1.18.5

“And they think all of these weird things, like there’s aliens in the Bible.” ---Dr. William B., professor of New Testament

I’ve been refraining from writing much of a personal nature recently. The want has been to take this web site to the next level, to keep moving from strength to strength. I felt such desires should necessitate on my part a more….let’s say a more professional attitude, at least so as compared to some of my earlier writings. True, it was a bit of a cop-out to a certain degree. This was billed as “Wrath of Joe”, implying certain conventions of adequate would be null and utterly void, and, of course, that I could get very personal should I so desire; it is my wrath after all!

But, we wanted to move from strength to strength and for my own part, under no influence other than my own ego, I decided to tame things a bit. Yes, there would still be wrath, however, wrath isn’t all about exploding one’s rage uncontrollably and in every direction. Wrath can be calm, cool, collected, potently relevant and strangely astute. So, along these lines I decided to gear the overall execution, and yet, there was another matter of content. Again, with the site moving from strength the strength, the want was to focus our vision, becoming a unique, in our estimation, third party observer, commentator, and possibly researcher in the field of things esoteric or, rather, as I prefer it, speculative. As such, personal anecdote really wasn’t relevant, in my end, to the site, and, as such, I’ve opted to shy away from it thus far. We’re progressing, shedding off the old skin; anything failing to serve properly as the vision continues to focus needs to be done away with.

The problem: a lot of the things I write about is not removed speculation on my part. I am a theologian (after being a poet), in the most classic of pedigrees. Look up something by Origen of Alexandria, or any of the Patristic authors, and you’ve got an idea of how I implement the theological process; my world view is full of two primary things: the divine and the unknown, and many would say they are one-in-the-same. So it is many of the extra-theological things I research are of a theological interest. I’ve learned enough Hebrew and Greek to go through the Bible and earnestly tell you the English translations don’t convey the entirety of the story. There is a lot in the text of Scripture which, should one not know any Hebrew, for example, will not resonate with you, though when and if it ever does, you may find yourself certainly shocked.

As it went last night in class, we got on the subject of The Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood-Holy Grail, et al. Now, for any one buying into any of that, I pity your torrid ignorance. Hate to sound cruel here, but you have to be utterly ignorant in the historical/archeological record as well as the original languages (IE, Will Henry) to both propagate and believe any of these tales of grail bloodlines, Templars, etc. After soundly treating this subject, of which I played an avid part, my professor proceeded to make the above quoted comment about the theory of aliens in the Bible, at which point he noticed my gaze affix menacingly upon him.

He Paused. “You look like you believe in that.”

My response: “What is more illogical, what is the greater stretch of basic common sense in order to adhere to some belief, that there are biological entities in the same universe we occupy who have developed advanced space travel which our own brilliant physicists and cosmologists says is possible pending greater advances in technology, or the existence of this mysterious, invisible, mystical being, in control of all creation as we know it, whom none of us can see, called God?”

The discussion dropped there.

Now, I’m going to state bluntly for anyone who doesn’t already know: I do not believe in the “aliens are our progenitors” theory. There is no evidence to this theory. The theory begins after Sitchin publishes his series of Earth Chronicles books. That’s our first problem: chronology. Our second problem: it’s utterly bogus. Sitchin himself has no credentials. He graduated with a degree in economics, NOT ancient languages, certainly not Sumerian cuneiform. Furthermore, there has rarely been more than a handful of living people who know the Sumerian text and how to translate it, of whom Sitchin is not nor ever has been ranked as one, none of whom have ever taught Sitchin; indeed, Zac has never supplied from whom he allegedly learned Cuneiform from, and, folks, hate to break it to you, there were no and are not ANY teach yourself Sumerian Cuneiform books then or now. The languages of Sumer are very specialized and one cannot learn them outside of the university; unlike Latin, Greek or Hebrew, there is no wide interest in any of the variants of the Sumerian tongues to justify publishing material accessible to anyone who is outside of an ancient languages or ancient near eastern languages program at a major university. Sitchin’s work bears all the marks of one reading in translation, and only in translation.

