Pt.8a  The sons of God, the Nephilim and Israel's conquest of the land of giants

In this last segment we are going to refute the majority of Heiser's arguments he has used to convince his listeners of an alternate history of Genesis, the tower of Babel and the nations formed given over to the rulership of the 70 sons of God, and the Nephilim offsprings (giants) Israel had to remove to have the Promised land.

“Appointed over the nations he says allotting then nations to the other heavenly beings, the sons of god those divine beings also referred to as the host of heaven the gods, elohim, and quote unquote demons the shedim in Deuteronomy (at 3:00 Shema: The LORD our God is one ... makes demons shudder? Dr. Michael Heiser)

Questions that should be answered. Are the 70 sons of God (the council) like an elohim Sanhedrin in heaven that rule over the nations of the earth, even today? How does el or elohim become a proper name of God if it is a group of 70 elohim? Are they ‘divine beings.’ According to Heiser 70 elohim are all gods with the main elohim (The God) over them. Where does the Bible teach any of this?

The nations and all the earth belong to the Lord, it does not say anywhere in Scripture the Lord gave away the nations to any other god[s], i.e. to 70 elohim that were already fallen, that Heiser calls divine. The nations were actually left on their own, and God chose one man Abram to begin something new, a theocracy.

Heiser states, “He then assigned each of the seventy nations to the fallen sons of God (who were also seventy in number). (Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God p.71). Again God himself assigning each nation to a fallen god is not at all written in Scripture because it did not happen the way Heiser teaches. This is found in the Ugarit, not the Bible. And no one should be going to myths to define the Bibles truth.

Heiser states “ after the judgment at the tower of babel God called Abraham Gen.12:1-3 and these two events are juxtaposed back to back. When God called Abraham and promised his portion, the nation of Israel through Abraham and Sarah he disinherited all the other nations. Alotting them to the other heavenly beings, the sons of God, those divine beings are referred to elsewhere as the host of heaven, the gods, elohim and quote unquote,demons the shedim in Deuteronomy .” ( Michael Heiser - The True Meaning of Shema (Naked Bible Podcast)

First, they are not divine, he substitutes divine for created ‘spirit beings.’ They were fallen when he claims they were appointed over the nations. He is also changing his story, for he also claims God gave the nations away to these fallen gods before he chose Abraham, which is it?

It was after the flood when mankind was multiplying, nearly 400 years later God called Abraham away from paganism to make nation from him (Gn.12). So it was not at the same time as the 70 nations as Heiser teaches.

An important point to include is that Abram was already communicating with God before he got to Canaan so he did not learn about God from the Canaanites (The Ugarit, as Heiser supposedly influenced Israel). The Lord promised in prophecy he would give the land of the Canaanites to Abraham's seed. In other words, if anybody learned anything from anybody it would be that the Canaanites learned about the true God from Abraham. The people of this land merged their own speculations, and experiential contact with demons - their counterfeit false god's and idols, fully rejecting what God had given Abraham.

So we see Heiser is presenting a confused history, it is not correct and this presentation changes Scriptures accuracy drastically.

Exactly when did the 70 fall? In the book Unseen Realm Heiser tells us Eden (falsely) was their dwelling place and the headquarters of this divine council with man. He claims the serpent fell in the garden (who was one of the 70 council members in the garden). This serpent is called a divine spirit being by Heiser having nothing to do with an animal in the garden. That the serpent’s penalty removed him to the underworld. Where is this said in the Bible? Then why did the Lord pronounce judgment of the serpent to crawl on the ground.

“The original rebel was cast down, expelled from God’s presence to earth and under the earth in the realm of the dead. The fallen sons of God were likewise imprisoned in the underworld .” (Demons: what the Bible Really teaches about God’s heavenly host, Heiser)

If these sons of God were imprisoned, than how do they rule over the nations then, or today?

Unfallen Nephilim produced by the Sons of God?

Heiser writes, At this point we should point out another problem in the “fallen ones” view of the form of the word nephilim. At no point in Genesis 6 or Numbers 13 do we read that the nephilim sinned . We do get something like that idea from the book of Enoch (1 Enoch), but that isn’t preserved in Hebrew.” (The Meaning of the Word Nephilim: Fact vs. Fantasy)

[Heiser points out Enoch is wrong, Enoch explicitly says that they sinned].

