Heiser was raised in Lebanon PA. He attended Lebanon High School and Cedar Crest High. He received an M.A. in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in the Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin—Madison (with a minor in Classical studies).
Heiser has studied Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Phoenician, the Aramaic, the Syriac, Moabite, the Ugaritic cuneiform, the Ancient Hebrew, Alexandrian Greek, the Aramaic, Akkadian and Sumerian and Second Temple Jewish monotheism.
Heiser taught college for twelve years. He now works as Academic Editor for Logos Bible Software.
Heiser has written a book called The Façade. The book is a supernatural, contemporary fiction, thriller about the theological implications of UFO's and extraterrestrial life. Heiser has also written The Bible Code Myth, a refutation of the bible code phenomena.
Heiser has studied the passages in the Old Testament that allude to a recognition of a whole host of divinities (or a pantheon) in service to God.
Many scholars in the past have either explained these problem passages as “Divine Majesty” (in which plurals are used to connote greatness, which Heiser claims cannot work for grammatical reasons), references to the Trinity (which Heiser accepts as a Christian, but warns against using these Old Testament plurals in that context, given the type of interactions described in passages such as Psalms), or as examples of Judaism’s polytheistic/henotheistic roots (Heiser rejects these explanations, contending they do not disprove monotheism because H’Shem is consistently described as entirely separate and singular amongst the council, and because the Hebrew Bible reflects certain hypostases of Yahweh - other "persons" of Yahweh's own essence - and so a Jewish godhead).
Heiser also finds support in the double meaning of “nachash” (the "serpent" that Eve encounters in the biblical story of the Fall), which can alternately mean serpentine or "shining one," the noun form of nakash is analogous with the very name helil, which is a verb meaning "shining"). This closely resembles Talmudic and Kabbalistic lore and he agrees that the motivating factor for the initial rebellion was territorial, Helel being provoked by humanity's sovereignty over earth.
According to Heiser’s research on passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9, after the Tower of Babel incident, the Earth was divided into seventy sectors, each ruled by some of these divinities, doled out to council members as a curse from God towards humanity for idolatry, it is assumed that these 70 are successionists who joined Helel), and that there is a strong possibility of the myths throughout the world being at least partially factual.
Heiser sees some overlap with what many people offer in reports of alleged alien abductions and the biblical description of events in Genesis Chapter Six, which speaks of “the giants” (Heb. Nephilim) who were products of interbreeding between humans and enigmatic B’nai Elohim (Heb: "sons of god"). He insists that the root word behind "Nephilim" is Aramaic naphila, which means "giant". For this reason, Heiser suspects sinister spiritual forces to be behind abduction reports, not aliens.
Heiser believes that abductions can be physically real (which does not rule out the demonic), but that contrary to the growing suspicion among Evangelical and Conspiracy theorist circles, there is no nephilim "breeding program" going on today. He also considers that some abductions may be human evil in the form of government ops, (see his review of Hugh Ross's Lights in the Sky & Little Green Men which he considered a very good book) contrivances such as linking all genuine close encounters with occult activity, which he sees as blaming the victim.
On the topic of extraterrestrial life itself, Heiser considers it unlikely that the universe is populated, but is open to this idea as well. He has worked towards explaining how extraterrestrial life, in the event such is discovered, can be reconciled with the Bible and Judaeo-Christian theology, going so far as to cite a previously held belief that denial of the existence of alien worlds to be "a denial of God’s omnipresence".
Heiser was fascinated by ancient Mesopotamian literature and the subject of UFOs. However, he is critical of Zecharia Sitchin's works on the Anunnaki. In Heiser's opinion, nearly all of Sitchin's work consists of unsubstantiated interpretations. Heiser also believes that Sitchin takes words out of context, and occasionally alters or misinterprets words significantly.
Heiser attends a reformed church and considers himself to be an evangelical. He takes a neutral view between Old Earth and Young Earth Creationism.
Heisner believes communications with the dead are possible, although strictly prohibited, and that not all after-death communications are satanic, citing the passage in 1st Samuel where King Saul consults a necromancer to speak to Prophet Samuel. He also proposed that God may occasionally allow, or even actively sends the spirits of recently dead relatives to provide relief for the grieving. Most of these statements were revealed on his December 2004 interview with George Noory.
