"God had created humankind as his imagers and tasked them with bringing the rest of the world outside Eden under control— in effect, expanding Eden through the God had created humankind as his imagers and tasked them with bringing the rest of the world outside Eden under control— in effect, expanding Eden through the rest of creation." loc 1346
Heiser argues that the fall of evil angels occurred not before Eden or even in Eden, but at some time described by Genesis 6:1–4. This, he points out, has close parallels to [Ancient Near East] myths, and the fact that the New Testament takes these seriously (albeit via [the Book of Enoch]) should make us do so too. In Mesopotamian myths, the apkallus were divine sages, some of whom were evil and were banished to the underworld, and some who mated with humans after the flood to produce children who were two-thirds apkallus. Figurines of them were buried in the foundations of buildings in boxes called matstsarey (“watchers,” i.e., Enoch’s name for the fallen angels in Genesis 6:1–4; see sources at p. 102–5).
Heiser is keen to follow the LXX tradition that understands these Nephilim as “giants.” This helps him to link them (in chap. 24–25) with the giants conquered by Israel, including Og and Goliath. Interestingly he points out that giants had previously been defeated by descendants of Lot and Esau whom God said should not be displaced by Israel (Deut 2:8–23). The “Anakim” was a term used for a national group but also for Canaanites in general (e.g., Josh 7:7; Num 13:28–33) and specifically for the dangerous giants.
The rival [pagan] gods of surrounding nations are regarded much more seriously in the OT than we normally notice. Baal’s victory over the sea monster was well known to OT authors and their first readers, and the use of similar language in the creation narrative and Psalm 74 has long been noted. Heiser finds similar references elsewhere. They amount to a claim that Israel’s God reigns over the others. Deuteronomy 32:8–9 says the nations are no longer allocated among the 70 members of the council of the gods, but allocated to Israel. This is taken up by the NT where the Church is portrayed as the future rulers of nations.
Everyone familiar with the Bible knows it talks about angels and demons. But most would be surprised to learn that there’s no verse in the Bible that explains where demons came from. Christians typically assume that demons are fallen angels, cast from heaven with Satan (the Devil) right before the temptation of Adam and Eve. But guess what? There’s no such story in the Bible. The only description of anything like that is in Revelation 12:9—but the occasion for that whole episode was the birth of the messiah (Rev 12:4-6), an event long after Adam and Eve. The idea of a primeval fall of angels actually comes from church tradition and the great English poet John Milton in his epic Paradise Lost.
So if the Bible doesn’t record an ancient expulsion from heaven by hordes of angels who then became known as demons, where do demons come from?
There’s actually a straightforward answer to that question, but it’s likely one you’ve never heard of: In ancient Jewish texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, demons are the disembodied spirits of dead Nephilim giants who perished at the time of the great flood. ... The term “Nephilim” doesn’t mean “fallen ones”; it means “giants.” ... They were the mighty ones whose wisdom and exploits led to the greatness of cities like Babylon. These ... were not only divine-human hybrids, but they were also described as giants in the Mesopotamian epics.
... Each element of the biblical story—the divine beings who cohabit with human women and produce giant offspring—are represented in the Mesopotamian story. Both the divine fathers and their giant children are called apkallu in the cuneiform sources. Incidentally, statues of the apkallu have been discovered by archaeologists in boxes in the foundations of walls for protection against evil spirits. The boxed apkallu are referred to by another Mesopotamian term: mats-tsarey, which means “watchers.”
While that’s interesting (and bizarre), you might ask what that has to do with demons. The answer is theology.
The “Anakim, who are counted as Rephaim” (Deut 2:11)
Genesis 6:1–4 was written by Israelites who wanted to make a statement: the apkallu before the flood were not good guys. What they did was wicked, and the giant offspring apkallu produced by their transgression were enemies of the true God of heaven. In fact, their own giant offspring were bent on annihilating Israel many years later.
