March 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Are UFOs hidden in the Bible's ancient pages? Tim and Sam tackle this fascinating intersection of modern UFO phenomena and biblical interpretation, exploring why some see alien encounters in passages like Ezekiel's "wheel within a wheel" vision, Jacob's ladder, or the pillar of fire that led the Israelites.
The discussion moves beyond sensationalism to examine the fundamental challenges of reading modern concepts back into ancient texts. Tim explains how these approaches strip away the rich theological context that gives biblical visions their true meaning. For instance, what modern interpreters see as a spacecraft in Ezekiel's vision was actually a royal chariot symbolizing God's sovereignty during Israel's exile—something immediately recognizable to ancient readers.
We dive into the concept of "Remixed Religions"—how people today create personalized belief systems by combining elements from various traditions, often incorporating UFO phenomena into spiritual frameworks. The hosts consider historical accounts of strange aerial phenomena documented throughout human history, while cautioning against interpreting these events through our science fiction-influenced perspective.
This episode offers a thoughtful balance for believers—neither dismissing all unexplained phenomena outright nor becoming fixated on them at the expense of spiritual growth. Instead, we're invited to consider how our worldviews shape our interpretation of reality and to approach ancient texts with the humility to let them speak on their own terms.
Curious about the spiritual dimensions of UFO phenomena? Join us next episode as we explore UFO religiosity and what might really be happening when people report these strange encounters.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, everyone, welcome back to the Second Theo
podcast, Sam and Tim here, andwe have been busy.
This has been a busy season forTim and I, but we are pushing
through getting these episodesout and we have a really
interesting topic today, onethat I think you're going to
enjoy.
It's kind of like a two-partseries and Tim is going to
(00:23):
illuminate our minds with thisvery interesting topic.
It's been a topic of discussionas of late and, yeah, we're
excited for you guys to tuneinto this and, as always, we
want to encourage you guys tofollow us on Instagram that is,
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(00:45):
Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
If you can leave a review,that's so helpful.
We enjoy reading what you guyshave to say about the podcast
and also when those of you guyswho are listening just see us,
whether it be on campus, or wantto reach out and just kind of
give us your thoughts on futureepisodes.
We have a couple of topics thatwere suggested and we're working
(01:06):
on that now, so hopefully youguys enjoyed today's topic.
So, tim, today we're talkingabout UFOs, and the Bible is
something that I thought wewould probably never talk about.
At least for my part, I neverreally been interested in the
paranormal.
This was part of the intrigue.
(01:27):
As you brought up the topic,I'm like, huh, okay, so I think
I'm going to have some questionsthat will come up as we have
our conversation.
But you've been reading a lotof books and this has been
something I guess I don't knowif it's been trending, but
definitely a topic that you'vehad with a couple of people, I'm
assuming.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, it's definitely a topic that you've had with a
couple of people, I'm assuming.
Yeah, it's definitely a topicthat's trending and this is
really a space that I'm verymuch interested in not from a
standpoint of I'm a tinfoil hatconspiracy theorist, but I'm
very interested in the emergingnew religions of the world.
There's a term Tara Burton isthe researcher who coined this
(02:05):
term.
It's from her book StrangeRites, r-i-t-e-s.
She coined this term RemixedReligions and it's essentially
this new trend of people mixingand matching different concepts
from different religions to maketheir own worldview.
Essentially and if it soundscrazy, that's because it is,
(02:25):
because it doesn't have to makesense, it doesn't have to be
coherent, it's just peoplemixing and matching things.
I mean there's religionsforming around Harry Potter, for
instance, and she goes intothat Actual established
religions.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Think of them more like Like Scientology stuff,
like that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
No, not that established.
Think of them more like onlinecommunities.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay which I stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
no, not that established.
Think of them more like onlinecommunities okay, which I can
see, sort of that, that nature.
In fact she she says that theinternet has been the catalyst
for a lot of this stuff.
Yeah, of people forming firstthis online community that
morphs into a, a religion likeentity.
You know, with the ufo, spaceand aliens and all that stuff,
there's been a lot of stuffcoming out, a lot of disclosure
(03:06):
stuff from the government, butthe interest in UFOs and aliens
and all that stuff has reallyticked up a lot.
With it comes questions aboutworldview, questions about does
Christianity have room foraliens and extraterrestrials in
the Christian worldview?
Would that change things aboutChristianity if tomorrow, et
(03:29):
showed up and said I'm fromanother planet and I'm a
rational agent just like youguys?
What do we make of stuff likethat?
So there's lots of thosequestions coming out.
I think with the advent of theinternet, social media and
everyone's got a camera, there'smore and more weird things
being captured, weird phenomenonbeing captured.
(03:49):
So it's not just hearsay.
There's real video evidence ofquote unquote paranormal things
happening.
That's not fake.
Certainly there are fake things, yeah, but there's things that
are unexplained or that at leastdon't fit within, like a
naturalistic paradigm where youcan't explain this through the
laws of physics and so demands afurther explanation or an
(04:13):
explanation from a differentworldview.
All right, so where do you wantto begin?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
As always, let's go ahead and define our terms.
I know we're talking about UFOsand maybe what the Bible
teaches on that or what theBible perspective is on that.
Let's start there.
Ufos I don't know if aliens canbe part of this one, but maybe
what that even means.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So the UFO.
The term stands forunidentified flying object.
That term has sort of fallenout of parlance in the modern
vernacular and has been replacedwith another term called UAP
and that stands for unidentifiedaerial phenomenon okay, okay so
(04:54):
you can see the differencethere.
A UFO is an object that's flyingand it's unidentified, but a
UAP is an unidentified aerialphenomenon, so it doesn't
necessarily mean it's an object.
It could just be light sourceor something like that.
So you'll hear people nowadayssay UFO, uap together.
Okay, yeah, so I think when itcomes to this issue of are UFOs
(05:16):
real, are aliens real?
There's lots of questions wecould start with, but I think
(05:37):
when it comes to our UFOs in the.
Bible.
We've been forced to answerthat question by the modern
culture, by contemporary popculture, especially with shows
like Ancient Aliens, and readinto the scriptures, or at least
to take a second look atstories in the Bible through the
(05:57):
lens of the UFO worldview,worldview which is to say,
looking at accounts in the Biblethat are described as being
miraculous, described as beingdivine encounters of some sort,
divine visions, and seeing thoseas not as supernatural divine
visions, but actually as alienencounters.
(06:19):
That's what we're dealing withhere.
So when someone asks thequestion, are UFOs in the Bible?
Or they say, did you know UFOsare in the Bible.
This is what is happening isthat they're reading the Bible
through this modern lens.
So the most famous example isEzekiel.
Ezekiel has a vision of a wheelwithin a wheel.
Don't have time to read thesepassages because they're quite
(06:40):
lengthy, but this is Ezekiel,chapter one, I believe, where
Ezekiel basically has thisvision.
Now, those of you don'tunderstand ezekiel is an exilic
prophet.
He's not one of the minorprophets, he's a major prophet,
let's say, and he's part of thecommunity that is exiled out of
jerusalem.
So he finds himself incaptivity with the babylonians
(07:02):
and he has this vision.
He sees this incredible,glorious, like angelic figures,
and then he sees what hedescribes as like this vehicle
of some sort and it has likewheels and there's wheels within
wheels.
He's talking about lightsaround these wheels and there's
eyes everywhere and it soundskind of crazy, like wow, like,
what kind of creature does hesee?
(07:24):
And people have have in themodern era read this through the
lens of a flying saucer.
And so they say, if you readthis through a flying saucer
lens, like you see, maybe thisis a flying saucer.
Then it starts to make sensebecause you have a wheel that's
a saucer, maybe a wheel within awheel.
So maybe there's likeconcentric circles to this
saucer and and it said, it haseyes all around that could just
(07:47):
be lights all around the ring ofthis UFO.
So Ezekiel doesn't really knowwhat he's seeing, he's just
describing it in terms that heunderstands, but it's really
probably a UFO.
That's how this argument goes.
Interesting Another examplewould be the pillar of fire and
the pillar of cloud that theIsraelites are led by in the
(08:08):
wilderness out of Egypt.
That it was really an alienpresence that was leading them
in some sort.
There's nothing to go on exceptspeculation there.
Another interesting one isJacob's ladder, that's Genesis
28.
