by Timothy Decker | Jun 30, 2025 | Apologetics, Old Testament
A GUT FEELING?
AKKADIAN ENTRAIL DIVINATION AND ITS POLEMICAL PROHIBITION IN THE OT
Divination and superstition was a major part of life for the inhabitants of the Ancient Near East. In fact, magical practices such as reading omens through the flight patterns of birds or interpreting natural phenomena was not limited to the regions of Mesopotamia but were also a regular part of Hellenistic culture as well.[1] In Mesopotamia, the people practiced divination through “observing oil as it is dropped into water (lecanomancy), smoke as it rises from a censer (libanomancy), flour scattered on water (aleuromancy), and examination of entrails (extispicy).”[2] Of these methods, the more common means of determining or predicting the future was through extispicy: a form of divination by interpreting the entrails of animals.[3]
For the modern senses, this is a strange practice indeed. Nils Heeßel explained, “Extispicy stands out among the means to interact with the divine sphere, as it enabled humankind to obtain a direct answer of the gods to a question about the outcome of a certain event, which has already begun in the present but whose end is in doubt.”[4] Such a method of divination was veiled in the cultic ritual as an omen sacrifice. Cryer described the process:
After employing some sort of divinatory prayer, the diviner apparently whispered the words of the question to be answered into the ears of the sacrificial victim (almost always a sheep, though some few bird-extispicies are known). After being killed, the victim lay on its back, and the diviner stood at its hind end.… Thus the positions “right” and “left,” which play an important role in omen collections, refers to the organs as seen by the diviner.[5]
Recorded extispicy omens are formulated in a standard protasis/apodosis structure based on the reading of the entrails: “[I]f such-and-such a feature is present, such-and-such an event will occur.”[6] An example of an Akkadian extispicy omen would be, “If there is a Hal sign at the emplacement of ‘the well-being’ [the zone of the liver called the šulmum], the reign of Akkad is over.”[7]
As it relates to the Israelites, Anne Guinan especially noted, “The liver models found at Hazor, Megiddo, Ebla, and Ugarit and the corpus of omen texts recovered from Ugarit clearly attest to a pre-Israelite transmission of Mesopotamian practices to the Levant.”[8] Thus, as Israel was entering the land of Canaan, which was fully inculcated with Canaanite religious practices that had made their way from Mesopotamia, the reader of Scripture should expect to find interaction with Akkadian extispicy either by way of an endorsement or censure of such practices.[9] Moses provided general restrictions to divination in Deut 18:9–14, speaking of such practices as “abominations” (תּוֹעֵבָה), things such as “anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens… these nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners” (18:10b, 14a; ESV). Similarly, Lev 19:26b says, “You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.” The practice of extispicy is mentioned directly in Ezek 21:21 as an indictment against Babylon, “For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination… he looks at the liver.”
Central to the theological rationale as to why such a prohibition existed for the Israelites was the matter of divine revelation and authority. First and foremost, it was a practice rejected by God because He did not choose to reveal Himself in such ways. And further, with the practice of extispicy, the revelatory power lies not in the animal sacrificed but the diviner interpreting and predicting.[10] Authority was relegated to the irrationality of superstition and lacked an objective basis to pattern revelation after. Even when examining the exta (Lat. for “entrails”) and looking for signs in particular zones with predetermined patterns for interpretation, Koch noted that “The right side is always positive and the left negative, but which side is ‘right’ and which is ‘left’ can change from zone to zone… the left/right-up/down orientation was not the same on all the subsections but changed in accordance with the course of the inspection.”[11]
Neither were the diviners veterinarian experts, as if they knew what they were looking at. For example, Cryer described the interpretive process saying, “[T]he ancient diviners were not concerned with descriptive anatomy. This means that, to them, the insides of an animal had no functional significance; they were instead regarded as instruments of communication.”[12] Therefore, the authority was not in the messenger (in this case the animal) as it was for the prophet who spoke directly the utterance of God, “thus says the LORD” (כֺּה אָמַר יהוה). Rather, the diviner held revelatory sway over matters of interpretation. In such a system, it is no wonder that many were suspicious of the “art” of divination. Philo, in speaking of a “counterfeit magic” said that it was “most properly called a perversion of art, pursued by charlatan mendicants and parasites and the basest of the women and slave population.”[13] It should be no surprise that the qualifications of a prophet of Israel come shortly after the prohibition of diviners (Deut 18:15–22) and are quite different from the qualifications of the entrail-readers.[14] The offices and qualifications of Israel’s prophet and Babylon’s diviner are too distinct and must be set apart.