Later in biblical history, during the days of Moses and Joshua, the Israelites ran into groups of very large warriors called Anakim. Numbers 13:32–33 tells us explicitly that the Anakim came from the Nephilim. The giant clans went by other names as well: Emim, Zamzummim, and Rephaim (Deut 2-3). The wars of conquest for the land required the annihilation of these giant Anakim, which is why Joshua summed up the conquest this way: “There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain.” Those were three Philistine cities. Goliath would come from one of them (Gath) in the days of David (1 Sam 17:4).
The key to understanding how these giants were perceived as demons in the biblical material—an idea that got a lot of focus in Jewish writings produced after the Old Testament—is the term Rephaim. In the Old Testament, the Rephaim are described as giant warlords (Deut 2:8-11; 3:1-11; Josh 13:12), but also as frightening, sinister disembodied spirits (“the shades”) in the Underworld, called Sheol in Hebrew (Isa 14:9; 26:14; Job 26:5). The disembodied spirits of these giants were therefore associated with the abode of the dead, something everyone feared, since everyone feared death.
But the Rephaim also had another awful association. There are nearly 10 references in the Old Testament to a place called the Valley of the Rephaim (e.g., 2 Sam 5:18, 22; 23:13). Joshua 15:8 and 18:16 tell us that the Valley of the Rephaim adjoined another valley—the Valley of Hinnom, also known as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. In Hebrew “Valley of Hinnom” is ge hinnom, a phrase from which the name gehenna derives—a term conceptually linked to Hades/Hell in the New Testament.
Tying the threads together
While this supernatural backdrop has eluded most Christian thinkers in the history of Christianity to the present day, it was well known to the generation of Jews who lived right after the Old Testament period—what scholars call the “Second Temple” period or, more popularly, the “Intertestamental” period. It was during this era that books like 1 Enoch were written, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls
In the book of 1 Enoch the villainous sons of God of Genesis 6:1-4 are not only called angels—they are called Watchers. The link back to the Mesopotamian apkallu is transparent and unmistakable. 1 Enoch spells out how the Watchers and their offspring were the source of demons:
In those days, when the children of man had multiplied, it happened that there were born unto them handsome and beautiful daughters. 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them; and they said to one another, ‘Come, let us choose wives for ourselves from among the daughters of man and beget us children.’ . . . And they took wives unto themselves, and everyone (respectively) chose one woman for himself, and they began to go unto them. . . . Then Michael, Surafel, and Gabriel observed carefully from the sky and they saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all the oppression being wrought upon the earth. . . . As for the women, they gave birth to giants to the degree that the whole earth was filled with blood and oppression. And now behold, the Holy One will cry, and those who have died will bring their suit up to the gate of heaven. Their groaning has ascended (into heaven), but they could not get out from before the face of the oppression that is being wrought on earth. . . . And to Gabriel the Lord said, ‘Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates and against the children of adultery; and destroy the children of adultery and expel the children of the Watchers from among the people. And send them against one another (so that) they may be destroyed in the fight, for length of days have they not. . . .’
And when they and all their children have battled with each other, and when they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them for 70 generations underneath the rocks of the ground until the day of their judgment and of their consummation, until the eternal judgment is concluded. . . . But now the giants who are born from the (union of) the spirits and the flesh shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, because their dwelling shall be upon the earth and inside the earth. 9 Evil spirits have come out of their bodies. Because from the day that they were created from the holy ones they became the Watchers; their first origin is the spiritual foundation. They will become evil upon the earth and shall be called evil spirits.
—1 Enoch 6:1-2; 7:1; 9:1, 9-10; 10:9; 15:8-9; translation from J. H. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1
1 Enoch calls the giants “bastard spirits”—a phrase used of demons in several Dead Sea Scrolls.[1] A non-biblical psalm found among the Dead Sea Scrolls calls demons “offspring of man and the seed of the holy ones,” a clear reference to the disembodied spirits of the divine-human offspring from Genesis 6:1-4.[2]
In his book Reversing Hermon, Michael Heiser writes in location 1533-1573:
Jesus vs. the Watcher Spirits (Demons)
Scholars have noted that “the ancient boundaries of Bashan, although impossible to determine exactly, appear to be the area north of Gilead, west of Salecah and the Jebel Druze Mountains…south of Mount Hermon, and [177] east of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee.”