Jacob has this vision where hesays he sees this stairway up to
heaven and the angels areascending and descending on this
(08:30):
stairway.
Jesus later alludes to thisimage and says that I'm
basically that stairway on theway to heaven.
But what Jacob sees hedescribes it as a stairway or
something like that and theseangelic beings going down and up
on this thing and people haveread that as that.
Jacob doesn't understand whathe's seeing.
(08:52):
He thinks it's like a vision ofheaven, but it's really
probably a UFO spaceship of somesort and there's beings, alien
beings that look like angels,coming down and going up into
the spaceship or something likethat.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
But see, that's so interesting because you've
alluded to that fact of ifthat's your worldview or that's
the lens that you're using.
You're going to see that, but Iwould have never, ever thought
that.
But again, that goes back towhat is a person, what's the
lens that a person is using tointerpret these passages, which
I'm sure you'll get into.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, you know, there's some other examples we
could get into, like Paul'svision and the book of Acts,
where he encounters Christ onthe road to Damascus, and the
way it's described is that Paulsees the light and he hears a
voice, but the people around himonly see a light, they don't
hear a voice, so they don't knowwhat's going on.
That's right, yeah, and paul isblinded temporarily by this
(09:48):
thing and modern ufologists willsay see, this matches the
descriptions of a ufo encountera bright light, hearing noises
or telepathic speech and beingtemporarily wounded.
Sometimes people are woundedwhen they encounter UFOs and
that's actually a really strangephenomenon with UFO instances.
There are things like thatwhich in the next episode we'll
(10:10):
get into some of the religiosityside of UFOs.
But one more would be Isaiah'svision in Isaiah six, where
Isaiah sees the throne of God.
He was in the temple and hesees the throne of God, the
majesty of God and these angelsaround the throne and he's just
completely undone by this.
And again an angel picks up ahot coal and touches his lips
(10:32):
and things like that.
So people say, look, isaiah isputting theological language on
this, but it really matches someUFO encounters.
It's still some of the similaraspects to how people describe
UFO encounters today.
What I've laid out for you isessentially what Ancient Aliens
does the show.
They would look at thesepassages, like the Ark of the
Covenant that has a coupleartifacts inside the Ark of the
(10:56):
Covenant, and if anyone touchesthe Ark of the Covenant they die
.
And so they were like well,maybe the Ark of the Covenant
held some radioactive materialthat was given to them by the
aliens that was leading themthrough the pillar of cloud and
fire.
What do we make of this?
Well, for one, there's a majorproblem here, and that is that
these readings are anachronistic.
(11:19):
The term anachronism means thatyou're reading your
contemporary understanding andworldview into the worldview of
an ancient text, and that's abig problem.
Is it similar to eisegesis.
It's a form of eisegesis.
Eisegesis is like a bigumbrella term for these types of
things.
But essentially you're takingyour understanding, your modern
(11:42):
understanding, and you'rereading that understanding into
the text and, furthermore, it'snot allowing the text to speak
for itself.
Yeah, so it really isessentially saying that, no,
these ancient authors aren'tallowed to say what they mean or
what they said isn't reallywhat is true.
Like they're not allowed toactually say things as they are.
(12:04):
We have to now reinterpret whatthey true.
Like they're not allowed toactually say things as they are.
We have to now reinterpret whatthey say so that the texts
aren't allowed to speak forthemselves.
Instead, you know, we'reassuming or at least this
worldview is assuming that ourbeliefs and the modern age, this
belief in extraterrestrials,this belief in aliens and
spaceships and sci-fi, like thatworldview, is more credible and
(12:25):
, quote-unquote, scientific thanthe religious worldview of
ancient people.
That's an assumption.
It's like, yeah, our world, weknow so much more about the
world.
Ancients weren't that smart.
We know, we understand so muchmore about aerial phenomenon and
flying and spaceships and allthat.
They couldn't understand thosethings and so we're going to
read our modern understandingback into this text, I think
(12:49):
it's a big problem because andwe can get into this in the next
episode when it comes toworldviews and religiosity and
what might really be going onhere is that if I assume the
christian worldview is true andthat what's really going on with
aliens isn't actuallyextraterrestrials but it's
spiritual in nature, then whatthe ancient texts are describing
(13:11):
actually may be what they sawand that there wasn't flying
saucers, because that that mightbe a modern phenomenon put
forward by deceptive entities todeceive a modern age.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And that's how I mean , that's how it works all the
time right Like the more itsounds like with time and we
have supposedly moreunderstanding of something, we
try to use that newunderstanding to interpret past
events right, and especiallywhen it comes to scripture.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, yeah, and that's always a problem like
another.
Another problem, I see, is whenit comes to, like the story of
david and goliath.
Here's an example as an asidethe story of david and goliath,
explaining how goliath was, whohe was, as a as this reportedly
nine foot tall giant with armorthat weighed hundreds of pounds,
(14:06):
too heavy for a regular man tocarry.
How could someone like thatexist, like physically?
That doesn't seem possible.
Well, people explain that oneof two ways.
Well, one he may not have beenthat tall and that too.
Well, he might have had thisgenetic deformity or genetic
malformity called gigantism ormake someone really tall, and
(14:27):
they got six fingers and sixtoes and they're really deformed
.
The problem with that and I seeI hear christians say that a
lot too the problem with that isthat people with gigantism
aren't built like warriors right, right.
Let's just think of that yeah,they're not built like like the
physique of a greek god that cantake on 10 men, you know, and
just kill them all in one swoop.
(14:48):
Right goliath is described asthis mighty warrior who is very
fierce and strikes fear intoeveryone.
Well, people with gigantismdon't necessarily do that right
so the passage is not allowingfor us to just read our
scientific understanding of likewhat a medical condition is
into that story.
Goliath.
(15:09):
I like what Hugh Ross says herethat if he really is nine foot
tall and he's built like awarrior, we know from our human
physiology that's not possiblein a naturalistic worldview.
So there must be somethingsupernatural going on there and
that gets into the wholeworldview of where does Goliath
come from, where the giants comefrom, and if you guys want to
(15:31):
know about that you can look atone of our previous episodes
when we get into spiritualwarfare and where demons come
from and all that stuff.
But yeah, that's an example ofwhere we mistakenly read
something back into the tech.
We're reading a modern medicaldiscovery back into the text as
though that explains everythingabout that text.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So another problem with reading like UFOs back into
the Bible is that modern peoplethink that's more respectable,
like that worldview is morerespectable because it fits
within a naturalistic paradigm.
Naturalism meaning that there'snothing outside of nature,
there's no supernatural stuff,there's no gods, there's no
spirits or anything like that.
So what we see in the sky, ifit really isn't fake and there
(16:17):
really are like things in thesky, well then they must be
extraterrestrials, they must befrom another planet where they
must be from some sort of likedifferent place and space and
time from us.
But it all has to fit within anaturalistic paradigm.
So if so, someone will see thisand say well, look, we see this
modern phenomenon that isperfectly compatible with my
(16:40):
naturalistic worldview.
So when I see these ancienttexts, who don't have the same
worldview they have havesupernatural worldviews and we
know that's false.
So we'll just read back intothese texts A naturalistic
explanation, ergo UFOs orsomething like that.
Now, some people will read.
(17:00):
They'll explain these events innaturalistic terms, like no,
they didn't see angels in thesky, they saw ball lightning or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
there's certainly people who do that, who don't go
to the ufo route, but thepeople who use the ufo
explanation tend to do sobecause they are naturalists in
some way sure trying to makethis fit within a naturalistic
paradigm that's interesting,though, because they have to
find, like a balance between thenaturalistic world and then
making sense of this thing thatseems very unnatural or not.
(17:36):
You know, not part of thisearth, like these ufos or these
uae sightings that they have,that seems unnatural.
So I I'm just trying to wrap myhead around.
How do they make sense of that,of those two things?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
yeah, I mean some of them posit that like there's
other dimensions or they're, orlike maybe they these, these are
highly advanced species thathave figured out all kinds of
different travel andanti-gravitational and stealth
cloaking and all these otherthings.
Like you can posit all kinds ofthings that this advanced
(18:09):
species is able to do that looksmagical to us but might be
perfectly reasonable once weunderstand it physically.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, and so just a quick question on the on the
visions of these that theseprophets had.