There is also a polemical note in Israel’s prohibition of divination methods like extispicy.[15] It speaks to the central affirmation of the Jews codified in the Shema (Deut 6:4–5)—there is only one, true, living God and he alone is to be worshipped by the people of God. Invoking the methods and means of foreign pagan divination practices is tantamount to idolatry or whoring after false gods. It is a breach of covenant fidelity. Perhaps even more, the prohibition against divination was to set YHWH apart from the rest of the Mesopotamian and Canaanite gods. Should a prophet advocate any extispicy ritual or some other form of divination, he would of necessity be “speak[ing] in the name of other gods, [therefore] that same prophet shall die” (Deut 18:20b).
Lastly, there is perhaps a practical reason why methods of divination such as extispicy are to be condemned. Much of the appeal of divine foresight is based in the immediacy of the ritual. “The possibility of receiving a divine reply to urgent questions explains the popularity of extispicy to commoners and kings alike,” said Heeßel.[16] Likewise, Koch stated, “Extispicy was a very direct way of questioning the gods about particular events and their intentions or their decisions in any particular matter.”[17] This stands in direct contradistinction to the OT concept of “waiting on the LORD” (see Psalm 27:4 and Isa. 40:31). Such a demand on the divine is to force the Transcendent down to the whimsical pleasures and urgent necessities of one who could afford a goat for an omen sacrifice.
This much is certain, that research and study into the strange practices of Akkadian extispicy shed a great deal of light onto the ancient world influencing Israel’s culture and their laws prohibiting such practices. Modern forms of omen readings (psychics, horoscopes, and tea leaves) and paranoid superstitions (black cats, broken mirrors, walking under ladders, etc.) are perhaps the application of the 2nd commandment for the 21st century Christian. But Christians should be cautious too, as though feelings, happenstances, and desires are equated to God’s will. Such conclusions based on flimsy forms can be just as arbitrary as interpreting entrails of sacrificial animals. May those who live under the New Covenant of grace find the revelation from God in his Word to be a sufficient means to define and thus divine the will of God. “He who has an ear, let him hear.”
[1] Moyer V. Hubbard, “Greek Religion,” in The World of the New Testament, ed. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 117–20.
[2] Anne K. Guinan, “Divination (Akkadian),” in Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo, vol. 1 of (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 421–22.
[3] John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd ed. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 224.
[4] Nils P. Heeßel, “The Hermeneutics of Mesopotamian Extispicy: Theory vs. Practice,” in Mediating Between Heaven and Earth, ed. C. L. Crouch, Jonathan Stokland, and Anna Elise Zernecke (New York: T & T Clark, 2012), 16.
[5] Frederick H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-Historical Investigation, JSOTSup (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 174–75.
[6] Dennis Pardee, “Divination (Ugaritic),” in Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo, vol. 1 of (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 291.
[7] William W. Hallo, ed., Context of Scripture, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), I:423. The bracketed portion came from footnote 22 of the same page.
[8] Guinan, “Divination (Akkadian),” I: 422. She went on to write, “While the biblical record preserves clear evidence of familiarity with Mesopotamian practices, there is no biblical corollary to the divinatory texts produced in Mesopotamia.”
[9] While this seems generally true, Dennis Pardee in examining Ugaritic divination argued, “Though one suspects that these texts had a Mesopotamian origin, there is remarkably little evidence of direct Mesopotamian influence. For example, there are very few loanwords from Akkadian in the Ugaritic of these texts, and there is no instance of a Ugaritic text having been translated directly from a known Akkadian original.” “Divination (Ugaritic),” I:287.
[10] Hendrick Bosman, “Redefined Prophecy as Deuteronomic Alternative to Divination in Deut 18:9–22,” OTE 27.2 (2014): 378.
