I'd like to know how all of this squares with Mike Heiser's Divine Council view. It sounds like Walton and Walton want to downplay the spiritual realm, which is diametrically opposed to Heiser's view, which seems to see the spiritual realm as much bigger, and more influential to author/audience of the Old Testament than we moderns sometimes reckon.

Again, interesting. Heiser is very careful about distinguishing the ha-satan in the rest of the Old Testament from the Nachash (serpent) in Genesis, but ultimately asserts that the Nachash is identified with entity titled "Satan" or the devil in the New Testament.

I don't know if I buy this. Qoheleth seemed to have quite a bit to say on the problem of evil, and the Bible is absolutely brimming with passages with people praying, pleading, and desiring an end to personal or national suffering. God himself constantly urging and desiring his people come back into right relationship with him to prevent the many evils that might befall them in their disobedience and lack of faithfulness. God may put people through some trials in scripture, but it's rare, and never, as far as I can tell, because he actually desires his people to go through pain, suffering and unhappiness. To the contrary, in the end we're promised that God will wipe every tear from ours eyes, and that there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. That's how it should have gone down from the start, but things went askew in the Garden. I agree that people often lose their faith because of the problem of evil, but that's not because they should be taught that suffering is what God desires, rather, it's because they haven't been taught why evil exists in this world, why this world is broken, and how it will eventually be renewed.

That quote of C.S. Lewis always comes to mind when this subject comes up,

While there are plenty of people who go too far, I'd say that MOST Christians don't believe in their existence enough. You're right to say that "the devil made me do it" is no excuse, but the reason why so many of are so easily tempted into evil is because we live in a broken world where spiritual warfare DOES happen, and where the Prince of the Power of the Air, and the current "god of this world/age" would like nothing more than to see our faith destroyed, and or relationship with God soured. He hates us, and is jealous of us, and if he can misdirect and distract us through our relationships, the media, politics, entertainment, etc., he has the ability and power to so. That's why prayer is so powerful. It's not just a way for us to demonstrate our reliance and faithfulness to God, but it actually moves things in the spiritual realm.

Have you read Heiser's yet? I haven't gotten to it myself, but I wonder how Walton and Walton would interact with Heiser's material and vice versa. I don't agree with Heiser on a lot of things, but I think he's along the right path when it comes to the Divine Council stuff.

I would like to see a formal discussion between Walton and Heiser on scriptural interpretation principles. As one scholarly-oriented friend said recently, Walton's approach is "the other ancient cultures other than Israel believed X, so we need to read Scripture in light of that while not necessarily endorsing it", while Heiser's is more like "the other ancient cultures other than Israel believed X, so we should believe X as well!"

That's an interesting take on Heiser's material. Have you read any of his work, or listened to his podcast?

I don't do podcasts (impossible to focus on audio while watching young kids). I've read articles on his website but none of his books. I'm kind of taking my friend's word for it.

My main issue with Walton's following is that, having read The Lost World of Genesis One, I didn't see him present a lot of evidence for why his cosmic temple inauguration view is to be preferred, so the book's proposal struck me as speculative, though plausible. His view seems to have been taken as gospel among moderate apologists (somebody even presented a paper at the Rethinking Hell conference last weekend arguing for the traditional view of hell based on the cosmic temple inauguration view), in a manner that seems overly confident.