Weird Stuff in the Bible

Interview today with Will Blesch, author of the 2026 book In the Shadow of Goliath. Will digs deep into history and archaeology, unlocking ancient mysteries by approaching these topics from a biblical framework. He joins me on a video call from where he lives in Israel in this episode. Learn more about his book and his library of work at his website:

https://www.williamblesch.com/in-the-shadow-of-goliath/

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I know the podcast is called Weird Stuff in the Bible, but today, I want to start with something that’s weird in our world: ziggurats. 

A ziggurat is a pyramid-like structure. It starts with a massive base, and every level going up gets a little bit smaller. They often have steps up the sides so you can climb to the top. You’ve probably seen pictures before of ziggurats in ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia, from the Aztecs, from the Mayans—there’s even one in Collinsville, Illinois. 

And here’s what’s so weird about it: this struc...

Listen here, or watch the interview right here: https://youtu.be/PpolOnhpvvs

The interview today is with Derrick Warfel, author of UFOS AND GOD, as well as the creator of a new documentary by the same name. 

Learn more about the book here:
https://ufosandgodbook.com

And the documentary here:
https://www.ufosandgod.com

Derrick Warfel was born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton, a Master of Theology from Dallas, and an MFA from USC.

After eight years on staff with C...

Last fall I did an episode asking “What was the big deal about a tower that reaches to heaven?”

And that episode ended up setting records. At the time, it was probably my most popular episode ever, and it held that position for many months. If I were smart, I probably would have followed it up with 10 more episodes right then about the Tower of Babel. There was clearly a lot of interest in this subject to know what exactly was going on there. 

And yet, for me, that was one of my not-so-favorite episodes. Why...

I made this podcast to answer all those questions your Sunday School teacher hoped you’d never ask. 

But today, I remember being a Sunday School teacher myself, and I remember teaching Revelation chapter 20, and here’s the question I was afraid of being asked.

Revelation 20:14 says

Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

Now, here’s what I didn’t want to have to explain: how do you throw death?

If Hades ref...

There’s a popular teaching in Christianity that there are only three named angels in the Bible. I’ve heard this a million times. I’ve probably even taught it before myself. 

GotQuestions.org states: Only three angels are identified by name in the Bible: Gabriel (Daniel 8:16), Michael the archangel (Daniel 10:13), and Lucifer the fallen angel (Isaiah 14:12). 

Unfortunately, this common belief is wrong. The Book of Revelation blows this idea apart. Especially if we’re including fallen angels. 

Revelation 9 tells us about a swarm of freaky locusts that invade the earth in the end...

We’ve spent a lot of time the past few months talking about this spiritual region called The Underworld, also known as Sheol in the Bible. 

Now, it’s actually part of something I would call my Underworld series, which started in July and will conclude in a few weeks. Only I didn’t call it that because I thought that saying we would do a 10-week Underworld series would scare a lot of people off. 

And that’s because most Christians equate the Underworld with Hell. But that would be a gross oversimplification. That would be l...

I got sick! Something like strep throat- and I was in bed all weekend. I could not record a new episode this week, unfortunately, as my voice was not strong enough to record yet as of Tuesday morning. Fortunately, I had already recorded an extra episode a few months ago, and it’s been sitting patiently on my hard drive until I needed it. So, here’s a reflection on the Book of Enoch study- which comes at a great time, since next week’s episode will also tie in with some insights from the Book of Enoch.

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Before we were arguing over flat earth vs round earth, before we were arguing over creation vs evolution, before were were arguing over whether Tom Holland has surpassed Tobey Maguire as the best portrayal of Spider-Man, there was another debate within the church: did God create the earth with a canopy around it like a dome or protective shield?

Now, perhaps you’ve never heard of this, but it centers around this mysterious firmament that comes up in Genesis 1:6 and 7. 

The NKJV says

6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in th...

Everyone’s heard of the Mount of Olives from the Scriptures. 

Obviously a pretty significant mountain. It must be pretty sacred and special to Jesus if He does all these important things there. This must be one of the holiest locatio...

