Who’s Who in the Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part Two

Since the idea of supernatural deities is nonsense IMHO, perhaps there’s another explanation behind the more likely as not reality molehill hidden inside the traditional religious mythological mountain. That explanation could revolve around an extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood alternative.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WHERE’S WHERE

Heaven: The name of God’s spaceship, or starship if you prefer.

Hell: The brig, located off-ship, probably on Earth, where one could be exiled to if need be.

Eastern Mediterranean (Israel; Land of Canaan; the Levant; Near East; Palestine): That part of terrestrial geography assigned to the officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven as their area of responsibility. Contrast that with Zeus and company assigned the Middle Mediterranean; Odin and company responsible for the Norse lands; and the Great Spirit who looks after the North Amerindians; and so on.

Garden of Eden: Paradise was actually a terrestrial R&R spot for officers and crew of the Spaceship Heaven. God first had to expel human trespassers after they learned or overheard too much extraterrestrial knowledge forbidden to terrestrial ears. Later on however God gave Adam an interstellar ride in his Spaceship Heaven.

Towel of Babel: To disperse in quick-smart fashion the local population to the four corners of the globe, or even within the region, would have required considerable transport infrastructure.

Sodom & Gomorrah: The twin cities were destroyed via fire and brimstone from above, leaving no trace whatever after-the-fact. The obviously high tech weaponry might have been incendiary bombs or even nuclear weapons, but it certainly wasn’t any sort of destructive weapons technology common to that era.

WHAT’S WHAT

Miracles: High technology in action. As the late Arthur C. Clarke tended to put it, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, at least to those not technologically savvy. Among the high tech examples are the medical ones – healing the seriously sick and handicapped; resurrecting the very recently deceased; enabling very elderly women – over the hill and off the pill – to become fertile and bear offspring.

Food: Speaking of high tech miracles, what does one make of manna from heaven; loaves and fishes that multiply; wine from water? This almost makes you think of the food replication device used in Star Trek.

Noah’s Flood: A whole textbook could be written about the impossibilities of the Biblical tale of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The amount of water required can’t be produced. The boat isn’t near large enough to house and feed every species that would need to be given shelter. The crew isn’t sufficient to look after their charges. But, with just a bit of high tech tweaking, what if the Ark wasn’t for an actual universal disaster but a potential one, a real possibility given those high tech star wars, or wars between the various factions of deities (think of the ten year battle between the Titans and the Olympians; or what must have raged between God and Satan or will rage as per the forecast of Revelation; or the battle between the Frost Giants and the Norse deities; or all those aerial wars depicted in those ancient Hindu texts). Now instead of having entire forest worth of plants and all those animals requiring food and waste disposal, on board, substitute a botanical seed bank and a zoological equivalent, a repository of frozen eggs and sperm or embryos or genetic materials, etc. No need for food; no waste products; not much maintenance (crew time) required, and easily room for everything in the space allowed for the Ark in the Book of Genesis. The issue of course is that all of this is high tech way beyond the capabilities of the great unwashed of that era, the locals or natives. 

Burning Bush: This is an example of extraterrestrial hologram technology in action, employed to awe the local primitives, in this case Moses.

The Ark of the Covenant: Apparently a high and rather dangerous technological device, purpose not really well explained, but obviously more than just a storage box for a couple of stone tablets.

Clouds; Pillars of Fire; Flying Rolls; Star of Bethlehem; Aerial Chariots; Whirlwinds; Ezekiel’s Wheel, etc.: A UFO by any other name is still a UFO, and in most of these depictions, the object, say a ‘cloud’, is an actual vehicle that carries a passenger, more likely as not a Spaceship Heaven shuttlecraft. 

Germ Warfare & Biological Weapons: There are numerous examples in Biblical texts where high tech biological weapons were used against populations (i.e. – the Egyptians, even God’s Chosen People) and individuals like Job.

Transfiguration: Jesus led three of his followers up a mountain, and behold his face had a rather disquieting and unnatural glow about it (much like Moses after his CE3K). In fact Jesus, and/or his clothing, shone with some sort of bioluminescence. To add to this anomaly, Jesus had with him both Moses (long since considered the late Moses who had once been abducted) and Elias (otherwise known as Elijah, the abducted). Further a ‘cloud’ that hovered over this gathering ‘spoke’ to them, one and all, with words that implied that this was God himself doing the speaking. Then the ‘cloud’ vanished like a bat out of hell. Wow! There is surely something strange afoot going on here. By the way, in common with a lot of other Biblical tales, this is repeated several times, in the Books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. In fact, I’d suggest that if you eliminated all of the duplications, the Bible would be 10% thinner!

The Ascension: Jesus departs Planet Earth to take up his new job as First Officer on the Spaceship Heaven, sitting at the right hand of her captain.

Hologram Technology: A very useful ways and means of inspiring awe in the great unwashed. Examples that spring to mind include the ‘burning bush’ and Jesus ‘walking on the water’ and appearing in the ‘flesh’ post execution.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

There have been no verified and documented sightings of the main Biblical players (God, Satan, Jesus, angels, etc.) in way over 2000 years. Where are they? I suspect they have gone away. I further suspect God and crew were recalled to home base to stand trial for crimes against humanity, though many, like Jesus, were exonerated, having played no part or role at Sodom & Gomorrah or in the use of biological weapons and waging germ warfare. Satan and his fallen angels were recalled too, probably picked up from exile, to give account for their original mutiny. Perhaps as we read this Captain Jesus of the Spaceship Heaven (or some other interstellar vessel) is boldly going and finding new Garden of Eden locales to R&R in throughout the cosmos.  

