The Omphalos

Posted on January 28, 2026 by ehurst

Re: Naked Bible 124: Ezekiel 17

You can quickly discern who is a fake scholar of ancient religions by how they take the ANE mythology literally. Fake scholars (the kind typically hired for TV shows about ancient history) will talk about how the Hebrew people literally believed the earth was flat.

No, the Hebrews simply talked that way. Their culture was loaded with metaphor, much of which they inherited from other cultures and civilizations. The Hebrew language itself is fundamentally built up from the concept of parable. You should presume any Hebrew text to be generally figures of speech until the context forces you to read it literally. The very letters of the Hebrew alphabet are each metaphors that contribute to the meaning of the words.

Western minds tend to be literal first, then abstract. This is very alien to the ANE mind of parable. We see it in the Gospels when Jesus speaks in parables and His listeners tend to miss the point because the Hellenizing influence had bitten hard into their culture. Christ appeared three centuries after the conquest and very heavy influence of Alexander the Great, who zealously evangelized Hellenism. The religion of Judaism was the result of trying to inject Hellenized literalism and abstraction into parabolic sacred texts and oral lore. It’s an ugly perversion of the teachings of Moses.

Just so, we have a scholarly term we took from the Greeks: “omphalos”. It refers to a cultic object representing the concept of the cosmic axis around which everything rotates. It is drawn from the idea of the human navel. Not the shape of the navel, but the location is the point here. But while the Greek version of this was abstract, the ANE version of the “world navel” was parabolic.

In the podcast, Heiser refers to this by stringing together various parabolic images. If you can think in parables, then you will understand that the Mountain of God, the Tree of Life, and the Cross of Christ as all the same thing. There are a whole raft of associations that show up in how Hebrew parables point back to something that cannot be defined, only indicated within a given context.

It’s not about this world; it’s a reference to cosmic truth in the Spirit Realm (AKA, the Unseen Realm). The axis of divine truth does not exist in this world. It manifests in this world. There are places in this world, for various passages of time, when the focus of convergence between the Spirit Realm and mankind’s fallen existence takes a central place in human awareness.

God has revealed Himself in various times and places. For as long as that manifestation was a key to gaining peace with God, it stood as the “navel of the world” — at least as far as the particular audience is concerned. It’s the place where man can approach Him, and it comes with a collection of typical accessories. ANE legends are loaded with metaphors that show up in Hebrew language and culture — and in the Bible. Heiser links to a couple of documents that are written at his level. You’ll discover what serious biblical scholars have pulled together in their research about the concept of “navel of the world” and these features:

  1. It is the origin of all things created, as if the umbilical cord was connected there.
  2. It’s associated with the “cosmic tree”, including the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Thus, a great many shrines were associated with the shade of some massive hardy tree.
  3. It can manifest in built structures like the Holy of Holies (a special room) decorated with (guarded by) winged serpents (seraphim) and other fearsome beasts (cherubim). It was the place to contact the divine.
  4. It was also the place to connect with nether realms. Thus, it often included a covered opening in the floor/ground with access to the mythical sea of raging waters and the beasts that live there. Alternatively, it can be access to the Abyss.
  5. The importance of solar orientation (facing the rising sun). It may vary between solar worship or simply observing the cardinal directions marked by the sun, etc.
  6. It’s the place where priests and other cultic personnel hang out. In some traditions, the Queen Mother figure is important.
  7. The association with mountain tops was common. You would expect written references to state metaphorically that it was higher than all other land features. But it was not as a geographic fact; the idea was its prominence in the sense of importance.
  8. Related to prominence is that it was the center of all things, the focus of everyone’s attention. It was often the place where food was distributed (the umbilicus again).

In the Bible, you will see the navel concept used as a metaphor. For example, in Judges 9:36, in the Hebrew text the armed men are coming down from “the center/navel of the land”, a reference to the ritual high place near Shechem: Mount Gerizim. The prophetess Deborah sat under a special tree for a reason (Judges 4:5). When Solomon held a great gathering before the Temple was completed, he used a high place near Gibeon that had been hijacked for worship of Jehovah. Eventually Zion became the navel of the world for Israel. The presence of Gehenna (Hinnom Valley) as the symbol of Hell should surprise no one, just below the ritual high place David purchased for building the future Temple of Solomon. Moreover, there was an opening in the ground of the site where the blood of some sacrifices was drained away. That opening in the foundation was symbolically reputed to connect to the sea.

