What Does The Bible Say About Aliens?

What Does The Bible Say About Aliens?|Do Aliens Exist According To The Bible?

What do major religions and their holy books say about Aliens? Here, we will focus on what does the Bible say about aliens? Several evangelists believe that the Bible has many instances that hint at the existence of aliens. 

As such, they believe that the unexpected is inevitable. Since they believe that humans will come into contact with aliens in the future, they cite various passages that can be interpreted as proof of these novel beings.

A passage in the Book of Exodus is cited as a prominent example. It concerns the story of the cloud that moves with the Israelites. The Book of Exodus – chapter 40, verses 36 and 37, “Throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day when it was taken up.” 

In this example, the cloud appears as a sign from God. The Book of Exodus mentions the cloud at other points as well, offering different variations on the same motif. 

In chapter 40, verses 19 and 20, the Book of Exodus, “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.” 

And in another example from the Book of Exodus, the cloud turns from a mere sign into a signature of God’s glory.

Chapter 16, verse 42 says, “It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared.”

The trouble with this approach is that almost any ancient text, not just the Bible, can be interpreted to encourage the idea of alien life forms. 

The ancient texts used to be poetic, so they are open to interpretation at the hands of the reader. Many of them were abstract, so they often discussed spiritual beings. 

For instance, in the ancient Egyptian religion, the sun god, Ra, sailed in a boat across the skies. He sailed in the boat through the underworld in the night, where he would battle a serpent.

Any evidence of alien life in the cosmos can be likened to a manifestation of Ra swimming across the skies. Suppose extraterrestrial life were to engage with our planet. In that case, one could easily find it synonymous with Ra’s dealings with the underworld, especially in the case of a hostile meeting, in which the hostile humans would be analogous to the serpent. 

The ancient Maya claimed that gods came from the skies and blessed mankind with technology. Through this belief, they justified the progress of their ancestors, including but not limited to the Olmecs, the people of Teotihuacan, and the Zapotecs. 

It might seem far-fetched on their part, but one can humble oneself by looking at the people who believe that aliens created the pyramids. Our species has not evolved equally on all fronts. In terms of technology, we have progressed exponentially, but our thirst for captivating fables and personification of the unknown remains the same.

If we look at Hinduism, we find similar tales. There may not be any explicit mention of aliens in the Holy Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, but they do refer to angels and similar beings. 

On the other hand, we find no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible, but archaeological evidence reveals that they existed. There are references in the Book of Job that can allude to dinosaurs, but we have no idea since they are not mentioned explicitly.

Therefore, aliens could be another one of these unmentioned species. However, one cannot escape the fact that it sheds doubt on the knowledge of the Christian creator. 

The arrival of God’s Son, Jesus, on Earth is the main concern for Christianity and alien life. If we refer to the Christian creationist idea of genesis, believing that Creation includes 125 billion galaxies, it would be presumable that there is life somewhere in that vast space. 

Why would God exhibit his glory on and send his Son to Earth? On the surface, it seems hard for Christian beliefs to accommodate the idea of intelligent life in other parts of the universe. Aliens are never explicitly mentioned, and their existence would leave much to be desired. To align with the Christian view would be to believe that we are the most intelligent of all Creation and that all other life forms are beneath us wherever they may be. This argument is a problem for Christianity and Islam in particular. 

Muhammad may not be God incarnate in Islam, but he still occupies a central position in the hierarchy – above mortals, but below God. 

If one were to apply the mediocrity principle to Earth – the idea that Earth is more likely to be non-special than special – the Abrahamic religions would be in a predicament. 

For instance, Hinduism and Chinese mythology have a large number of deities. For some atheists, discovering alien life forms would invalidate most of the major religions.

Nevertheless, we can see that religions have evolved to align with science in the past. But these maneuvers to adapt often come too little too late, as exhibited by the Catholic Church’s admission of Galileo’s theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. 

The Catholic Church hounded and persecuted the astronomer for his model during his life and rejected his ideas. It was not until the 1990s that the Church admitted to its wrongdoing and concluded that Galileo was correct in his assessment. 

The Copernican Revolution of the 16th century changed the human understanding of the cosmos, claiming that Earth was a rather typical planet in a typical galaxy. This radical shift in our understanding of humanity’s place in the large scheme of things endangered the Catholic religion. 

However, the Catholic Church had to evolve to move with the times. On the other end of the spectrum, Thomas Paine – the British-American philosopher and activist – argues in the Age of Reason, “Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system, that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable Creation, yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic account of the Creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be held together in the same mind, and he who thinks that he believes both, has thought but little of either.” 

However, we have seen many times in the past that scientific discoveries rarely rattle the faithful’s belief. Astronomy has been part of human life for a long time, and so has religion. The two find some way to work in tandem. 

If we look at the 38th chapter of the Book of Job, verses 4 to 7 read, “Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundation? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” 

Here, the Bible refers to extraterrestrial beings: the morning stars that sang together and the angels who shouted for joy. So, the margins are there, but they are menial. 

However, for believers, they are revelations for those who dare to decipher them. Following the tradition of deciphering the Bible for clues about alien life, one can refer to the Book of Ezekiel – chapter 1, verses 20 and 21 – which says, “Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.” 

Some Christian scholars claim that this entire section mentions spaceships. The biggest sign, according to them, is written a few verses back, in the 16th verse, which claims, “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” 

They believe that the idea of “a wheel in the middle of a wheel” alluded to a spaceship or a UFO. To claim that making contact with an intelligent life form would wreak havoc on Christianity or other Abrahamic religions would be ahistorical. 

History has repeatedly shown that such changes prompt a change in the paradigm of religion – instead of rendering them obsolete. 

There are aspects of all major religions that are incompatible with the modern world, but religions grow and adapt. The discovery of extraterrestrial life would be no different, and the faithful would find a way to move on.

To put everything in perspective, the words of scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson are humbling: “If our solar system is not unusual, then there are so many planets in the universe that, for example, they outnumber the sum of all sounds and words ever uttered by every human who has ever lived. To declare that Earth must be the only planet with life in the universe would be inexcusably bigheaded of us.” 

We hope you enjoyed this article on What the Bible says about Aliens.

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