That doesn’t fit the bits in the scriptures well. It’s a position that Dr. Michael Heiser calls “cowardly”, scholars not wanting to accept the biblical worldview. Another scholar who has studied what Heiser calls “the unseen realm” says the view that human rulers are meant can only be sustained by really mangling a number of passages but isn’t quite as blunt as Heiser.
This, by the way, is an aspect of something in another thread that one person definitely isn’t aware of, that when Peter wrote about the angels who rebelled it isn’t about Satan and his followers, it’s a reference to the start of Genesis 6, which itself is a very brief statement of what can be found in the Book of Enoch. Deuteronomy 32:8 where YHWH divides up the nations “according to the number of the elohim”, a reference that can’t be made to fit the “human rulers” idea; it’s a reference to God having divided the nations among His divine council (who then proceed to rebel, deciding they want their people to worship them instead of YHWH).
Its a bit off topic for this thread, but just for the record, I’m “agnostic” about what these principalities and powers refer to…whether supernatural or human or a mixture of both? I don’t think it affects the point that Paul is making so for me it’s no theological hill to die on.
That said, with all due respect to Heiser’s dedicated scholarship and his devoted fans (and I have nothing against him), many of his detailed claims about the organization of the heavenly realms come from the book of Enoch and other Jewish writings not considered canonical (or necessarily inspired) by many in the church. Such writings may be “of interest” but I’m more hesitant than Heiser to make confident factual statements about the details of the organization of the spiritual realm based on those data. Hence my agnosticism. But of course Heiser would call people that don’t agree with his interpretation of the text “cowardly”, eh? Seems a bit ad hominum ?
Heh. It isn’t important to salvation, but it’s part of a theme in the Old Testament scriptures that gets echoed in the New, that God divided the nations among His divine council (thus “principalities”); in Second Temple Jewish lore there were also lesser ‘angels’ who aren’t bound to particular nations but can move around (thus “powers”). Though given that both Enoch and Peter speak of the rebel divine council members as having been imprisoned in darkness under the Earth (Tartarus) presumably the original principalities have been replaced. But either way, understanding this clarifies a few things.
Oh – it also explains where demons come from; they’re not the fallen angels, they’re the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, the ‘angel’/human hybrids of Genesis 6 (plus possibly disembodied spirits of the later Rephaim and even Anakim).
So when we talk about spiritual warfare, these guys are the enemy.
Sure, but NT writers might have referenced other common literature of the time that was known to their audience to make their own theological point, without endorsing everything contained in that other source as literal, inspired or authoritative…
Welcome to the 4 fortnight in our discusssion. Previous lectures are still fair game, as well as thoughts on lecture 4.
NAVIGATIONAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
for this thread:
“Discerning the Dawn: History: History, Eschatology and New Creation” by N.T. Wright
Below are the links to sections of this discussion. Please see the OP for more information.
Heiser is genuinely puzzled and seems grieved by Walton’s reading of the angel and demon passages. Heiser still maintains a respectful tone towards Walton.
If by ‘real’ you mean literal personas, like thinking that the four horsemen of the apocalypse will be actual figures on horses … then I would suggest - that is exactly the kind of way not to take Paul or any of the apostolic writing seriously. Recognizing the sympolic (or metaphoric, if you will) nature of these things is merely “learning how to read” as Wright already suggested in a past lecture. Wright doesn’t even spend much time dispensing with those who fail to recognize the literary (sympolic nature) of these things. But he has directed a couple bits of humor toward those who do … “one should recognize that if the writer speaks of the sun being darkened and stars falling from the sky, this will not be followed by … ‘and the rest of the country will be experiencing partly cloudy with some scattered showers’…” Or in another point Wright quips …"If at some point I look up and see Jesus riding across the sky on a flying horse, the first thought that will probably come to me would be “well I’ll be damned!”
What are peoples’ thoughts on Wright’s assessment of Lutheranism? (When does he let pass an opportunity to get a dig in against them, as well?!)
In my experience, the Lutherans can’t be blamed for this. The independent Baptist churches I have been a part of don’t seem to know or care about the launching of the new creation until after all the blood and fire and judgement of Revelation. There is awareness of it in the Presby church I am part of now, but it’s not emphasized, although I think emphasis would not be unwelcome.