Through the prophets, God speaks in terms of such concepts, calling Zion the “center/navel of the world”. Thus, when Ezekiel in this chapter refers to the “twig” of some future descendant of the House of David, he’s building the image of something that will grow into a great cosmic tree to be planted atop Zion. It combines both common images for the navel of the world, tree and mountain.

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Rehab for Fallen Leadership?

Posted on January 24, 2026 by ehurst

Let’s step away from the Heiser passenger train just a bit. We need to get away from the tightly controlled route to cover something he could not and would not have touched.

Over and over again, the foundation for our faith community is to embrace the Hebrew outlook of the Bible. It’s radically different from that of the West in general and American churches in particular. It’s not enough to simply get the intellectual background of Jesus. We must walk in His footsteps; we must live life as He would in our place. Somewhere between the divine ideal and the context of where we are today must be a landing place for us to find His peace.

Most of us come out of an American evangelical background, or are at least familiar with it. I’m sure most of us have at least read about the organizational discipline process for handling church leaders who somehow manage to break from their role qualifications. On the one hand, evangelicals confuse the roles of elder and pastor. On the other hand, the standard qualifications listed in the New Testament aren’t significantly different between those two roles: 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5.

  1. Sexually/maritally faithful
  2. Good manager of household
  3. Humble
  4. Gentle
  5. Sober
  6. Peaceful
  7. Financially responsible
  8. Hospitable
  9. Self-controlled
  10. Upright in character
  11. Committed to holiness
  12. Able to teach
  13. Spiritually mature (not a new convert)
  14. Respectable (and respected by outsiders)
  15. A good example to the flock

If you are familiar with Big Eva teachings, you’ll recognize the lists offered at Gospel Coalition and Acts 29. The discussion of qualification and disqualification is long established. It would be very easy to get bogged down in the particular emphasis and meaning different sources might suggest in analyzing the Scriptures, but our point here is that they all consistently approach it from a western frame of reference. The discussion is burdened with a big wad of western professional standards and the matching legalism. Rarely do you see anyone trying to dig up a historical context for what the Apostles wrote.

Naturally, it’s because Big Eva has a culturally twisted perception of what a “church” is and does. Paul didn’t plant public access corporations; he started familial covenant communities. The first century churches were extended family households bound by a common spiritual DNA with a Hebrew feudal structure.

The primary biblical image of church leadership is the shepherd raising a flock. That’s what the word “pastor” means – someone who spends almost all his time with his sheep. He loses sleep when one is sick, injured or lost. When he does sleep, it’s next to them; he smells like them.

Start from that image and read the list again. The primary objective of church shepherds is not shearing and slaughter, but herding them to the Law of Christ: to love the Lord and to love each other as the Lord loves. You invest a lot of effort in teaching them about the Lord who owns them. They need to know how Jesus loves them so they can emulate that. The whole point is improving how well this extended family gets along with each other, looking after each other’s welfare.

Every element of the shepherd’s qualification must contribute to that priority. Every time you want to point out any disqualification, it has to be something that threatens that priority. It’s not about measurable success. You don’t hire and fire a shepherd like a corporate CEO. Shepherds are not rated by the numbers of bodies, buildings or dollars in the budget. They are rated on how well they build a familiar atmosphere of cooperation and common welfare.

To be blunt, the flock should be able to recognize the shepherd by the smell of his individual perspiration. They should know his habits, what he hums under his breath, and what makes him angry. They should know his fleshly temptations, as he should know theirs. They should be eager to watch out for each other in humility and love. His problems are theirs and vice versa.

Only after you get all of that right will you be in a position to talk about what happens when he does something inconsistent with his role, something that threatens the unity of the household. Accountability should be built into the process. Recognize the problems early. Know him well enough to estimate what it takes to get back on track.

That’s what rehab of church leadership means.

The American institutional church norm of social engagement is entirely too impersonal and “professional” to make any sense of what the New Testament says about church leadership. Until you’ve seen everyone at their worst and made peace with that, no one has any business discussing dismissing anyone from office. Indeed, they have no business discussing forming a church in the first place.