[11] Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzāzu, Padānu and Pān Tākalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Aššurbanipal’s Library (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000), 39.
[12] Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment, 176. See also Koch-Westenholz, Babylonian Liver Omens, 38.
[13] Philo, Spec. Laws, 3.101.
[14] W.G. Lambert, “The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners,” in Tikip Santakki Mala Bašmu…. Festschrift Für Rykle Borger Zu Seinem 65. Geburtstag Am 24. Mai 1994, ed. S.M. Maul, Cuneiform Monographs 10 (Groningen: Styx, 1998), 141–58. Not surprising since extispicy was seen as a sacrificial omen, diviners had more in common with priests, and thus their qualifications were similar to that of the Levitical priesthood. Lambert translated an Akkadian text reading, “When a diviner… of abiding descent… begotten by a reverend of pure descent, he himself being without defect in body and limbs, may approach the presence of Šamaš and Adad where (liver) inspection and oracle (take place). The diviner of impure descent, not without defect in body and limbs, with squinting eyes, chipped teeth, a cut-off finger, a ruptured(?) testicle, suffering from leprosy, a ……, a ……, a eunuch, who does not observe the rites of Šamaš and Adad may not approach the place… for an oracle by divination” (p. 152).
[15] David Davis, “Divination in the Bible,” JBQ 30.2 (2002): 121–22.
[16] Heeßel, “The Hermeneutics of Mesopotamian Extispicy,” 17.
[17] Koch-Westenholz, Babylonian Liver Omens, 13.
Dr. Timothy Decker is one of the pastors of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Roanoke, VA, having joined them in 2018. He holds a B.A. and M.A. biblical studies from Carolina University (formerly Piedmont International University), a Th.M. in New Testament from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Capital Seminary and Graduate School. In his dissertation research, he examined the style of biblical Hebrew poetry in the New Testament. He has presented various papers at academic society meetings and authored numerous articles in several different scholarly journals. He is a member of ETS and IBR. When he is not reading or researching, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four children.
Courses taught at CBTSeminary: Elementary Greek I, Elementary Greek II
by Sam Waldron | Jun 23, 2025 | Apologetics, New Testament, Practical Theology, Systematic Theology
1 PETER 4:15—”MAKE SURE THAT NONE OF YOU SUFFERS AS A MURDERER …”
1 Peter 4:15 actually says: “Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer …” Have you ever wondered about that verse? Why would the Apostle Peter have to tell the young, suffering, zealous Christians to whom he was writing (1 Pet. 1:1; 2:2; 4:12.) not to suffer as a murderer? What?! Christians were in danger of being murderers?
There is a story behind this exhortation and the concern it expresses. I want to talk about that story below. Tragic news headlines now reveal why this exhortation must be taken literally, not just as a spiritual or devotional concept. Shockingly, a man in Minnesota who professed to be a Christian, went on mission trips, and had a wife and five children, has been revealed as a murderer. Because he hated abortion, he murdered two pro-abortion lawmakers and tried to murder many more. His name is Vance Luther Boelter.
Who is Vance Luther Boelter? I think the facts are clear. I do not think the media is making these facts up. BBC.com reports the following:
Mr. Boelter is a security contractor and religious missionary who has worked in Africa and the Middle East, according to an online CV. He once preached as a pastor at a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Facebook photos. He had travelled often to the nation, indicate posts from his LinkedIn account. An online video from two years ago seemed to show him addressing a congregation, adding that he has a wife and five children.
WSJ.com confirms:
Online posts paint a picture of Boelter as a devout Christian and pastor, who preached at LaBorne Matadi, a church in the Congo, according to photos on the church’s Facebook page. An archived website for his ministry described his global travels to preach, stating, “He sought out militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”
Yes, it seems that professing Christians who go on mission trips and preach can become murderers. Yes, Peter was right to be concerned. Furthermore, I think that the things that caused Mr. Boelter to become a murderer in our day were the same things that caused the Apostle Peter concern in his day. It was a supercharged political situation which would blind the minds even of Christians to how a Christian ought to react to government oppression and wickedness.
