Field Notes · Jackson, Ohio
Divine Council and Unseen Realm Bible Study
A public study log from one working-class IT guy reading in Michael Heiser’s lane: divine council theology, Ancient Near East background, the strange and the supernatural taken seriously. Not a ministry. Not a platform. The door is open so you can walk in and watch the work.
Where to Start
There are a few hundred pieces here now. If you are new, pick one of these three and ignore everything else on the page.
One
Open a timeline
The Old Testament Timeline
Creation to Malachi across all 39 books, every era expandable, chapter and verse throughout. Best if you want the shape of the whole thing before the details.
Two
Read one essay
The Gate That Was Never There
A sermon illustration you have heard a hundred times, checked against the sources. No background required, and it shows you how the work here is done.
Three
Start a series
The Old Testament, part one of fifteen
Genesis 1 to 11, then forward through the whole story. Best if you would rather read straight through than jump around.
Interactive Bible Timelines and Study Tools
View all →Seven interactive timelines are live. They are not posts. Each one is a full page you can filter, search, and click through, carrying chapter and verse at every step, with the long-form essays linked out from the events they belong to.
Old Testament
The Old Testament Timeline
Creation to Malachi across all 39 books, with every major person and epoch carrying chapter and verse.
Gospels
The Life of Jesus
Gabriel in the Temple through to the throne at the Father’s right hand, harmonized across the four Gospels with Luke as the chronological anchor.
Gospels
The Gospel of Luke
The third Gospel traced by its own architecture, opening in the Temple and closing in the Temple with ten chapters of road to Jerusalem in between.
Acts & Epistles
The Apostle Paul
Every journey and all thirteen letters set at the point they were written, with the chronology anchored to the Gallio inscription.
Acts & Tradition
The Twelve Apostles
One death recorded in Scripture, then twenty centuries of tradition laid on top of it, with each claim tiered strong, contested, or legend.
Church History
The Ante-Nicene Age
AD 100 to 325, running through the heresies and the orthodox response to the bishops who reached Nicaea still carrying the scars of Diocletian.
Canon History
How We Got the New Testament
223 years of paper trail, from Marcion forcing the question in 144 to Athanasius naming all 27 books in 367.
Psalms · Tool
The Psalter · Command Center
All 150 psalms with video exposition, Blue Letter Bible interlinear, and Unseen Realm resources where the text invites them.
What I Am Working Through Now
All series →Multi-part studies meant to be read in order. Each one starts at part one and runs to the end.
Series · 26 parts
The Parables
Working through the parables of Jesus one at a time, read the way the first hearers would have heard them.
Series · 12 parts
The Life of Jesus
From the nativity to the ascension, with the familiar picture checked against the text.
Series · 15 parts
The Old Testament
Creation to the four hundred silent years, following the Old Testament timeline.
Latest Field Notes
Everything →-
Piety in Secret and the Treasure Problem (7 of 9)
Giving, prayer and fasting, each with the same warning attached. What the reward already received means, and why the audience decides the nature of…
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Why Did Paul Tell Women to Cover Their Heads? (11 of 12)
The passage argues from nature and then seems to contradict itself. One striking proposal about a single Greek word, and what is worth keeping…
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Beelzebul and Who Counts as Family (5 of 6)
His own relatives think he is out of his mind and the scribes think he is possessed. Mark puts the two verdicts in one…
The Four Lanes
Everything on the site sits in one of these. Same voice throughout, different depth and different subject.
The heavy research. A passage, a person, or an idea worked through with the original languages, Ancient Near East background, and Second Temple sources.
Claims most of us were handed in church that do not survive contact with the text or its history. Not hostile. Just checking the receipts.
Shorter pieces on how to actually live. Stoic philosophy read alongside Christian conviction, which puts Seneca and Paul in the same paragraph fairly often.
Life outside the study desk. Lifting, riding, the yard, the films, the drive home. Theology is not a head-only discipline.
Who Is Writing This
James. Jackson, Ohio. IT for a living, no seminary, no theology degree, a household to lead, and a habit of reading carefully.
What is on this site is what I am finding, written down as I find it, with the sources named so you can check the work rather than take my word for it. More about what this is →
New field notes go out by email when they are done, along with the research underneath them and the rabbit holes that turned out to matter. It is free, and there is nothing to buy at the other end.