Yes, we have a huge burden of social habits to overcome. The biblical image of “church” is a monumental demand on Americans. The problem so far is that no one has ever really tried, so we have no idea how close we can come. The fundamental image itself has never been considered. Instead, we have had any number of creepy cult groups and senseless experiments that have served only to enslave and harm.

In other words, the mainstream image of “church” is only slightly better than cults, at best. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen good men of God tossed aside because of silly legalistic rules about professionalism. At the same time, I’ve seen countless times a man with no moral qualifications at all ran a huge institution because he was professionally qualified or simply able to manifest as a celebrity.

God help us.

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In the Twilight of the Empire

Posted on January 21, 2026 by ehurst

Following up from yesterday’s post, I wanted to point out that this analysis seems to pull together bits of outline I had been reading other places, and adds considerable detail that rings true for me.

In particular, it’s a good look at what it was like from Iran’s position during the supposedly “successful” attack last summer versus the failed attempt over the past few weeks. Those espionage regime-change methods failed because the majority of the Iranian population have no complaints with the government. They were unhappy with the inflation of their currency, but not with the government itself.

The surprising detail was the shorting of Iran’s currency abroad; I hadn’t been aware of that. It shows once more how you should not trust a currency exchange system controlled by your enemies. The system demands entirely too much vulnerability as the price for cooperation in trade. Iran would do well to back their currency with something that does not respond to price manipulation schemes. I wouldn’t recommend precious metals, because that’s a huge target for manipulation schemes, but something like commodities or even water.

For example, tying a currency to water makes the population focus on something truly essential in that part of the world, something already quite valuable. It would spur investment in harvest and storage, becoming the supplier of a commodity that other countries nearby lack. It’s value is already rising globally.

I’m sure there are a thousand reasons it might not work well, but remaining vulnerable to sworn enemies is not a viable option. The US is vulnerable, as well, though the US dollar has penetrated much wider and farther than Iran’s currency. Still, Trump is making enough enemies to encourage the whole world to get out from under the dollar. This is a part of what will plunge the US into imperial collapse.

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Staying Out of the Way

Posted on January 20, 2026 by ehurst

The only way to understand Trump is to recognize him as an egotistical bully writ large. His own family says he was like that from childhood. Growing up, he managed to gain a sense of stage presence and charisma — the ultimate Alpha Male.

Whether it is merely an expression of his ego, or there really is a solid strategic case for seizing Greenland, you should not imagine he will drop it. He’s quite willing to alienate the whole of NATO and the EU to get what he wants. The problem is that the other NATO countries have always accepted the junior partner status. That worked well for nearly a century of letting the US spend its resources while Europe kept theirs invested in economic and social stability. It’s not working now.

I rather like this analysis by Moon of Alabama, even if I can’t quite buy the whole thing. I agree that the only way the EU can avoid the embarrassment over Greenland is to very quickly develop full independence. The article mentions military independence, something Europe can not afford, if we are being honest.

But it’s worse than simply military considerations. Europe needs to develop the entire range of military technology and supporting industries that rivals what they have been buying from the US. That includes the full range of military intel capability, like airborne radar systems. On top of that, they would need to declare technology independence. Do you realize how much of an economic drain it is for them to run Windows and use Office 365? That’s one massive chunk of global economic dependence. Microsoft is not entirely a global corporation; most the money goes back to the US. And that’s not the only major software dependency that holds everyone back.

You notice that Russia and China have already fielded their own OSes and software stacks, not to mention making progress in producing their own hardware. Microsoft is bleeding market share. Further, both of them have built up their own internet, capable of continuing in the absence of any networking with the West.

As another sign of who is calling the shots here in the US, it was Netanyahu who warned Trump not to strike Iran recently. At least part of the calculus was just how badly Israel suffered the last time they tried that. We didn’t get good reporting on that from the MSM; we learned by intel leaking through from people on the ground in Israel. The destruction was precise and substantial. Iran is not just a paper tiger any more.

In another direction, I’m not so sure if the call-up of Alaskan troops for action in Minnesota is just a cover for invading Greenland, as Moon suggests, but it’s plausible. It could be some of both. But domestic warfare is inevitable. The sheeple can be herded back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, but there is a growing consensus of divergence between two completely different nations. Soon, it will be necessary for lefties and righties to separate geographically.

On the surface, it looks like things are just muddling along, but the action around ICE is going to be what rips it wide open. Does it worry you that the division is also increasingly gender based? Younger generations of American men are increasingly conservative and refusing to deal with the growing radicalism of US feminists. It shows up in religion, too, as Big Eva is entirely too feminist and younger men are migrating to Eastern Orthodoxy or Christian Nationalism. Catholicism itself is deeply divided, and other liturgical denominations are fracturing.

As always, we have no dog in this fight. We can see that, by biblical standards, both right and left are too materialistic. The political and social agendas associated with either one is deeply morally flawed. We’ll be very fortunate if we can simply stay out of the way.

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Identifying Abraham’s Ur

Posted on January 17, 2026 by ehurst

I’m chasing a rabbit here.

While listening to Heiser’s podcast on Ezekiel 16, he brought up the question of where Abraham’s Ur actually was. The issue arises where Ezekiel slaps down the arrogant attitude of the elders that they descended from Abraham, as if this were some kind of pure, royal bloodline.

God says it wasn’t so: “Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite” (Ezekiel 16:3). That’s Abraham and Sarah, respectively. The Hittites we know about. On the one hand, I was taught that the label “Amorite” (Heb. Emori) could point to a specific tribe from mountainous regions. On the other hand, it had originally indicated a type of people who had a peculiar lifestyle of living in tents, wearing skins, migrating often as traders and regarded unfavorably more or less as Gypsies are in the West. See this reference as an example of that idea, based on the meaning of the name itself. It’s related to the term “Aramean” from which we get the name of the Aramaic language. I believe Ezekiel is using the term as a kind of people, not a specific tribe.

Heiser refers to this outline from Cyrus Gordon. Gordon summarizes the material he produced in at least one article which can be found here. Gordon notes that, prior to the late 1800s, everyone already believed that the “Ur” mentioned in English translations of the Bible was located somewhere near the site of Haran. The site had been identified as Urfa (today’s Turkish Sanliurfa) This was based on older archaeology about where evidence of the Chaldeans was found. They were all around northern Mesopotamia until much later than Abraham’s time, becoming the Babylonians. This was all well known up until about 1850.

Along comes C. Leonard Woolley, the first modern archaeologist — carefully excavating and making detailed charts of where everything was found, etc. Woolley identified one of his digs as Ur of Sumeria, way down on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Gordon is too humble to mention it, but he was there at Woolley’s dig and saw it all for himself. Woolley declared this site the “Ur of Chaldees” in reference to Abraham. Gordon rejected that notion and provided a lot of research evidence to support his rejection.

Gordon mentions how references to Urfa as “Ur in Haran” is supported by the rather recent discovery of the Ebla Tablets. He also notes that the biblical narrative describing the journey Abraham had to take to get the Canaan Land does not fit coming from Sumerian Ur. That ancient city is on the west bank of the Euphrates and there was a good route all the way up to the westward turn toward Palestine without having to see Haran at all. Urfa is north of Haran and does require passing through Haran and crossing the Euphrates.

Without dragging you through all the detailed evidence you can read for yourself at the links above, the languages of the time and place would deny that the Chaldeans had ever gotten so far south as Sumer until they had developed into the Babylonians. The names and locations just don’t match up back in Abraham’s time (circa 2200 BC).

There’s also that older scholarship before about 1850, with local traditions that the town of Urfa was Abraham’s birthplace. Notice that in Genesis 24, Abraham refers to the area of Haran as his birthplace. It may not show up in some English translations, but the Hebrew wording indicates he was born there. Please note: rabbinical scholarship prior to the 1800s also places Abraham’s birthplace there. Only in the most recent Jewish references does it move to Sumerian Ur.

If we accept Gordon and Heiser’s contention, this throws into doubt my previous speculation about Terah’s profession (which I also learned from previous research) as connected to the temples of Shin. Instead, the whole clan of the Bible Patriarchs were traders. This is what figures large in Gordon’s original article, where he says:

Abraham comes from beyond the Euphrates, plies his trade in Canaan, visits Egypt, deals with Hittites, makes treaties with Philistines, forms military alliances with Amorites, fights kinglets from as far off as Elam, marries the Egyptian Hagar, etc. His contacts and freedom of movement reflect a sophisticated milieu where an international order (such as the Amarna Age) made such a career and such enterprise possible.

