Unique Insights into Spirituality and the Unseen from the Bible

Of all the ancient texts we draw from, we place a special emphasis on the diverse collection of stories, histories, laws, letters, and poems known today as the Bible. 

Why Read the Bible?

We’ll make a few top-level arguments why anyone, especially those interested in the supernatural, should read the Bible:

Read Some Funky Spiritual Stories:  You’re at Unseen Realm because you’re intrigued by the weird.  The Bible is full of stories of not only of high strangeness but a unified coherent narrative on the relationship between the seen and unseen; foundational knowledge of key unseen entities, place, and events; and how these realities matter in the life of humans.   Familiarizing with those are reason enough to read the Bible.  We’ll share a few below:

• Humans and gods cooperating with each other in one consolidated family;
• Some gods leaving heaven to take human wives that birth hybrid children;
• Multiple instances of god-on-god conflict and competition;
• A divinely-appointed king consults a medium who conjures the spirit of a dead prophet for battle advice;
• Certain rebellious gods sent to prison in Tartarus for their disobedience;
• Marooned disembodied spirits seek to torment humans and are expelled into the desert;
• The most powerful god goes undercover to overthrow the usurper gods;    
• Extensive anecdotes of interactions between the seen and unseen realms.

But don’t take our word for it.  

Don’t Take at Face Value Anybody’s Assessment:  The Bible has probably been more manipulated, distorted, and warped than any other book in history. Many who claim to read it closely have cited it to make various claims to power, wealth, and influence, wreaking havoc in the lives of hundreds of thousands.  Some have grossly misstated basic Biblical details–both to build it up and to tear it down–that a reader with basic familiarity with the text could have easily undercut.  Others have developed more nuanced interpretations–again, typically for power, wealth, and influence–that to push back require a deeper knowledge of Biblical contents, historical context, translation approaches, and other methods.  The best approach, in any case, is for you to have first-hand knowledge of the book yourself.
Most Influential Book in History: Regardless of how anyone feels about the Bible, it is the best-selling book of all time.  The Guiness Book of World Records as of 2021 estimated the total number of Bibles printed at between 5 and 7 billion ^[1].  By contrast, the second and third best-selling books of all time don’t break 1 billion.  If you are seeking to understand the ideas and values that have most shaped the world–particularly after the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century–you should be at least familiar with the contents of the Bible.

Where Did the Bible Come From?

The Bible is an accumulation of over 60 distinct books believed by Christians to reveal the truth about the most high creator god and that god’s relationship to humans, other gods, and the heavens and earth.  The dates of events described range from the beginning of history to the 1st century CE, though most of the Bible concerns two time periods: early 2nd millennium BCE to roughly the 4th century BCE and an approximately 100 year time period from the 5 BCE to around 100 CE.

A variety of texts that the Jewish people came to view as sacred–telling the story of their relationship between the creator god and a people he uniquely called his own–make up that first time period.  Christians refer to this collection of texts as the Old Testament. Many of these texts, like other ancient documents, probably emerged and existed as oral traditions for years before being put to writing. The texts can be divided into five categories:

1. The Pentatuch or Torah – the first five books of the Old Testament, which contains primarily narrative history interspersed with laws, poems, and genealogy;
2. Historical Books – At least a dozen books primarily concerned with relying historical narrative;
3. Wisdom Literature – A collection of poems, songs, and sayings about the Jewish god, government, wealth, marriage, children, depression, and the whole range of human experience;
4. The Prophets – Multiple often poetically or otherwise esoterically written texts typically attributed to one person speaking for the Jewish god about the unseen, his posture toward his chosen people based on their choices, internal political dynamics, international relations, and a breadth of other topics. 