How do you determine whetherit's something that they saw or
if it was an actual vision thatno one else was able to identify
Meaning?
Are you saying that both thevision and what they saw are
(18:40):
real or are you saying that itwas like a dream type of vision
in their mind?
Because just thinkingpsychologically here, for people
who are exposed themselves, forexample, to movies that are
satanic or movies that are aboutextraterrestrials or anything
like that like they'd be moreprone to believe news like that
(19:01):
Bigfoot right, for examplethey'd be more prone to believe
that if that's what they'reconsuming, content wise.
So I guess I could kind of makethat explanation for modern day
today.
But in bible times, how do youdistinguish between it's
something that they actually sawor if it was a vision?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
well, I think the context is going to determine
that sometimes prophetic visionsare simply that their visions.
Okay, like that someone, it'slike a dream state or something
that only the prophet sees.
Other times it's, it's like a.
It's not just a vision, it's amurder, it's a miracle or an
appearance where other peoplesee it as well.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Maybe here's an example I can't remember the
passage cause I'm thinking ofthis off the top of my head but
Elisha the prophet is with hisservant and there's an army that
comes to surround the city foran army, and they're.
They're here to destroy thecity and they want elisha, the
prophet of god, they want totake him back because he's they
don't like him and his servant'sreally worried.
(20:02):
And so he tells the servant gooutside and look and see what
you see.
And then and elijah prays togod, open his eyes so that he
may see.
When the prophet's servant goesout, looks over the hillside,
what he sees is an army ofchariots of fire.
He sees the army of theheavenly hosts that are there to
(20:23):
defend the city against thisforeign army.
So that's something that thisservant is allowed.
That's actually there, but theservant is allowed to see it,
prior to which he wasn't able tosee it, but Elijah asked that
the Lord would allow him to seethat.
So that's something where it's,it's there, but you can't see
it in most cases.
(20:43):
Something like Isaiah's visionin Isaiah six.
That seems to be a vision.
It's Isaiah is allowed to seesomething.
Something like Isaiah's visionin Isaiah 6, that seems to be a
vision.
It's Isaiah is allowed to seesomething.
He gets an appearance of thethrone of God and what it's like
around the throne of God.
And this gets to my secondpoint.
The second problem with the UFOreadings of scripture is that
they almost always neglect thetheological argument that's
(21:07):
being made by these passages.
They just thrust that aside andthey just read into it that
this was a UFO.
They ignore the theologicalcontext in which these visions
are described.
If you just rip these storiesout of their context and imagine
like you're reading a newspaperand it's like Isaiah went to
Jerusalem and Jeremiah well,he's locked in a pit here.
(21:29):
And Ezekiel said he sawsomething strange.
We don't know what that's about, but let's move on.
And it's just like randomfactoid stories.
You might think, oh, okay,that's kind of weird.
But no, this vision thatEzekiel has is the start of the
book and it is setting up thebook of Ezekiel, the prophecies
(21:49):
that he gives and the point ofthe point of that vision.
So let's just get back toEzekiel's, where this wheel we
often a wheel is described inthe eyes everywhere and all that
what Ezekiel is describing is aRoyal chariot.
Michael Heiser has he's abiblical scholar, he has a great
article on this If you justGoogle Michael Heiser, ezekiel's
(22:11):
chariot or Ezekiel's wheel, andhe has several articles and I
think he has got some podcastepisodes on this where he
basically explains why Ezekiel'swheel is not a UFO and he goes
into great detail about how thisis a royal chariot that Yahweh,
the God of Israel, is riding,as a king would ride his chariot
(22:33):
into battle.
And it's meant as a polemicagainst the Babylonians who have
just captured Jerusalem andthink that they're in charge and
their gods are in charge, thatMarduk is in charge and that
Yahweh is dead and he's nowhere.
This vision is a polemicagainst that, saying that no,
god is still in control.
(22:54):
God is the one who is allpowerful and no matter what army
or no matter what empire thinksthat it's in control.
You're not, god's in control.
Same thing with Isaiah's visionin Isaiah 6.
It's the year that Uzziah dies,the king, and there's a lot of
chaos, there's a lot ofuncertainty and Isaiah sees this
(23:16):
vision of God on his throne,he's in control.
He's still the one who sets upempires and kingdoms and
appoints kings and disposes ofthem.
He's the one that's in control.
So that's the theologicalmessaging jacob's ladder.
You know, jacob sees thisvision.
People think, oh well, it's aflying saucer and guys going up
(23:39):
and down on the saucer.
No notice that jacob?
Jacob is describing thisstairway that goes up and down
to heaven, and if you understandthe ancient Mesopotamian
worldview, these stairways wereconnected to ziggurats.
So a ziggurat is like a pyramidtype structure with stairs on
(24:00):
all four sides, and at the topof the ziggurat was usually a
temple where they would offersacrifices and they would call
down the gods, and so the godsit was meant to mimic, where the
gods would reside on top ofmountains.
So a ziggurat think of it aslike a temple where the gods
would reside at the top.
(24:20):
And so the stairway going upand down the top of the ziggurat
was the way to go up and downto God, was the way to go up and
down to God.
Okay, so it would make sensefor Jacob to see angels going up
and down this stairway.
What he's describing, how anancient Mesopotamian would
(24:41):
understand that, as Jacob seesthis cosmic mountain that
symbolizes the ziggurat, and atthe top of that mountain is God,
it's heaven, and the angels arecoming to and fro from earth to
heaven, back down.
Yeah, that's good, that makessense.
So all that to say, you knowwhen for Christians and I know
we're just really touching onthis very briefly but when you
(25:02):
hear these arguments, whetherthat's on the ancient alien show
, which I don't think is aroundanymore, I don't think it's on
the air ancient alien show,which I don't think is around
anymore, I don't think it's onthe air or you just hear people
talking about it now, becausenow where this conversation has
shifted, it's shifted intopodcasts on youtube and other
places where people are talkingabout there's those ufos in the
bible, there's aliens in thebible, all they're.
They're rehashing the same oldarguments over and over again.
(25:24):
So this has been somethingthat's been ongoing, oh yeah,
for for a long time.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Oh wow, yeah, it's funny how it just kind of
resurges after whatever amountof time.
But yeah, I don't think I'veever heard all these arguments
that so I'm.
I mean, I'm just generallyinterested.
Now to what they're, whatthey're proposing.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think for for believers,if this is how to combat it,
like okay one.
There's a naturalisticworldview that's being assumed
like our modern understanding ismore scientific and more
credible than the views of theancients.
Why would that be the case?
Why should we accept that atall?
Why would we not let thesetexts speak for themselves?
(26:01):
Just because there's similarityin terms of phenomenon doesn't
mean that these ancients sawufos yeah, you know.
secondly, I would say this therethere are here's where these
two views are.
There's some agreement orconcurrence is that there are
historical accounts going backthousands of years of people
(26:22):
seeing strange things in theskies, not just in the bible,
but outside the Bible as well.
There's a Catholic researcherby the name of Jacques Vallée
who's written lots of differentbooks on this subject, and one
book in particular is calledWonders in the Sky, and it's a
study on like hundreds ofaccounts going back thousands of
(26:42):
years of people seeing strangephenomenon in the sky.
So the modern phenomenon ofpeople seeing weird things in
the sky is not new, but ourlanguage around it is new.
The language of ascribing aliensand oh, it's a saucer, it's a
spaceship and all these things.
But I would caution people thatthat's language that we have
(27:03):
assigned to this stuff and partof that is we're not being
perfectly objective in how weuse that language, because we're
influenced by science fictionliterature, we're influenced by
hollywood, we're influenced bymodern technology that we
ourselves have invented.
Yeah, so just because we seethings in the sky that mimic
(27:25):
that stuff doesn't mean that,one, it's it must be advanced
alien tech that we're seeingthat's naturalistic, and two,
that that that is the same aswhat other people have seen in
ages past right, because I'mthinking that there's that
they're what they're describing.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
There's no corroborating evidence that
that's what other people havedescribed, or is there right,
like if someone, if someonedescribes seeing something in
the sky, it's a similarexplanation or similar
description that someone elsehas used.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, and I think what the message that you're
communicating, too, is that wegot to go back to text context,
context, context, right, yeahyeah, yeah, and you know, I
would say this in a worldviewlike ours, where we, we posit
that there are entities that areat least non-material in some
respect, who are nefarious andwho do not have our best
(28:21):
interest at heart, but they havecapabilities to deceive in this
way as well, to deceive in thisway as well, and so a
naturalistic worldview doesn'taccount for that.