See also this video on YouTube. You can find a bundle of Cyrus Gordon’s articles here.

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An Issue with Ezekiel 14

Posted on January 13, 2026 by ehurst

Re: Naked Bible 122: Ezekiel 14-15

Right in the middle of this podcast, roughly the 20:00 mark, Heiser begins talking about Ezekiel 14. Later at the 30:00 mark he raises a couple of small issues that I want to address. In Ezekiel 14, the prophet relates how the community elders came to seek reassurance that God was going to restore them to their homeland. The Lord responds that as long as they continue in their idolatry, they would all die in Babylon. They had erected their idols in their hearts, so Jehovah was not their sovereign Lord.

12 The word of the LORD came to me:
13 “Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals.
14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign LORD.

15 “Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.
16 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own sons or daughters; they would save only their own lives, and the land would become desolate.

17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals.
18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own sons or daughters — they would save only their own lives.

19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals.
20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.” (NET)

Notice the three major figures of faith: Noah, Daniel and Job.

How would Ezekiel have known about Daniel? I can agree that Daniel’s prophecy was not published in writing until after his death. But why would it be necessary to have a written copy in order for Daniel to be famous to Ezekiel’s audience? As Hesier notes, Daniel arrived in the first wave of exiles, roughly 605 BC. Ezekiel was in the second wave of deportees, roughly 597 BC, some twelve years later.

Does it seem so improbable that Daniel would have written home at least once or twice during that time, testifying of God’s miracles? We have ample evidence of a regular imperial courier service, along with private couriers being permitted. Also, does it seem so improbable that his fame was spread across the empire in that length of time? I’m not the only one to suggest this; I learned it from PhDs at Biblical Studies schools. Why would Heiser ignore it?

As for Job, it’s the same issue we’ve noted before: The oral lore behind Hebrew Scripture existed long before it was published in written form. The story of Job could easily be quite ancient, and it’s the content, not the grammar of the Hebrew Book of Job, that causes us to believe it’s one of the oldest narratives in Scripture, predating Mount Sinai.

This was the same issue real scholars have raised concerning the Book of Enoch. The reason the Second Temple rabbis and scribes could write the Book of Enoch is because it was part of the common oral lore that Israel carried around over the centuries. If the Talmud wasn’t written for several centuries, does it not indicate that the Hebrew people were comfortable with keeping track of a body of oral traditions?

Sometimes I’m quite puzzled by the unspoken biases I see in Heiser’s output.

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Tearing Down His Covenant

Posted on January 12, 2026 by ehurst

God releases prophecies to His people or to outsiders about His people. In the Old Testament, God sponsored His own nation against all the other nations He had turned over to His Elohim Council. There was a great deal of prophetic activity regarding the establishment and protection of that nation. Every prophecy we can read in the Bible has to do with the Covenant Nation until the coming of the Messiah.

Once the Messianic Kingdom of Christ was established, there was no further need for nation-based prophecies. Christ rules an empire of hearts, and there is nothing in the gospel about nations and human governments except to condemn how they would oppress Covenant people, and how God responds to that. We know that God retains the ultimate authority over what the Devil can do with human governments, still setting boundaries and so forth, but the core issue of prophecy about future events is now the matter of how governments oppress Covenant people and their message.

The primary point of all prophecy is to encourage God’s people to stick with the Covenant in the first place. Thus, the bulk of biblical prophecy is aimed at getting the Lord’s people ready for how He plans to work in situations to glorify His name through them. Thus, the proper focus is not, “What will happen?” You need to be asking God what you should do to glorify Him. Nothing else matters.

About fifteen years ago, I experienced a vision that I took as prophecy. It was a dire warning that the US should not attack Iran again. What happened under Carter, with helicopters crashing in the desert, was just a sample of what God would do. I understood that God would ensure any further attempts turned out to be a disaster. I stand by that message still. It includes the full range of things the US might do to harm Iran.

Thus, for example, we know that every few years the CIA and Mossad try to provoke a revolution against the Islamic government of Iran. It always fails. Eventually, the security services there will hunt down the leaders of any agitation and jail or execute them. The mass of the population simply will not support a revolution. The few who do are a tiny fraction of the people. But what really matters is that the US involvement keeps invoking wrath. I have long believed that our current political instability is God’s recompense for that. In the manner we transgress, so shall we be repaid.