Alright guys, I’ve got an extra-weird one for you this time: does the Bible demonstrate some kind of connection between gardens and the Underworld?

Uh, what? When I first heard that, I thought it was one of the most bizarre ideas I’d ever read. While we might use a garden to grow our carrots and cucumbers, the ancient people of the Old Testament era thought of gardens as gateways to the spiritual realm. A place where one could make contact with the dead. 

And as we explore various gardens of the Bible today, this...

What exactly was Eden? I mean, we do know it was a garden, right? 

Genesis 2:8 tells us

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

So it was a place of lush growth. Trees. Fruit. Vegetation. Water. Life. We all get these visuals of a green paradise in our heads as we read the opening chapters of Genesis. I mean, other than the devil showing up later, this sounds like a place of absolute tranquility.

Hang around Christians long enough, listen to sermons long enough, or pick up just about any prophecy book sitting on the bookstore shelves, and you’re gonna hear about this dude called The Antichrist- an end-times world ruler who takes control in the last days. 

And he’s referenced all throughout the Bible. The Old Testament has 33 names for him; the New Testament has at least 13. Daniel calls him the little horn. Revelation calls him the Beast. And I and II John call him the Antichrist. This guy carries more ID cards than Jason Bourne. 

I John...

We hear it all the time- the claim that Satan is the god of the Underworld. That he runs and rules hell. That he has a throne down there and goes around jabbing people with a pitchfork. 

But did you know that the Bible says nothing like that? Those ideas are assumptions, superstitions, myths and even lies. 

The good news is: The Bible is abundantly clear about where Satan’s dominion lies—and the limits of his power. 

The bad news is: Satan’s dominion is right here with you, in the earthly realm. <...

You can breathe huge sigh of relief once you get to Revelation 21. Because not only are you almost done reading the whole Bible, but you’re also past all the bad stuff. The devil, the antichrist and false prophet have been taken care of. Judgement day is over. Sin and the corrupted world are wadded up and thrown away.

And Revelation 21 and 22 speak of eternity: the place we will spend the rest of our existence once this current world is done.

Revelation 21:1 says

Then I saw a new heaven and a ne...

On this podcast, we like to explore the strange things tucked away in Scripture. There are so many obscure and unfamiliar passages in your Bible that don’t often get studied, so that’s what we like to shine a light on with this show.

But there’s actually something pretty weird stuff that isn’t tucked away; it’s right there in the opening verses of Genesis. I mean we all know the first two verses of the Bible:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without fo...

This year, we’ve talked typology. We’ve talked about what happens when you see the glory of God. We’ve talked about Mount Hermon. Today, I’m gonna put these pieces together.

Today’s episode ties up a lot of things we’ve been learning about this mysterious mountain, because it’s the place where the Watchers came down to the earth in Genesis 6. And throughout the Old Testament, this mountain and the whole Bashan region was the epicenter of evil, a stronghold of fallen angels, a bastion of giants and their ghosts!

But not only that...

One of the most mysterious statements Jesus ever said was this claim that He made in three of the Gospels:

(Matthew 16:28)

“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

He says this in Matthew 16:28, Luke 9:27 and Mark 9:1. And it’s caused a lot of Christians to wonder: what could Jesus have meant by this when 2,000 years have passed since then and Jesus still hasn’t returned?

Well, it gets a lot le...

There is a parable which I believe is not technically a parable- I believe it’s a true story- called The Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus tells this story in Luke 16. And there’s a lot of strange things you could point out about this story, but what always sticks out to me is where Lazarus goes when he dies in this story.

Luke 16:22

So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.

And as you read the story, you find that a...

Last week, we talked about where demons come from.

This week, I want to talk about why they’re still here. 

So demons are the spirits of the giants in the Old Testament. Most of them probably lived prior to the flood. But they all died, and when they did, their spirits didn’t leave this planet. God left them right here on the earth to act as spirits of affliction against mankind. 

These are demons. The ghosts of giants.

God literally says in Enoch 16, “thus shall they destroy until the day of t...

Virtually all the theology books out there tell us: demons are fallen angels. This is the prevailing theory offered by most scholars, pastors and theologians today.