This description means that another familiar episode in Jesus’ministry occurred within the territory of Bashan: the exorcism of Legion (Mark 5).
The reader should not miss the point made earlier. For Second Temple Jews, the demons Jesus encountered and defeated were Watcher-spirits, released at the death of the ancient Nephilim/Rephaim giants. The passage from 1 Enoch 15 included above makes that quite evident, as do the Dead Sea Scroll references to the Watchers as “bastard spirits.” This term quite clearly views demons as the result of the death of the hybrid (“bastard”) Nephilim offspring produced in the transgression of Genesis 6:1–4, Enoch’s sin of the [178] Watchers. When Jesus confronts Legion, He is facing a collective of these entities. Mark records the dramatic encounter:
1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”8For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
Prior to Mark 5, as Israel’s Messiah, Jesus had restricted His ministry to a Jewish audience. His focus changed in Mark 5:1 when He intentionally [179] entered the country of the Gerasenes—Gentile territory. Mark’s wording is interesting. When Legion asks, “What have you to do with me?” the question echoes that of the unclean spirits cast out by Jesus in Mark 1:24 within the Jewish territory of Galilee—with a subtle but telling difference: (Demons in Jewish territory): “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”(Mark 1:24) (Legion in old Bashan): “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? (Mark 5:7) Legion identifies Jesus as “Son of the Most High,” a title that reflects the Old Testament theology of cosmic geography. Recall that in Deuteronomy 32:8–9, the “Most High” had disinherited the nations of the world, assigned them to the dominion of supernatural sons of God, and then [180] created Israel as his own inheritance from nothing. Those sons of God rebelled and became corrupt (Psalm 82:1–4), throwing God’s order into chaos (Psalm 82:1–5).
The exorcism of Legion is therefore more than a strange tale of suicidal swine. It’s about theological messaging. Legion recognizes that Jesus is rightful Lord of the country of the Gerasenes—old Bashan now under Gentile occupation. These familiar episodes in the ministry of Jesus occur in the darkest, most spiritually sinister places known to Old Testament Israelites and Jewish readers of the Old Testament. Bashan and Hermon were ground zero for spiritual evil and, in particular, the Watchers of 1 Enoch. The spiritual corruption of humanity would be healed by the atonement of the cross. His resurrection meant that no member of the kingdom of God would share living space with the Watchers in the underworld Abyss, the realm of the dead.
Even an army of Watchers was overmatched by the Son of the Most High.
They would be lords of nothing.
One can take these stories of the dead ghosts of giant half god mighty men, who are jerks that become pagan gods over pagan nations; or a non-literal perspective would mean that these giant offspring like Goliath are metaphors for real human beings who were basically jerks having been born from dysfunctional family dynamics being born from rape or forced marriage. From this view, what Daniel Goleman calls the Dark Triad and Negative Emotional Contagion is the naturalistic source of these fabulous tales; and they are more than factual as metaphorical truths representimg real social phenomena; as they give a description for real evil in that as theologian Walter Wink puts it, it names the Powers.
In this sense, Jesus is to the "demons" (the ghosts of jerks) as Rocky is to the Russian in Rocky 4. He is David taking on Goliath, a Jewish superhero taking on the dead Nephilim as "assholes."
While summarizing Heiser's work, the website negatingthevoid.wordpress.com provides the following image:
Note that in the image above that the giants are defined as a "bully" or "tyrant." These bullying giants died and their spirits (as bully personalities) are left to linger and possess people with their negative attitude and tyrannical political philosophies. Jesus is thus the political superhero and master psychologist who throws out their the "negative energy" emanating from the shadow of these bullying jerks. From a psychological and sociological perspective, certain philosophies, mental disorders, and dark triad personality types can infect a whole nation. The Bible authors spoke of this phenemeon using the spiritual language they had. They talked about the Hitler's of their day as being possessed by dead and "unclean" hybrid god-men (the Nephilim). Just as the American Flag is the banner of oppostion to facism, Jesus was the literary superhero that opposed the might-makes-right Ethos of Rome.