In other words, the crux of my prophetic message was telling God’s people to prepare for some kind of man-made disaster here in the US. It has nothing to do with whether God favors Iran. The issue is that God has a lot of people in the US who ignore His Word and get wrapped up things of this world. That’s the whole point. Church folks are promoting war on Iran, and it’s wicked. It’s just one more example of the Judaizers at work in the churches again, because the only beneficiary of such action in Iran is Israel, not the US.

The idea that what’s good for the Zionists is good for the US is an abomination in God’s sight. Worse is that church folks believe the wishes of the Zionists are good for Christ’s glory. We cling to the Synagogue of Satan instead of Christ. The wrath falling on the US is the fault of Christians. It’s going to unleash a horrifying tribulation for the saints of God here in America.

I never set out to warn the US at large, nor the government. They are under Satan’s control and I wasn’t sent to them. I was sent to the believers in America to encourage them to search out a Hebrew understanding of the Bible, not the lies told by the Synagogue of Satan. Dispensationalism was a lie sold to evangelicals to bring them into slavery to the things of this world. It makes Christians the slaves of Zionism.

Granted, our message would provoke the governments of modern Israel and the US if we ever got their attention. However, the single greatest threat we face is from Zionist church people. They are the ones seeking to oppress us, and it will get far worse before it gets better. If anything happens to censor us, it will be the work of so-called “Christian Zionists”. I said that years ago and it hasn’t changed.

Right now, some of our community members are under strong pressure from Zionist partisans trying to force us to declare our allegiance to modern Israel. It’s the message of CUFI. I joke about how San Antonio, TX (where CUFI has their HQ) reminds me of Pergamum in Revelations 2:13: “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is…” What a mockery when people who claim the name of Christ are tearing down His covenant.

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We Struggle with Prophecy

Posted on January 10, 2026 by ehurst

I once knew a public school teacher who was fond of using the expression: “You better get on board or you’ll be left behind at the station!” Most of his students knew it meant he was angry, but they confessed to me privately they had no idea what the expression meant. They had no concept of being dependent on rail travel to get anywhere. There was virtually no rail travel anywhere in the state at that time. They had no idea what a tragedy it would be to miss one’s train.

Too many church folks are just as bewildered about the prophetic messages in the Bible. It’s loaded with phrasing that floats right over their heads. They understand the translated words, but even most church staff have only a very rudimentary education in Biblical Studies.

1. In the biblical record, along with the supporting material found in Second Temple literature, the ministry of prophecy was almost entirely a matter of preaching what was already known. The primary task of the prophet was to encourage people to obey the Lord’s established Word.

We can read about a great many prophets whose messages are not in Scripture, or whose work is only summarized. We read about Samuel’s School of the Prophets, yet have little record from their work. The vast weight of the record is not that they predicted specifics about future events, but they prodded the people to do what God has already said they must do.

Often the recorded prophecies we do have are more about warnings of things likely to happen if the people continued to resist God’s Word. Seldom were the prophetic warnings locked in stone. They were generally conditional. Nineveh repented and the warnings of Jonah didn’t happen. Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, but their messages included ways that individuals could survive.

2. Prophetesses (female prophets) were exceedingly rare. There was no “School of Prophetesses” for them. They didn’t act like male prophets. They were typically passive, waiting on someone to seek them out. Only rarely did they initiate contact with anyone with a burden from the Lord. In some ways, their ministry bore little resemblance to male prophets.

3. In Hebrew thinking, a “Word” from God did not come as a package of words. We’ve been hammering on this for years. The entire Ancient Near East would have laughed to scorn the silly notion of “propositional truth”. It was always on the prophet to come up with an expression that was adequate to the ineffable truth God placed on their hearts to share.

Thus, when God “spoke”, it was never in mere words. Jesus used parables; the Hebrew language was loaded with expressions that could not be taken literally. It was the same with all Semitic languages — Aramaic, Akkadian, Arabic, etc. People communicating in those languages assumed what they heard were symbolic references until it was obvious the message was literal.

The job of translating those languages into English means building a vast catalog of symbolic expressions, not the mere literal meanings of the words. The very letters themselves carry symbolic meanings that inform us how the words were used. These are some of the most highly inflected human languages ever known.