CONCLUSION

It is clear that not everything in the Bible can be easily interpreted in an extraterrestrial context, probably because much of the text’s content tends to be rather mundane soap opera of a humans-only nature. That aside, after you take into consideration all the versions, all the translations and associated issues with that, translation and copying errors (deliberate and accidental), embellishments, artistic license, human imagination needed to fill in the gaps, plus the multiple authorship of all the Biblical texts itself, not to forget that the texts weren’t written down till decades, even many generations after-the-fact (it’s like nobody recorded and wrote down today’s news until the year 2112 – many an error would be made), I conclude that the Bible can largely be interpreted not in a supernatural way but rather an extraterrestrial one.

Unfortunately, if I am right, then all your theological baggage of an eternal life everlasting goes right down the drain – maybe not a bad thing if you thought you were Hell-bound, or even if Heaven-bound as the concept of eternal life is actually hellish as you would rather quickly be bored out of your afterlife skull, and you still have infinity yet to come.

Who’s Who in the Ancient Alien’s Bible: Part One

Since the idea of supernatural deities is nonsense IMHO, perhaps there’s another explanation behind the more likely as not reality molehill hidden inside the traditional religious mythological mountain. That explanation could revolve around an extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood alternative.

INTRODUCTION

Erich Von Daniken asked the question “was God as astronaut?” Traditional Christians, Muslims, and those of the Jewish faiths of course answer “No”, God was (and is) a supernatural deity. Those more inclined to be free thinkers pondering realities outside of the religious box, answer anywhere from “Maybe” to “Yes”. If the latter, how might Biblical characters, places and events be interpreted in an ‘ancient astronaut’ context. Who’s who, Where’s where and what’s what?

All interpretations are based on the text of the King James Version of all things Biblical.

WHO’S WHO

God: OIC and captain of the Spaceship Heaven. His real alien name is of course Yahweh, or in the vowelless version YHWH, but I’ll just shorten that to God, a name that all and sundry recognise.

Satan: God’s original First Officer and second in command of the Spaceship Heaven, later exiled to Hell, or at least to Earth, for mutiny. 

Fallen Angels: Fallen Angels are those officers and crew who were in cahoots with Satan in the unsuccessful mutiny against Captain God and who were court-martialed and stripped of their status and rank and exiled to Hell on Earth. 

The Seraphim: Because the Seraphim have six wings, they are probably a separate extraterrestrial race aligned with the alien race of beings to which God and company belong. [Well Star Trek exhibited a multi-species crew from the start.] One such alien was apparently someone called Metatron, an angel who acted as the ‘voice of God’, a scribe, and is the tallest and greatest of the lot. ‘He’s’ sort of the chief cook and bottle washer on the Spaceship Heaven.

The Cherubim (singular is cherub): The extraterrestrial Cherubim might be related to the Seraphim in that they are enormous four-winged beings. The definitive book in the Bible on cherubim is the Book of Ezekiel, mainly the first and tenth chapter.

Governor or Watcher Angels: These are your typically obedient angels who just sort of watch over humanity in general, a sort of extraterrestrial Peeping Tom some of who had an eye for the Daughters of Men.   

Archangels: Senior officers of Spaceship Heaven. Those messenger and battle ready angels. The best known of the lot were the archangels who are very high-ranking angels indeed, starting with Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, but followed by Uriel, Simiel, Orifiel and Zachariel.

Angels: Ordinary crewmembers of the Spaceship Heaven, forever running errands for the senior officers.

Sons of God: Apparently hand chosen senior crew members, perhaps literally biological offspring of Captain God. The Sons of God were apparently some or all of the Governor or Watcher Angels.

Daughters of Men: Human females.

Nephilim: The offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men. They were apparently the ‘giants’ referred to ‘in the Earth’, though exactly how giant was giant isn’t spelled out.

Jesus: Another offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men, albeit much farther on down the historical track, or perhaps the offspring between God himself and the Daughters of Men (well one anyway). Jesus would later rise (from the ‘dead’) to become First Officer on board Spaceship Heaven. That Jesus is an extraterrestrial is admitted by himself in John 8:23. Of note here is that Jesus probably used holographic technology to give an appearance of walking on water and/or appearing alive and in the ‘flesh’ post execution – which he survived, another sign of high technology in operation. 

Baal: God’s prime extraterrestrial rival for power and authority in the region, though there’s never any direct and open physical conflict twixt the two.

Moses: Just one of several abductees noted and logged in Biblical texts. He was abducted by a ‘cloud’ and carried on up the mountain for a close encounter with a supreme alien lawmaker. Upon his return his face had an unnatural glow about it which caused those waiting his return to be afraid of him.

Jacob: Witnessed (or dreamed about) angels ascending and descending to and from Spaceship Heaven.

Ezekiel: A human who had a close encounter of the third kind (those Cherubim) plus an associated abduction event.

Jonah: Spent three days and nights in isolation inside a technological craft.

Joshua: 1) Was in possession of high technology sonic weaponry at Jericho. 2) He later witnessed several UFOs that stood still in the sky providing illumination for his army.