In GotQuestions.org's article titled “What Does the Bible Say about Demons?” The first four words are these: “Demons are fallen angels…” 

And I love that website, but this is an area where I would disagree with them. But I bring that article up because that represents the conventional wisdom in modern times in the Western world. And it’s also what I believed most of my life. That when Satan re...

I Corinthians 11 is one of those really weird passages of Scripture that I would say 90% of Christians just kind of try to ignore. 

It’s probably the most out-of-place chapter in the entire New Testament. It feels very counter-cultural, extremely outdated, and not super relevant to anything in modern church practice. 

It’s a section that even the most conservative, Biblically faithful modern churches like to pretend isn’t there.

I’m talking about the chapter where Paul talks about head coverings.

He tells us in 

I Corinthians 11:5

e...

We have covered Psalm 82 on the podcast before. It’s the chapter where God holds His Divine Council to account. These are a group of higher-up spiritual beings.  He has placed these principalities in charge of certain sectors of the world, yet they haven’t influenced humanity rightly. 

So for those of us who like studying the weird stuff in the Bible, Psalm 82 is familiar territory. 

And yet, it has this one really puzzling line in verse 7. God tells this group of disloyal beings “…like men you shall die…”

Now, what in the world could tha...

If you thought the Book of Enoch’s account of the Watchers who descended to earth was kinda spooky- or if you thought the stories of their bloodthirsty cannibalistic giant children were scary- or if you thought the description of their gloomy dark underworld prison sounded terrifying- just wait until what comes next. 

Because Enoch is about to see something that shocks him more than zombie fallen angels, more than death cult nephilim, and more than the dungeons of hell. 

Enoch…is going to see God. 

And God ends up being more overwhelming than an...

I know in these episodes I often talk about wacky spiritual things going on in the unseen realm. Angels and demons and spiritual legal rights and all that kinda stuff. And, of course, the Bible is our best source of information about all that.

Today, I want to talk about how we study our Bible. I hope you read your bible. I hope you pay attention to what you’re reading as you’re reading it. And if you’re listening to a podcast like this, I’m sure you are a Bible reader. 

So for today...

Jesus tells us to love our enemies. To do good for those who hate you. To pray for those who persecute you. 

Now, He said all this before they invented the Walmart parking lot, but I think it probably still applies for today.

However, when it comes to evil spirits, the Bible has a different game plan: we give them no quarter. When it comes to the devil, we don’t take any half measures. Zero tolerance.

They don’t get a redemption arc in the Bible’s story, and we aren’t supposed...

Thor has his hammer. Indiana Jones has his whip. Robin Hood has his bow. Iron Man has…laser hands. I don’t really know what you call them.

Anyway- in Matthew 16, Jesus gave us an incredible weapon that we can use to fight our enemies as well. He said

Matthew 16:19

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

And wouldn’t you know, Chri...

Enoch is one of the most mysterious people in the Bible. He appears in Genesis 5 for about 10 seconds, at which point we’re told that he basically disappeared. He was there one minute, gone the next. Like my wife when the pastor tells us to turn and greet the person next to us. Just “poof,” gone. 

And I’ve spoken about this on the podcast before. Not my wife being an introvert, but about Enoch’s sudden evacuation from this planet. 

Genesis 5:24

Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him...

One of the great honors and treasures of my life is that I actually got to speak with Dr. Michael Heiser in 2015, and I’m going to share that conversation with you today.

Not only did I speak with him- this was also the first time I’d ever even heard of the guy. He was not really a big name yet. His epic work The Unseen Realm released that year; that was the book that put him on the map. 

And at that time, I hosted a radio program at that time where I inter...

Brian Godawa- author of the new release Daniel: Exile in Babylon- comes back to the podcast today to discuss geopolitical spiritual warfare and the infighting within the Divine Council. Brian has a vision of how the spiritual realm operates and brings it to life in his Chronicles of the Watchers series. 

Check out all the books he’s written at his website: www.godawa.com

You can WATCH this interview here: https://youtu.be/M388kMAG2aU

Questions I ask in this interview:

- Tell us about the Chronicles of the Wat...

