The theory that many of the miraculous events of the Bible could be explained by the intervention of aliens first struck Downing in the early 1960s.
A group of people has a mass sighting of a huge, airborne glowing object that follows them for many miles and even protects them from attack. Someone is seen being lifted into the sky on a beam of light. A man witnesses unexplained circular vehicles with living creatures on board.
Pretty much
sounds like your typical, modern-day UFO sightings, right? Wrong.
These are vivid accounts of stories from the Old and New Testaments.
"If UFOs are
some type of intelligent power from another world, they may have been around
for millions of years and may have been involved in the development of the
biblical religion, and I do believe that is the case," said the Rev. Barry
Downing, a retired Presbyterian minister.
In his 1968
book, "The Bible and Flying Saucers" (Marlowe), Downing suggests that
extraterrestrials in technologically advanced spaceships played a major part in
events depicted in the Bible.
"You can go through the Bible and look for signs of things that hover in the sky and seem to be intelligently controlled and interact with the biblical people," Downing told AOL News.
"You can go through the Bible and look for signs of things that hover in the sky and seem to be intelligently controlled and interact with the biblical people," Downing told AOL News.
Downing,
who served 34 years as pastor of the Northminster Presbyterian Church in
Endwell, N.Y., has tirelessly researched this material for decades. As a
student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he specialized in the
relationship between natural science and theology and is listed in
"Who's Who In Theology and Science."
The theory that many of the miraculous events of the Bible could be explained by the intervention of aliens first struck Downing in the early 1960s.
The theory that many of the miraculous events of the Bible could be explained by the intervention of aliens first struck Downing in the early 1960s.
"When I was in seminary, the conflict between science and religion had
become fairly clear, and some of the more liberal professors basically said,
'We can't believe in things in the Bible, like the resurrection and ascension
of Jesus, we can't believe in the angel world — this is all mythology.'
"But when you dismiss these things as mythology, you end up with a god
with no power, and nobody's going to bother with a god with no power."
It was during his years at the University of Edinburgh that Downing started
thinking about the possibility of visits from outer space. And he wondered how
that might to apply to the concept of the angels in the Bible.
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