Unit 12 · Reversing Hermon: The Forgotten Mission

Genesis 6:1–4 is one of the shortest and strangest stories in the Hebrew Bible. When people began to multiply, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. They took wives from among them. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. The children born were the mighty men of old, men of renown. Then the story moves straight on to the Flood.

1 Enoch tells the same story at far greater length. It is a Jewish book, and its oldest part, the Book of the Watchers (chapters 1–36), dates to about the 200s BCE. There the sons of God are Watchers, heavenly beings who come down on Mount Hermon. They take human wives, and their children are giants. They also teach people harmful skills. 1 Enoch survives whole only in Ge’ez, the old church language of Ethiopia. It is scripture in the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches.

Some early Christians knew this book. Jude 14–15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9, and scholars agree on that. 2 Peter 2:4 speaks of angels who sinned and are held in Tartarus. George Nickelsburg, in his commentary 1 Enoch 1 (2001), suggested that the giants’ violence may mirror the wars of Alexander’s successors, which the first readers lived through. Annette Yoshiko Reed, in Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (2005), traced how Jews and Christians first treasured the story and later set it aside.

Michael Heiser went further. In Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (2017), he argued that the Gospel writers also knew the story, and that Jesus’ mission was meant to undo it. Many scholars accept that 1 Enoch shaped Jude and 2 Peter but doubt it shaped the Gospels so much. Others read the sons of God in Genesis 6 as human rulers, or as the family line of Seth. This unit sets these readings side by side.

Mount Hermon is the tallest mountain in the region, about 2,800 meters (over 9,000 feet) high. Its peak is snowy for much of the year. It stands near where modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet. Deuteronomy 3:9 says other peoples had their own names for it. The Sidonians called it Sirion, and the Amorites called it Senir.

1 Enoch 6 tells how two hundred Watchers came down in the days of Jared on the summit of Hermon. Jared is Enoch’s father in Genesis 5. Their leader, Semjaza as Charles spells the name, fears he alone will be blamed. So they all bind themselves with an oath, a solemn promise with a curse on anyone who breaks it. The text then says the mountain was named Hermon because of that oath.

That line is a wordplay, a pun that works in Hebrew and Aramaic. The name Hermon sounds like the root h-r-m, which has to do with setting something apart, often under a ban or curse. The Hebrew noun herem comes from that root. The writer of 1 Enoch used the sound of the name to tell what happened on the mountain.

1 Enoch comes back to this corner of the land in chapter 13. There Enoch sits by the waters of Dan, south-west of Hermon, reads out the Watchers’ plea, and falls asleep and sees visions. George Nickelsburg, in a 1981 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, noted that several Jewish texts set heavenly visions in this part of upper Galilee. Other scholars read the Hermon scene mainly as a story that explains an old name. All agree on the key fact: 1 Enoch placed the Watchers’ descent on this mountain.

South of Hermon lay Bashan, a high plain famous for strong cattle and oak trees. Deuteronomy 3:11 says Og, king of Bashan, was the last of the Rephaim. It adds that his iron bed was nine cubits long, about four meters. Joshua 12:4–5 says Og lived at Ashtaroth and Edrei and ruled over Mount Hermon and all Bashan.

In several Hebrew Bible books, the Rephaim are a people of great size remembered from before Israel came into the land. In other passages, such as Isaiah 14:9 and Psalm 88:10, the same word names the spirits of the dead. Clay tablets from Ugarit, a city on the Syrian coast destroyed about 1200 BCE, help here. They speak of the rapiuma, the honored dead kings. One tablet names a god who sits enthroned in Ashtaroth and rules in Edrei, the same two towns as Og’s. Many scholars think the two uses of Rephaim grew from this old picture.

Psalm 68:15–16 adds a picture. It speaks of the many-peaked mountain of Bashan looking with envy at the mountain God chose for his home. Many commentators identify that mountain of Bashan with Hermon or the peaks near it. The psalm sets two mountains side by side: the great peak of the north, and Zion, the hill of Jerusalem’s temple.

Readers take this in different ways. Some read Psalm 68 as simple poetry about a tall mountain that seems proud next to a small hill. Some see the Rephaim mainly as a memory of an old population. Others, drawing on the tablets from Ugarit, argue that ancient listeners would have heard rival powers in the contrast. Each reading starts from the same verses.

After Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread across the eastern Mediterranean. Greek-speaking people honored Pan at a cave on the southern slope of Hermon. Pan was a god of shepherds, flocks and wild country. The place took his name: Panias, or Paneas. Today it is called Banias, because Arabic has no p sound.