Okay, this all taken care of and out of the way, I still took offence to the prof’s comments and felt impelled to respond. Why, given my conviction of the disingenuousness of the “ancient astronauts theory”, should I take any offence to comments dismissive of the possibility of extra terrestrial intelligence?

Primarily, it is a matter of consistency, my personal systematic, if you will. As stated above in my response, one cannot reasonably believe in God as a personal being or the concept of God, and dismiss the possibility of alien intelligence. Should one believe in divine intervention or the miracles of Saints, then one is yet more compelled to lend some possibility to alien interaction, or at least observation, of our species. In both instances, there is purported phenomenon derided by its critics and demanded to produce irrefutable objective evidence. In both cases, believers of the phenomenon produce compelling but not irrefutable evidence and ask to be taken at their word. In both instances, one is considered fanatical or mentally unsound or wasting one’s time if one is a little too convinced of their respective realities, shall we say. Of course, this isn’t what spurned the rather revealing exchange. The precipitous of our polemic was whether or not anything resembling the UFO phenomenon is in the Bible. Well, one might ask, is there?

The answer, in my own estimation, though inconclusive, lacking any hard evidence, is intriguing while being admittedly ambiguous. Our discussion had cited the example of the Metallium wheels in Ezekiel’s vision at the beginning of his book of prophecy. The vision is rather confounding’ four wheels of a shining mutualism with fire in the wheels and four living creatures, etc. At the root of the problem of interpreting this passage is the issue between literal and allegorical approach.. Do we accept this passage as it is written or do we seek another, somewhat obscure explanation? Further still, aside from the issue of how we should interpret the passage, the matter of what Ezekiel himself intended debatable; was it a literary device on his part, a hallucination, a vision, or, perhaps, a literal occurrence which he is recording? Were it a literal occurrence, fully made out of our own matter and time, then we could argue the possibility, though very distant, of a Biblical account of the UFO phenomenon. Although, this is a very distant possibility; the passage is so obscure almost any interpretation is relegated to uncertainty. To be very critical and forthright, the meaning of the “vision” probably died with the prophet himself; since then, it’s been a game of filigree and shadow.

Yet, this does not discount the possibility of extraterrestrial beings of a material composition in the Bible or the Judeo-Christian tradition. There are, for those who wish to search, such mysterious beings as Powers and Principalities described as “spirits of the air” (see Ephesians and Colossians) as well as hosts of lesser “angels” (those not recorded as being in the presence of God) who show a distinct indifference to humanity, most especially attested to in the Enochian literature. Does this mean aliens? Honestly, every man and woman has to rule as his or her own judge with regards to this verdict. The evidence suggests the Judeo-Christian tradition, at various times, recorded a concept in its literature of beings who were not divine, certainly not human, and whom one ought to approach with caution. Is this the ancient equivalent of our present day phenomenon? Or strictly a literary device developed to convey a theological point? Or perhaps the result of interaction with the various pagan cultures and their pantheons? Every possibility is open, and I know which one I personally believe in, but I, nor any scholar, can conclusively prove any theory surrounding this material and must settle with simply proposing a thesis. We don’t know when, where or why this material develops in the tradition, only its presence and popularity, eventually developing an over arching influence in both Judaism and Christianity and while the concept does not lend itself strictly into any interpretation of its origins and meaning, it does allow, for well or ill, the possibility our UFO phenomenon is “so old it’s new again.” Is this Judeo-Christian concept one-in-the-same with subject of modern day Ufology? Again, honesty with the evidence at hand forbids any definitive statement, only possibility.

This having been said, the cause of my indignation was (and is) the blatant systematic hypocrisy of maintaining the existence of God and discounting the possibilities of UFOs and other paranormal phenomenon as the privy of cleaver conmen and suckers born every couple of minutes. I stand by the retort I presented in class: it is illogical to believe in God as a personal being or in the concept of God and dismiss such things as UFOs; both are things most humans do not see and both require the acceptance of witness testimony in order to be “real.”