Enoch and Elijah: These two human males are the only two whose ultimate fate (death) we don’t know anything about. Both humans apparently joined the Spaceship Heaven at the behest of her captain never to be seen again, albeit Elijah was spotted with Jesus by three of his disciples (see Transfiguration).

Old Age Pensioners: Methuselah, Noah, Adam as well as others, apparently lived to really, really ripe old ages, way, way, way beyond the standard three score and ten. The explanation: these were humans invited by the officers and crew of Spaceship Heaven to take a relativistic interstellar journey at velocities at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. They aged normally on board, but because of the time dilation effect, time passed more rapidly back on Earth, or more slowly on the spaceship (same difference), such that they returned home hundreds of terrestrial year’s later – Earth time - thus the false appearance that they were hundreds of years old at journey’s end but didn’t look a day over thirty because they really weren’t a day over thirty! It’s referred to as the Twin Paradox of Special Relativity, though it’s not really a paradox at all, just the logical conclusion of the equations of Special Relativity which have been verified by observation and experiment, at least on the micro scale.

Matthew, Mark, Luke & John: A quartet of roving reporters who independently investigated what was to them relatively recent history – just several generations had passed – each in his own way. The topic of their investigation was an alleged historical figure, a figure that seemed to have gained some degree of uniqueness, notoriety and prominence as a possible deity and the quartet wrote up their short biographies accordingly. 

To be continued…

Biblical UFOs, Abductions & Ancient Astronauts: Part Two

Nearly all of us are familiar to a greater or lesser extent with the concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ – extraterrestrials that influenced human history many millennia ago. Evidence is cited from around the world, and draws on mythology, religion, out of place artefacts, artistic works, and the construction of various monumental megaliths that modern society and modern engineering would be hard pressed to reconstruct. It shouldn’t be surprising that a small fraction of that evidence has been culled from the Bible. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

MORE UFO CLOUDS

Speaking of clouds as a term for UFOs by those who comprehended the idea of a ‘cloud’ but not of an extraterrestrial atmospheric shuttlecraft, we note that a Biblical ‘cloud’ actually transports; it goes up and down and contains passengers. Here are a few examples from the Old Testament.

Exodus 13:21: And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.

Exodus 16:10: And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.

*When the Lord assisted His Chosen People out of Egypt, He didn’t hoof it like the Israelites but oversaw events from his aerial ‘cloud’.

Numbers 11:25: And the LORD came down in a cloud.

Numbers 12:5: And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle.

Numbers 12:10: And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle.

*Clearly this ‘cloud’ not only has a passenger (the Lord) but lands and takes off.

Deuteronomy 31:15: And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.

*God’s own personal aerial limousine again is depicted as a ‘cloud’. 

Psalm 104:3: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind.

*We note the association between (aerial) clouds and transportation (chariots), as well as a hint of actually being airborne. I mean if you’re in an aircraft and you move about the cabin, you could be said to be walking on the wings of the wind in a manner of speaking.

Isaiah 19:1: Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.

*Not only does God ride as if a passenger in a cloud, but the ‘cloud’ is moving along at a pretty quick-smart pace.

Jeremiah 4:13: Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles.

*A multi-association is depicted between a passenger and clouds and chariots and whirlwinds and speed.

Ezekiel 1:4: And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

*I repeat the quote of what kick-started Ezekiel’s close encounter, but noting specifically the associations between a whirlwind and a cloud as well as fire (akin to that pillar of fire in Exodus?) and brightness. While a whirlwind-cloud might be a tornado, that sort of weather event isn’t common in the region and isn’t associated with fire and brightness. Besides, this whirlwind-cloud disembarked living creatures.

Ezekiel 10:3: Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.

*Could this be a suggestion of a landed UFO ‘cloud’ that first landed and then disembarked a man in an inner courtyard? If the cloud had really been fog then more than just the inner court would have been filled.

UFO ‘clouds’ aren’t confined to just the Old Testament. The New Testament clouds the issue as well.

Matthew 17:5: While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

Mark 9:7: And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

Luke 9:34: While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.

Luke 9:35: And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

*It would appear that God’s cloudy limousine has made the transition from Old to New Testament.

Luke 21:27: And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

*It would also appear that Jesus gets to ride in his daddy’s cloudy limo too, or more likely he had one of his own.

Acts 1:9: And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

*Up, up and away he went in a ‘cloud’ only to finally vanish from sight.

Revelation 1:7: Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

Revelation 10:1: And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.

*What goes up must come down, and so those who from on high who will partake in Armageddon will need to transport on down, and of course the preferred means is via that ‘cloud’.

Revelation 11:12: And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

*What goes down must go up. Mortals hail a taxi; ET thumbs a ride back to his heavenly abode via a ‘cloud’.

To be continued…

Biblical Tall Tales: Jonah and Joshua: Part Two

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; many aren’t, like Jonah and the whale or large fish; and some, like Joshua at Gibeon (Gideon) violate so many laws of physics that no sci-fi authors in their right minds would perpetrate such nonsense on their reading public. 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

However, scholars who don’t accept Biblical truth as the undisputed literal word of God, when stumped for an actual alternative physical explanation, retreat to nebulous and wishy-washy concepts and start throwing buzz words like parable, metaphor, archetype, symbolism, ancestral memory and other psychological mumbo-jumbo around – anything that’s an alternative to 1) pure make-believe or 2) a real and unexplainable event. But those are my alternatives: the tales of Jonah and Joshua are either just make-believe or reality. Make-believe is more way more plausible, but it’s boring. So, let’s try for reality, but not supernatural reality – that’s a contradiction in terms.  

