Dr. Michael Heiser On The Gap Fact. Spoiler: Wrong Again.

People are free to believe what they want.

But there are lots of big shots out there who put out a lot of false information.  They are believed by many to be trustworthy sources.  With their lies, they lead astray people who are searching for the truth.

One target of this blog is a man who honest and truth loving Christians look to for information.  But the more I look into his material, the more lies and falsehoods I find.  This is Dr. Michael Heiser.

When I was first getting serious about Bible study, I ended up reading Chuck Missler’s material.  Now that Missler has gone home to heaven, I believe that other men are trying to take his place and get at the crowd of young, but serious Bible students which once included me.  Dr. Michael Heiser has a lot of pull with these people, unfortunately.  This article, along with my previous article about Heiser, exists in the hope that people would see that Heiser is not to be trusted on almost any subject.

Today, we look at his YouTube video about the Gap Theory (or Fact).  It is only a couple weeks old, but has garnered about 10,000 views.  Some of the other videos on his channel, which is one of many channels, have over 50,000 views.  This shows his influence.

We shall go over his points and show that he is a good example of something Paul warned Timothy about.  1Tim 1:6-7 (AV) “…some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” His answers are “vain jangling” and it is abundantly clear that he is “understanding neither what (he) say, nor whereof (he) affirms.”  In other words, his understanding of the Gap Fact is either woefully deficient or else he is purposely misrepresenting the ideas about the Gap AND he doesn’t give any clear teachings to explain the issues involved.

Please refer to my previous article about the Gap Fact as this article will mainly focus on Heiser’s errors as opposed to proving the Gap Fact.  I Believe the Gap Fact.

The first mistake made by Heiser is that he quotes from the New King James for Genesis 1:1.  It reads, “In the beginning God created the HEAVENS and the earth.”  The first verse of the Bible is translated incorrectly in the most common modern translations.  It should read, “In the beginning God created the heaven (singular) and the earth.” 

Had he looked at the proper translation, he would have seen the first scriptural proof that there is a Gap.  Strong’s concordance says that the Hebrew word “shamayim” that is translated as “heaven” is a dual.  Others call it a plural.  Others say that the verb’s form is the “plural of extension or amplification”.  Regardless, there is no error there as almost all versions translate the same word as “Heaven” (singular) in Genesis 1:8. Lest you start to think that the King James is a radical reading, please note that many Jewish translations into English follow the King James Bible in Genesis 1:1.  These translations come from actual Hebrew speakers and scholars, unlike Heiser.

But when you reject the King James reading, as Heiser does, then you miss the fact that there was only one heaven created in Genesis 1:1 but there are three heavens now, as per 2 Cor 12:2.  The fact leads to the question, “Where did the other two heavens come from?”  Questions like this are answered by the Gap Fact.  Gap Rejectors don’t have a good way to address the issue.  We know from the Gap Fact teachings that part of the consequences of the Fall of Lucifer in Genesis 1:1 is that now there is a great separation between earth and where God dwells, aka Heaven.  If you understand the Doctrine of the Great Deep, you will know what we are referencing.  The other two heavens are: one which is the air where the birds fly (Gen 1:20) and then what we call outer space or where the planets exist (Gen 1:14).  These two heavens, along with the Great Deep (the “waters that be above the heavens [plural]” Ps 148:4) are separating us, physically, from the presence of God.  These did not exist in Gen 1:1.  Heiser can’t find any of the references in his ancient Semitic, near eastern mythos, blah, blah, blah.

Next, Heiser says that Gap Fact people teach that “one of the angels became Satan.”  Either this is slander or Heiser thinks that Satan was an angel.  I suspect that Heiser himself can’t figure out that Satan was a “CHERUB” (Ezekiel 28:14,16) and not an angel, but in my materials I cannot prove it.  He knows that they are different and so he should be more precise with his wording at the very least.  The fact is, Heiser spends all this time talking about the spiritual realm, but cannot make clear reference to the fact that Satan was a Cherub.  Probably because he is not a real expert on the subject.  But without a perfect Bible, how could he be? The ultimate truths about the spiritual realm are found in the Authorized Version and not in ancient Semitic, near Eastern mythos, blah, blah, blah.

So, after these first couple SNAFUs in his introduction, Heiser finally gets to the question that he intends to try and answer for us. He asks, “Is the Gap Valid?”  Which is a strange question.  Why not: “Is the Gap Biblical?” or “Was there a Gap?”  Interesting wording by him, but this we are not criticizing the wording of his question in today’s article, although we could.

The main thrust of his criticism of the Gap is based on nothing.  It seems that Heiser thinks that the main reason for believing the Gap is that Gappers think that Genesis 1:2 should read “And the earth (BECAME) without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  He believes that the Hebrew grammar of the text proves that “became” is a false reading and that is SHOULD read as the King James reads: Gen 1:2 (AV) “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”  As King James Bible Believers, we believe that Heiser is right, of course.  We are reminded that a broken clock is right twice a day and here we are in full agreement with Dr. Heiser.  So, it seems from the video that he believes that the whole argument of the Gap hinges of this translation.  But we agree with him about the translation.  So his whole video and his arguments therein are based on nothing.  Therefore: HE DISPROVES NOTHING.

He argues about the “true” meaning of the waw consecutive and gives an example and also the waw disjunction.  None of this pertains to the topic at hand.  The Gap is true irrespective of how you choose to translate the waw consecutive.  So his statement that “The Hebrew kills the Gap” is similar to “We can be sure that Hitler is still alive in Argentina because there’s a volcano in Japan.”  It is a non sequitor. His conclusion does not follow.  This can only mean that Heiser’s time spent in the ancient Semitic, near Eastern mythoses has actually LESSENED the amount of wisdom and understanding that this man has.  Hillbillies with a 9th grade education in the mountains of North Carolina can find the Gap Fact.  Dr. Heiser, with all his credentials cannot.  What an interesting illustration!

We will close by showing a few more of Heiser’s problems from the video.  He promotes the idea that the Gap exists as a compromise to evolution or evolutionary geology.  It is not.  The Gap answers serious questions that Heiser hasn’t even thought about.  There are some serious implications in Ezekiel 28 that only the Gap can answer.  Heiser can’t find them.

He thinks Revelation 12 has to do with the first coming of Christ.  This is only true if you are a Catholic…. Maybe that is demonstrating something right there.

He pretends that “without form and void” doesn’t have a cross reference to Jeremiah 4 even though it’s the exact words in English and Hebrew.  But like a typical heretic, he plays pretend and just dismisses them.  Basically, the cross reference doesn’t meet his standard that he created himself and so it just doesn’t exist.  Typical.

He closes his video by concluding that the Gap has “not a single text driven data point”.  This is supposed to mean something, I suppose.  But he never stopped to think that if Satan didn’t fall before Genesis 1:2, then he fell somewhere else.  If we were to assume that Heiser thinks Satan fell between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, then we would have to throw Heiser’s accusation right back in his face.  Whatever theory he holds, IT WOULD NOT HAVE A SINGLE TEXT DRIVEN DATA POINT!!!

I’m not ready to accuse Heiser of being a Jesuit agent of misinformation or full of devils.  But I am accusing him not having that much wisdom and understanding.  Please compare what this man says to the Bible (King James Bible).  He is nothing more than a blind, Laodicean leader of the present day Alexandrian cult.  You, dear reader, are free to reject the Gap.  That is fine.  But don’t reject it because of his video.