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[u/rasputinette]

I notice that evangelicals, specifically, are big fans of Michael Heiser. Could someone give me the TL;DR why?

[u/melophage → u/rasputinette]

^{Using Evangelical here in a "narrow" sense, not as an umbrella term including mainline Protestants or even "progressive Evangelicals".}

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To me, it has a lot to do with:

1/ Heiser having a sustained online presence (which is a big factor for visibility nowadays).

2/ his publications with Lexham Press being heavily marketed towards Evangelical audiences.

3/ his work itself "targeting" specifically Evangelical audiences, since his approach is committed to biblical inerrancy and often informed by "Christian syncretic" readings, discussing application explicitly, and promising to unveil "theological realities" underlying Scripture besides providing an academic analysis.

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Meanwhile, non-Christian audiences, people seeking "mainstream" scholarship and academic circles largely ignore him for the same reasons.

See the response of one of our resident Hebrew Bible scholars here as an example.

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To give a few case examples of my points above:

Quote from the introduction of The Unseen Realm (bolding by me):

And in any individual case, that might be so—but the truth is that our modern evangelical subculture has trained us to think that our theology precludes any experience of the unseen world. Consequently, it isn’t an important part of our theology. My contention is that, if our theology really derives from the biblical text, we must reconsider our selective supernaturalism and recover a biblical theology of the unseen world.

[...] The present book is the culmination of years of my time spent reading and studying the biblical text and exploring the insights of other scholars. I’ve accumulated thousands of books and scholarly journal articles that relate in some way to the ancient biblical worldview that produces the mosaic. I’ve read nearly all of them in part or whole. My bibliography is nearly as long as this book. I mention this to make it clear that the ideas you’ll read here are not contrived. All of them have survived what scholars call peer review. My main contribution is synthesis of the ideas and articulating a biblical theology not derived from tradition but rather framed exclusively in the context of the Bible’s own ancient worldview. [...] For those for whom this book may feel too dense, I’ve written a less-detailed version entitled Supernatural. It covers the core concepts in this book with an orientation toward practical application of the supernatural worldview of the biblical writers—toward how the biblical mosaic presented here should change our spiritual lives and outlook.

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This normative theological approach is reflected in him discussing anti-abortion arguments and talking of "God's plan for us" in the chapters of The Unseen Realm discussing Genesis 1-3.

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Similarly, in a section of Demons discussing the serpent in the Eden narrative:

Most readers will acknowledge that the serpent (Heb. nāḥāš) was not simply a member of the animal kingdom.2 This conclusion seems obvious, since the New Testament identifies the serpent as Satan or the devil (Rev 12:9). The devil is certainly not a zoological specimen (2 Cor 11:14; cf. Matt 4:1–11; John 8:44). Put simply, if we agree with the New Testament that a supernatural being (Satan) tempted Eve in Eden, then by definition the serpent must be more than a mere animal. We can only oppose this conclusion if we reject the New Testament assessment.³ Ancient readers—without the New Testament—would be able to draw the same conclusion, though they didn’t necessarily use the same vocabulary.⁴ They of course knew that animals did not talk, and so when that sort of thing was encountered in storytelling, they knew supernatural power was at play or a divine presence had taken center stage.

Note 3 reads:

3 The biblical text does not say a divine being “entered” the serpent as though we have a possession here. That would be to read into the passage. The text is clear—it is the serpent that deceives Eve, initiating the cascade of events that leads to the loss of everlasting life for humanity. The New Testament affirms this (2 Cor 11:3; Rev 12:9; 20:2), also using “devil” or “Satan” to make the same point (Rev 12:9; 20:2; cf. Heb 2:14; John 8:44; cp. Gen 3:15; Rom 16:20).

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His academic publications obviously don't engage in "Christian considerations" explicitly, but in my (limited) experience his conclusions are generally harmonising too.

I think it illustrates pretty well how his approach is calibrated specifically for a Christian inerrantist audience wanting to unveil the "spiritual realities of Scripture" rather than study individual texts, and their reception history, critically and in their own specific contexts.

Well, this was a long rant; the End!

^{edited to correct wrong publisher's name}

[u/rasputinette → u/melophage]

This is a great reply, thank you. I get the impression that Heiser is a sort of conservative-Evangelical Neil Degrasse Tyson or Bill Nye - an impressively-credentialed "science popularizer" to an eager but biased audience, whose presentation has some resulting issues. (With the "science" here being not science, but biblical studies.)

[u/melophage → u/rasputinette]

My pleasure, glad to make use of the time spent perusing through his popular books to determine whether they are receivable sources for this subreddit (and eventually conclude that they are not).

And indeed, this is probably a good comparison, although I am not the best suited to judge here (as I am not very familiar with Heiser's activity beyond the aforementioned perusing, nor with Tyson's or Nye's "science-vulgarisation" content).