4. On top of the symbolism was the Hebrew sense of humor. We struggle to grasp the level of sarcasm and satire that shows up in the prophets. A substantial portion of things Jesus said as recorded in Gospels was loaded with sharp sarcasm and even mockery. We often miss moments of great drama because we lack the context of the Hebrew culture.

Can you imagine trying to read American memes with no exposure to the movies, TV shows and music we swim in? What would it mean if you took literally these lyrics: “Short people got no reason to live”? How about nursery rhymes? More than one OT prophet refers to what appears to be the stuff childhood education.

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Cast Out Your Own Demons

Posted on January 9, 2026 by ehurst

Biblical feudalism is highly decentralized on the human side of things. There can be no centralized human authority on this earth for a spiritual kingdom. Christ alone is the Lord of His people. He appointed messengers, not rulers over His Body. If you assume an earthly church magistrate before you read the Bible, then you’ll find support for the idea there. If you start from Hebraic assumptions, you’ll get an entirely different story from Scripture.

The thesis of the Unseen Realm is entirely Hebraic. It reflects the best we can know of Hebrew assumptions about cosmology and anthropology. The message of the Bible as a whole rests on that foundation. How and why we exist as fallen humans in God’s Creation are fully explained. We don’t need to know more than that. The rest of it — our mission, methods and means — are derived from that understanding and implemented in the context of this world.

I got a lot of questions arising from yesterday’s post. Some of it you will have to work out for yourself. You will need to be aware of your own election, mission and calling, including your gifts. It is your duty to work out the details and procedures for each case based on broad principles. The same Holy Spirit working in me is working in you.

However, as the basic thesis for the ministries of people like Fern, Audrey and Beth (the trio interviewed in the referenced Naked Bible podcast) is that you will most certainly need help getting your mind cleared of deceptions that keep you from serving effectively.

The overall goal is to help the Elect find their place under the Covenant of Christ. The central problem we face in that effort is American mythology and social conditioning. American minds are loaded with a vast burden of nonsense concocted by the Devil to keep the Elect away from their Covenant heritage. The garbage mythology that dominates churchianity is very powerful and effective. One of the first things those three women do in ministering to victims is help them understand the biblical Hebrew cosmology, including the knowledge of the Elohim Council, the Watchers, the Nephilim (demons) and so forth.

They teach the unshakable favor God has for His children, and how this is the very crux of where Satan comes from, and how we got here in our fallen condition. And these women are trained therapists who help traumatized people deal with the damage that is so common in American family life. We should be surprised how many people remain functional despite the hideous mess that passes for parenting in the US. There is a sense in which virtually every American carries some scars from bad child-rearing. All of that is the result of Satan’s plans for humanity.

We’ve warned often that the Enemy delights in using humans to torment other humans. Bringing Hell to human existence in this life is simply how the Kingdom of Darkness operates. There’s very little we can do for the Damned, but the Elect are inheritors of something far better. We can help them understand how they are acceptable to the Father because of the Son. It’s the paradox of humility and privilege.

The trio of ladies in the interview deal with especially hard cases, mostly people whose souls are so twisted out of shape that they manifest multiple personalities — what we used to call “schizophrenia”. That requires special training and clinical experience. Getting that training is tough because you have to wade through a huge pile of secular nonsense. I could wish that there was a body of clinical literature written from a better perspective.

Still, those of us called to assist others can help most people. Yes, there are things we can do for the Damned, but it really depends on how they are moved to submit to the Law of Christ alongside the Elect who submit to the Person of Christ. The power of the heart-led way is available to every human. The point here is that you don’t have a means to ascertain who is and isn’t spiritual family objectively; you can only estimate how the Lord wants you to handle each person. No one on this earth is called and equipped to reach everyone who needs help. Your reach is limited, and God will gladly help you keep track of which sheep you are to shepherd.

Shepherding is not asserting authority as most Americans think of it. You are supposed to demonstrate for others how you assert God’s authority over your fleshly nature. We don’t conquer Nature around us, but our own natures. We offer spiritual leadership by example. Only rarely would we pretend to exercise authority over other people, and even then, only in highly limited ways. The shepherd leads by walking off in the right direction to some destination God chooses, and trusts the work of God to compel the sheep to cling to the shepherd.