Continued now from yesterday's blog... 

Joshua Second:

Then we have the tale of Joshua, a relatively minor figure in the Bible, a sort of sidekick apprentice to Moses during all those Exodus bits, at least until he gets his very own Biblical book, the “Book of Joshua” (how original). He was a sort of Biblical James Bond and military officer who commanded the Israelites in the destruction of many places, like Canaan and Jericho. But it was at Gibeon (Gideon) that everlasting historical fame, if not fortune, awaited Joshua, for at Gibeon he asked God to cause the Sun and the Moon to stand still, so that he could finish his battle, a battle on behalf of God, in daylight.

The exact quote from the King James Version is:

Joshua: 10: 12 – “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

Joshua: 10: 13 - “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.”

Now the first and minor objection is that if the Moon and the Sun are in the sky at the same time, the additional lighting the Moon provides is so marginal that the average person wouldn’t even notice it. The Full Moon, when you get maximum illumination from the lunar orb, only rises at about the same time the Sun is setting; setting when the Sun is rising in the east. As long as the Sun was up and shining, Joshua had all the light he needed.

Now the second and major objection is that in order to get the Sun to stand still – hover in the sky – Planet Earth has got to stop rotating on its axis. God would have had to cause the Earth to brake very suddenly. Now, what happens if you’re driving along at a rapid rate of miles per hour and all of a sudden have to apply the brakes full force? Well anything not tied down inside the car is going to keep on travelling in a forward direction. Apply that principle to the Earth, which is rotating a hell of a lot faster than any family car, and anything not tied down, like you, will go shooting off into space! So, the Sun standing still in the sky would result in the Mother of all Disasters down here on not so terra-firma. Since that didn’t happen, the Joshua story is another example of Biblical bovine fertilizer.

Now the third and also a major objection is that since the Moon goes around the Earth, stopping just the Earth’s rotation wouldn’t stop the Moon from travelling across the sky. God would have had to stop the Moon dead still in its orbit. But that adds the complication that the gravitational attraction between Earth and Moon would then cause the Moon to start dropping like the proverbial stone – right towards target Earth (actually the Earth would also head towards the Moon as well; each celestial object gravitationally attracting the other). It’s only because the Earth orbits the Sun that prevents us from colliding with it; ditto the Moon orbiting the Earth in constant motion results in no lunar-terra collision. Of course God also needed to freeze the Earth’s rotation since that too would cause the Moon to move in the sky from east to west.

Now what sort of natural or even unnatural but closer-to-home terrestrial objects might substitute for a stationary Sun and Moon? Well, nothing really comes to mind. Since there were no helicopters, flares, blimps or balloons, or spotlights back then, and no other natural source of light, say ball lightning, stands still, then we’re left with either a total fabrication or something extraterrestrial. 

So the only escape clause as I see it, apart from the observation that the tale is pure fiction, is that the objects weren’t the Sun and the Moon at all, but UFOs under Captain God’s command. Brightly glowing UFOs could hover overhead, for as long as this was required, providing the illumination required for Joshua to complete his military rape and pillage, which of course God gave His stamp of approval to.

P.S. The moral to these stories is that once you reject the literal interpretation of any one of the Biblical tall tales (The Brothers Grimm should have written so many), like Jonah and Joshua, then you have to question the literal aspects of all the texts; every Biblical book, chapter and verse.

Biblical Tall Tales: Jonah and Joshua: Part One

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; many aren’t, like Jonah and the whale or large fish; and some, like Joshua at Gibeon (Gideon) violate so many laws of physics that no sci-fi authors in their right minds would perpetrate such nonsense on their reading public. 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

However, scholars who don’t accept Biblical truth as the undisputed literal word of God, when stumped for an actual alternative physical explanation, retreat to nebulous and wishy-washy concepts and start throwing buzz words like parable, metaphor, archetype, symbolism, ancestral memory and other psychological mumbo-jumbo around – anything that’s an alternative to 1) pure make-believe or 2) a real and unexplainable event. But those are my alternatives: the tales of Jonah and Joshua are either just make-believe or reality. Make-believe is more way more plausible, but it’s boring. So, let’s try for reality, but not supernatural reality – that’s a contradiction in terms.   

Jonah First:

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ of a tale, now you know, and I know since we can think for ourselves, that while it might be theoretically possible for a very large fish, or some whales (like the sperm whale) to swallow you alive and whole (thus avoid biting you in half in the process), it’s unlikely in the extreme because no marine creature currently known exhibits that sort of feeding behaviour. Large fish or toothed whales have teeth for a reason, and humans are fairly large prey – we’re not minnows. Other very large fish like the whale shark (an endangered species that needs your help) don’t have teeth the shark in “Jaws” would have been proud to display, rather they are filter feeders. Filter feeders include the very large baleen whale – but it couldn’t swallow you without choking to death. So, you’re gonna be bitten and chewed first before being swallowed. Further, you’re not going to survive in their stomach for very long – minutes at most in all likelihood. If you don’t drown first, the lack of oxygen will soon do you in or the digestive acids will soon turn you into digestible fish food. So the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ story is rubbish, unless the whale were really a submarine that was embellished and given flesh-and-blood in order to provide the narrator and reader with something in a more familiar context. But then there weren’t no subs back then were there?