A Christian worldview doesaccount for that.
And if we don't have, we can'tjust, like you know, examine a
UFO.
You know, and I know somepeople are going to say like,
well, we got them in area 51,you know, you just gotta go.
(28:43):
Like I'm challenging, I wouldchallenge anyone Like let's just
stick to what we know, not towhat we hear, not to what some
anonymous whistleblower or someguy that is on a YouTube channel
says, just stick to what youknow.
Yeah, so, uh, yeah, but I wouldso.
Jacques Vallee, his book wandersin the sky.
I've not read it, but I've I'vesummaries of it.
(29:09):
It's actually on my readinglist to get to this year.
Another one is called passportto magonia.
That's another book of his.
Magonia is like another wordfor heaven.
I don't know where that comesfrom, but yeah, essentially it's
a book about how people have.
People have started to talkabout ufos in terms of
transcendence and taking us toheaven in some, some respects.
He did a lot of research on ufocults and particularly the
(29:33):
heaven's gate cult, and what'sso fascinating is that jacques
blay did this research in the70s and 80s before and I don't
know I imagine he's probablyupdated his research because
he's still alive.
But the heaven's gate cult ifyou remember, do you remember?
oh, yeah, yeah I remember thatwith the haley bopp comet in the
90s, it was flying over theearth and everyone could see it
(29:54):
and they believed that there wasa spaceship either on the other
side of that comet or within it.
Yeah, it was there to take themhome and so they committed mass
suicide yeah how many peoplewere there, do you remember?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
uh, I don't remember.
I don't remember how many, yeah, but yeah, I do remember that.
Yeah, that was a big deal yeah,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
So jacques valet was doing research on them, okay,
and as a there, as a ufo cult,wow, so they were attributing
things in the sky to aliens andthe aliens were the ones that
were going to take them toheaven.
And so that's what the passportmegonia is about.
Is like that phenomenon comingabout.
Yeah, so I would say this alsothe naturalistic worldview
(30:35):
doesn't explain, can't explainall the, all the accounts that
we see in history.
Here's a.
Here's an interesting one.
This one's always puzzled me,cause I I want to go back and
find the original sources to seeif this is corroborated by more
than one source.
But in 1453, the Ottomans havesurrounded the city of
(30:57):
Constantinople and they're aboutto take the city.
It's a dire straits.
It's like the day or two beforethe city falls, and it is
reported that this bright lightappears over Hagia Sophia, the
cathedral, the big cathedral inConstantinople that today is now
(31:18):
called the Grand Mosque ofIstanbul.
And it's reported that thisbright light appears right over
the top of the dome of thecathedral and the whole of the
cathedral and the whole citysees it, all the armies see it
and it puts this great fear ineveryone and then the light kind
(31:40):
of ascends up and goes away andpeople interpreted that at the
time that either the Lord'spresence was leaving that
cathedral or the angel that wasguarding the city left the city
and basically, like God, theangel that was guarding the city
left the city and basically,like god was kind of abandoning
the city at that point.
It's reported in the historicaldocuments that this has happened
(32:01):
.
So I think it's a reallystrange thing that happens.
Now moderns look at that.
They're like, well, it wasclearly just ball lightning.
Lightning appeared above thecathedral but to my knowledge no
one has ever shown like that.
There's been other instances ofball lighting appearing over
that cathedral and what would bethe odds of that happening
(32:21):
right at that moment, like rightat that time period?
It just seems really strange tome.
Yeah, maybe there's someone outthere that's done the research
I'm not aware of, I'll admit,you know if they've done that
research and you know, yeah,ball lightning appears every
three years, okay, but butthat's an instance where
something really crazy happens.
Yeah, and everyone sees it, butit's really inexplicable yeah,
(32:44):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So how do you feel about, like, knowing what you
know, hearing something likethat, and then is that like,
well, it's not too far-fetchedto to believe, or is it like?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
well, my my, are you asking for my personal opinion?
Yeah, yeah, that was so.
This is pure speculation.
This, I don't know, hear me out, it's just pure speculation.
Yeah, I think it probably wasan angelic appearance of some
sort that at some points theain't like.
I do think there are angelsthat are are given authority to
(33:17):
guard certain things, and Ithink that again, don't people
don't crucify me because, likethis is just speculation it does
seem to me that at least theidea that there was an angel
there that appeared and thenleft, that is certainly
plausible within my worldview.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Sure that there was sort of a sign of like the
city's done, you know, and it'sgoing to be overrun yeah, well,
here's, and here's why I ask foryour, for your, opinion on that
, because I think if there'sanything that I've been learning
through our time together youknow podcasting the episodes
that we've been doing, butspecifically the ones that we've
been doing on the spiritualrealm you've really opened up my
(33:59):
eyes to see that as more of areality, because I think the way
that I grew up, it wasn'tsomething that was talked about
enough like spiritual warfare,like it was used as this kind of
it's battling against sin,which it is.
But I think the reality ofunderstanding that this is
always going on around us andnot bringing an awareness to it
(34:21):
makes you vulnerable in someways.
So that's kind of been my, myperspective, as, as we've been
talking about these things,you've just kind of opened up my
, my world view a little bit,more, to be open to it at least,
right, yeah, because there is aresistance to it, like UFOs.
Why are we even talking aboutthis thing?
Like that would be an initialreaction to that.
But when you integrate howpeople view this in light of the
(34:45):
scriptures and how they viewtoday's worldview into that, it
makes it interesting, it makesyou consider it.
So I just wanted to throw thatout there because, as you're,
even when you shared that, yousaid it falls in line with my
worldview that it could be apossibility, right?
So again it just goes back towhat filter are we using as we
interpret these events?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So it's been helpful for me.
Yeah.
So just as a closing comment, Iwould christians don't don't
dismiss like reports of ufos andthings like that.
Don't just outright dismiss itas like, oh, it's all just a
bunch of hokey stuff.
Um, because I think there, Ithink there is a deeply
spiritual element to what'sgoing on.
Yeah, but also don't buy intoeverything you hear, because
(35:29):
there's certainly this fakestuff all the time.
There's hoaxers, there'smisinformation and
disinformation.
I mean that's one of the morenefarious things in this subject
is that governments are notinterested.
Governments are interested inkeeping secret their, their
weapons and new tech and thingslike that.
So they like, if they think, oh, people are getting a little
too close to figuring out whatwe're doing, they are more than
(35:52):
happy to introduce false storiesand fake whistleblowers and
things like that to just furtherconfuse the conversation.
And we'll get into that in thenext episode with some of the
research that's been done by awoman by the name of Catherine
Prusolka.
She goes into this a little bittoo how this whole subject is a
morass of misinformation anddisinformation.
(36:13):
So it's really hard to knowwhat's true and what's not, and
I think that in and of itselfshould clue Christians into this
is not a harmless subject,because there are people who are
very much interested in nothaving the truth discovered.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Right, right, it almost seems like the new shiny
object that's being discussed inChristian circles, where it
makes it appealing and it's veryeasy to just kind of go with it
and say, oh yeah, you know, itjust opens up this whole new
space for them which could leadthem, if they're not biblically
grounded, to I don't know, Iguess fall into the UFO
(36:49):
religiosity, I don't know.
Oh, totally yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I mean, it's like any subject that is weird and
interesting, intriguing, but itcould take you away from your
primary responsibility, which isto grow in holiness and follow
Christ and to take the gospel tothe world and other things like
that.
It could take you away fromthat.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's not that it's not important to know and be
informed about these things, butit's not the priority.
And so many people they get sofixated on it and they become
kind of weirdos.
That's pretty mildly, but theyactually can ruin their lives.
They get so obsessed with it,it becomes an obsession and I
(37:29):
think I would just anyone who'sthinking about studying this
stuff just ask yourself this atthe end of my life, when I stand
before the lord, how am I goingto give a, give an account of
myself?
Like, if I stand before lord,he's like why did you spend the
last 40 years tracking, trackingdown ufos?
Yeah, like, what, what?