The second set of texts emerged from deliberation among early Christian leaders about what documents most accurately told the story of Jesus of Nazareth and his early followers.   Establishing credible authorship–that the purported writer of any of the texts had firsthand or secondhand knowledge of Jesus–was foundational in their process.  Christians believed the Old Testament told the first chapters in a story that culminated in the emergence of Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited savior of the Jewish people and the world.  Most Jewish people disagree, and don’t accept Jesus’ claims or the New Testament as sacred.  Categories of texts in the New Testament are as follows:

1. The Gospels – four historical narratives describing from different perspectives the birth, life, death, and unexpected resurrection of a Jewish carpenter named Jesus of Nazareth, including his claims about himself, his teachings about the unseen, his interactions with the authorities, and his mentorship of what came to be known as his disciples;
2. The Acts of the Apostles – A companion book to the gospel of Luke–written by the same author–providing additional historical narrative on the actions of Jesus’ earliest followers in the wake of Jesus’ departure from earth, and the emergence of a movement in different Near Eastern cities that came to known as the church;
3. The Epistles – A series of letters from early Christian leaders providing instruction, answering questions, and praying for gatherings of new followers of Jesus in cities across the Near East;
4. Revelation – An esoteric set of visions describing in vivid terms the interaction between the seen and unseen in times past and times to come.  The book includes content on the culmination of the spiritual conflict between the creator god and his loyal human and angelic cohort against the rebellious gods and allied humans.  

What books are in the Bible?

Although most speak of the Bible as one agreed upon set of books, there are actually multiple distinct groupings of books across different traditions that adhere to the core tenets of Christianity, which most foundationally relate to the identity and purpose of Jesus [[see link for Jesus post]].

The Bibles of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches range from 73 to 81 books.  Protestant Christians accept as biblical 66 books.^[2]  All traditions accept the same 27 books as constituting the New Testament.  Differences emerge over the inclusion of several historical, prophetic, and poetic books in the Old Testament.   Despite these differences, Christians believe the unique spirit of the creator god acted through the minds of humans to write these books and to decide which books–of a larger pool of potential content–merited inclusion in an overall sacred text.  

Various additional ancient texts can be found that also purport to describe the entities, places, and events described in the Old and New Testaments.  Christian leaders were familiar with these texts, yet for a variety of reasons ultimately decided not to include them in the Bible.  We believe there is value in reading these texts as well, and exploring why they were not included.   

As with all things on the Unseen Realm, we encourage our readers to do their own homework, drawing from the same mix of intellectual rigor and radical openness.  Read the Bible for yourself.  We’d suggest especially focusing on those books of agreement, in particular the 27 books of the New Testament.  But also read the Old Testament books for which there is not consensus among Christians.  Read also the books universally excluded from the Bible.

Why Does the Unseen Realm Ascribe Unique Weight to the Bible Among Ancient Texts?

In our own journeys across differing notions of the unseen, we’ve found the Bible to be uniquely credible and to have unique explanatory power.

By uniquely credible, we found confidence after applying the strictest of historical and textual criticism to the form and content of the Bible.  Questions we’ve asked include:

• How accurately do Biblical descriptions of historical people, places, and events align with other non-Biblical sources?  Non-biblical sources include texts of competing kingdoms and religions as well as inscriptions and other archeological evidence.  
• How much time passed between the events described and the emergence of written documents describing those events?  As a rule of thumb in historical documents, the more time that has passed, the more opportunity exists for subsequent re-tellers or editors to warp events to favor their own positions.  
• Relatedly, how faithful are subsequent versions of Biblical texts to their earliest extent versions?  Consistency across texts over time would indicate a high value in content preservation, in contrast to evidence of wide textual deviation across subsequent versions. 
• Within the corpus of documents, how Internally consistent are descriptions of key entities, places, events, and concepts?  Drastic and unexplainable inconsistencies should lower a reader’s confidence in the overall coherence of a text.
• How have faith leaders reacted to critical academic scrutiny?  Academia can generate reactions ranging from defensiveness if not obfuscation to the embrace of unbiased scrutiny that yields meaningful findings.

By unique explanatory power, we found confidence that the Bible–and the god it describes–contained the most satisfying answers to the core questions of human existence with which we’ve grappled.  

• Where did we come from?
• Why is the world as it is?
• What are we here for?
• How are we to live?
• How are we to make sense of the interplay between the seen and unseen?
• What happens after we die? 

Speaking truthfully, we still carry questions and doubts in our minds about the Bible and the beliefs we derive therein.  Some questions get answered over time, study, and growth.  Others we may carry our whole lives.  But for us, having explored multiple ancient texts and associated belief sets, the driving factor  is not which belief set yields zero doubts and questions–there is no such system of belief–but rather which belief set most satisfactorily covers the highest number of core questions.  For us, it’s the Bible. 

