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Divine Encounters are the ultimate human experience—the maximal, the utmost possible when alive, as when Moses encountered the Lord upon Mount Sinai; and the final, termi- nal, and conclusive, as that of Egyptian Pharaohs who at death assumed an eternal Afterlife by joining the gods in their Divine Abode. The human experience of Divine Encounters as recorded in scriptures and texts from the ancient Near East is a most amazing and fascinating saga. It is a powerful drama _ that spans Heaven and Earth, involving worship and devotion, eternity and morality on the one hand, and love and sex, jealousy and murder on the other; ascents unto space and journeys to the Netherworld. A stage on which the actors are gods and goddesses, angels and demigods, Earthlings and androids; a drama expressed in prophecies and visions, in dreams and omens and oracles and revelations. It is a story of Man, separated from his Creator, seeking to restore a pri- meval umbilical cord and, by so doing, reach for the stars. Divine Encounters are the ultimate human experience per- haps because they were also the very first human experience; for when God created Man, Man met God at the very moment of being created. We read in Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, how the first human, "The Adam," was brought into being: was And God said: Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness ... THE FIRST ENCOUNTERS