Well, next week is April 15, which means your taxes are coming due. So if you woke up today and said, “Man, it sure would be great if God consumed the whole world in a fiery destruction that wiped away all life and memory of mankind and the IRS from the earth…” then I have some good news. That’s actually in the works. 

Now, it probably won’t be next week, but it is gonna happen. And how do I know? Because Peter told me about it. 

II Peter 3:10 says

But the day of t...

One of the most famous parables Jesus shared was the one about the sheep and the goats. This refers to a future time, judgment day, the second coming of Christ, when Jesus will separate the righteous from the unrighteous. Those who had served Christ will receive salvation, the rest will have a dark fate. 

And you’ll probably recognize this quote that Jesus says to that second group

In Matthew 25:41:

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil...

Explore Enoch 10 and Leviticus 16 with me. 

The internet was set on fire this week by the tragic passing of Chuck Norris. And it included a revival of Chuck Norris jokes. One said, “When Chuck Norris arrived in heaven, he was the one who had to tell the angels, ‘Fear not.’” 

Another said, “Chuck Norris didn’t die. Death has had a near-Chuck experience.”

Another one: “When Chuck Norris goes into a room, he doesn’t turn the lights on. He turns the dark off.”

And I found this great one that said, “...

Do you ever get an answer that just leads to more questions? 

I think a lot of us have had that experience. Sometimes we’re searching for the answer to some weird thing in the Bible, and when we finally find it, we find ourselves saying, “Well wait, what about this?” Or “this challenges the view I had of spiritual reality or what God is like.”

Honestly, our preconceptions of how God operates are probably our biggest hindrance to understanding some parts of the Bible. And if that’s you, don’t feel bad; it was Habakkuk’s...

One of the most head-scratching verses to me in the entire Bible is Ephesians 4:8. 

In this verse, Paul quotes Psalm 68. And Paul is known to quote various passages from the Old Testament; that’s not weird. 

What’s weird is that Paul quotes it wrong. As in, he quotes one line saying the exact opposite of what the David originally wrote in this Psalm. 

Psalm 68 says

You ascended on high,
    leading a host of captives in your train
    and receiving gifts among men,

But in Ephe...

I’ve mentioned this a few times before: I’m a newspaper guy. Or, I was. I got degrees in journalism and in mass communication when I was in college. And I briefly worked for a few area papers around that time. 

And then I got into radio so I haven’t really done the reporter thing much since then. But I have taken those newspaper guy skills and applied them to how I study the Bible. You see, when you need to break a story, you have to establish the who, the what, the when, the where...

When Noah stepped off the Ark, one of the first things God said…was weird. God told Noah things are gonna be different in this new world. First of all, you can eat animals now. However, you gotta do it right.

Genesis 9:4

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

In other words, drain out all the blood before you consume the animal. And in the previous episode, we talked about why this command was probably given: because the giants of the pre-flood world we...

You get to the Book of Acts, chapter 15, and the church is already having some major problems getting along. 

You have the Jewish sect of the church; they think it would be appropriate to keep following the Law of Moses from the Old Testament, even though we are now officially in the New Testament era by this point.

Then you’ve got the Gentile portion of the church; they think that the Mosaic Law was obsolete by that point, that new believers- especially those from outside the Jewish traditions- were under no obligation to follow it...

We’ve been studying Enoch, and a couple weeks ago we started into the juiciest chapter: Enoch 6.

This chapter is about when the Sons of God came down to earth, a story we’ve revisited countless times on the podcast.

And Enoch 6:6 contained this detail: 

“And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon”

We actually read about this guy Jared in Genesis 5. He was actually Enoch’s daddy.

Genesis 5:18

When Jared had lived 162 y...

I watched a lot of School House Rock growing up, which means I learned that knowledge is power.

But that doesn’t mean that all knowledge is good. In fact, too much knowledge can be a very very bad thing. The Bible shows us that some knowledge is forbidden.

In Romans 16:19 (NKJV), Paul writes

For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil.

What does it me...