The Deception of Michael Heiser: Unmasking His Faulty Scholarship

Dr. Thomas Howe has recently published two books exposing Michael S. Heiser’s false doctrines. His first book, The Unseemly Realm: A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael S. Heiser, was published in November 2024. I highly recommend this work, as it addresses Heiser’s theological system and writings more broadly. Howe’s second book, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, was published in February 2025. As the subtitle suggests, this book specifically critiques Heiser’s Reversing Hermon.

This discussion introduces key aspects of Dr. Howe’s analysis in his two recent books. While it is unclear whether Howe intended to emphasize this particular issue, his remarks on it are extensive. My research has revealed a pattern of dishonesty in Dr. Heiser’s work. Evidence has shown that Heiser frequently altered quotations and misrepresentation his sources. Dr. Howe’s research independently arrives at similar conclusions.

In The Unseemly Realm, Howe writes, “For Heiser to present his translation as if it is ‘straightforward’ is, frankly, not honest.”¹⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), p. 29 This statement marks the first of many instances where Howe directly identifies Heiser’s handling of sources as deceptive. The phrase—“is, frankly, not honest”—recurs throughout the book, appearing 22 times in The Unseemly Realm²⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), pp. 29, 85, 100, 103, 117, 129, 139 (2x), 140, 142, 143, 194, 213, 220, 229, 233, 259, 260, 272, 290, 296. and another two times in Reversing Heiser.³⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), pp. 236, 247.

Nevertheless, Howe employs various expressions to highlight Heiser’s deceitful of his sources. In The Unseemly Realm, Howe accuses Heiser of “misrepresenting” material 13 times.⁴⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), pp. 80, 131, 149 (2x), 151, 153, 155, 183, 187, 209, 216, 230, 295. In Reversing Heiser, this term becomes the preferred critique, appearing 16 times.⁵⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), pp.22, 52, 53, 127, 131, 137, 146, 156, 161 (2x), 162, 183, 218, 224, 235, 240. This pattern further reinforces Howe’s assertion that Heiser’s handling of sources was not accurate or reliable.

Howe employs several other terms to characterize Heiser’s misrepresentation of sources. He describes Heiser as “deceitful” once in each book⁶⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), p. 148; Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 48 and uses the term “disingenuous”—defined by the Cambridge Dictionary⁷⁾https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/disingenuous as “(of a person or their behavior) slightly dishonest, or not speaking the complete truth”—once in The Unseemly Realm⁸⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), p. 200 and once in Reversing Heiser.⁹⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 22 These recurring critiques further emphasize Howe’s assessment of Heiser’s lack of scholarly integrity.

Reversing Heiser employs a variety of expressions to convey the same critique. On three occasions, Howe describes Heiser’s statements as misleading or simply false.¹⁰⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), pp. 28, 131, 161. A frequently used phrase to express this concern is “selective reporting,” which appears six times explicitly,¹¹⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), pp. 22, 142, 46, 168, 194, 250. with an additional four instances where the same charge is made without using the exact phrase. These additional comments provide further insight into Howe’s critique. They are as follows:

“As is his practice, Heiser does not give all the information but only that portion that seems to support his position.”¹²⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 203

“Heiser seems not to be beyond taking out of context any quote that he thinks supports his view, and applying it to a topic with which the quote has no relation.”¹³⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 204

“As is his practice, Heiser conveniently leaves out the part that goes against his view…. Heiser omits the portion that reads “a second visitation” because he cannot make it fit his interpretation.”¹⁴⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 207

And on page 217-218 he writes, “Heiser is simply wrong in each of his observations. Unfortunately, Heiser goes from wrong observations to absurd speculation in an attempt to support his view…. It seems that Heiser does research only far enough to refer to what seems to support his view, by the misrepresents what he discovers.”¹⁵⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), pp. 217-18.

Howe employs several other terms and expressions to highlight Heiser’s misrepresentation of sources. For example, in Reversing Heiser, he writes, “The problem with Heiser’s arguments is that they are ultimately speculation, guesswork, and wishful thinking combined with poor scholarship, and mishandling and misrepresentation of the evidence.”¹⁶⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 137. Similarly, Howe states, “Heiser fails to provide his readers with the complete picture. This is yet another instance of selective reporting. There are other passages in this chapter [referring to chapter 6 in Reversing Hermon] that Heiser mutilates, such as his misunderstanding and mishandling of Psalm 68 and Paul’s use of it in Eph. 4:8. Heiser simply ignores scholars when they don’t agree with his view, and he presents his interpretation as if they are the only reasonable ones.”¹⁷⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 168.

Howe also highlights several instances where Heiser misrepresented sources. On pages 106-107 of Reversing Heiser, Howe critiques an article by Heiser, “Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible,” in which Heiser attributes a definition of the term henotheism to Max Muller based on Michiko Yusa’s comments. However, Howe points out, “The problem is, Muller never makes such a statement in the entire book…. Heiser, who refers to himself as ‘a biblical scholar,’ simply did not do his homework.”¹⁸⁾See full discussion in Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), pp. 106-107.