This is pretty clearly what was going on in Peter’s mind in 2 Peter. He was afraid of the angry fretting which would fog and distort a Christian’s thinking and conduct and lead to evildoing. Remember the Psalmist’s warning about this?
Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. 8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. (Ps. 37:7-8 NAU)
This is why the Apostle warns and commands Christians in the Roman Empire to hate civil violence and submit to their much less than perfect government.
12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil but use it as bondslaves of God. 17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. (1 Pet. 2:12-17 NAU)
The Apostle Paul completely agreed with Peter. In Titus 3:1-2 he commanded Titus with regard to the Cretan Christians: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.”
What was going on that forced both Peter and Paul to sound a drumbeat of warning against engaging in rebellion and violence—being rebellious subjects? Very much could be said in response to this question. But I think we must remember that the New Testament was written in the midst of a rising tide of Jewish nationalism and terrorism. Romans 13:1-7 begins with clear commands against rebellion and for subjection:
Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
Romans 13:1-7 is the longest New Testament warning against rebellion and a lack of subjection to the civil authorities. The reason is probably that Rome had a significant Jewish population. These Jews lived in the very center of Roman power. Though the letter to the Romans was written mainly to the Gentiles, it is clear in all sorts of ways that even in the Christian communities in Rome there was a significant Jewish presence. This is why Paul is forced in that letter to deal at length in Romans 9-11 with the problem of Jewish unbelief. This Jewish presence is also evident in the instructions to and about the weak in Romans 14 and 15 who had typically Jewish foibles.
There is every reason to think, then, that Paul penned Romans 13:1-7 because of the danger of Jewish political opinions inciting Christians and especially Jewish Christians to become enmeshed in what we may call Jewish terrorism. This prospect filled the Apostle with massive concern as he foresaw the reproach that such involvement might bring on the gospel of Christ.
Paul’s deep concern must be shouted from the rooftops to American Christians in our day. Several important things follow from the apostolic directions.
- The commands of Peter and Paul make clear that we owe subjection even to governments that do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
- They make clear that there is not some mythical measure of civil righteousness to which the government must conform or lose its authority.
- They make clear that it is not our right to take the sword into our hands to combat the evil of abortion.
- They make clear that we must not go down the slippery slope of some Christian thinkers. They describe the very real duty to disobey (Acts 4:19-20; 5:29) as a duty to resist the government. And from this slippery word, resistance, they deduce the propriety of violently opposing the civil authorities. But clearly disobedience and violent resistance were two very different things for the Apostles. There is not a slippery slope between them but a chasm of distinction.
- They make clear that we must not take the situation in the Old Testament theocratic kingdom and use it as a paradigm to justify violence and revolution in our day. We live in divinely appointed Gentile kingdoms. The theocratic kingdom insofar as it exists has only an ecclesiastical form (in the church) and does not possess civil authority or the power of the sword.
Let us see all such arguments and reasonings for what they are. Sophisticated evasions of the plain New Testament commands to conduct ourselves as peaceful citizens of our country.
Someone will complain that I am teaching pacifism. Of course, I am not. But I am teaching the element of truth that is distorted into the false doctrine of pacifism. Christians are to be people of peace and gentleness. Is this not that to which the Apostle Paul called us?
1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.
I think it is pretty clear that terrorists and revolutionaries do not live tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity!
[For more on this subject, see my Political Revolution in the Reformed Tradition: An Historical and Biblical Critique published by Free Grace Press.]
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
by CBTS Student | Jun 11, 2025 | Practical Theology
My Experience at the 2025 Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers’ Conference
What does a man need to know when beginning his pastoral labors? What will enable him to endure the inevitable hardships and discouragements over the course of his ministry? How is it possible for him to finish well? These were the questions raised and answered at this year’s East Coast Ministers’ Conference, put on by Banner of Truth. The answer implicit in each of the eleven addresses was this: the pastor must continue to recognize his weakness and keep looking to the Chief Shepherd for his strength.
