Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

Page 131 of 138

Page 131 of 138
Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Because I go into things so basically, imploring letters reach me begging me not to take the sources so literally. But our fathers were obliged to take the Bible literally for 2,000 years. If they had expressed any doubts, they would have suffered for it. Today it is permissible to discuss problems and debatable points, and so I ask more questions. Why did 'god' and his 'angels' always show themselves in connection with phenomena such as fire, smoke, earthquakes, lightning, noise and wind? Bold and imaginative explanations are offered of the kind that can flower into axiomatic proofs in the course of 2,000 years of dialectical training. But who has the courage to take the mysterious as reality? The Swiss Professor Dr Othmar Keel thought that these epiphanies of god ought to be understood as ideograms, in direct opposition to Professor Lindborg, who interprets the same events as hallucinatory experiences. The Old Testament scholar Dr A. Guillaume considers them to be natural events, while Dr W. Beyerlein recognises ritual parts of the Israelite religious holiday customs in nearly all the phenomena. ‘on closer inspection the accounts in question can hardly be equated with natural phenomena of a meteorological or volcanic kind. The time has come to approach things from a new point of view if biblical research is to make any progress in explaining them.’ I suspect that the unknown intelligences did not expend their efforts on a new man purely for altruistic motives. Although it is not yet proved by research, one could assume that the 'gods' suspected the presence on earth of a material that they needed badly and that they looked for it. Was it fuel for their space-ships? Many references point to the conclusion that the 'gods' received a reward for their help in evolution. Exodus xxv, 2, mentions an offering, a concept it is easy to miss the point of. Expert German translators assured me e that offerings could be taken to mean objects that were lifted up or pushed into ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. ‘Gentlemen, all I have done is make a bouquet from flowers already picked, adding nothing but the string to tie them together.’ Scholarly explanations? I find nothing but contradictions. But the change in mental climate among the younger generation is refreshing. Thus Dr Fritz Dumermuth wrote in the periodical of the theological faculty of Basle (No 21/1965) that something. This is what Moses says in Exodus 25:2-7: ‘And this is the offering which ye shall take to them; gold, and silver, and brass, ‘And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, ‘And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood ...