament stories: 

• A race of giants born of spiritual beings and humans called the Nephilim? 
• Jacob wrestling with God? 
• Yahweh presiding over an assembly of divine beings?
• A serpent speaking to Eve—and she’s not surprised?

We are modern Westerners. As such, it’s difficult to read the Bible through the lens of its original audience. But, as good students of the Bible, we must do our best. That’s where books like Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm can work wonders.

“People shouldn’t be protected from the Bible.”

Michael Heiser unearths the context of the ancient Israelites to understand their premodern spiritual worldview. This background helps make sense of seemingly meaningless passages and, ultimately, leads us back to Jesus.

Unfortunately, false teachers often use obscure Old Testament passages to peddle unfaithful interpretations. Having rejected these teachings, well-meaning Christians want to smooth over puzzling verses to avoid heresy and conspiratorial tangents. Pastors can feel out of their depth or want to protect their flock from an unhealthy fascination with puzzling verses. 

This position is understandable, but mistaken. As Heiser writes, “People shouldn’t be protected from the Bible.” 

Our goal as Christians should be to faithfully read the Bible—all of it. But how? 

Who was Dr. Michael Heiser? 

Michael Heiser, PhD, who died in 2023, was a biblical scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Semitic languages. His work helped popularize context-awareness of the Old Testament in evangelical circles. He published around a dozen books on the biblical spiritual realm and hosted the popular The Naked Bible Podcast.

The podcast is described as “biblical theology, stripped bare of denominational confessions and theological systems by exposing context.” The Unseen Realm delivers on a similar goal. Heiser does the remarkable work of diving into serious scholarship and debates about elusive ancient languages, while somehow, simultaneously, keeping his writing engaging and approachable.

So, who is The Unseen Realm for? Should you read it, or does it stray into heresy? 

Should you read The Unseen Realm? 

If you’re an understandably nervous church leader or a cautious, everyday Bible reader, a title like “The Unseen Realm” may set your Bible senses tingling like a spiritual Spider-Man. However, Heiser is well-equipped with credible methods of biblical interpretation. 

The Unseen Realm is accessible to laypeople, though undoubtedly fruitful for scholars as well. The work is part of a growing chorus of biblical scholars unpacking the context of the Old Testament to understand its meaning. Heiser’s goal is for us to remove our filter of modern bias, and instead, “begin to look at the pieces of Scripture as part of a mosaic so that this ‘big picture’ can begin to take focus.”

Along with other works, like How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, and podcasts like The Bible Project, theologians are starting to focus on recapturing the Bible’s original context with lay Christians in mind. The Unseen Realm makes an excellent contribution to this space, which is why we’re reviewing it after more than a dozen years of publication! 

It’s important to note, however, that this book is composed mostly of arguments for interpreting the Bible in certain ways. In other words, Heiser’s analysis, while rigorous and convincing, is not inspired! Other scholars disagree with many of his contentions. 

Remember, his word is not the final say. As exceptionally helpful as this work is, it does not represent a scholarly consensus, and Heiser readily admits as much. 

Each chapter is short and provides insight into thorny Old Testament passages. But each also builds on the previous, with Heiser masterfully reconstructing the Old Testament’s spiritually enriched worldview. 

At first, many Old Testament Bible stories and verses sound strange to modern ears. However, as Heiser carefully reconstructs the “unseen realm” framework, those passages that were obscure and frightful become clear and interesting. Ultimately, rather than distracting us from the gospel, Heiser’s work ends up pointing us back to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, in profound ways. Let’s look at two examples.  

What does the “Son of Man” mean? 

What does it mean that Jesus is the “Son of Man?” Sometimes, “son of man” simply means “human” in the Bible. So why did the Pharisees call it blasphemy when Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven?” (Mark 16:61–64) To understand their accusation of blasphemy, we need to understand its Old Testament reference. 

Jesus’s allusion to the Son of Man in the clouds calls back to Daniel’s vision in Daniel chapter seven, where God himself seems to appear as “one like the son of man.” (Daniel 7:13) You might have heard of this connection before, but there’s even more to the story. 

To understand Daniel’s vision, it’s helpful to understand Baal worship. Israel often committed idolatry, worshiping Baal. Interestingly, Baal was said to also ride on the clouds. So, as Heiser writes, “in an effort to make the point that Yahweh, the God of Israel, deserved worship instead of Baal, the biblical writers occasionally pilfered this stock description of Baal as a ‘cloud rider’ and assigned it to Yahweh.” (E.g., Psalm 68:32–33, Deuteronomy 33:26, Psalm 104:1–4, Isaiah 19:1.) 

So, Jesus describes himself as the “cloud rider,” the Son of Man, the embodied appearance of the only God who deserves worship—Yahweh. As such, we witness Jesus’ claims to divinity with new depth and clarity.

Particularly illuminating for me was Heiser’s treatment of God allotting geographical areas to different “gods,” or fallen spiritual beings (demons) in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). Through this view, we can recognize Christ’s ministry freeing people from the reign of the demons in a new light.

God’s plan through Jesus is, in part, to overthrow the reign of darkness, of the unseen forces which ruled over the Gentiles and the unfaithful Jews. As such, “The cosmic geography of the Old Testament is evident in the New. Where Jesus goes and what he says and does when he gets there is framed by confrontation with unseen powers.”

These are two examples among countless in The Unseen Realm that unlock profound insights through otherwise strange passages. 

The unseen realm is pervasive in the Old Testament

To begin the journey of integrating the whole Bible into your faith, even the tricky, uncomfortable parts, consider beginning with The Unseen Realm.

Heiser writes in the epilogue, “The realization that I needed to read the bible like a premodern person who embraced the supernatural, unseen world has illumined its content more than anything else in my academic life.” 

“It ruined me in an agreeable way.” 

Be warned, The Unseen Realm might ruin you in the same agreeable way—never leaving you the same, but your walk with God will be all the better for it. 

Notable quotes

“Incredible as it sounds, people from the disinherited nations will return to Yahweh, out from under the dominion of their gods. Where Israel failed in that mission as a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6) Yahweh himself will succeed.” (344)

“Yahweh will rule before his council… having punished his human foes (‘kings of earth’) and his supernatural enemies (‘the host of heaven in heaven’), in order to re-establish his rules in his earthly abode, Mount Zion.” (259)

“The pattern that emerges from the patriarchal sagas is that when God chooses someone to represent him, that person must first meet with God. By necessity, that meeting is with the visible Yahweh, who can be discerned by human senses. In many cases, the divine job interview occurs in a place that is described as God’s home or headquarters, the place where the divine council meets.” (237)

“In stark contrast to the temple, the place in Israel’s cosmic-geographical thinking where heaven and earth intersected, there were sinister places within Canaan that became associated with the powers of darkness, specifically the vestiges of the Rephaim/Nephilim bloodlines.” (228)

“When God told Moses that his name was in this angel, he was saying that he was in this angel—his very presence or essence. . . This angel is Yahweh.” (143)“When Yahweh disinherited the nations and allotted them to the sons of God, a theological gauntlet was thrown down: Yahweh alone commands the nations and their gods. Other gods serve him.” (156)