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revdorothyl at 10:49am on 13/03/2009
revdorothyl at 10:49am on 13/03/2009A co-worker forwarded me the link to this announcement of a 'symposium' on UFO's and Milton (er, I mean, aliens and some very peculiar 'Christian' interpretations of the Bible):
Since many of the students in my 8-week intensive introductory course on the Hebrew Bible this semester were repeatedly frustrated and puzzled by my inability to direct them to the canonical Old Testament passages that tell about the Fall of Satan and his rebel angels after their rebellion against God, or the verses describing in detail the devil's musical talents, etc. (I tried telling them that much of what they thought was biblical lore was actually derived from an odd mixture of Milton, Dante, and made-for-cable miniseries about 'nephilim' and fallen angels), and since all of those same students have yet to turn in their take-home final exams, I shudder to think what some of them might do with the links provided by this particular 'Alien Resistance' group.
I'm still having post-traumatic flashbacks to reading (more accurately, trying to decipher) a student's 10-page paper some three years ago, summarizing (but not in any sense critiquing or even bothering to look up the bible references in) a 1970's mass-market paperback, interpreting the first few chapters of Ezekiel as an encounter with alien hardware (I think it was The Spaceships of Ezekiel by Josef Blumrich, but I've tried to repress all memory of the event, so don't quote me). I can just be thankful, I guess, that their term papers have all been turned in already.
All of this is not to say that I find anything inherently objectionable or ridiculous about mixing biblical scholarship and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or that I'm not fascinated by the use of "Nephilim" as an ever more popular mcguffin in science fiction and fantasy media.
However, the 'biblical' interpretations featured prominently on the 'Alien Resistance' web-page are, for the most part, so dubious (primarily based on deuterocanonical or 'apocryphal' writings, and then reading those INTO the margins of the canonical texts -- like fanfic masquerading as original source material) that I wouldn't want my students to go anywhere near anyone associated with this group . . . unless I could count on them to be doing it in the spirit of sheer entertainment, and not to assume that this is the cutting edge of current biblical scholarship. Which (judging from the lack of critical thinking in almost every paper I've received from them over the past 7 weeks) is something I dare not count on.
Somehow, all of this mixing of popular archaeology, E.T.'s, and 'religion' was so much more entertaining on Stargate: SG1. *sigh*
Oh, well. At least this will give us something interesting to talk about over the coffee breaks at work, here at the publishing house today!
The "very first" Christian symposium on aliens will touch down in, where else? Roswell, N.M. this July.
Guy Malone, author and co-founder of Alien Resistance, is organizing the event, where he will make the case that aliens and UFO's are actually fallen demons.
Malone's Alien Resistance organization is devoted to looking at UFO's and alien abductions in "biblical" ways.
Since many of the students in my 8-week intensive introductory course on the Hebrew Bible this semester were repeatedly frustrated and puzzled by my inability to direct them to the canonical Old Testament passages that tell about the Fall of Satan and his rebel angels after their rebellion against God, or the verses describing in detail the devil's musical talents, etc. (I tried telling them that much of what they thought was biblical lore was actually derived from an odd mixture of Milton, Dante, and made-for-cable miniseries about 'nephilim' and fallen angels), and since all of those same students have yet to turn in their take-home final exams, I shudder to think what some of them might do with the links provided by this particular 'Alien Resistance' group.
I'm still having post-traumatic flashbacks to reading (more accurately, trying to decipher) a student's 10-page paper some three years ago, summarizing (but not in any sense critiquing or even bothering to look up the bible references in) a 1970's mass-market paperback, interpreting the first few chapters of Ezekiel as an encounter with alien hardware (I think it was The Spaceships of Ezekiel by Josef Blumrich, but I've tried to repress all memory of the event, so don't quote me). I can just be thankful, I guess, that their term papers have all been turned in already.
All of this is not to say that I find anything inherently objectionable or ridiculous about mixing biblical scholarship and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or that I'm not fascinated by the use of "Nephilim" as an ever more popular mcguffin in science fiction and fantasy media.
However, the 'biblical' interpretations featured prominently on the 'Alien Resistance' web-page are, for the most part, so dubious (primarily based on deuterocanonical or 'apocryphal' writings, and then reading those INTO the margins of the canonical texts -- like fanfic masquerading as original source material) that I wouldn't want my students to go anywhere near anyone associated with this group . . . unless I could count on them to be doing it in the spirit of sheer entertainment, and not to assume that this is the cutting edge of current biblical scholarship. Which (judging from the lack of critical thinking in almost every paper I've received from them over the past 7 weeks) is something I dare not count on.
Somehow, all of this mixing of popular archaeology, E.T.'s, and 'religion' was so much more entertaining on Stargate: SG1. *sigh*
Oh, well. At least this will give us something interesting to talk about over the coffee breaks at work, here at the publishing house today!
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And I adore your icon -- too perfect!
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What the heck are "nephilim"?
Also, I love your Amanda Tapping icon! Did you get to see any of "Sanctuary"? My spouse & I really enjoyed it. The writing was so-so and the plots were frequently downright dumb, but the cast had a really fun SG:1 vibe. And talk about pretty! I heard somewhere that all of the sets are CGI. Working on that show must be like doing a minimalist production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," and then turning around and seeing that Charles Schultz has dropped in to paint your backdrops.
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Some people read it as saying the angels (referred to in Job as sons of God) fell for human women. However, this contradicts Jesus teaching that angels neither marry nor are given in marriage (that is, they're sexless)
I read it as the children of Seth marrying the the children of the local tribes. (I don't believe Eden was an exclusive creation. El was messing around with a no-girls allowed garden while the Persians were discovering glue)
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I wish I'd thought of using Jesus' words in Matthew 22:30 [closely following the earlier version in Mark 12:25] to counter that particular interpretation: "'For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.'"
Good one!
(Though the version of that conversation in Luke 20:35-36 implies that, in the resurrection, people are like angels in that they can't die anymore, rather than in their lack of marriage, which -- if my students were careful enough to check for Synoptic parallels, which they're generally NOT -- might open the argument back up again, I suppose.)
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However, what most folks think of when they hear 'Nephilim' is more from the apocryphal book of First Enoch (a.k.a. Ethiopic Enoch), and/or from a series of novels and television movies and miniseries featuring the children of humans and (usually fallen) angels as super-powered heroes or monsters (if not giant cannibalistic mummies, in the case of the sci-fi channel!).
Here's an excerpt from an article by Kelley Coblentz Bautch on "ENOCH, FIRST BOOK OF" for volume 2 of the New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (emphasis added):
And yes, I saw every episode of "Sanctuary" and got a kick out of the casting and characters, even though the plots were -- as you noted -- frequently downright dumb.
I LOVED, however, the two-part season finale, with Peter Wingfield (Methos! from the "Highlander" series, about whom I have happy-naughty thoughts frequently) as James Watts, the last member of their little super-powered group. I nearly wept when he died at the end, and I adored his bonding with Magnus' right-hand profiler guy (whose character's name escapes my aged brain, for the moment).
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http://www.amazon.com/Succubus-Blues-Georgina-Kincaid-Book/dp/0758216416
It's written in a rather engaging style, though the nephilim-related plot is a bit clunky, and just goes to show that reading trash can be educational, since my acquaintanceship with the book of Enoch is zero.
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At the same time, all of this is vastly entertaining. :)
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Context is everything. Even if people read the actual texts, sometimes they see whatever confirms their own mindset rather than what is there.
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