This again aligns with Walter Wink's work on The Powers: what is going on in the New Testament is that the pagan gods are seen as real, as the god over a Nation, like the CEO of a company, that establishes the moral atmosphere and way of governing. So that there are evil kingdoms/governments overshadowed by bully gods. I interpret this metaphorically as the New Testament presenting Jesus as the ultimate God of the Good to end the reign of evil bullying gods and evil tyrant run kingdoms.
Jesus sets up a "kingdom" not a religion. He replaces the pagan gods as jerks and bullies as the embodiment of a God of love and fairness. His kingdom philosophy presents the radical notion of equality and the first becoming last, and as John Crossan puts it: rather than establishing peace through war and subjugation, Jesus establishes peace through criticizing dogmatic religionists and driving out the pagan powers of Rome and establishing God's way as agape love and Open Table Fellowship.
The article above continues:
There are many occasions in the OT when “the angel of the Lord” and God himself are regarded as the same personage (e.g., Gen 18:32.24-30). Heiser finds many more of these than I’d noticed before (see chaps 16–18, 29). He concludes, like many others, that these are preincarnate appearances of the one later revealed as Jesus. However, on occasions where God refers to plurality (“let us create” in Genesis 1 or “who will go for us?” In Isaiah 6.8) he sees the council of gods. I couldn’t see what made him decide when plurality might portend the incarnation and when it refers to the council.
When we reach the NT the link between the “angel of the Lord” and “the Lord,” it confirms the OT texts using both are applied to Jesus. More interestingly (and controversially), a text addressed to the council of gods is applied to John the Baptist. Isaiah 40:1–5 has five plural commands (incl. “Make a highway”), which are spoken by God (so it’s not performed by a plural godhead) and it includes “comfort my people” (so it’s not performed by Israel in general). Therefore, it is addressed to the council of gods (see p. 271f). However, if John the Baptist is seen as the one who fulfills this, then presumably he is one among others (because the verbs are plural). I expected Heiser at this point to suggest that John was, in many ways, the first NT believer so that the role of the council is taken up by believers. He does later point out that believers inherit the role of ruling from the council (ch. 35–36).
This matches my reading of the book Jesus and Paul were James Tabor points out that Paul intends for humans to become Gods. So this is rather empowering because rather than the doctrine of depravity, what's really going on is basically Giants (or what I would interpret as the bullies of the world) are mythologized as metaphysical entities that have died and are still wreaking havoc in the world from the underworld. By possessing people and making them jerks too, these possessing rulers of Nations generate the psychological energy of cruelty and exploitation, rape, and all forms of havoc and harm and chaos. Jesus represents a better form of divinity, the true God.
You also have the Roman Caesars claiming to be a God-man and a savior of the world; and so the New Testament presents the alternative of Jesus as savior.
Basically Christians are adopted into Jesus's divine bloodline, they literally partake of his divine nature (or DNA as Frank Viola argues in his book From Eternity to Here). So basically, instead of the Caesars and pagan gods like Dionysus ruling the cosmos, the New Testament is presenting a vision of humans participating in the divine nature and becoming pneumatic bodies as part of the Divine Council and ruling the world and judging even angels.
In an interview on YouTube, Paul Heiser explains that when the Sons of Gods in the Heavenly Council became corrupt they ended up becoming the gods of Empires. Again, this represents real phenomenon, as one leader with a bad attitude can spread nagative energy throughout the whole group, team, club, company, or nations or even a church.
In the book Paul the Pagan Apostle by Fredrickson, the following is my notes and summary of the first part of the book:
> The Jewish god acknowledges other gods but demanded he alone be worshipped which was odd in a time when gods could be offended over human slights. In Deuteronomy 12.29 - 31, the Hebrew God condemns other gods that demanded their followers kill their children.
