Tool Alpha
Genesis, the Beginning
What the first eleven chapters say, what they do not say, and where the real arguments are.
Michael Heiser
Reads Genesis 1 to 11 through the divine council: the plural of 1:26, the serpent as a divine rebel, the sons of God, Babel and the nations.
Genesis 1:26-27, in every translation this tool compares.
Heiser's big idea in one line: Genesis 1 to 11 has a heavenly household in it as well as a human one, and three rebellions, not one, set up the rest of the Bible. A family business has two branches. Trouble in one spills into the other. Heiser reads the early chapters of Genesis that way.
Heiser is not one of this tool's poles, because his subject is the unseen realm, not the age of the earth or the mechanics of creation. His reading still touches five entries here.
Genesis 1:26 is God addressing his council, with 1:27 recording that God alone created. The image is a status: humans are God's imagers on earth. The serpent is a divine being. Genesis 6:1-4 describes divine beings and the origin of the Nephilim, a reading 1 Enoch preserves. The flood may have been regional, which would explain giants after it. Babel is the moment God allotted the nations to the sons of God, the background to Deuteronomy 32:8-9.
The full costs of each of these readings are set out in the Divine Council Index entries.
Not a third position on the days. Heiser's reading is compatible with more than one view of the days and does not depend on any of them.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-1-26-27\/","n":"Genesis 1:26-27","s":"Let us make man in our image, and then a singular verb does the making.","r":"Genesis 1:26-27"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-3-1-15\/","n":"Genesis 3:1-15","s":"The nachash in the garden, and the sentence passed on it.","r":"Genesis 3:1-15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-6-1-4\/","n":"Genesis 6:1-4","s":"The sons of God take wives, and the Nephilim are in the earth.","r":"Genesis 6:1-4"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-11-1-9\/","n":"Genesis 11:1-9","s":"Babel, the scattering, and the moment the nations are set aside.","r":"Genesis 11:1-9"}
- Heiser, The Unseen Realm (Lexham, 2015)
- Heiser, Reversing Hermon (2017)