The spring at Panias is one of the main sources of the Jordan River. In ancient times the water rose from the cave itself. Later, niches were cut into the cliff beside it to hold statues. Greek inscriptions found there honor Pan and the nymphs, spirits of springs and trees in Greek belief. Archaeologists have also found remains of courtyards and temples in front of the cliff.

Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the first century CE, describes the cave in his book Jewish War. He says it opens into a deep hollow, with still water so deep that no one could find the bottom. That picture matters. A cave with water that seemed to go down forever could easily seem like an opening to the world below.

Readers weigh the place differently. Some see a shrine to a Greek god, beside a cave that seemed bottomless, at the foot of 1 Enoch’s mountain, as a strong picture of the old powers. Others note that shrines at springs were common in the ancient world and see Panias as one of many. Both agree it was a well-known place of worship that was not Jewish.

In about 20 BCE, the Roman emperor Augustus gave the region around Panias to Herod the Great, king of Judea. Josephus reports that Herod thanked him by building a temple of white stone near the spring, dedicated to Augustus. So the site now honored two kinds of power: a Greek god of nature, and a Roman ruler who received worship through the imperial cult.

When Herod died in 4 BCE, his lands were divided among his sons. The northern part went to Philip, who ruled as a tetrarch, the ruler of part of a divided kingdom. Philip built up Panias into a city and made it his capital. He named it Caesarea, again to honor Caesar Augustus.

There was already a famous Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, a port built by Herod. To tell them apart, people called the new city Caesarea Philippi, meaning Philip’s Caesarea. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark use this name. Mark 8:27 says Jesus went to the villages around Caesarea Philippi, while Matthew 16:13 speaks of its district.

Some readers see layers in the setting. The old shrine of Pan, the new temple to a ruler honored as divine, and the mountain of 1 Enoch’s Watchers all met in one place. Many scholars simply note that Jesus often withdrew to quieter areas outside Jewish towns. Either way, Caesarea Philippi was far from Jerusalem, both in distance and in its religious world.

Matthew 16:13 sets the scene: Jesus comes into the region of Caesarea Philippi. He asks his disciples who people say the Son of Man is. They report what the crowds are saying. Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Then Jesus asks them directly who they say he is. Simon Peter answers. In Matthew he calls Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ is the Greek form of the Hebrew Messiah, meaning anointed one. Mark 8:29 gives a shorter answer, and Luke 9:20 has the Christ of God. In Matthew, Jesus tells Peter that this was not shown to him by flesh and blood but by his Father in heaven.

The place gives the words a backdrop. Around them stood a cave with niches for statues of a nature god and a temple to a ruler. In that place, Peter names the living God. Many commentators draw this contrast between the living God and carved images. George Nickelsburg, in his 1981 article, went further. He set Peter’s revelation in Matthew 16:17 beside older Jewish texts in which Enoch and Levi receive visions in this same region.

Other readers focus on the question itself more than the place. For them, the passage is the turning point of the Gospel. Up to here, people wonder who Jesus is. From here on, as Matthew 16:21 says, Jesus begins to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer. Readers of every view agree that this is a turning point.

Matthew 16:18 contains a wordplay in Greek. Peter’s name is Petros, and the word for rock is petra. Jesus says that Peter is Petros and that on this petra he will build his church. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, means an assembly, a gathered people. Then Jesus adds that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

Hades was the Greek name for the realm of the dead. The Septuagint, the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, often uses it for the Hebrew word Sheol. The Hebrew Bible speaks of the gates of death and the gates of Sheol. In Isaiah 38:10, King Hezekiah, fearing he will die young, says he is being sent to the gates of Sheol. The phrase names the power of death.

Heiser read the line as a challenge. Gates do not attack; they defend. So he argued that Jesus pictured his people going on the offensive against the realm of death and the powers behind it. He also suggested that this rock could point to the place itself, the rock of the cliff and the mountain where they stood. Near a cave some linked with the underworld, the words had a sharp edge in his reading.

Many other readers take the gates of Hades to mean death itself. In that reading, Jesus promises that death will not destroy his community, a promise tied to his own resurrection. Heiser’s reading and this one share one point. Both say the church will outlast what stands against it.

Few verses have been read in as many ways as Matthew 16:18. The question sounds simple: what is the rock? Christian traditions have given different answers for many centuries. The answer has shaped how they understand leadership in the church. The next verse matters too, because there Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom.