* Paula Fredriksen points out at Location 778 that a daimon was simply a lower god below the moon, what was up in the sky was perfect and moral and below was corrupt and perishable.
Location 786 makes it clear that the dumb/mute idols of the Hebrew Bible became interpreted within the Greek idea of a gradient of a higher realm of gods and daimons, so what was once thought as mere pagan idols, now became actual gods and daimons in the Septugent (Greek New Testament). For example:
Psalm 96:5 (CJB): For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Adonai made the heavens.
1 Corinthians 10:20 (DLNT): On the contrary, that the things which they are sacrificing, they are sacrificing to demons, and not to God. And I do not want you to be sharers of the demons.
So reading this I thought about Tom Holland pointing out that pagan gods like Dionysus were rapists. So basically, as I see it, this was a time when everyone believed in the Gods. The gods explained everything. So Paul is basically like an American arguing for the Constitution and democracy over the Nazis or against Communists in China. Paul is replacing their way to see God and government with Jesus' way. He is presenting Jesus as God as the new way to govern the world. Jesus's kingdom is not of this world, is not the kingdom presented by the principalities and Powers of the air (the pagan gods representimg the Dark Triad).
At location 791-795, Frederickson states:
"An idol is a dumb image [a mere representation of heavenly powers]. A demon, however, is not an image of a supernatural power, but the power itself, a lower divinity. Any human can destroy an idol; no human can destroy a god. This Jewish translation of Psalm 95 (96), then, at once elevated and demoted the Greek gods, granting that they were more than mere idols while placing them, qua daimonia, in positions subordinate to the Jewish god on Hellenism's own cosmic map.
Not only were these gods 'lower,' thus lesser, in terms of place and power; they also expressed other characteristics of daimonia. They were associated with particular peoples and places (whereas the high god, in both his pagan and his Jewish iterations, was universal). They were visible, associated with stars and planets, thus having material bodies. They were subordinate to and perhaps even dependent upon theos, the superior high god."
At around Location 1900, she speculates that Paul's opponents may have been trying to get pagan Christ-followers to be circumcised so as not to anger Rome and not anger the pagan gods. She also speculates that they might have thought that circumcised pagans may be what was needed for the Messiah's return sooner. So Paul is saying things like he wished they'd castrate themselves instead of asking his followers to be circumcised.
Up to location 2000, she is basically saying that Paul's opponents (other Christ-followers, as super apostles) are possibly trying to usher in Jesus's return by getting them to be circumcised; and they might have even been giving biblical arguments based on Abraham's seed (sperma) to do so. Rather than deal with the delayed return of the Messiah by appealing to circumcision, Paul instead argues for pistis (fidelity to Christ as Lord not Ceasar as Lord).
Fredrickson's explains that the other Jewish-Christian apostles were trying to stop angering the pagan gods; in contrast, Paul wanted to directly anger the gods with a kind of defiant attitude, like the Founding Fathers of America defied Britain, even if it meant death. What gave Paul an edge is his belief in the afterlife and that dying was gain. He was willing to take on the mighty Roman Empire ruled by the pagan gods (gods that represented the ethic that subjugating the weak was good) because of his belief in the Spirit of Christ living through him. As the author of Ephesians 6:12 (The Voice Translation), puts it:
"We’re not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood alone. No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places."
Or as Ephesians 6:12 is translated in The Passion Translation (TPT) (words in bold are my own):
Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms.[a] For they are a powerful class of demon-gods[b] and evil spirits that hold[c] this dark world in bondage.
Footnotes:
[a] Ephesians 6:12 Or literally “under heaven.”
[b] Ephesians 6:12 The classical Greek word used here is often used to refer to conjuring up pagan deities—supreme powers of darkness mentioned in occult rituals.
[c] Ephesians 6:12 Or “possessors of this dark world.”