(37:50):
Like, what good was that?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
to do.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
It's like now, if I'm trying to help people who, this
gets to another subject.
Let's maybe go to the nextepisode and we'll talk about
religiosity.
But like if I'm a pastor and Ihave people in my congregation
that are like I had a UFOencounter, I had an encounter
with aliens, if I'm a pastor orthere's pastors listening, you
(38:13):
should not immediately dismissthat as crazy.
Maybe we'll leave with that andgo to the next episode.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, that sounds good, man.
Thank you for educating us onthat, and for those of you
listening, subscribe to thepodcast and tune into the next
episode where we talk about UFOreligiosity.
See you then.
All right, everyone, welcome back to the Second Theo
podcast, Sam and Tim here, andwe have been busy.
This has been a busy season forTim and I, but we are pushing
through getting these episodesout and we have a really
interesting topic today, onethat I think you're going to
enjoy.
It's kind of like a two-partseries and Tim is going to
(00:23):
illuminate our minds with thisvery interesting topic.
It's been a topic of discussionas of late and, yeah, we're
excited for you guys to tuneinto this and, as always, we
want to encourage you guys tofollow us on Instagram that is,
at psych underscore andunderscore Theo on Instagram,
and also on Facebook, and alsosubscribe to the podcast on
(00:45):
Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
If you can leave a review,that's so helpful.
We enjoy reading what you guyshave to say about the podcast
and also when those of you guyswho are listening just see us,
whether it be on campus, or wantto reach out and just kind of
give us your thoughts on futureepisodes.
We have a couple of topics thatwere suggested and we're working
(01:06):
on that now, so hopefully youguys enjoyed today's topic.
So, tim, today we're talkingabout UFOs, and the Bible is
something that I thought wewould probably never talk about.
At least for my part, I neverreally been interested in the
paranormal.
This was part of the intrigue.
(01:27):
As you brought up the topic,I'm like, huh, okay, so I think
I'm going to have some questionsthat will come up as we have
our conversation.
But you've been reading a lotof books and this has been
something I guess I don't knowif it's been trending, but
definitely a topic that you'vehad with a couple of people, I'm
assuming.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, it's definitely a topic that you've had with a
couple of people, I'm assuming.
Yeah, it's definitely a topicthat's trending and this is
really a space that I'm verymuch interested in not from a
standpoint of I'm a tinfoil hatconspiracy theorist, but I'm
very interested in the emergingnew religions of the world.
There's a term Tara Burton isthe researcher who coined this
(02:05):
term.
It's from her book StrangeRites, r-i-t-e-s.
She coined this term RemixedReligions and it's essentially
this new trend of people mixingand matching different concepts
from different religions to maketheir own worldview.
Essentially and if it soundscrazy, that's because it is,
(02:25):
because it doesn't have to makesense, it doesn't have to be
coherent, it's just peoplemixing and matching things.
I mean there's religionsforming around Harry Potter, for
instance, and she goes intothat Actual established
religions.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Think of them more like Like Scientology stuff,
like that.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
No, not that established.
Think of them more like onlinecommunities.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay which I stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
no, not that established.
Think of them more like onlinecommunities okay, which I can
see, sort of that, that nature.
In fact she she says that theinternet has been the catalyst
for a lot of this stuff.
Yeah, of people forming firstthis online community that
morphs into a, a religion likeentity.
You know, with the ufo, spaceand aliens and all that stuff,
there's been a lot of stuffcoming out, a lot of disclosure
(03:06):
stuff from the government, butthe interest in UFOs and aliens
and all that stuff has reallyticked up a lot.
With it comes questions aboutworldview, questions about does
Christianity have room foraliens and extraterrestrials in
the Christian worldview?
Would that change things aboutChristianity if tomorrow, et
(03:29):
showed up and said I'm fromanother planet and I'm a
rational agent just like youguys?
What do we make of stuff likethat?
So there's lots of thosequestions coming out.
I think with the advent of theinternet, social media and
everyone's got a camera, there'smore and more weird things
being captured, weird phenomenonbeing captured.
(03:49):
So it's not just hearsay.
There's real video evidence ofquote unquote paranormal things
happening.
That's not fake.
Certainly there are fake things, yeah, but there's things that
are unexplained or that at leastdon't fit within, like a
naturalistic paradigm where youcan't explain this through the
laws of physics and so demands afurther explanation or an
(04:13):
explanation from a differentworldview.
All right, so where do you wantto begin?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
As always, let's go ahead and define our terms.
I know we're talking about UFOsand maybe what the Bible
teaches on that or what theBible perspective is on that.
Let's start there.
Ufos I don't know if aliens canbe part of this one, but maybe
what that even means.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So the UFO.
The term stands forunidentified flying object.
That term has sort of fallenout of parlance in the modern
vernacular and has been replacedwith another term called UAP
and that stands for unidentifiedaerial phenomenon okay, okay so
(04:54):
you can see the differencethere.
A UFO is an object that's flyingand it's unidentified, but a
UAP is an unidentified aerialphenomenon, so it doesn't
necessarily mean it's an object.
It could just be light sourceor something like that.
So you'll hear people nowadayssay UFO, uap together.
Okay, yeah, so I think when itcomes to this issue of are UFOs
(05:16):
real, are aliens real?
There's lots of questions wecould start with, but I think
(05:37):
when it comes to our UFOs in the.
Bible.
We've been forced to answerthat question by the modern
culture, by contemporary popculture, especially with shows
like Ancient Aliens, and readinto the scriptures, or at least
to take a second look atstories in the Bible through the
(05:57):
lens of the UFO worldview,worldview which is to say,
looking at accounts in the Biblethat are described as being
miraculous, described as beingdivine encounters of some sort,
divine visions, and seeing thoseas not as supernatural divine
visions, but actually as alienencounters.
(06:19):
That's what we're dealing withhere.
So when someone asks thequestion, are UFOs in the Bible?
Or they say, did you know UFOsare in the Bible.
This is what is happening isthat they're reading the Bible
through this modern lens.
So the most famous example isEzekiel.
Ezekiel has a vision of a wheelwithin a wheel.
Don't have time to read thesepassages because they're quite
(06:40):
lengthy, but this is Ezekiel,chapter one, I believe, where
Ezekiel basically has thisvision.
Now, those of you don'tunderstand ezekiel is an exilic
prophet.
He's not one of the minorprophets, he's a major prophet,
let's say, and he's part of thecommunity that is exiled out of
jerusalem.
So he finds himself incaptivity with the babylonians
(07:02):
and he has this vision.
He sees this incredible,glorious, like angelic figures,
and then he sees what hedescribes as like this vehicle
of some sort and it has likewheels and there's wheels within
wheels.
He's talking about lightsaround these wheels and there's
eyes everywhere and it soundskind of crazy, like wow, like,
what kind of creature does hesee?
(07:24):
And people have have in themodern era read this through the
lens of a flying saucer.
And so they say, if you readthis through a flying saucer
lens, like you see, maybe thisis a flying saucer.
Then it starts to make sensebecause you have a wheel that's
a saucer, maybe a wheel within awheel.
So maybe there's likeconcentric circles to this
saucer and and it said, it haseyes all around that could just
(07:47):
be lights all around the ring ofthis UFO.
So Ezekiel doesn't really knowwhat he's seeing, he's just
describing it in terms that heunderstands, but it's really
probably a UFO.
That's how this argument goes.
Interesting Another examplewould be the pillar of fire and
the pillar of cloud that theIsraelites are led by in the
(08:08):
wilderness out of Egypt.
That it was really an alienpresence that was leading them
in some sort.
There's nothing to go on exceptspeculation there.
Another interesting one isJacob's ladder, that's Genesis
28.
Jacob has this vision where hesays he sees this stairway up to
heaven and the angels areascending and descending on this
(08:30):
stairway.
Jesus later alludes to thisimage and says that I'm
basically that stairway on theway to heaven.
But what Jacob sees hedescribes it as a stairway or
something like that and theseangelic beings going down and up
on this thing and people haveread that as that.
Jacob doesn't understand whathe's seeing.
(08:52):
He thinks it's like a vision ofheaven, but it's really
probably a UFO spaceship of somesort and there's beings, alien
beings that look like angels,coming down and going up into
the spaceship or something likethat.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
But see, that's so interesting because you've
alluded to that fact of ifthat's your worldview or that's
the lens that you're using.
