Online Study the unseen realm
Contents
It is now possible to join an online study of The Unseen Realm through AWKNG School of Theology’s online study course.
The Unseen Realm has become one of the best-selling and most discussed books in biblical studies in recent years. The book is academic in its outlay, but accessible in its tone. The book challenges Christians to see the Bible as its original ancient writers and readers did, especially when it comes to believing in an active, supernatural world that intersects with our own lives. The Bible was written for us, but not to us. It’s a supernatural epic articulated by people whose worldview isn’t our own.
The Unseen Realm Website
The Unseen Realm connects readers to that worldview. Imagine this: say you are sitting in a small group with the Bible and an Israelite from 1000 B.C. was sitting there with you—or a Jew from the first century A.D. When it was one of their turns to tell everyone what they thought a given passage meant, their answer would be unlike that of yours, or anyone else in the room. And the reason would be that no one else in the room shared their worldview.
How can you possibly understand what someone has written if you don’t look at the world the way they do, and know what it is they believe and why? The only correct context for understanding what the biblical writers were thinking when they wrote Scripture is the ancient context in which they lived, as understood in other writings of the time—writings that were sometimes religious, sometimes, not, but all of which pertain to the larger picture of what we would consider their mindset, or worldview.
Most Christians presume that the right context for interpreting the Bible is the history of Christianity. It isn’t, or at least it isn’t the only one. Another problem is that a lot of what Christians have been taught about the unseen world is either incomplete or inaccurate. Christian beliefs about angels and demons largely come from Hollywood, Milton’s Paradise Lost, or church tradition.
Even more troublesome is the propensity of the modern Christian mind to be selectively supernatural. Christians believe in things like a Creator, a Trinity, and the incarnation, but balk at a whole host of strange passages in the Bible’s pages, never daring to ask why what they deem too weird to believe is less rational than the core points of Christian doctrine. The biblical writers were obviously not so conflicted. When we dismiss their supernatural worldview, we can’t hope to understand what they meant by what they wrote.
The goal of The Unseen Realm is to get the biblical writers in your head, so that you can read your Bible through their eyes and understand what it was they believed about the unseen world and its inextricable links to the human story.
The Unseen Realm Study Guide
The website moreunseenrealm.com has free study guides for The Unseen Realm, and you can also earn hours towards your Masters at certain Theology colleges, in Theology at AWKNG School of Theology in our online courses. There are currently four Bible courses online, accessible through our portal. In Unseen Realm 101 Dr. Michael Heiser uncovers what the Bible really says about the unseen world of the supernatural. Starting with the Old Testament, students systematically and progressively journey into the ancient worlds of the Old Testament and learn about the historical and cultural contexts of the Bible’s original authors, what influenced them, what their spiritual world-view was, and what audiences came to the scriptures already understanding. This thread of study continues in Unseen Realm 102, where Dr. Heiser builds on the concepts developed in Unseen Realm 101, with the significant transition to the New Testament. The course continues by picking up the supernatural plot line of the Bible, which rises to climax as God establishes his natural and supernatural family in the book of Revelation.
The Unseen Realm Documentary
Rebellion in God’s council. Spirits of dead giants. Rival gods creating chaos. These are the things of myth and fairy tales, right? We, as Christians, don’t believe these things actually took place, do we?Well, the writers of the Bible believed them. In the documentary The Unseen Realm, based on the book of the same name, a light is cast on the strange and enigmatic plane of the supernatural that lies within the pages of Scripture. And what we discover are two distinct worlds—with vastly different inhabitants—created and ruled by one loving triune God.
Image source: Pixabay