So the story of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ (or large fish) is in all likelihood just another of the numerous Biblical tall tales. It can not be a literal event. However, let’s play that ‘what if’ game again.

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

Now if I get the story right, God (the E.T.) sends Jonah on an errand. Jonah doesn’t want a bar of this and heads off in the opposite direction that involves a sea journey*. God ain’t amused at mutiny and so causes this storm at sea, which makes the sailors very unhappy indeed. The sailors, a superstitious lot, make Jonah walk-the-plank or otherwise heave Jonah overboard, actually at Jonah’s own suicidal suggestion. Now that throws a monkey wrench in God’s plans. God therefore had better save his errand boy from drowning and so Jonah is rescued by one of Captain God’s Starship Heaven’s shuttlecraft, or a UFO. But, Jonah gets punished with a three day and night solitary confinement prison sentence for his disobedience, locked away inside this so-called ‘fish’. But, Jonah, inside the belly of the ‘beast’ is eventually released (regurgitated) unharmed, repents and is able to complete his mission for Captain God. A happy ending!

Now Jonah, being a rather typical Biblical character, unsophisticated in the ways of high technology (and you can’t blame him for that – you couldn’t exactly enrol for a Ph.D. in engineering way back then) found himself floundering in the ocean one moment, then locked inside something strange for three days and nights before being deposited on dry land. The only logical explanation to such a Biblical lad lacking an engineering Ph.D. was the whale/large fish alternative. In fact to his mind, there was no alternative – that had to have been the only possible explanation.

Now Jonah wouldn’t of necessity have to have actually seen the aliens piloting the UFO shuttlecraft sent by God (the E.T.) that rescued him from certain death.

So, in conclusion, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows Jonah to get swallowed alive by a large marine creature and live to tell the tale after surviving a lack of oxygen and digestive acids for three days and nights; 2) There was no such person and no such marine creature, rather the author of the Jonah tale was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the ‘fish’ had to have been something technological complete with oxygen supply and no digestive juices.  

*Obviously Jonah didn’t perceive God as all-knowing and all-powerful, otherwise he would have known that ‘resistance is futile’!

To be continued...

Ancient UFOs: Methuselah Takes A Trip

UFOs aren’t anything new. In fact, if my premise is correct, that the polytheistic gods (including the monotheistic God) were not deities but extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) then their aerial and sometimes fiery chariots so often referred to in mythology were nothing but shuttlecraft out of their mother-ships or star-ships – what we might now term UFOs. We’re all familiar with the ‘Wheels of Ezekiel’ story, but mythology coughs up several more possibilities, Biblical and otherwise. I’ll continue the ball rolling with the Bible’s old aged pensioners, like Methuselah, all of whom might actually have something to do with UFOs.   

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; but some, like that of Methuselah’s old age run so against the grain as to be laughable. But perhaps, just perhaps, one can come up with a plausible scenario to account for these Biblical super pensioners. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the tale of Methuselah (and others) living to a really, really ripe old age, modern day experiences strongly suggest the point, a point that you know and I know, that biology gives the thumbs down to any such longevity. So, what do we make of this tale?

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

One of the many anomalies part and parcel of Biblical texts are those “Book of Genesis” genealogies that inform us that various characters in the Bible apparently spend way more time in retirement and collecting pensions and other old age social security benefits than they ever did gainfully employed. Methuselah is often the person cited as king of the pensioners. The question is, are those Biblical old ages fact or fiction? If factual, what are the possible explanations?

I’d normally sooner trust a card shark, used car salesman, even a politician before I’d trust any of those Biblical tall tales. However, there’s always the ‘what if’ game, as in ‘what if’ this particular Biblical tall tale is really true. ‘This’ in this case is the ripe old ages of a few of the Old Testament characters. Where does that lead us?

The following Biblical characters and their ages at death are listed on Wikipedia, but since there are several versions of the genealogies in the Old Testament (Genesis) the ages don’t always agree. Regardless, relative to you or me, these fine Biblical folk are up there getting their pensions and other senior citizen benefits and have been for quite some considerable time assuming they retired at 65. If you’re getting close to your ‘use by’ date, don’t you wish you had been born a Methuselah?

Methuselah = 969 (or 720) years.

Jared = 962 (or 847) years.

Noah = 950 years.

Adam = 930 years.

Seth = 912 years.

Cainan or Kenan (pre flood) = 910 years.

Enos or Enosh = 905 years.

Mahalaleel = 895 years.

Lamech = 777 (or 753 or 653) years.

Shem = 600 years.

Arphaxad = 535 (or 438) years.

Eber = 464 (or 404) years.

Cainan (post flood) = 460 years.

Salah = 460 (or 433) years.

Enoch = 365* years.

Peleg = 339 (or 239) years.

Reu = 339 (or 239) years.

Serug = 330 (or 230) years.

Nahor = 304 (or 148) years.

Terah = 275+ (or 205) years.

Abraham = 175 years.

Oldest human verified = 122 years.

Reasonable life expectancy = 80+ years.

While there’s no theoretical reason(s) for a human to die after X number of years, 969 is pushing that envelop a bit even if you did have all the right stuff, inherited good genes, didn’t smoke or drink, ate your vegetables (and an apple a day), got eight hours of sleep and some reasonable exercise every day, avoided stress and all those other sorts of things your quack general practitioner keeps on telling you to do.