Catholic teaching holds that the rock is Peter himself. It reads the gift of the keys as a special role for Peter. Catholic tradition sees that role continued in the bishops of Rome, the popes. Many Eastern Orthodox writers stress Peter’s faith and see his role as shared among all the bishops who keep that faith.

Many Protestant readers, following reformers such as Martin Luther, say the rock is Peter’s confession of faith, or Christ himself. They point to 1 Corinthians 3:11, where Paul says no one can lay any foundation other than Jesus Christ. Many modern scholars from several traditions say Peter is the rock as the first leader among the apostles, without deciding questions about later church offices.

Some recent readers add a layer. Jesus spoke at the foot of Hermon, near the cave of Pan. So they suggest the rock could also call up the place itself: Jesus would build his assembly on ground linked with rival powers. Most commentators do not read it this way. Readers can weigh each view by asking what the text says and what setting it gives.

Matthew 17:1 begins six days after the scene at Caesarea Philippi. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain by themselves. There he is transfigured, changed in form before them. His face shines like the sun, and his clothes become white as light. Mark 9:2–8 tells the same event. Luke 9:28–36 says about eight days and adds that Jesus went up to pray.

Moses and Elijah appear and talk with Jesus. Together they are often read as standing for the Law and the Prophets: Moses for the Law, Elijah for the prophets. In the Hebrew Bible both men met God on a mountain, Moses on Sinai in Exodus 24 and 34, and Elijah on Horeb in 1 Kings 19. Peter offers to build three shelters. A bright cloud covers them, and a voice speaks.

The disciples fall on their faces, afraid. Jesus touches them and tells them to get up and not be afraid. When they look up, they see only Jesus. On the way down, in Matthew 17:9, he tells them to tell no one until the Son of Man is raised from the dead. Later, 2 Peter 1:16–18 recalls the voice heard on the holy mountain.

Readers who place the event on Hermon see extra meaning in it: glory shown on the mountain where 1 Enoch sets the Watchers’ oath. Other readers focus on the scene’s links to Sinai: a mountain, a cloud, a voice, and a shining face, as with Moses in Exodus 34:29–35. Both readings begin from the same details in the text.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all say only a high mountain. None gives its name. So readers have had to reason from clues. By the 300s CE, Christian writers such as Cyril of Jerusalem named Mount Tabor, a round hill in Galilee. Churches were built on Tabor, and a large church stands on its top today, finished in 1924.

Tabor has strong support in tradition, and it stands out above the flat plain around it. Some scholars raise questions, though. Tabor is not very high, about 575 meters. Josephus says there was a settlement on its top, which he fortified during the war against Rome in the 60s CE. That could make it hard for Jesus and three disciples to be alone there.

Many modern scholars, and Heiser with them, point instead to Hermon. The event comes six days after the scene at Caesarea Philippi, which lies at Hermon’s foot. Hermon is by far the highest mountain nearby. Heiser added a further reason from his reading: the glory of Jesus appears on the very mountain of the Watchers. Some others suggest Mount Meron in upper Galilee.

No archaeological find settles the question. Both sides work from the same text: a high mountain, six days after Caesarea Philippi, then a return to Galilee in Matthew 17:22. Weighing clues like these, and saying how sure the evidence lets us be, is a basic skill in reading ancient texts.

Order matters in a story. In Matthew, the events come in a clear line. At Caesarea Philippi, Peter names Jesus as the Messiah (16:13–20). Right after, Jesus begins to speak of his coming death (16:21). Six days later comes the Transfiguration (17:1–8). Then the story turns south toward Jerusalem (19:1; 20:17), and Jesus enters the city (21:1–11).

Heiser read this sequence as purposeful. First, Jesus goes to the place tied to the Watchers and speaks of the gates of Hades. Next, he shows his glory on the mountain. Then he goes to Jerusalem to die. In Heiser’s reading, the cross was not a defeat but the way the powers were beaten. He pointed to Colossians 2:15, which says Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities.

Heiser also pointed to 1 Corinthians 2:8. There Paul says that if the rulers of this age had understood God’s wisdom, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Heiser read those rulers as including unseen powers. Clinton Arnold, in Powers of Darkness (1992), also read Paul’s powers as real spiritual beings. Many other scholars read these rulers as the human leaders who condemned Jesus, such as Pilate and the temple leaders. Walter Wink, in Naming the Powers (1984), argued that Paul’s power words often hold the human and the spiritual together.