Heiser ignores that they were part human who were said to be sinful, evil and were destroyed in the flood. Gen 6:12 “all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” V.17 “all flesh in which is the breath of life; will die (7:21). Which is what the Nephilim offspring were, they were flesh,

In Gen 6:4 they are called mighty men, men of renown, they breathed and they died in the flood.

He further deviates “ The Fall of Adam and Eve passed on all humans (Romans 5:12), and the nephilim were not normal humans – they were hybridized beings (human + a foreign seed) and so not included in the Fall , at least as Romans 5:12 describes (this assumes the literal view of Genesis 6 – The beings that did the evil act of Genesis 6 were not the nephilim. The transgression in that passage was between human beings and the sons of God . The sons of God and the nephilim are not the same; that latter are offspring of the former we aren’t even told that the flood was the fault of the sons of God , and so how would it be that their offspring, the nephilim, are fallen in the sense of being inherently evil? (The Meaning of the Word Nephilim: Fact vs. Fantasy)

He uses Adam and Eves sin passed on as the example, which he clearly does not believe happened as an argument for the nephilim not being evil (sinful). Heiser uses whatever he needs at the time to make his argument.

“Even Genesis 6, where the nephilim make their grand appearance, does not say they are fallen.” (ibid.)

Of course they are not directly included in the fall (sin of disobedience) that came from Adam, (permeating to mankind) theirs is another lineage, that is not human. Trying to make them equivalent in origin is ludicrous.

What exactly is Heiser saying? The Sons of God, who rebelled against God in the worst way are fallen (but not sinless), that their offspring has no sin like Adam. Does Scripture must say the words ‘fallen’ or ‘sinful’ for them to be categorized as such. That it is only the Nephilim’s “offspring” that are evil/sinful. Yet Heiser states in his Companion book to Enoch these sons of God, “watchers’ sinful intercourse with women.”

Another problem surfaces to his theory, that the Nephilim of Gn.6 were not included in the cause of God’s judgment, he denies as sinful. They rebel, they are fallen but not sinful?

What we will see are more internal contradictions, as for their identity. Heiser teaches the offspring of the sons of God, Nephilim, were the demons when they died.

This academic says the Sons of Gods invasion on mankind was not why the world was judged. Heiser often uses the book of Enoch to interpret the Bible but purposely ignores statements like these in Enoch (106:13-17)... “ since my father Jared's day, the fallen angels have been sinning . They sin and are promiscuous with women. They have begotten children. Because of this, there will be great destruction on the earth … The earth shall be cleansed of the giants born to the fallen angels.” Enoch says the sons of God are fallen angels, Heiser disagrees.

Biblically the flood was about their violation to Gods parameters when they forcibly took women and the ‘giants’(Heb. Nephilim; Gr. Gigantes) born to them would also be removed in the judgment of the flood. But we do not need this book of Enoch to tell us this.

Heiser admits the 70 sons of God were fallen when they were assigned to the70 nations. How many sons of God are there? Heiser uses the book of Enoch as if it is scripture but then claims there were only 70 sons of God (as the Ugarit records), not hundreds like the book of Enoch says; why?

This quote of Heiser’s is key to proving his false theory, “ He then assigned each of the seventy nations to the fallen sons of God (who were also seventy in number)” (Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God p.71, Heiser)

So he says they are fallen in this book, which does mean sinful. When did these 70 fall? Heiser states they were imprisoned in the underworld. Are these another 70, ruling over mankind? This is how confusing his whole teaching is.

Their actions proved the sons of God were sinful, as were their offspring as God judged them and the world together. If their offspring, the Nephilim were not evil (sinless), why would God choose Noah a sinful being (whom he called righteous) to begin humanity again? Biblically, only Noah and his family preserved their lineage at the time of this invasion into humanity (Gn. 6:9). Noah and his family were completely uncorrupted in his lineage, Gen. 6:9 ‘perfect in his generations.” Perfect, refers to a physical condition or lifestyle, as he walked with God (others did not). “perfect in his generations” in the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary is the word toledah, and means “descent,” referring to his family, the bloodline of Noah and his offspring as being untainted. All the rest of mankind had became "corrupted" and the remedy was to destroy by the flood, (the same word used in v. 17 is in v. 13.)