Elijah

The Old Testament also reports that the prophet Elijah did not die on Earth, but “went up into Heaven by a Whirlwind.”

This was not a sudden and unexpected event: The ascent of Elijah to the heavens was prearranged.

He was told to go to Beth-El (“the lord’s house”) on a specific day. Rumors had already spread among his disciples that he was about to be taken up to the heavens. When they queried his deputy whether the rumor was true, he confirmed that, indeed, “the Lord will take away the Master today.”

And then: There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire… And Elijah went up into Heaven by a Whirlwind.

Even more celebrated, and certainly better described, was the heavenly chariot seen by the prophet Ezekiel, who dwelt among the Judaean deportees on the banks of the Khabur River in northern Mesopotamia.

The Heavens were opened, and I saw the appearances of the Lord. What Ezekiel saw was a Manlike being, surrounded by brilliance and brightness, sitting on a throne that rested on a metal “firmament” within the chariot. The vehicle itself, which could move whichever way upon wheels-withinwheels and rise off the ground vertically, was described by the prophet as a glowing whirlwind. And I saw a Whirlwind coming from the north, as a great cloud with flashes of fire and brilliance all around it. And within it, from within the fire, there was a radiance like a glowing halo.

Some recent students of the biblical description (such as Josef F. Blumrich of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration) have concluded that the “chariot” seen by Ezekiel was a helicopter consisting of a cabin resting on 4 posts, each equipped with rotary wings—a “whirlwind” indeed.

About two millennia earlier, when the Sumerian ruler Gudea commemorated his building the temple for his god Ninurta, he wrote that there appeared to him “a man that shone like Heaven … by the helmet on his head, he was a god.”

When Ninurta and two divine companions appeared to Gudea, they were standing beside Ninurta’s “divine black wind bird.” As it turned out, the main purpose of the temple’s construction was to provide a secure zone, an inner special enclosure within the temple grounds, for this “divine bird.”

The construction of this enclosure, Gudea reported, required huge beams and massive stones imported from afar. Only when the “divine bird” was placed within the enclosure was the construction of the temple deemed completed.

And, once in place, the “divine bird” “could lay hold on heaven” and was capable of “bringing together Heaven and Earth.” The object was so important—“sacred”—that it was constantly protected by two “divine weapons,” the “supreme hunter” and the “supreme killer”—weapons that emitted beams of light and death-dealing rays.

The similarity of the biblical and Sumerian descriptions, both of the vehicles and the beings within them, is obvious. The description of the vehicles as “bird,” “wind bird,” and “whirlwind” that could rise heavenward while emitting a brilliance, leaves no doubt that they were some kind of flying machine.

Enigmatic murals uncovered at Tell Ghassul, a site east of the Dead Sea whose ancient name is unknown, may shed light on our subject. Dating to circa 3500 BC, the murals depict a large eight-pointed “compass,” the head of a helmeted person within a bell-shaped chamber, and two designs of mechanical craft that could well have been the “whirlwinds” of antiquity. (Fig. 66)

The ancient texts also describe some vehicle used to lift aeronauts into the skies. Gudea stated that, as the “divine bird” rose to circle the lands, it “flashed upon the raised bricks.” The protected enclosure was described as MU.NA.DA.TUR.TUR (“strong stone resting place of the MU”).

Urukagina, who ruled in Lagash, said in regard to the “divine black wind bird”: “The MU that lights up as a fire I made high and strong.” Similarly, Lu-Utu, who ruled in Umma in the 3rd millennium B.C., constructed a place for a mu, “which in a fire comes forth,” for the god Utu, “in the appointed place within his temple.”

The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, recording his rebuilding of Marduk’s sacred precinct, said that within fortified walls made of burned brick and gleaming onyx marble:

I raised the head of the boat ID.GE.UL the Chariot of Marduk’s princeliness; The boat ZAG.MU.KU, whose approach is observed, the supreme traveler between Heaven and Earth, in the midst of the pavilion I enclosed, screening off its sides.

ID.GE.UL, the first epithet employed to describe this “supreme traveler,” or “Chariot of Marduk,” literally means “high to heaven, bright at night.” ZAG.MU.KU, the second epithet describing the vehicle—clearly a “boat” nesting in a special pavilion—means “the bright MU which is for afar.”

That a mu—an oval-topped, conical object—was indeed installed in the inner, sacred enclosure of the temples of the Great Gods of Heaven and Earth can, fortunately, be proved. An ancient coin found at Byblos (the biblical Gebal) on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Lebanon depicts the Great Temple of Ishtar.

Though shown as it stood in the first millennium B.C., the requirement that temples be built and rebuilt upon the same site and in accordance with the original plan undoubtedly means that we see the basic elements of the original temple of Byblos, traced to millennia earlier.

The coin depicts a two-part temple. In front stands the main temple structure, imposing with its columned gateway. Behind it is. an inner courtyard, or “sacred area,” hidden and protected by a high, massive wall. It is clearly a raised area, for it can be reached only by ascending many stairs. (Fig. 67)

Illustration: Platform of Mu

In the center of this sacred area stands a special platform, its crossbeam construction resembling that of the Eiffel Tower, as though built to withstand great weight. And on the platform stands the object of all this security and protection: an object that can only be a mu.

Like most Sumerian syllabic words, mu had a primary meaning; in the case of mu, it was “that which rises straight.” Its thirty-odd nuances encompassed the meanings “heights,” “fire,” “command,” “a counted period,” as well as (in later times) “that by which one is remembered.” If we trace the written sign for mu from its Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform stylizations to its original Sumerian pictographs, the following pictorial evidence emerges:

We clearly see a conical chamber, depicted by itself or with a narrow section attached to it. “From a golden chamber-in-the-sky I will watch over thee,” Inanna promised to the Assyrian king. Was this mu the “heavenly chamber”?

A hymn to Inanna/Ishtar and her journeys in the Boat of Heaven clearly indicates that the mu was the vehicle in which the gods roamed the skies far and high:

Lady of Heaven: She puts on the Garment of Heaven; She valiantly ascends towards Heaven. Over all the peopled lands she flies in her MU. Lady, who in her MU to the heights of Heaven joyfully wings. Over all the resting places she flies in her MU.

There is evidence to show that the people of the eastern Mediterranean had seen such a rocket-like object not only in a temple enclosure but actually in flight.

Hittite glyphs, for example, showed—against a background of starry heavens—cruising missiles, rockets mounted on launch pads, and a god inside a radiating chamber. (Fig. 68)

Illustration: Standing and Cruising Rockets