Readers who do not share this reading still see a turning point here. The Gospel shifts from teaching in Galilee to the road to the cross. Some scholars call this the hinge of Matthew and Mark. Heiser added the unseen realm to the map. In his reading, the road leads from the Watchers’ mountain to Jerusalem’s hill.

Genesis 11 opens with the whole earth speaking one language. People move to a plain in Shinar, in Mesopotamia, and decide to build a city with a tower whose top reaches the heavens. They say they want to make a name for themselves and not be scattered. They bake bricks and use tar for mortar, the building methods of Mesopotamia.

The LORD comes down to see the city. He says that if they have begun this, nothing they plan will be impossible for them. So he confuses their language, and they can no longer understand each other. They stop building, and God scatters them over the face of the earth. The city is named Babel, which sounds like the Hebrew verb balal, to confuse.

Many scholars think the tower recalls a ziggurat, a stepped temple tower of Mesopotamia. Ziggurats were seen as places where gods came down to meet people. The best known stood in Babylon, and Babel is the Hebrew name of Babylon. So the story may be about more than building. It is about trying to reach heaven on human terms.

Other ancient writers retold the story. The Book of Jubilees, from the 100s BCE, retells it in chapter 10 and adds that the Lord sent a great wind that threw the tower down. Many readers see Babel mainly as a story about pride and the origin of languages. Others read it together with Deuteronomy 32:8, which the next lesson explores. On that reading, the scattering at Babel is also the moment the nations were set under other heavenly beings.

Deuteronomy 32 is a long poem called the Song of Moses. Verses 8–9 look back to ancient times. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance and divided humankind, he set the borders of the peoples. But the LORD’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. Many readers take these verses as the Bible’s own comment on what happened after Babel.

The key phrase is how the borders were set. The standard Hebrew text, the Masoretic Text, says by the number of the sons of Israel. A Hebrew copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls, called 4QDeut-j, reads the sons of God. The Septuagint has the angels of God in most copies. Many modern translations now follow the scroll: the ESV has sons of God, and the NRSV has gods.

Michael Heiser wrote his doctoral dissertation (2004) on the divine council and argued that the sons of God reading is older. Many text scholars agree. Heiser read it to mean that God placed the nations under lesser heavenly beings, elohim, after Babel, and kept Israel for himself. He saw the same idea in Deuteronomy 4:19–20, where the sun, moon and stars are allotted to the peoples, but the LORD takes Israel.

Other researchers read the verse differently. Mark S. Smith, in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (2001), argued that it keeps a very old picture: the Most High gives each nation to one of his sons, and the LORD receives Israel as his share. Heiser read the Most High and the LORD as the same God. Some scholars keep the Masoretic reading and link the number to Jacob’s seventy descendants in Exodus 1:5. Jubilees 15:31–32 shows an ancient Jewish reading: God set spirits over the many nations, but set no angel over Israel, for he alone is its ruler.

Genesis 10 comes just before the Babel story. It lists the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and the peoples that came from them. Scholars call it the Table of Nations. It is a map in the form of a family tree. Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, the Greek islands and Arabia all appear on it.

If you count the names in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, you get seventy nations. The Greek Septuagint adds a couple of names, so its count is seventy-two. Jewish tradition kept seventy as a symbolic number for all the nations of the world. Later rabbis spoke of the seventy languages of humanity. The Talmud tells that God’s voice at Sinai divided into seventy languages (Shabbat 88b).

These numbers link texts together. The part of 1 Enoch called the Animal Apocalypse speaks of seventy shepherds set over Israel for a time (1 Enoch 89:59). Many scholars read those shepherds as angels. Later Jewish writings speak of seventy angels set over seventy nations. Some readers link all these seventies to the nations scattered at Babel and to Deuteronomy 32:8. Seventy became shorthand for the whole non-Israelite world.

Not every scholar thinks the writers counted so carefully. The names in Genesis 10 include cities, peoples and regions, and counting them depends on choices. Still, seventy as a symbol for the nations is well attested in Jewish writing. That symbol returns in the Gospel of Luke, as a later lesson shows.

Pentecost comes from the Greek word for fiftieth. It is the Greek name for Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. Leviticus 23:15–16 tells Israel to count fifty days from the offering of the first grain after Passover. Shavuot was a harvest festival, one of three when many Jews traveled to Jerusalem. Later Jewish tradition also tied it to the giving of the Law at Sinai.

Acts 2:1 says that when the day of Pentecost came, Jesus’ followers were together in one place. A sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the house. Then tongues as of fire appeared, divided, and rested on each of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them words.