You're going to see that, but Iwould have never, ever thought
that.
But again, that goes back towhat is a person, what's the
lens that a person is using tointerpret these passages, which
I'm sure you'll get into.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, you know, there's some other examples we
could get into, like Paul'svision and the book of Acts,
where he encounters Christ onthe road to Damascus, and the
way it's described is that Paulsees the light and he hears a
voice, but the people around himonly see a light, they don't
hear a voice, so they don't knowwhat's going on.
That's right, yeah, and paul isblinded temporarily by this
(09:48):
thing and modern ufologists willsay see, this matches the
descriptions of a ufo encountera bright light, hearing noises
or telepathic speech and beingtemporarily wounded.
Sometimes people are woundedwhen they encounter UFOs and
that's actually a really strangephenomenon with UFO instances.
There are things like thatwhich in the next episode we'll
(10:10):
get into some of the religiosityside of UFOs.
But one more would be Isaiah'svision in Isaiah six, where
Isaiah sees the throne of God.
He was in the temple and hesees the throne of God, the
majesty of God and these angelsaround the throne and he's just
completely undone by this.
And again an angel picks up ahot coal and touches his lips
(10:32):
and things like that.
So people say, look, isaiah isputting theological language on
this, but it really matches someUFO encounters.
It's still some of the similaraspects to how people describe
UFO encounters today.
What I've laid out for you isessentially what Ancient Aliens
does the show.
They would look at thesepassages, like the Ark of the
Covenant that has a coupleartifacts inside the Ark of the
(10:56):
Covenant, and if anyone touchesthe Ark of the Covenant they die
.
And so they were like well,maybe the Ark of the Covenant
held some radioactive materialthat was given to them by the
aliens that was leading themthrough the pillar of cloud and
fire.
What do we make of this?
Well, for one, there's a majorproblem here, and that is that
these readings are anachronistic.
(11:19):
The term anachronism means thatyou're reading your
contemporary understanding andworldview into the worldview of
an ancient text, and that's abig problem.
Is it similar to eisegesis.
It's a form of eisegesis.
Eisegesis is like a bigumbrella term for these types of
things.
But essentially you're takingyour understanding, your modern
(11:42):
understanding, and you'rereading that understanding into
the text and, furthermore, it'snot allowing the text to speak
for itself.
Yeah, so it really isessentially saying that, no,
these ancient authors aren'tallowed to say what they mean or
what they said isn't reallywhat is true.
Like they're not allowed toactually say things as they are.
(12:04):
We have to now reinterpret whatthey true.
Like they're not allowed toactually say things as they are.
We have to now reinterpret whatthey say so that the texts
aren't allowed to speak forthemselves.
Instead, you know, we'reassuming or at least this
worldview is assuming that ourbeliefs and the modern age, this
belief in extraterrestrials,this belief in aliens and
spaceships and sci-fi, like thatworldview, is more credible and
(12:25):
, quote-unquote, scientific thanthe religious worldview of
ancient people.
That's an assumption.
It's like, yeah, our world, weknow so much more about the
world.
Ancients weren't that smart.
We know, we understand so muchmore about aerial phenomenon and
flying and spaceships and allthat.
They couldn't understand thosethings and so we're going to
read our modern understandingback into this text, I think
(12:49):
it's a big problem because andwe can get into this in the next
episode when it comes toworldviews and religiosity and
what might really be going onhere is that if I assume the
christian worldview is true andthat what's really going on with
aliens isn't actuallyextraterrestrials but it's
spiritual in nature, then whatthe ancient texts are describing
(13:11):
actually may be what they sawand that there wasn't flying
saucers, because that that mightbe a modern phenomenon put
forward by deceptive entities todeceive a modern age.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And that's how I mean , that's how it works all the
time right Like the more itsounds like with time and we
have supposedly moreunderstanding of something, we
try to use that newunderstanding to interpret past
events right, and especiallywhen it comes to scripture.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, yeah, and that's always a problem like
another.
Another problem, I see, is whenit comes to, like the story of
david and goliath.
Here's an example as an asidethe story of david and goliath,
explaining how goliath was, whohe was, as a as this reportedly
nine foot tall giant with armorthat weighed hundreds of pounds,
(14:06):
too heavy for a regular man tocarry.
How could someone like thatexist, like physically?
That doesn't seem possible.
Well, people explain that oneof two ways.
Well, one he may not have beenthat tall and that too.
Well, he might have had thisgenetic deformity or genetic
malformity called gigantism ormake someone really tall, and
(14:27):
they got six fingers and sixtoes and they're really deformed
.
The problem with that and I seeI hear christians say that a
lot too the problem with that isthat people with gigantism
aren't built like warriors right, right.
Let's just think of that yeah,they're not built like like the
physique of a greek god that cantake on 10 men, you know, and
just kill them all in one swoop.
(14:48):
Right goliath is described asthis mighty warrior who is very
fierce and strikes fear intoeveryone.
Well, people with gigantismdon't necessarily do that right
so the passage is not allowingfor us to just read our
scientific understanding of likewhat a medical condition is
into that story.
Goliath.
(15:09):
I like what Hugh Ross says herethat if he really is nine foot
tall and he's built like awarrior, we know from our human
physiology that's not possiblein a naturalistic worldview.
So there must be somethingsupernatural going on there and
that gets into the wholeworldview of where does Goliath
come from, where the giants comefrom, and if you guys want to
(15:31):
know about that you can look atone of our previous episodes
when we get into spiritualwarfare and where demons come
from and all that stuff.
But yeah, that's an example ofwhere we mistakenly read
something back into the tech.
We're reading a modern medicaldiscovery back into the text as
though that explains everythingabout that text.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So another problem with reading like UFOs back into
the Bible is that modern peoplethink that's more respectable,
like that worldview is morerespectable because it fits
within a naturalistic paradigm.
Naturalism meaning that there'snothing outside of nature,
there's no supernatural stuff,there's no gods, there's no
spirits or anything like that.
So what we see in the sky, ifit really isn't fake and there
(16:17):
really are like things in thesky, well then they must be
extraterrestrials, they must befrom another planet where they
must be from some sort of likedifferent place and space and
time from us.
But it all has to fit within anaturalistic paradigm.
So if so, someone will see thisand say well, look, we see this
modern phenomenon that isperfectly compatible with my
(16:40):
naturalistic worldview.
So when I see these ancienttexts, who don't have the same
worldview they have havesupernatural worldviews and we
know that's false.
So we'll just read back intothese texts A naturalistic
explanation, ergo UFOs orsomething like that.
Now, some people will read.
(17:00):
They'll explain these events innaturalistic terms, like no,
they didn't see angels in thesky, they saw ball lightning or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
there's certainly people who do that, who don't go
to the ufo route, but thepeople who use the ufo
explanation tend to do sobecause they are naturalists in
some way sure trying to makethis fit within a naturalistic
paradigm that's interesting,though, because they have to
find, like a balance between thenaturalistic world and then
making sense of this thing thatseems very unnatural or not.
(17:36):
You know, not part of thisearth, like these ufos or these
uae sightings that they have,that seems unnatural.
So I I'm just trying to wrap myhead around.
How do they make sense of that,of those two things?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
yeah, I mean some of them posit that like there's
other dimensions or they're, orlike maybe they these, these are
highly advanced species thathave figured out all kinds of
different travel andanti-gravitational and stealth
cloaking and all these otherthings.
Like you can posit all kinds ofthings that this advanced
(18:09):
species is able to do that looksmagical to us but might be
perfectly reasonable once weunderstand it physically.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, and so just a quick question on the on the
visions of these that theseprophets had.
How do you determine whetherit's something that they saw or
if it was an actual vision thatno one else was able to identify
Meaning?
Are you saying that both thevision and what they saw are
(18:40):
real or are you saying that itwas like a dream type of vision
in their mind?
Because just thinkingpsychologically here, for people
who are exposed themselves, forexample, to movies that are
satanic or movies that are aboutextraterrestrials or anything
like that like they'd be moreprone to believe news like that
(19:01):
Bigfoot right, for examplethey'd be more prone to believe
that if that's what they'reconsuming, content wise.
So I guess I could kind of makethat explanation for modern day
today.