One now needs to ask to what purpose were these select few individuals given, in most cases, 900+ years instead of three score and ten. I mean that’s just not a little bit of difference from the norm, it’s a massive difference. Further, these Biblical pensioners aren’t of the ‘over-the-hill-and-off-the-pill’ set. That is to say, if you want to live to a really ripe old Biblical age, it’s better to have been born a male (which somehow runs counter to expectations today where females tend to live to collect more pension checks than males).

The Bible itself apparently offers no explanation for these extraordinary life-spans. Therefore, we have open slather when it comes to speculations upon the explanations.

The most probable explanation is that it’s pure Biblical fiction, just more myths and fairy tales for grown-ups, but then if that’s true this essay terminates now. So, indulge my fantasy as I play the ‘what if’ game, as in ‘what if’ a lifespan of 969 was achieved. How and why and what sorts of implications are now gist for the fun-and-games mill that can be speculated on till the cows come home. 

One thing I rule out is more time to be fruitful and multiply. Any normal male over any normal lifespan could potentially father hundreds upon hundreds of offspring. You don’t need a 900+ year lifespan. Re-enforcing this are the observations by the Gershwin brothers in their “Porgy and Bess” song that no gal is going to give in and spread her legs for no man who’s 900 years old!

Now I have speculated elsewhere at long length that God isn’t really a deity, but an extraterrestrial, a Captain of the Starship Heaven. Further, God, and his extraterrestrial colleagues from other starships, the polytheistic ‘gods’, came to Earth with technological powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men (and women), and experimented with mammalian primate stock, ultimately producing, via artificial selection, the human being (which really was a very bad mistake, but that’s another topic).

Now perhaps these Biblical long-lifers were really aliens themselves, aliens with naturally long life-spans, part of Captain God’s Starship Heaven crew who did a lot of the be-fruitful-and-multiply begetting bit (some of those ‘sons of God’ chatting up some of those ‘daughters of men’ scenarios that the Bible relates) designed to improve the stock of the terrestrial species known as Homo sapiens..

Or perhaps this gift of extensive longevity is yet another case of God and/or the polytheistic gods doing a bit of bio-tampering via bioengineering, medical technology, and/or genetic engineering on actual humans – some of God’s chosen ones.  So perhaps if our old-timers were human through-and-through, then you have really got to conclude that clearly, some advanced bio or genetic or medical technology/engineering was employed, and by elimination, the only beings capable of employing such technologies would be aliens, aliens who to humans living way back around the time of the mythological flood were considered deities.

So assuming Methuselah and the rest of the super-pensioners listed above were genetically or medically augmented with all those additional years, what’s the point?

One reason for a long lifespan is if you need to take a long journey. Now that rules out Planet Earth since a normal human lifespan is long enough for you to get from Point A to Point B, even before the invention of the automobile and the airplane, especially given the rather limited geography that was known in Biblical times.

The only journeys that make sense in Methuselah terms would be a journey to the stars, where say Captain God (the E.T.) and crew of the Starship Heaven originally came from – call it a sightseeing tour for God’s chosen few. 

Today, modern humanity with its advanced high-tech civilization can’t manage to get to even the nearest of stellar neighbours. Our spacecraft are too slow; our life-spans too short. But how far could you get if you lived to be over 900 years and had an advanced extraterrestrial’s technology to transport you?

Now when it comes to interstellar distances, things are measured in light-years. One light year is the distance light travels in one year. The speed of light is roughly 186,000 miles per second; a light-year is some 6 trillion miles.

If you could travel at 1% light speed, you’d travel one light-year per every 100 years. So, if you lived somewhat beyond 900 years, you could make it out to roughly 9 light-years one-way, or 4.5 light-years roundtrip. That would bring you to our nearest stellar neighbour, the Alpha Centauri system, and back home again within your 900+ year allotment.

If you celebrated over 900 birthdays, and if you could travel at 10% light speed, you’d travel one light-year every 10 years. So, you could make it out to roughly 90 light-years one-way or 45 light-years if you wanted to touch ground on home turf again before you snuffed it. A radius of 45 light years brings you to distances that incorporate a fair few stars and star systems, some of which are quite Sun-like and prime candidates for hosting some form of alien life.

But if you could travel at close to light speed and taking into account special relativity, you’d boldly go outward bound at a little less than one light-year per year. The catch here is ‘special relativity’. It operates in your favour if you want to explore strange new worlds, etc. very far from home.

So, another possible explanation is that Methuselah (and the others) actually lived normal human life-spans but their interstellar journeys were at such velocities, close to light-speed, that Einstein’s special relativity came into play. The upshot is, the faster you travel, the slower you age. And thus, the case of the ‘twin paradox’ where the stay-at-home twin ages normally (one second per second; one year per orbit around the Sun) according to our norms, but the boldly going traveller, rocketing along near light speed twin, ages way more slowly. Thus, when the boldly going twin returns home and reunites with stay-at-home twin, there will now be vast differences in their ages. Stay-at-home twin has grown a lot older relative to boldly going twin. In fact, stay-at-home twin might have already snuffed it, dying of natural causes – old age – before a reunion happens.

So if Methuselah was boldly going, he might return home to a home now hundreds of years post his terrestrial date-of-birth, but to stay-at-home types, knowing nothing of special relativity, Methuselah would a super-pensioner, having obviously spanned those hundreds of years. Those stay-at-home bodies would record Methuselah lived to a super ultra ripe old age when in reality he aged normally and had a normal life span – no bio, genetic or medical technology/engineering, just special relativity physics.

