Customer Reviews

The Bible and Flying Saucers: Second Edition

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Written before we landed on the moon, Downing's book argues that the basic stimulus behind the genesis of biblical religion and lore was external, i.e., generated intentionally by a group of beings from another world as opposed to internally within the psyche of man.

Two major problems plague this work.

(1) If Downing is correct, why should we worship beings merely because they eclipse us in technology? The implications of this tawdry point are virtually unaddressed by Downing. The fundamental underpinning of biblical religion relies on the profound primacy of a God that transcends technology, not on one that depends on it.

(2) Downing's argument for UFOs in the old testament is a decent yarn, but for equally plausible natural explanations see "Worlds in Collision" by Velikovsky. Also, it is possible that many old testament tales (such as the flood) simply recycle earlier Summerian and Assyrian legends. If you want to argue for flying saucers in antiquity the books of Zecharia Sitchin go back to the original cuneiform and make a more original (if equally implausible) argument.

The new testament references to UFOs are not convincing largely because Downing's book pre-dates the release of the Nag Hammadi literature (though his new forward, which does, does not address these newly un-earthed gospels). It has been argued that many of the new testament writings that were included in the bible were written by highly educated Greeks many years after Christ died for the express purpose of flouting enemies of the church and other heretics, such as the "Thomas" Christians whose writings appeared at Nag Hammadi. If so, then the New Testament gospels are more akin to polemics than literal eyewitness reports. This possibility is not addressed by Downing who takes the Bible and its purported eyewitness accounts quite unquestioningly at face value. This detracts from his argument.

Nevertheless, I applaud Downing's courage to write about such a taboo subject. It is one that deserves to be explored in more depth.

I have not read a better book equating angels to UFOs from a biblical perspective. Fans of X-Files may be disappointed, but this work by Dr. Downing is thoroughly grounded in Scripture. It's shocking to me that his view is not more mainstream and that 40 years after its publication there still is a scarcity of books on this subject.

Dr. Downing takes the position not of proving that angels and UFOs exist, but rather that if they do exist, then these 2 phenomenon are identical. From the pillar of cloud/fire in Exodus, to the wheel of Ezekiel, to the fiery chariot which took Elijah into heaven, we are presented with an explanation from a space age perspective which could lift the Bible out of its mythological status into being validated as the realistic record of events which prophets described to the best of their abilities with words such as "chariot".

I appreciate Dr. Downing's honesty in providing limitations and alternate explanations for his views. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is exploring the connection between angels and UFOs.

Some people believe that all of the miracles in the Bible and other holy books are too unbelievable to have actually happened. But Barry Downing believes that flying saucers and angels/extraterrestrials played a big part in the biblical religion. It was an interesting book to read.

This book bescribes Moses being protected by a u.f.o when the Red sea is seperated and the burning bush might have been extaterrestrial influenced. This book is filled with close encounters in the Bible that might have been aliens. This book is worth a read.

In this well thought out and researched book, Barry Downing provides evidence that extraterrestrials might have been behind the "miracles" of "God". Surprisingly, this book is written by a theologian, though most theologians oppose the Ancient Astronaunt theory. You should pick up this book even if you criticize UFOs.

When a religious figure writes of UFO's in the Bible people read. While the idea started a movement, little scientific evidence is presented, such as can be found in Sitchen's books or in "Yahweh Encounters: Bible Astronauts, Ark Radiations and Temple Electroics" by Ann Madden Jones. However I recommend any Bible-UFO book by either a religious figure or one using detailed secular research to augment the Biblical evidence.

This is the only book in my collection that I did not bother to finish. I have been reading on the subject since my early youth but this book could not retain my attention. It seemed repetitious at times and simply put...boring. I will end up using it as filler material for the bottom of my book shelf.

This wasn't what I was looking for, I was disappointed why??? The book was very bland, uninformative and it really just very useful to me