But in bible times, how do youdistinguish between it's
something that they actually sawor if it was a vision?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
well, I think the context is going to determine
that sometimes prophetic visionsare simply that their visions.
Okay, like that someone, it'slike a dream state or something
that only the prophet sees.
Other times it's, it's like a.
It's not just a vision, it's amurder, it's a miracle or an
appearance where other peoplesee it as well.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Maybe here's an example I can't remember the
passage cause I'm thinking ofthis off the top of my head but
Elisha the prophet is with hisservant and there's an army that
comes to surround the city foran army, and they're.
They're here to destroy thecity and they want elisha, the
prophet of god, they want totake him back because he's they
don't like him and his servant'sreally worried.
(20:02):
And so he tells the servant gooutside and look and see what
you see.
And then and elijah prays togod, open his eyes so that he
may see.
When the prophet's servant goesout, looks over the hillside,
what he sees is an army ofchariots of fire.
He sees the army of theheavenly hosts that are there to
(20:23):
defend the city against thisforeign army.
So that's something that thisservant is allowed.
That's actually there, but theservant is allowed to see it,
prior to which he wasn't able tosee it, but Elijah asked that
the Lord would allow him to seethat.
So that's something where it's,it's there, but you can't see
it in most cases.
(20:43):
Something like Isaiah's visionin Isaiah six.
That seems to be a vision.
It's Isaiah is allowed to seesomething.
Something like Isaiah's visionin Isaiah 6, that seems to be a
vision.
It's Isaiah is allowed to seesomething.
He gets an appearance of thethrone of God and what it's like
around the throne of God.
And this gets to my secondpoint.
The second problem with the UFOreadings of scripture is that
they almost always neglect thetheological argument that's
(21:07):
being made by these passages.
They just thrust that aside andthey just read into it that
this was a UFO.
They ignore the theologicalcontext in which these visions
are described.
If you just rip these storiesout of their context and imagine
like you're reading a newspaperand it's like Isaiah went to
Jerusalem and Jeremiah well,he's locked in a pit here.
(21:29):
And Ezekiel said he sawsomething strange.
We don't know what that's about, but let's move on.
And it's just like randomfactoid stories.
You might think, oh, okay,that's kind of weird.
But no, this vision thatEzekiel has is the start of the
book and it is setting up thebook of Ezekiel, the prophecies
(21:49):
that he gives and the point ofthe point of that vision.
So let's just get back toEzekiel's, where this wheel we
often a wheel is described inthe eyes everywhere and all that
what Ezekiel is describing is aRoyal chariot.
Michael Heiser has he's abiblical scholar, he has a great
article on this If you justGoogle Michael Heiser, ezekiel's
(22:11):
chariot or Ezekiel's wheel, andhe has several articles and I
think he has got some podcastepisodes on this where he
basically explains why Ezekiel'swheel is not a UFO and he goes
into great detail about how thisis a royal chariot that Yahweh,
the God of Israel, is riding,as a king would ride his chariot
(22:33):
into battle.
And it's meant as a polemicagainst the Babylonians who have
just captured Jerusalem andthink that they're in charge and
their gods are in charge, thatMarduk is in charge and that
Yahweh is dead and he's nowhere.
This vision is a polemicagainst that, saying that no,
god is still in control.
(22:54):
God is the one who is allpowerful and no matter what army
or no matter what empire thinksthat it's in control.
You're not, god's in control.
Same thing with Isaiah's visionin Isaiah 6.
It's the year that Uzziah dies,the king, and there's a lot of
chaos, there's a lot ofuncertainty and Isaiah sees this
(23:16):
vision of God on his throne,he's in control.
He's still the one who sets upempires and kingdoms and
appoints kings and disposes ofthem.
He's the one that's in control.
So that's the theologicalmessaging jacob's ladder.
You know, jacob sees thisvision.
People think, oh well, it's aflying saucer and guys going up
(23:39):
and down on the saucer.
No notice that jacob?
Jacob is describing thisstairway that goes up and down
to heaven, and if you understandthe ancient Mesopotamian
worldview, these stairways wereconnected to ziggurats.
So a ziggurat is like a pyramidtype structure with stairs on
(24:00):
all four sides, and at the topof the ziggurat was usually a
temple where they would offersacrifices and they would call
down the gods, and so the godsit was meant to mimic, where the
gods would reside on top ofmountains.
So a ziggurat think of it aslike a temple where the gods
would reside at the top.
(24:20):
And so the stairway going upand down the top of the ziggurat
was the way to go up and downto God, was the way to go up and
down to God.
Okay, so it would make sensefor Jacob to see angels going up
and down this stairway.
What he's describing, how anancient Mesopotamian would
(24:41):
understand that, as Jacob seesthis cosmic mountain that
symbolizes the ziggurat, and atthe top of that mountain is God,
it's heaven, and the angels arecoming to and fro from earth to
heaven, back down.
Yeah, that's good, that makessense.
So all that to say, you knowwhen for Christians and I know
we're just really touching onthis very briefly but when you
(25:02):
hear these arguments, whetherthat's on the ancient alien show
, which I don't think is aroundanymore, I don't think it's on
the air ancient alien show,which I don't think is around
anymore, I don't think it's onthe air or you just hear people
talking about it now, becausenow where this conversation has
shifted, it's shifted intopodcasts on youtube and other
places where people are talkingabout there's those ufos in the
bible, there's aliens in thebible, all they're.
They're rehashing the same oldarguments over and over again.
(25:24):
So this has been somethingthat's been ongoing, oh yeah,
for for a long time.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Oh wow, yeah, it's funny how it just kind of
resurges after whatever amountof time.
But yeah, I don't think I'veever heard all these arguments
that so I'm.
I mean, I'm just generallyinterested.
Now to what they're, whatthey're proposing.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think for for believers,if this is how to combat it,
like okay one.
There's a naturalisticworldview that's being assumed
like our modern understanding ismore scientific and more
credible than the views of theancients.
Why would that be the case?
Why should we accept that atall?
Why would we not let thesetexts speak for themselves?
(26:01):
Just because there's similarityin terms of phenomenon doesn't
mean that these ancients sawufos yeah, you know.
secondly, I would say this therethere are here's where these
two views are.
There's some agreement orconcurrence is that there are
historical accounts going backthousands of years of people
(26:22):
seeing strange things in theskies, not just in the bible,
but outside the Bible as well.
There's a Catholic researcherby the name of Jacques Vallée
who's written lots of differentbooks on this subject, and one
book in particular is calledWonders in the Sky, and it's a
study on like hundreds ofaccounts going back thousands of
(26:42):
years of people seeing strangephenomenon in the sky.
So the modern phenomenon ofpeople seeing weird things in
the sky is not new, but ourlanguage around it is new.
The language of ascribing aliensand oh, it's a saucer, it's a
spaceship and all these things.
But I would caution people thatthat's language that we have
(27:03):
assigned to this stuff and partof that is we're not being
perfectly objective in how weuse that language, because we're
influenced by science fictionliterature, we're influenced by
hollywood, we're influenced bymodern technology that we
ourselves have invented.
Yeah, so just because we seethings in the sky that mimic
(27:25):
that stuff doesn't mean that,one, it's it must be advanced
alien tech that we're seeingthat's naturalistic, and two,
that that that is the same aswhat other people have seen in
ages past right, because I'mthinking that there's that
they're what they're describing.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
There's no corroborating evidence that
that's what other people havedescribed, or is there right,
like if someone, if someonedescribes seeing something in
the sky, it's a similarexplanation or similar
description that someone elsehas used.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, and I think what the message that you're
communicating, too, is that wegot to go back to text context,
context, context, right, yeahyeah, yeah, and you know, I
would say this in a worldviewlike ours, where we, we posit
that there are entities that areat least non-material in some
respect, who are nefarious andwho do not have our best
(28:21):
interest at heart, but they havecapabilities to deceive in this
way as well, to deceive in thisway as well, and so a
naturalistic worldview doesn'taccount for that.
A Christian worldview doesaccount for that.
And if we don't have, we can'tjust, like you know, examine a
UFO.
You know, and I know somepeople are going to say like,
well, we got them in area 51,you know, you just gotta go.
(28:43):
Like I'm challenging, I wouldchallenge anyone Like let's just
stick to what we know, not towhat we hear, not to what some
anonymous whistleblower or someguy that is on a YouTube channel
says, just stick to what youknow.