 

And so in conclusion, Methuselah’s age and those of his super ultra pensioner kind, can be accounted for by 1) assuming the story is total rubbish (and if you were a betting person, that’s the way to bet); 2) they were aliens with naturally lengthy life-spans; 3) they were humans who were artificially augmented by various technological means to keep those grey hairs and wrinkles at bay for hundreds of years; or 4) they had normal terrestrial life-spans, the sort that you or I expect, but they were subjected to the weird physics associated with the Special Theory of Relativity.

So, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows a whole lot of men to live multi-hundreds of years; 2) There were no such persons and no such longevity, rather the author of Genesis was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the violation of basic biology was only apparent and had to have been something else.  

P.S. The moral to these stories is that once you reject the literal interpretation of any one of the Biblical tall tales (The Brothers Grimm should have written so many), like Methuselah, then you have to question the literal aspects of all the texts; every Biblical book, chapter and verse.

*Enoch didn’t come back from his interstellar sightseeing excursion to die a peaceful and natural death back on Terra Firma. Apparently was whisked away from his terrestrial abode by God for reason(s) unknown – raptured, abducted, died on the voyage, joined the crew, whatever – and so we don’t really know when Enoch snuffed it.

Ancient UFOs: Joshua and Celestial Physics

UFOs aren’t anything new. In fact, if my premise is correct, that the polytheistic gods (including the monotheistic God) were not deities but extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) then their aerial and sometimes fiery chariots so often referred to in mythology were nothing but shuttlecraft out of their mother-ships or star-ships – what we might now term UFOs. We’re all familiar with the ‘Wheels of Ezekiel’ story, but mythology coughs up several more possibilities, Biblical and otherwise. I’ll continue the ball rolling with the so-called story of ‘Joshua and Celestial Physics’ which might actually have something to do with UFOs.   

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; many aren’t, like Jonah and the whale or large fish, and some, like Joshua at Gibeon (Gideon) violate so many laws of physics that no sci-fi authors in their right minds would perpetrate such nonsense on their reading public. 

 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the tale of Joshua asking God to make the Sun and Moon brake suddenly, you know and I know that celestial physics gives the thumbs down to any such actions. So, what do we make of this tale?

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

We have the tale of Joshua, a relatively minor figure in the Bible, a sort of sidekick apprentice to Moses during all those Exodus bits, at least until he gets his very own Biblical book, the “Book of Joshua” (how original). He was a sort of Biblical James Bond and military officer who commanded the Israelites in the destruction of many places, like Canaan and Jericho. But it was at Gibeon (Gideon) that everlasting historical fame, if not fortune, awaited Joshua, for at Gibeon he asked God to cause the Sun and the Moon to stand still, so that he could finish his battle, a battle on behalf of God, in daylight.

The exact quote from the King James Version is:

Joshua: 10: 12 – “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

Joshua: 10: 13 - “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.”

Now the first and minor objection is that if the Moon and the Sun are in the sky at the same time, the additional lighting the Moon provides is so marginal that the average person wouldn’t even notice it. The Full Moon, when you get maximum illumination from the lunar orb, only rises at about the same time the Sun is setting; setting when the Sun is rising in the east. As long as the Sun was up and shining, Joshua had all the light he needed.

Now the second and major objection is that in order to get the Sun to stand still – hover in the sky – Planet Earth has got to stop rotating on its axis. God would have had to cause the Earth to brake very suddenly. Now, what happens if you’re driving along at a rapid rate of miles per hour and all of a sudden have to apply the brakes full force? Well anything not tied down inside the car is going to keep on travelling in a forward direction. Apply that principle to the Earth, which is rotating a hell of a lot faster than any family car, and anything not tied down, like you, will go shooting off into space! So, the Sun standing still in the sky would result in the Mother of all Disasters down here on not so terra-firma. Since that didn’t happen, the Joshua story is another example of Biblical bovine fertilizer.

Now the third and also a major objection is that since the Moon goes around the Earth, stopping just the Earth’s rotation wouldn’t stop the Moon from travelling across the sky. God would have had to stop the Moon dead still in its orbit. But that adds the complication that the gravitational attraction between Earth and Moon would then cause the Moon to start dropping like the proverbial stone – right towards target Earth (actually the Earth would also head towards the Moon as well; each celestial object gravitationally attracting the other). It’s only because the Earth orbits the Sun that prevents us from colliding with it; ditto the Moon orbiting the Earth in constant motion results in no lunar-terra collision. Of course God also needed to freeze the Earth’s rotation since that too would cause the Moon to move in the sky from east to west.

Now what sort of natural or even unnatural but closer-to-home terrestrial objects might substitute for a stationary Sun and Moon? Well, nothing really comes to mind. Since there were no helicopters, flares, blimps or balloons, or spotlights back then, and no other natural source of light, say ball lightning, stands still, then we’re left with either a total fabrication or something extraterrestrial. 

So the only escape clause as I see it, apart from the observation that the tale is pure fiction, is that the objects weren’t the Sun and the Moon at all, but UFOs under Captain God’s command. Brightly glowing UFOs could hover overhead, for as long as this was required, providing the illumination required for Joshua to complete his military rape and pillage, which of course God gave His stamp of approval to.