And, returning to the question of credibility, the god described in the Bible welcomes our hardest questions and most troubling doubts.  We’ve found in other traditions an overemphasis on faith, trust, or belief as a reason to not explore hard questions, with an undertone of shame or guilt for “lacking faith to believe.”  The Bible, to us, most satisfactorily welcomes in the and/both of faith and reason.

I’m Interested in Reading the Bible – Where Do I Start?

The central figure in the Bible–the person around whom the largest grouping of like-minded people in the world is built–is an uneducated Jewish carpenter named Jesus from the city of Nazareth in the Roman backwater province of Palestine.  For more on the singular distinctiveness of this world mover Jesus of Nazareth, see here. 

We’d encourage you to start by reading one of the four Gospel accounts of Jesus.  Perhaps start with the Gospel of Luke, named after the author.  Luke was a well-educated Roman doctor who brough historical rigor to his two-volume efforts to chronicle the life of Jesus–the Gospel of Luke–and the emergence of the movement started by Jesus–a book entitled the Acts of the Apostles.  Luke was an eyewitness to certain events in Acts and drew from multiple first-hand accounts for what he didn’t see firsthand.  The Gospel of Mark is the shortest and quickest moving of the Gospel accounts.  The Gospels of Matthew and John present two firsthand accounts.

After reading a Gospel or two, we’d recommend reading the book of Acts to see how the early followers of Jesus lived and organized.  Knowing Acts positions a reader to engage with the letters of Paul, Peter, and John written to specific recently-founded churches in different cities in the Near East or more generally to recent followers of Jesus.  Of these books, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians are all great candidates.  

In the Old Testament, there’s value in starting with the books most revered by the Jewish people, beginning with the book of Genesis.  After having read the first five books, we can point you to several resources to help guide your additional reading and study [[link here]]. 

Selecting a high-quality, accessible translation of the Bible is paramount. Versions we like are based on word-for-word translation, rather than other approaches that seek to translate Biblical concepts into modern language.  Some Bibles include extensive footnoting to help readers make sense of foreign concepts; others are cleaner and simply include text.  Both have their place: Versions we use include: 

• English Standard Version (ESV) Bible: Our go-to version for its translation accuracy and readability.  Also available in a clean version.
• New American Standard Bible (NASB): Another literal translation 
• New King James Version (NKJV) Bible: An update to the original widely read King James Version that modernizes word choices, eg, no more “thees” and “thous”
• Action Bible: An graphic-novel version of the Bible 

For those who want to go deeper into word studies and the earliest translations of the Old Testament, we’d suggest:

• New English Translation (NET) Bible: Literal translation with extensive academic footnoting
• Logos Bible Software: Comprehensive Bible study tool with free and paid versions
• STEP Bible^[3]: Another powerful free Bible study tool
• Interlinear Translation: Easy tool for in-depth word study
• Septuagint Old Testament^[4]: Earliest translation of the Old Testament

A Bible study tool we recommend, and which Dr. Heiser commended, is Logos Bible Software.^[5]

What About Other Religious Texts?

In our search for truth and deeper insight into the unseen, we’ve also engaged with texts revered in other faith traditions as holy.  Although for reasons above we do not ascribe the same weight as we do to the Bible, nonetheless we’ve found value in familiarizing ourselves with both the core claims and implied spiritual systems each text describes.  

Certain books, similar to the New Testament, contain additional descriptions of the character and actions of the god of the Jewish people in history, in some cases offering different perspectives on narratives in the New Testament.  The Quran and the Book of Mormon both fall into this category.  Both movements were founded by prophets who reported encounters with angelic beings mentioned in the Old Testament, who revealed to them the contents of their holy books, and who charged them–like Jesus did to his followers–to convert humanity to their beliefs.  Both faith traditions include as revered additional books describing the sayings, actions, and leadership of their founders.

Other widely followed belief systems, primarily in the East, draw from their own holy books that don’t cite from the Bible.  Examples include the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism, multiple collections of sutras–sayings of the Buddha–in Buddhism, the collections of the sayings of Confucius in Confucianism, and the Tao Te Ching in Shintoism.  

In the spirit of Jesus, who commanded his followers to love god with their mind, we encourage everyone–seekers and believers–to not shy away from any sacred text or any question, no matter how hard or potentially challenging to one’s own belief set.