Yeah, so, uh, yeah, but I wouldso.
Jacques Vallee, his book wandersin the sky.
I've not read it, but I've I'vesummaries of it.
(29:09):
It's actually on my readinglist to get to this year.
Another one is called passportto magonia.
That's another book of his.
Magonia is like another wordfor heaven.
I don't know where that comesfrom, but yeah, essentially it's
a book about how people have.
People have started to talkabout ufos in terms of
transcendence and taking us toheaven in some, some respects.
He did a lot of research on ufocults and particularly the
(29:33):
heaven's gate cult, and what'sso fascinating is that jacques
blay did this research in the70s and 80s before and I don't
know I imagine he's probablyupdated his research because
he's still alive.
But the heaven's gate cult ifyou remember, do you remember?
oh, yeah, yeah I remember thatwith the haley bopp comet in the
90s, it was flying over theearth and everyone could see it
(29:54):
and they believed that there wasa spaceship either on the other
side of that comet or within it.
Yeah, it was there to take themhome and so they committed mass
suicide yeah how many peoplewere there, do you remember?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
uh, I don't remember.
I don't remember how many, yeah, but yeah, I do remember that.
Yeah, that was a big deal yeah,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
So jacques valet was doing research on them, okay,
and as a there, as a ufo cult,wow, so they were attributing
things in the sky to aliens andthe aliens were the ones that
were going to take them toheaven.
And so that's what the passportmegonia is about.
Is like that phenomenon comingabout.
Yeah, so I would say this alsothe naturalistic worldview
(30:35):
doesn't explain, can't explainall the, all the accounts that
we see in history.
Here's a.
Here's an interesting one.
This one's always puzzled me,cause I I want to go back and
find the original sources to seeif this is corroborated by more
than one source.
But in 1453, the Ottomans havesurrounded the city of
(30:57):
Constantinople and they're aboutto take the city.
It's a dire straits.
It's like the day or two beforethe city falls, and it is
reported that this bright lightappears over Hagia Sophia, the
cathedral, the big cathedral inConstantinople that today is now
(31:18):
called the Grand Mosque ofIstanbul.
And it's reported that thisbright light appears right over
the top of the dome of thecathedral and the whole of the
cathedral and the whole citysees it, all the armies see it
and it puts this great fear ineveryone and then the light kind
(31:40):
of ascends up and goes away andpeople interpreted that at the
time that either the Lord'spresence was leaving that
cathedral or the angel that wasguarding the city left the city
and basically, like God, theangel that was guarding the city
left the city and basically,like god was kind of abandoning
the city at that point.
It's reported in the historicaldocuments that this has happened
(32:01):
.
So I think it's a reallystrange thing that happens.
Now moderns look at that.
They're like, well, it wasclearly just ball lightning.
Lightning appeared above thecathedral but to my knowledge no
one has ever shown like that.
There's been other instances ofball lighting appearing over
that cathedral and what would bethe odds of that happening
(32:21):
right at that moment, like rightat that time period?
It just seems really strange tome.
Yeah, maybe there's someone outthere that's done the research
I'm not aware of, I'll admit,you know if they've done that
research and you know, yeah,ball lightning appears every
three years, okay, but butthat's an instance where
something really crazy happens.
Yeah, and everyone sees it, butit's really inexplicable yeah,
(32:44):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So how do you feel about, like, knowing what you
know, hearing something likethat, and then is that like,
well, it's not too far-fetchedto to believe, or is it like?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
well, my my, are you asking for my personal opinion?
Yeah, yeah, that was so.
This is pure speculation.
This, I don't know, hear me out, it's just pure speculation.
Yeah, I think it probably wasan angelic appearance of some
sort that at some points theain't like.
I do think there are angelsthat are are given authority to
(33:17):
guard certain things, and Ithink that again, don't people
don't crucify me because, likethis is just speculation it does
seem to me that at least theidea that there was an angel
there that appeared and thenleft, that is certainly
plausible within my worldview.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Sure that there was sort of a sign of like the
city's done, you know, and it'sgoing to be overrun yeah, well,
here's, and here's why I ask foryour, for your, opinion on that
, because I think if there'sanything that I've been learning
through our time together youknow podcasting the episodes
that we've been doing, butspecifically the ones that we've
been doing on the spiritualrealm you've really opened up my
(33:59):
eyes to see that as more of areality, because I think the way
that I grew up, it wasn'tsomething that was talked about
enough like spiritual warfare,like it was used as this kind of
it's battling against sin,which it is.
But I think the reality ofunderstanding that this is
always going on around us andnot bringing an awareness to it
(34:21):
makes you vulnerable in someways.
So that's kind of been my, myperspective, as, as we've been
talking about these things,you've just kind of opened up my
, my world view a little bit,more, to be open to it at least,
right, yeah, because there is aresistance to it, like UFOs.
Why are we even talking aboutthis thing?
Like that would be an initialreaction to that.
But when you integrate howpeople view this in light of the
(34:45):
scriptures and how they viewtoday's worldview into that, it
makes it interesting, it makesyou consider it.
So I just wanted to throw thatout there because, as you're,
even when you shared that, yousaid it falls in line with my
worldview that it could be apossibility, right?
So again it just goes back towhat filter are we using as we
interpret these events?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
So it's been helpful for me.
Yeah.
So just as a closing comment, Iwould christians don't don't
dismiss like reports of ufos andthings like that.
Don't just outright dismiss itas like, oh, it's all just a
bunch of hokey stuff.
Um, because I think there, Ithink there is a deeply
spiritual element to what'sgoing on.
Yeah, but also don't buy intoeverything you hear, because
(35:29):
there's certainly this fakestuff all the time.
There's hoaxers, there'smisinformation and
disinformation.
I mean that's one of the morenefarious things in this subject
is that governments are notinterested.
Governments are interested inkeeping secret their, their
weapons and new tech and thingslike that.
So they like, if they think, oh, people are getting a little
too close to figuring out whatwe're doing, they are more than
(35:52):
happy to introduce false storiesand fake whistleblowers and
things like that to just furtherconfuse the conversation.
And we'll get into that in thenext episode with some of the
research that's been done by awoman by the name of Catherine
Prusolka.
She goes into this a little bittoo how this whole subject is a
morass of misinformation anddisinformation.
(36:13):
So it's really hard to knowwhat's true and what's not, and
I think that in and of itselfshould clue Christians into this
is not a harmless subject,because there are people who are
very much interested in nothaving the truth discovered.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Right, right, it almost seems like the new shiny
object that's being discussed inChristian circles, where it
makes it appealing and it's veryeasy to just kind of go with it
and say, oh yeah, you know, itjust opens up this whole new
space for them which could leadthem, if they're not biblically
grounded, to I don't know, Iguess fall into the UFO
(36:49):
religiosity, I don't know.
Oh, totally yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I mean, it's like any subject that is weird and
interesting, intriguing, but itcould take you away from your
primary responsibility, which isto grow in holiness and follow
Christ and to take the gospel tothe world and other things like
that.
It could take you away fromthat.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It's not that it's not important to know and be
informed about these things, butit's not the priority.
And so many people they get sofixated on it and they become
kind of weirdos.
That's pretty mildly, but theyactually can ruin their lives.
They get so obsessed with it,it becomes an obsession and I
(37:29):
think I would just anyone who'sthinking about studying this
stuff just ask yourself this atthe end of my life, when I stand
before the lord, how am I goingto give a, give an account of
myself?
Like, if I stand before lord,he's like why did you spend the
last 40 years tracking, trackingdown ufos?
Yeah, like, what, what?
(37:50):
Like, what good was that?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
to do.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
It's like now, if I'm trying to help people who, this
gets to another subject.
Let's maybe go to the nextepisode and we'll talk about
religiosity.
But like if I'm a pastor and Ihave people in my congregation
that are like I had a UFOencounter, I had an encounter
with aliens, if I'm a pastor orthere's pastors listening, you
(38:13):
should not immediately dismissthat as crazy.
Maybe we'll leave with that andgo to the next episode.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Yeah, that sounds good, man.
Thank you for educating us onthat, and for those of you
listening, subscribe to thepodcast and tune into the next
episode where we talk about UFOreligiosity.
See you then.
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