So, in conclusion, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows Joshua to strut his military stuff in everlasting daylight due to a stationary Sun and Moon; 2) There was no such person and no such military event and the Sun and Moon didn’t violate celestial physics, rather the author of the Book of Joshua was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the violation of celestial physics was only apparent and had to have been something else.  

P.S. The moral to these stories is that once you reject the literal interpretation of any one of the Biblical tall tales (The Brothers Grimm should have written so many), like Joshua, then you have to question the literal aspects of all the texts; every Biblical book, chapter and verse.

Ancient UFOs: Jonah and the UFO

UFOs aren’t anything new. In fact, if my premise is correct, that the polytheistic gods (including the monotheistic God) were not deities but extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) then their aerial and sometimes fiery chariots so often referred to in mythology were nothing but shuttlecraft out of their mother-ships or star-ships – what we might now term UFOs. We’re all familiar with the ‘wheels of Ezekiel’ story, but mythology coughs up several more possibilities, Biblical and otherwise. I’ll continue the ball rolling with the so-called story of ‘Jonah in the Whale’ (i.e. UFO). 

Ah, the Bible! The Bible is an endless source of inspiration. Inspiration that is for trying to figure out how to deal with the idiocies contained within. Some tales are plausible like David and Goliath; many aren’t, like Jonah and the whale or large fish. 

It never ceases to amaze me that an awful lot of people take every word in the Bible literally. I consider that a very poor reflection on the human intellect and the ability to think logically. To believe the Bible as literal truth today is now akin to believing that the Earth is flat and that the Sun goes around it. Once upon a time it might have been understandable, but those days are long gone. 

Despite a large percentage of people taking a literal interpretation of all things Biblical, including the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ of a tale, now you know, and I know since we can think for ourselves, that while it might be theoretically possible for a very large fish, or some whales (like the sperm whale) to swallow you alive and whole (thus avoid biting you in half in the process), it’s unlikely in the extreme because no marine creature currently known exhibits that sort of feeding behaviour. Large fish or toothed whales have teeth for a reason, and humans are fairly large prey – we’re not minnows. Other very large fish like the whale shark (an endangered species that needs your help) don’t have teeth the shark in “Jaws” would have been proud to display, rather they are filter feeders. Filter feeders include the very large baleen whale – but it couldn’t swallow you without choking to death. So, you’re gonna be bitten and chewed first before being swallowed. Further, you’re not going to survive in their stomach for very long – minutes at most in all likelihood. If you don’t drown first, the lack of oxygen will soon do you in or the digestive acids will soon turn you into digestible fish food. So the ‘Jonah and the Whale’ story is rubbish, unless the whale were really a submarine that was embellished and given flesh-and-blood in order to provide the narrator and reader with something in a more familiar context. But then there weren’t no subs back then were there?

So the story of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ (or large fish) is in all likelihood just another of the numerous Biblical tall tales. It can not be a literal event. However, let’s play that ‘what if’ game again.

I interrupt the story here to point out that 1) behind all mythology, including Biblical mythology lurks a tiny grain of historical truth and that 2) God isn’t a supernatural deity but just one of many extraterrestrials who have arrived on Earth eons before and have divided jurisdiction over various terrestrial geographical areas among themselves. God’s patch of turf to oversee and govern of course is what we now call the Middle East. The logic behind that is too long and complicated to go into again; I’ve done that previously. Let’s just say if you believe in God then you actually believe in extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence and ‘ancient astronauts’. 

Now if I get the story right, God (the E.T.) sends Jonah on an errand. Jonah doesn’t want a bar of this and heads off in the opposite direction that involves a sea journey*. God ain’t amused at mutiny and so causes this storm at sea, which makes the sailors very unhappy indeed. The sailors, a superstitious lot, make Jonah walk-the-plank or otherwise heave Jonah overboard, actually at Jonah’s own suicidal suggestion. Now that throws a monkey wrench in God’s plans. God therefore had better save his errand boy from drowning and so Jonah is rescued by one of Captain God’s Starship Heaven’s shuttlecraft, or a UFO. But, Jonah gets punished with a three day and night solitary confinement prison sentence for his disobedience, locked away inside this so-called ‘fish’. But, Jonah, inside the belly of the ‘beast’ is eventually released (regurgitated) unharmed, repents and is able to complete his mission for Captain God. A happy ending!

Now Jonah, being a rather typical Biblical character, unsophisticated in the ways of high technology (and you can’t blame him for that – you couldn’t exactly enrol for a Ph.D. in engineering way back then) found himself floundering in the ocean one moment, then locked inside something strange for three days and nights before being deposited on dry land. The only logical explanation to such a Biblical lad lacking an engineering Ph.D. was the whale/large fish alternative. In fact to his mind, there was no alternative – that had to have been the only possible explanation.

Now Jonah wouldn’t of necessity have to have actually seen the aliens piloting the UFO shuttlecraft sent by God (the E.T.) that rescued him from certain death.

So, in conclusion, here are your options: 1) Supernatural God works a miracle and allows Jonah to get swallowed alive by a large marine creature and live to tell the tale after surviving a lack of oxygen and digestive acids for three days and nights; 2) There was no such person and no such marine creature, rather the author of the Jonah tale was on some sort of Biblical-era LSD – the option any sane betting person would take; 3) the story has some sort of foundation, in which case the ‘fish’ had to have been something technological complete with oxygen supply and no digestive juices.  

*Obviously Jonah didn’t perceive God as all-knowing and all-powerful, otherwise he would have known that ‘resistance is futile’!