30 DATE WITH THE GODS
personal experiences, as they happened to them. Some
tim� they related events that happened to others. I'm
sure you don't believe they were giving accounts of
things they had only imagined, do you?"
"No, I don't think so," I said.
"We must take into consideration that these people
had to have some actual experiences in order to write
their stories. And you have to realize that language
changes over the years and that these accounts have
been subject to different translations and many kinds of
interpreta tions. Th is little book has been through the
mill.
"Moses and Ezekiel did not use the words UFO, flying
saucer or spaceship, because that type of terminology
was unknown in their day," she explained, teacher-like.
"They called them 'thick clouds,' 'pillars of fire," chariots
of fire,' and 'pillar of cloud."'
She was making some sense. I remained quiet and let
her continue.
"All right; American Indian traditions also talk about
'the Thunderbird,' and the 'Phoenix Bird' that rises from
the flame to fly with its wings on fire. Let's say you were
going to write about the launching of a spaceship from
Cape Kennedy next week. You would use the terminol
ogy available to you today. Thousands of years ago, you
most likely would have used the words associated with
flying and sound, using 'bird' for flying and 'thunder' for
sound, thus creating the imagery of some object flying
with a sound like thunder.
Let's take for instance, Chap^19 of Exodus, written by
Moses, verse 16."
"How do I find it?" I asked.
"Just as in any other book, look at the index."
I felt like an idiot, but I had never really read the Bible,
except briefly in Junior High School, when a few friends