Heiser paid close attention to one Greek word. Acts 2:3 describes the tongues as diamerizomenai, divided or distributed. The Septuagint uses the same verb, diamerizo, in Deuteronomy 32:8 for the Most High dividing the nations. Heiser argued that Luke chose it on purpose. In his reading, the dividing of the nations at Babel is answered by a new dividing, this time of fire, on God’s people.

Other scholars see the fire mainly as a sign of God’s presence, like the burning bush in Exodus 3 or the fire on Sinai in Exodus 19:18. Some think the verb is simply the natural word for flames spreading out. Heiser did not deny the Sinai echo. He argued that the Babel echo sat alongside it.

Acts 2:5 says devout Jews from every nation under heaven were staying in Jerusalem. When they heard the sound, a crowd gathered. Each person heard the disciples speaking in his own language. Luke says they were confused, amazed and astonished, because the speakers were from Galilee.

Then Acts 2:9–11 lists the crowd’s homelands. Parthians, Medes and Elamites came from the lands of Persia. There were people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, from Phrygia and Pamphylia in what is now Turkey, and from Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. There were visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, called proselytes. Cretans and Arabians close the list.

Some readers see another word link here. Acts 2:6 says the crowd was confused. The Greek verb comes from the same family as the one the Septuagint uses in Genesis 11:7 and 9, when God confused the language at Babel. Some scholars, James M. Scott among them, have also compared Luke’s list with the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. Luke’s list, they suggest, sketches the whole known world.

Other readers stress that the crowd was Jewish: Acts 2:5 says Jews, and verse 11 adds proselytes. In their reading, Pentecost gathers the Jewish diaspora, the Jewish communities living outside the land. The mission to non-Jews begins later, with Cornelius in Acts 10. Those who hear Babel in the scene answer that these pilgrims would carry the message home to the nations where they lived.

Put the two stories side by side. At Babel, people spoke one language and tried to reach heaven by building. God came down, confused their speech and scattered them. At Pentecost, the Spirit comes down from heaven. People speak many languages, yet everyone understands. People from many lands are gathered in one city.

Heiser argued that Luke meant this reversal. In his reading, Babel was the moment the nations were set under other elohim. Pentecost is the first step in taking them back. The divided tongues of fire answer the divided nations of Deuteronomy 32:8. Peter’s sermon then quotes Joel 2:28–32, where God’s Spirit is poured out on all flesh.

Other readers point to Sinai. The book of Jubilees ties the Feast of Weeks to covenant renewal, and later rabbis linked Shavuot with the giving of the Law. Sinai had fire, a loud sound and a gathered people, just as Acts 2 does. In this reading, Pentecost shows God’s law written on hearts, as Jeremiah 31:33 promises. Still others see both backgrounds at once.

The readings do not have to compete. Heiser himself treated the Sinai echo as real. What his reading adds is a cosmic layer: the nations and their unseen rulers. That layer gives this chapter its strand name, Babel Reversed. It also frames the mission that the rest of the chapter follows.

Matthew’s Gospel ends on a mountain in Galilee. Matthew 28:16–20 says the eleven disciples met the risen Jesus there. Some worshiped and some doubted. Jesus told them that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. He sent them to make disciples of all nations, to baptize and teach them. He promised to be with them to the end of the age.

Christians call this the Great Commission. A commission is a task given with authority. The Greek phrase for all nations is panta ta ethne. Ethne is the word the Septuagint often uses for the nations, the peoples other than Israel in Genesis 10 and Deuteronomy 32. The English word ethnic comes from it.

Some readers hear Deuteronomy 32 in the scene. There the nations were placed under other heavenly beings. Here Jesus claims authority in heaven as well as on earth, and sends his people to all those nations. On this reading, the command is a claim on peoples the lesser gods had ruled. These readers also notice that the scene takes place, once more, on a mountain.

Many readers stress other things. Some focus on the command to teach and baptize, the basis of Christian mission. Some scholars discuss whether all nations includes Israel or means the Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples. Others connect Jesus’ authority to Daniel 7:14, where one like a son of man is given rule over all peoples, nations and languages.

Luke 10:1 says Jesus appointed others besides the twelve and sent them two by two into every town he planned to visit. How many? Here the early manuscripts differ. Some say seventy. Others, also very old, say seventy-two. This kind of difference is called a variant. Scholars still debate which reading Luke first wrote, and modern translations choose differently.