As we can see, in the Pauline tradition and mindset, Christians were at war with the pagan gods and what they represented: rape, slavery, endless wars, religious prostitution, etc.; and so when they refused to honor the pagan gods and were willing to anger those gods, as Frederickson points out, in their mind they were likely meaning to do so. For they were at war with the gods of Rome just as Americans were at war with the "gods" (ormideology) of the Nazis in the form of the bully Tyrants Hitler and Himler, etc. So as Paul Middleton points out, to die was gain in that they were fighting with the god of this world, all the satans (meaning adversaries) of the one Good God (see 2 Corinthians 4:4 in The Passion Translation). So that dying was in fact a gain, as they were dying as faithful non-violent martyrs as servant-warriors of Christ: whose sole purpose was to imitate Christ (the non-violent warrior messiah who drove out the pagan gods, the Nephilim and contaminating Roman Legions by the "finger of God").
In death Christians were assured they would in death transform from their mortal-clothing in order to put on the new heavenly-clothing after their death; that is they'd gain a new spirit body; in other words, by dying a non-violent warrior (a martyr) they are linked to Jesus' martyrdom as they copy him in battle against supernatural pagan philosophies and negative emotional contagion with the reward of resurrecting with a new spirit body just like the ressurection body of Christ.
Listening to The Naked Bible Podcast Episode 087 Exorcism and the Messianic Profile, I learned that there is no direct talk in the Old Testament about the messiah, the son of David, casting out demons. Listening to the podcast I thought about my other research into how Jesus is the new Adam, and the new Abraham (who "seeds" the Messiah People) as a new and greater Moses, etc. Like with former religious founders, leaders, and heroes, the Gospels present Jesus as a new and better version of past heroic characters in the Old Testament. So when dealing with the excorcisms in the New Testament, it is important to read things thematically as Jesus is put in the role of a new and better Jewish "superhero" so to speak. As Jesus is not just the new and greater Moses who delivers the Sermon on the Mountain, but Jesus is also a new and greater King David.
This led me realize that David not only took on Goliath (a member of the Nephilim), but David composed songs as an exorcist (according Dr. Heiser). So Jesus is cast in the role of an even greater exorcist than David; Jesus doesn't take on just one Nephilim (Goliath) with a slingshot like young David, but fights multiple dead Nephilim (who are now evil spirits), driving them out with the finger of God! This is superhero story retelling here as I see it. In my mind this adds a layer of midrashic story-making and gives me an appreciation for the liteary artistry of the Gospel authors.
Recent scholars have argued that the Markan author intentionally includes Jesus struggling with demons in order to heighten the action and drama of his narrative. Jesus is described as a hero in a violent struggle with a multitude of demons and wins. Jesus is presented as an exorcist in order to emphasize his authority. In other words, Mark is an artist creating a Jewish superhero who can throw out of people fallen pagan gods (or Nephilim) possessing them like Negative Emotional Contagion in a toxic business enviorment. He is a new and greater David, as an even better exorcist than David was. By analogy, He is the new CEO in town who is going to restore justice and fair ethical business practices.
I see the ancient description of spirit posessension as an outdated yet metaphorically useful way of speaking about real socio-psychological phemenona, what modern psychologists call mental illness, negatiave emotional contagion, groupthink, a mob mentality, or simply being influenced by one's cultural or a cult of personality. Heiser argues for a supernatural interptation, but the allegorical interpreation ks justmas valid. I think that just as these evil spirits are described as infecting people and can leave people and take up residence in other places and people, so too, "bad ideas" can psychologically enter people and spread to new places through word of mouth and emotional contagion.
So I think that these "evil spirits" are metaphors for real psychological phenomenon. For example, the Romans were under the rulership of a cult of personaltiy: Caesar called himself a god and Lord and Savior, and Rome itself was led by many who exhibted the Dark Triad. These bad ideas and infectious energy of the cult of personaltiy spread psychologically. It was this top down Dark Triad mentality that trickled into the people. Jesus was in my mind exorcising those Roman Ideologies & Tyrant Mentalities: the Caesar Mentality and Dark Triad and it's negative emoitonal contagion.
