Dr. Michael S. Heiser

Author, The Unseen Realm  |  Former Scholar-in-Residence, Faithlife/Logos Bible Software  |  Host, The Naked Bible Podcast

Biographical Overview

Michael Steven Heiser (February 14, 1963 – February 20, 2023) was an American Old Testament scholar, author, and podcaster whose work centered on the Hebrew Bible’s portrayal of the unseen spiritual realm — angels, demons, and the divine council. He served as scholar-in-residence at Faithlife Corporation (Logos Bible Software) for fifteen years and later as Executive Director of the School of Ministry at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida. He is best known for his book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.

Education & Formation

Heiser earned a Master of Arts in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania, with concentrations in Ancient Israel and Egyptology, and completed both a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages, with a minor in Classical Studies, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning his doctorate in 2004.

Ministry & Professional History

Heiser taught on the college and seminary level for more than twenty years, including as a distance-learning professor at Liberty University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served for fifteen years as scholar-in-residence at Faithlife Corporation, the parent company of Logos Bible Software, until 2019, and subsequently as Executive Director and Professor at the Awakening School of Theology and Ministry at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida. He founded Miqlat, a ministry dedicated to producing and distributing his scholarship, and hosted The Naked Bible Podcast as well as the Peeranormal Podcast, which examined peer-reviewed research on paranormal claims.

Fields of Study & Expertise

Heiser’s scholarship focused on the Hebrew Bible’s supernatural worldview — the divine council, angels, demons, and the unseen spiritual realm depicted throughout Scripture — as well as Second Temple Jewish literature, including the Book of Enoch. He was widely recognized, including by critics, as the most prominent evangelical defender of the divine council interpretation of Psalm 82, and he was also an outspoken critic of pseudoscientific “ancient astronaut” theories, appearing as a Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern expert in the documentary Ancient Aliens Debunked.

Publications & Media

Heiser authored more than ten nonfiction books after 2010, including The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (2015), Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches About the Unseen World—and Why It Matters (2015), Angels: What the Bible Really Says About God’s Heavenly Host (2018), Demons: What the Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness (2020), and a two-volume reader’s commentary on the Book of Enoch. He also wrote two novels, The Facade and The Portent, and appeared in the documentaries Fragments of Truth (2018) and The Unseen Realm (2019).

Recognition & Reach

Heiser’s work on the divine council worldview reshaped popular evangelical engagement with Old Testament cosmology, and The Unseen Realm became a widely read and cited work across both academic and lay Christian audiences. His Naked Bible Podcast built a large following for long-form, scholarly engagement with biblical studies outside the traditional classroom.

Personal

Heiser was married to Drenna Heiser and had three daughters and a son. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2021 and died from the disease on February 20, 2023, one week after his sixtieth birthday.