What becomes apparent is that Heiser often relies on secondary sources without verifying the accuracy of the quotations they present. This was a concern I had when I first began reading his work. A number of times I expressed in my book The Unbiblical Realm: Refuting the Divine Council of Michael Heiser’s Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, that either Heiser is misrepresenting the primary sources or is lying about having read them.¹⁹⁾Heath Henning, he Unbiblical Realm: Refuting the Divine Council of Michael Heiser’s Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, Truthwatchers Publications (East Troy, WI: 2023), pp. 63, 141, 188, 201 My research focuses on ancient literature, and I observed numerous instances where Heiser misquoted these texts.²⁰⁾Heath Henning, he Unbiblical Realm: Refuting the Divine Council of Michael Heiser’s Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, Truthwatchers Publications (East Troy, WI: 2023), pp. 131, 193, 266, 315 I initially suspected that Heiser might be citing secondary sources without cross-checking them against the primary material. However, he footnotes the primary sources as though he has engaged with the ancient texts directly. It appears likely that Heiser did not read these texts himself, but instead relied on quotations from secondary sources written by scholars with liberal perspectives. These scholars often misrepresent the texts, distorting quotes and imposing flawed interpretations. Unfortunately, Heiser seems to have adopted these misrepresentations, which he then presents to an audience of evangelicals who, lacking the means or motivation to verify his sources, may view him as an authoritative scholar.

Another notable misquote identified by Howe appears on page 112 of The Unseemly Realm. In footnote 2, Howe writes, “Interestingly, the quote Heiser says is in the introduction to I Dare You Not to Bore Me With the Bible, actually does not appear in that book, at least not in the version that is available in Logos.”²¹⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, The Unseemly Realm, A Critical Analysis of the Writings of Michael Heiser, (2024), p. 112, fn. 2 This indicates that Heiser misquoted even his own work. There are two important aspects to note about this issue. First, Heiser frequently references his own publications throughout his books. I observed this trend when researching Heiser, particularly in his book Demons, where I found no fewer than 93 footnotes referencing his own works—sometimes a single footnote contained multiple references of his own works. However, this raises a significant concern: Heiser’s own references cannot always be trusted for accuracy.

Secondly, as I discussed in my second article²²⁾Heath Henning, “Michael Heiser’s Gnostic Heresy: Polytheism (Part 2), December 7, 2020; https://truthwatchers.com/michael-heisers-gnostic-heresy-part-2/ and in my book The Unbiblical Realm²³⁾Heath Henning, The Unbiblical Realm: Refuting the Divine Council of Michael Heiser’s Deuteronomy 32 Worldview, Truthwatchers Publications (East Troy, WI: 2023), pp. 60-61, when Heiser responded to my first article on his blog, he quoted himself but misrepresented his own quotation. He attempted to present his statement as though he rejected polytheism, when in fact, the context of his original quote was his rejection of the idea that ancient Israel evolved out of polytheism during the Babylonian captivity. Heiser maintained that Israel remained polytheistic until the rabbinic period. This example further demonstrates that Heiser cannot be relied upon to accurately reference his own material. Given this pattern, all of his footnotes and sources must be carefully examined to ensure that the authors he cites are properly represented. Heiser’s work, in this regard, falls short of scholarly rigor and cannot be trusted as reliable scholarship.

If Heiser had genuinely read the ancient literature he cites, it would suggest that he knowingly misrepresented and altered it. I am inclined to offer him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he unwittingly relied on liberal authors and uncritically adopted their inaccurate quotations without verifying them. However, the available evidence also supports the possibility that Heiser intentionally altered the quotes himself. If he is willing to misrepresent his own writings, it raises the question of why he would not do the same with the works of other authors.

In Reversing Heiser, Howe again documents several instances where Heiser alters or misrepresents quotations. I identified five such instances in this work where Howe critiques Heiser’s handling of sources. It is important to note that Howe is only engaging with Heiser’s Reversing Hermon in this book.

Howe writes, “As is his tactic, Heiser conveniently omits those portions that are contrary to what he wants the quotes to say.”²⁴⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 119 On page 131, Howe adds, “This is another tactic of Heiser. He subtly changes the text to fit his interpretation…. Heiser changes the text in order to make the text conform to his claim that the woman is ‘in’ the constellation.”²⁵⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 131

Again, Howe observes,“Heiser references the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, yet this reference work never actually uses or refers to the word bathan. In fact, in the section of the Dictionary in Heiser’s endnote, pages 161-163, the authors do not even use the word ‘serpent.’ It seems that Heiser creates his own pitfalls and errors.”²⁶⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 229

Elsewhere, Howe points out, “Heiser attributes the translation to Nickelsburg, but this is not how Nickelsburg translates the verse[.]”²⁷⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 237 Again, on page 243,Howe remarks, “Heiser is notorious for omitting important portions when he quotes.”²⁸⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 243 Finally, he writes: “Heiser gives a lengthy quote from a translation of Tertullian’s text: [followed by how Heiser quotes Tertullian] The problem with this is that is not what Tertullian wrote: [followed by the accurate quote].”²⁹⁾Dr. Thomas Howe, Reversing Heiser: A Critical Analysis of Michael S. Heiser’s Reversing Hermon, (2025), p. 244

In conclusion, while this discussion does not directly engage with Howe’s central arguments, it serves to illustrate that Howe, whether intentionally or not, has exposed precisely what I have been asserting for years—that Heiser is not trustworthy. His work, including his writings, teachings, and quotations, cannot be relied upon. Every quotation he presents, even when citing his own work, must be carefully scrutinized, as Heiser’s handling of sources demonstrates a consistent pattern of deception.