The New Testament authors were successful. They countered Rome's pagan gods as superheroes and their God-man Caesar as Lord and Savior, with their more humane, ethical, and egalitarian Good God as Jesus as Lord and Savior.
The New Testament authors won in the battle over the ideas in market place of ideas; as the Roman Ideas were in fact exorcised/excised from public consciousness over time to a large degree. Christianity ushered in ongoing reforms and changes in moral thinking, leading up to democary, the Delcaratin of Indepenpence, and modern ethics, etc. For details come and see the book The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality by Glen Scrivener.
For the atheist to just mock the ancient worldview, and make fun of it is presentism. The fact is everyone, not just Jews, believed in spirit possession and gods wreaking havok. What was different about the Christian scriptures, is that it contained a more robust ethic and morality, a political vision of equality that was mostly lacking in the pagan religions. So even the atheist who is aware of history will acknowledge that Christianity was clearly a stepping stone, a kind of transitional fossil toward mordern morality. I would take this a step futher and say the NT stories are still valid in pointing us toward a better vision of the future.
You don't get the same richness of ethical humanness in other ethical systems like Budhism or Stoicism. The comnbination of a God of Love that wants to form a Divine Family and a Just World, combined with Stoic ideas utilized by Paul, was what made the Christian recipe so effective. So why not take advantage of these master artists of ethical goodnes tdoay?
I see this as great storytelling and upgrading to Jesus as the ultimate badass. He is not some timid hippie figure hiding in a flower patch singing kumbaya, "Let's just love one another." He is a warrior messiah fighting negative emotional contagion symbolized as the spirits of the Nephilam, and engaging in a kind of jewish jujitsu by throwing Nephilim out of people. I am reminded of the video game I played as a kid called Ultimate Fighter. See the Back-Carry Throw by one of the character in the game. Jesus' finger of God is like the power of a fighter in the game:
The point in making this comparison is to draw your attention to the fact that the Gospels were not meant to be boring books about a timid hippie Messiah named Jesus. They were as action packed and exciting for a first century reader (or listener of the texts) as modern action stories are to modern ears. The goal of the Gospels was to inspire courage and action to non-violently fight the Evil Powers, not put you to sleep.
On top of that, Heiser's work shows how Jesus was playing an intelligent chess game against the Dark Powers and essentially tricked them into crucifying him in order for him to destroy Death and stop the influence of the Nephilim over the Nations. I find this useful Storytelling for seeing the problems in today's world as socio-cultural and phycological Dark Triad energy ruling over Nations, organizations, corporations (for example, see the 2003 film The Corporation), and sometimes even in familes and churches.
On a practical level, this metaphorical language actually worked historically because as Tom Holland points out in his book Dominion, Jesus as a character they created to a large degree (of course no doubt based off a real historical Jesus) did as a real person take on the dark powers of cruelty and subjugation and he fought against treating people as mere property. The story of Jesus is a defense of human dignity and it led to cultural changes that led to people being said to have inalienable Rights which was clearly based on the Judeo-Christian concept of a soul and the idea that there is real evil that needs to be opposed by the good. This led to the civilization we all value today.
Without the influence of the early law code of Moses we may not have the same law and order we see today. Without the Judeo-Christian concepts of Good and Evil, we could not name the actions of the Nazis as Wrong, as nothing is objectively wrong outside the biblical worldview. Nietzsche makes this point in his body of work and it was convincing to the Nazis.
Before this time, it was common for gods like Zeus and Dionysus to rape. So the idea that the Nephilim were the result of forced marriages or rape, was not seen as wrong. What the Bible does is present a new morality in the form of a powerful Story of Justice and condemning the bullying and raping and other vices in the real world which was personified in the Nephilim. In modern terms, the Nephilim represent what the psychologist Zimbardo calls the the Lucifer Effect. So Jesus represents the ultimate hero who conquered cruel emotional contagion with a message of kindness and a better way.