The conference began with Nate Shurden’s exhortation to grow in your weakness as a pastor and ended with David Whitla’s encouragement to remember your source of strength for pastoral ministry. Shurden exhorted us to trust not in ourselves or our strength, but in Christ, and to receive his hard providences as “opportunities to declare more fully and depend more deeply on Christ and him crucified.” Whitla concluded the conference by encouraging us with five sources of strength: 1) the Lord called you to be a pastor of His Church, 2) the Lord has told us what to do in his word, 3) the Lord has provided everything necessary for this work, 4) the Lord will be with you in this work, and 5) the Lord’s people are with us.
Between these bookend addresses, we were instructed by Barry York of the Holy Spirit’s sustaining power both for preaching and prayer. In short, we need to rely on the written word the Spirit inspired, the presence of the Spirit in us, and the power of the Spirit working in ourselves and our hearers. And because the world and the church so desperately need preachers, we need to ask our congregations and others to pray for us—because only the Spirit can strengthen and help preachers.
Jeff Smith (from Coconut Creek, Florida) brought two very helpful messages to us. He reminded us that God is committed to keeping us weak in our own eyes—we are clay pots, after all—and that pastoral ministry is an extension of Christ’s suffering for the life of his body; our sufferings, pressures, and difficulties are a means by which spiritual life is given to others. He also gave us four motivations to help us endure suffering: 1) Jesus Christ is worthy of our devotion, 2) his word is not bound, 3) he has a people whose salvation is worthy of our suffering, and 4) he has promised a reward to us.
We were exhorted by Matthew Everhard to surround ourselves with several living mentors but also to choose one “dead mentor,” whose biography and works we should read throughout our lifetime; his was Jonathan Edwards. In Nate Shurden’s second address, he gave exhortations from the ministry and pastoral theology of Thomas Murphy to help us avoid sabotaging a long ministry in one place.
Finally, we were blessed to hear from keynote speaker Ian Hamilton on three different occasions. He began with the paradigm of Christ, who lived in “humble, trustful dependence upon the Holy Spirit,” whose actions and words were shaped by the written word of God, and who did everything for the glory of the Father. This is what we are called to.
He continued by giving eight principles to help us press on in ministry, most notably calling us to not simply preach about Christ, but to preach Christ. He finished by raising and answering this sobering question: “what makes you think you will finish well?” Exegeting Hebrews 12:1-2, he said we must look to Jesus as our supreme example, take comfort from his human sufferings, and refresh our souls with the future hope of being with him.
In addition to these practical and helpful addresses, it was soul-refreshing to join over three hundred brothers in belting out biblically sound hymns and psalms. What made those moments even sweeter was reflecting upon how we will be doing the same on the redeemed earth in the age to come!
In between addresses, we enjoyed a rich time of fellowship with other men—both pastors and aspiring pastors. The speakers from the conference were also very approachable, and quite often seen mingling and enjoying fellowship with the brethren. Not to mention, there were opportunities for exercise, recreation, and even an ice-cream social!
Choosing the option of lodging and eating on the beautiful campus of Elizabethtown College, where the conference is held, provided me the opportunity to share meals with dear brothers in Christ, some of whom I would likely not otherwise meet: a Reformed Baptist pastor of a congregation that recently left the United Methodist Church, a Presbyterian pastor from Canada, and the pastor of a church planted by Capitol Hill Baptist Church over a hundred years ago! Moreover, while dorm rooms are not known for comfort, sharing a room provided special time and space for catching up with a good brother.
Of course, what turned the conference from great to excellent was the bookstore. Well-stocked with Puritan paperbacks, biographies, sets of completed works, Bible commentaries, devotional reads, systematic theologies, and more, the store was a treasure trove! For the benefit of those who may not know where to even start, one of the emcees would give a book recommendation or two, prior to each address, for stocking up one’s library with great resources. An added bonus was having the option of buying Banner books in person and saving the shipping fees! In some cases, the books were significantly discounted. For $130, I bought sixteen different books, some of which have already proved extremely useful.
Altogether, it was a memorable experience, and I am thankful to the Lord for this conference. May his promised kingdom come and his will on earth be done!
About the Author
Ryan recently celebrated his tenth anniversary with his dear wife, and they have five children. He is presently a pastoral intern at a church in Canton, Michigan, and is pursuing his MDiv from CBTS.
This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