Not sure who the “would be” Christians are. I know plenty of real ones who believe this. But more digs aside, I think he makes a good point about the results of not grasping what the kingdom of God is and when it is where. It’s hard to imagine a kingdom-now oriented church treating the world and its people as disposable.
@KLW, I need to spend some time today working over the Kingdom matters and come back to your post.. I wonder if I’ve misread him on the matter.
I do, too. I need to run this idea past some of my professional historian friends. I’d like to get their take on the general premise.
Straight up Hegel. Dialectical progress was, to him, not a matter of random events leading to new social and historical outcomes, but that they had a specific direction. His influence on Western thought is profound.
I thought the academic and theological anti-semitism that Wright mentioned was interesting. And terrifying. Look at what it allowed to happen.
But that’s exactly what Second Temple Judaism considered them to be:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Paul didn’t say “spiritual forces of wickedness” as a metaphor, he meant it literally just as any Second Temple Jew would have, just as literally as the demons Jesus cast out. Taking them any other way is the sort of thinking that ended up dismissing the Resurrection – de-supernaturalizing. It’s not “learning how to read”, it’s stripping out the content of what Paul wrote.
You don’t write this kind of thing if you’re just using a metaphor:
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand > against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh > and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the > cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of > evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of > God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done > all, to stand firm.
“…there’s no New Testament doctrine of ostriches built on Old Testament ostrich content, but
there’s plenty of New Testament doctrine built on (or which presumes) Old
Testament conflict with a cosmic enemy that becomes known as Satan. There’s
plenty of that. And demonic forces that oppose God’s people, there’s plenty of
that. Sorry, but Satan and demons material is not like Old Testament mentions of
ostriches because the New Testament builds on that Old Testament content.”
If there were just one or two minor references to Satan and demons in the New Testament I could grant the Waltons some validity here, but the theme is too strong, too bluntly stated, and too common. Some spots ccould be taken as being figurative, but not the majority. Heiser is pretty energetic in his critique, but as he builds his case that makes sense.
I see this as an extension of Walton’s silly claim that Genesis 1 isn’t in any way about creation of a physical universe; he grabbed what seemed like a good idea and pushed it to ridiculous lengths.
I thought of the angel angle before Heiser raised it, but I have an additional question: If it wasn’t a heavenly being, who told Mary she would have Jesus? Did she dream it?
One of the final points is important here because we have people who make the same mistake:
They apply the scientific thinking to things on which science can’t comment—i.e., the spiritual world. . . . They are forcing a modern cognitive environment (one that is scientific) on items that cannot be tested by science.
I have to say I’m almost totally with Heiser on this one, and very, very disappointed in both Waltons.
Definitely. Lutherans love to talk about “the breaking in of the Kingdom of God” and how it’s part of the already but not yet, in this case about the new Creation.
I think consigning those spiritual forces to embodied figures such as might ride horses across the sky does make them less real - much less real than recognizing these spiritual forces as the very things that are operational within us and our communities, economies, and nations. And I’m not convinced that these early apostles - at least not after Jesus painfully pounded out of them their propensity to reduce his teachings to mere literal things (as if his teachings were actually about yeast instead of about what he was using ‘yeast’ to represent) - after the apostles grew up into Jesus’ message ("learning to read if you will), I think they knew full well the higher imports and symbolisms of the things of which they wrote. Your quote of Paul I think shows this very point in its opening lines …
If it were actual physical armor that I’m supposed to be finding and putting on, then indeed Jesus’ Kingdom would be of this world, contrary to what he taught, and we would need to be fighting with the world’s weapons much like Peter wanted to do in the first place. Christians today still want (the pre-enlightened) Peter to be right and Christ to be wrong about all this. It’s showing in how U.S. evangelicals are conducting themselves anyway.
ONE: @Mervin_Bitikofer and @St.Roymond you are getting at an important feature of Wright’s lectures that I think we will need to discuss in general. Hanging on to the questions you are working with will be valuable as we all work through lecture 4.
What do WE (21st Century Christians) do with apocalyptic literature NOW. But even before that, how do we identify what is apocalyptic from what reflects a different world concept from ours? And having once made that distinction, what do we DO with it?
Maybe all of us as recipients of these lectures can look for interpretative principles that Wright discusses in them, and think through together the value of those principles as well as the best application.
TWO:
Any things specific to Lecture 3 that need to be wrapped up? I have some work to do today on a few things.