Now recall the Table of Nations. The Hebrew text of Genesis 10 lists seventy nations, and the Greek Septuagint lists seventy-two. Many scholars think the match is no accident. On this reading, Jesus sent a number of followers equal to the nations, as a sign that his mission aimed at all of them. The split in the manuscripts may even reflect Genesis 10 in its two forms.

Luke 10:17–20 tells how the seventy returned with joy. They said that even the demons submitted to them in Jesus’ name. Jesus answered that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Many readers take these words as a picture of the powers losing ground. Jesus then told them to rejoice most of all that their names were written in heaven.

Other scholars point to a different seventy. In Numbers 11:16–25, God tells Moses to gather seventy elders of Israel, and the Spirit rests on them. Luke may be echoing that story of shared leadership. Some think Luke has both backgrounds in mind: the elders of Israel and the nations of the world.

Acts 17 takes Paul to Athens, the famous Greek city of philosophers. Luke says Paul was troubled to see the city full of idols. He spoke in the synagogue and the marketplace, and then before the Areopagus, a council that met on or near the hill of Ares. He began from an altar he had seen, inscribed to an unknown god.

In his speech, Paul says that the God who made the world does not live in temples made by hands. Then comes Acts 17:26: God made from one man every nation of humankind to live on the earth. He set their appointed times and the boundaries of the places where they live. Paul goes on to say God did this so that people would seek him.

Many commentators hear Deuteronomy 32:8 in those words. Both passages speak of God dividing humankind into nations and fixing their boundaries. Some readers go further. On their reading, Paul was telling Greeks that the nations’ borders, and so the rule of their gods, had been set by the one God. Now that God calls every nation to seek him.

Other commentators hear mainly Genesis 10 and Greek thought in the speech. Paul quotes Greek poets in Acts 17:28, including the line that people are God’s offspring, from the poet Aratus. Many read the speech as Paul meeting his listeners on their own ground. These readings can sit together: Paul speaks the Greeks’ language while using a Hebrew map.

Around 57 CE Paul wrote his letter to the Romans. Near the end, in Romans 15:24 and 28, he says he plans to visit Rome on his way to Spain. He wants to preach where Christ has not yet been named (Romans 15:20). Spain was the western edge of the Roman world, where the land met the Atlantic.

Why Spain? Some scholars, including James M. Scott in Paul and the Nations (1995), read Paul’s plans against the Table of Nations. Heiser built on this work. These readers point to Tarshish. In Genesis 10:4, Tarshish is a descendant of Javan on the Table of Nations. Many scholars place Tarshish in southern Spain, often linking it with Tartessos, a region Greek writers described. It is also where Jonah tried to flee in Jonah 1:3, a place at the far end of the known world.

Isaiah 66:18–20 describes God gathering all nations and tongues. Survivors are sent to the nations: to Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, Javan and the distant coastlands. They bring back people from all nations as an offering to the LORD in Jerusalem. In Romans 15:16 Paul describes his work as making the offering of the Gentiles acceptable. On this reading, Paul was following Isaiah’s map and aiming at its farthest point.

Did Paul reach Spain? Acts ends with Paul under guard in Rome, around 60–62 CE. A letter called 1 Clement, written from Rome around 96 CE, says Paul reached the limit of the west. Some scholars take that as Spain. Others think Paul never got there. Still others accept Spain as Paul’s goal simply because it was the far west, without the Tarshish link.

Ephesians 3 describes a mystery: that Gentiles are now fellow heirs with Israel, members of one body. Ephesians 3:10 adds who is watching. Through the church, God’s many-sided wisdom is made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Christian tradition names Paul as the author. Many modern scholars think a follower of Paul wrote it.

The letter names these powers more than once. Ephesians 1:21 says Christ is seated far above every rule, authority, power and dominion. Ephesians 6:12 says the struggle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers and powers of this dark world, in the heavenly places. These verses are central to any study of the powers in Paul’s letters.

Clinton Arnold, in Powers of Darkness (1992), read these powers as real spiritual beings opposed to God. Some readers go further and link them to the gods of the nations in Deuteronomy 32. On that reading, the church itself is the sign. Made of Jews and people from the nations together, its very existence tells the powers that the nations they held are coming back.

Other scholars read the powers differently. Walter Wink, in Naming the Powers (1984), argued that the language also describes the inner spirit of human institutions, such as empires and systems. Many commentators hold that the writer meant spiritual beings and that this shaped how he saw earthly rulers too. Arnold’s reading stresses the beings themselves; Wink’s stresses how power works through human systems.