You cannot help anyone who doesn’t attach themselves to you in some way, driven by the Holy Spirit. That’s tied up on the Law of Christ that we love each other as He does.

There’s no need to study how the Devil and his allies work beyond the sketch provided by the message of the Unseen Realm. The Devil has a provisional authority over fallen humans, not the natural world in which we live. It is feudal authority in the ANE mold. The only escape is when the Lord initiates a change in awareness that we belong to Him. Everything else is a battle of claiming authority over your fleshly nature, flesh that is the Devil’s greatest ally in your life. It takes time and effort on your part to bring your whole being under subjection to Christ.

Part of the redemption process is learning the proper Hebrew understanding of sin and redemption, as we’ve examined in posts over the past couple of weeks. The fleshly nature gets its ideas from the Devil, who rules human culture. To the degree you cling to the world’s ways, to that degree you remain under Satan’s dominion. You have a commission from God to conquer the internal turf in your soul that is under Satan’s dominion and redeem it, occupying it with a mission from God.

This naturally includes healing all the wounds on your soul, wiping away the effects of any trauma that has opened the door to demonic influence in your life — the sense in which they “possess” you. You are the one who casts out your own demons.

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Evicting the Enemy

Posted on January 8, 2026 by ehurst

Re: Naked Bible 120: Fern, Audrey, and Beth

The biggest problem with this podcast is that the featured guest (Beth) isn’t trained to speak directly on parts of the subject she address. It was very frustrating to hear her talk all around the subject the way most people do when they are struggling to organize their thoughts. I get the impression she is still working through some of her own trauma. That’s not meant as a criticism but a warning to you if you try to listen to the podcast. The good part comes in the second half.

Beth started out in a traditional Charismatic deliverance ministry. I passed through a church that included some of that, so I became quite familiar with it. She noticed how something never quite worked when done the way it has been done for decades. She realized that she was being deceived and went looking for help on that. It took a long time for her to find that help in Fern and Audrey.

She proceeds to testify in very confusing words until Heiser starts asking questions, which also prompts Fern and Audrey to comment. Then they start deconstructing the falseness within traditional deliverance ministries.

They don’t mention it much, but the false model of the Spirit Realm common across western churches, and wherever their influence dominates, is the reason so much deliverance ministry fails. It’s not the gifts that fail, but the way they are used. The western mythology of Satan as Loki, that demons are fallen angels, etc., is very misleading. It prompts ministers to misread Scripture and never quite solve the real problems for people struggling with Watchers and Nephilim spirits.

How many Charismatics would you expect to understand that the biggest problem with New Testament translation into English is the problem with translating Hebrew into Greek? The Greek language makes no distinction between angels and elohim as Hebrew does, so the fallen elohim (Watchers) end up translated in English Bibles as “fallen angels”, when there’s actually no such thing.

Thus, the three ladies interviewed in this podcast emphasize getting the Hebrew cosmology established as the first step in healing tormented souls. Getting the lies out of their heads puts them in the right place to hear clearly from the Spirit.

The other major emphasis is teaching people that God loves them as an antidote to bad parenting that left people open to demonic intrusions in their lives. They discussed how authority figures in a child’s life can do their job poorly and leave those kids growing up with trauma. Trauma is the doorway to demonization. The traditional deliverance ministries awaken that trauma by asserting that the solution is yet another authority figure doing something that is going to be painful.

While in childhood, most children have a very limited range of logic. If their parents abuse them, they are ill-equipped to think in terms of the parents being bad. Instead, kids internalize the punishment as somehow justified because they are bad children.

The trio mention how demons will pull back and allow deliverance ministers to torment the victims yet again through using their gifts improperly. The ultimate answer to demonization is to help people understand that God really does love them, that He’s the ultimate parent who makes no mistakes, does no injustice. The primary task of therapy is to be there with the victims, helping them to recover what the Devil took away from them back sometime most likely in childhood.

All of which sounds familiar to me, as I’ve taught for some years on this blog that true deliverance is not “taking authority” over demons for them, but it’s the individual getting more familiar with Jesus and chasing their own demons out. Learning faith is learning the commitment to Jesus and His love for us. It’s learning how to love each other as He does. That’s the Covenant Law that locks out the Dark forces.

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