9 - VISIONS FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Rod Serling’s popular television series "The Twilight Zone" held viewers spellbound for many years (and still does so in reruns) by putting the episodes’ heroes in obviously dangerous circumstances - a fatal accident, a terminal illness, a trapping in a time warp - from which they miraculously emerged unharmed because of some incredible twist of fate. In most instances, the miracle was the handiwork of a person, seemingly ordinary, who proved to have extraordinary powers - an "angel," if you wish.

But the fascination for the viewer was the Twilight Zone; for when all was said and done, the episode’s hero - and with him or her the viewer - was uncertain of what had happened. Was the danger only imagined? Was it all just a dream - and thus the "miracle" that resolved the inevitable ending no miracle at all; the "angel" no angel at all; the time warp not another dimension, for none of them had really taken place ...

In some episodes, however, the hero’s and viewer’s puzzlement was given a final twist that made the program worthy of its name. At the very end, as hero and viewer are almost certain that it was all imagined, a dream, a passing trick of the subconscious mind, a tale that has no foothold in the real world - a physical object comes into play. Sometime during the episode the hero picked up, or rather was given, a small object that he absentmindedly put in his/her pocket, or a ring put on the finger, or a talisman worn as a necklace.

As all other aspects of the imagined and unreal episode, the object too had to be imagined and nonreal. But as the viewer and the hero are certain that all had faded into its nonreality, the hero finds the object in his pocket or on his finger - a reality left over from the unreality. And thus, Rod Serling has shown us, between reality and nonreality, between the rational and the irrational, we were passing through a Twilight Zone.

Four thousand years earlier, a Sumerian king found himself in such a Twilight Zone, and recorded his experience on two clay cylinders (that are now on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris).

The king’s name was Gudea and he reigned in the Sumerian city Lagash circa 2100 B.C. Lagash was the "cult center" of Ninurta, the Foremost Son of Enlil, and he dwelt with his spouse Bau in the city’s sacred precinct called the Girsu - hence his local epithet NIN.GIRSU, "Lord of the Girsu." At about that time, owing to an intensification of the struggle for supremacy on Earth that pitted primarily Enki’s Firstborn Marduk against Enlil’s clan, Ninurta/Ningirsu obtained the permission of his father Enlil to build a new temple in the Girsu - a temple so magnificent that it would express the rights of Ninurta to the supremacy.

As it turned out, Ninurta’s plan was to build in Mesopotamia a most unusual temple, one that would emulate the Great Pyramid of Giza on the one hand and that, upon its vast platform, would hold stone circles that could serve as sophisticated astronomical observatories. The need to find a reliable and faithful worshiper to carry out the grandiose plans and to follow intelligently the designs of the Divine Architects served as the background for the ensuing events recorded by Gudea.

The series of events began with a dream that Gudea had one night; it was a vision of Divine Encounters. And it was so vivid that it transported the king into a Twilight Zone; for when Gudea awoke, an object that he had seen only in his dream was now physically on his lap. Somehow, the boundary between unreality and reality had been crossed.

Figure 59a and Figure 59b
 

Utterly perplexed by the occurrence, Gudea asked for and received permission to seek the advice of the oracle Goddess Nanshe in her "House of Fate-Solving" in another city. Reaching the place by boat and offering prayers and sacrifices so that she would solve the riddle of his nighttime vision, Gudea proceeded to tell her what had happened (we read from column IV in Cylinder "A," verses 14-20, as transcribed by Ira M. Price, The Great Cylinder Inscriptions A and B of Gudea, Fig. 59a):

In the dream [I saw]
a man who was bright, shining like Heaven
- great in Heaven, great on Earth -
who by his headdress was a Dingir (God).
At his side was the divine Storm Bird;
Like a devouring storm under his feet
two lions crouched, on the right and on the left.
He commanded me to build his temple.

A celestial omen then followed whose meaning, Gudea told the dream-solving Goddess, he did not understand: the Sun upon Kishar (the planet Jupiter) was suddenly seen on the horizon.

A female then appeared and gave Gudea celestial instructions (column IV, verses 23-26):

A woman -
who was she? Who was she not?
the image of a temple-structure
she carried on her head -
in her hand she held a holy stylus;
The tablet of the favorable star of heaven
she bore.

As the "woman" was consulting the star tablet, a third divine being appeared (we follow column V, verses 2-10, Fig. 59b); he was a male:

A second man appeared, he had the
look of a hero, endowed with strength.
A tablet of lapis lazuli in his hand he held.
The plan of a temple he drew on it.
He placed before me a holy carrying basket;
Upon it he placed a pure brickmaking mold;
the destined brick was inside it.
A large vessel stood before me;
on it was engraved the Tibu bird which shines
brilliantly day and night.
A freight-ass crouched to my right.

The text suggests that all these objects somehow materialized during the dream, but regarding one of them there is absolutely no doubt that it was made to cross from the dream dimension to the dimension of physical reality; for when Gudea awoke, he found the lapis lazuli stone tablet on his lap, with the plan of the temple etched upon it. He commemorated the miracle in one of his statues (Fig. 60a).

Figures 60a and 60b
 

The statue shows both the tablet and the Divine Stylus with which the plan was etched. Modern studies suggest that, ingeniously, the markings on the margin (Fig. 60b) are diminishing scales for constructing all of the seven stages of the temple with one single design.

The other objects, that may have also materialized, are known through various archaeological finds. Other Sumerian kings have depicted themselves with the "holy carrying basket" that the king carried to begin the sacred construction (Fig. 61a); brick molds, and bricks embossed with a "destiny" statement, have been found (Fig. 61b); and a silver vase that bears the image of the Tibu bird of Ninurta has been found in the ruins of the Girsu of Lagash (Fig. 61c).

Figures 61a. 61b, and 61c
 

Repeating the details of the dream-vision one by one in the manner reported by Gudea, the oracle Goddess proceeded to tell the king what it meant. The first God to appear, she said, was Ninurta/Ningirsu, announcing to Gudea that he was chosen to build the new temple: "For thee to build his temple he commanded." Its name was to be E.NINNU - "House of Fifty" - to signify that Ninurta has the claim to Enid’s rank of fifty and thus the only one below Anu, whose rank was sixty.
 

The sighting of the heliacal rising of Jupiter "is the God Ningishzidda," meant to show the king the exact point in the skies to which the temple’s observatories should be oriented, indicating precisely where the Sun will rise on the day of the New Year.

The female who appeared in the vision, carrying on her head the image of a temple-structure, was the Goddess Nisaba; with her stylus that she grasped in one hand and the celestial map that she held in the other hand, "to build the temple in accordance with the Holy Planet she instructed thee." And the second male, Nanshe explained, was the God Nindub; "to thee the plan of the temple he gave."

She also explained to Gudea the meaning of the other objects that he had seen. The carrying basket signified Gu-dea’s role in the construction; the mold and "destiny brick" indicated the size and shape of the bricks to be used, molded of clay; the Tibu bird that "brilliantly shines day and night" meant that, throughout the construction, "no good sleep shall come to thee." If that did not mar Gudea’s joy at being selected for the sacred task, the interpretation of the freight-Ass symbolism should have: it meant that, like a beast of burden, Gudea shall toil in the temple’s building...

Back in Lagash Gudea contemplated the words of the oracle Goddess and studied the divine tablet that had materialized on his lap. The more he thought about the varied instructions, the more he was baffled, especially so regarding the astronomical orientation and timing. He sought to understand the secrets of temple construction by going into the existing temple "day by day, and again at sleeping time."

Still perplexed, he went into the temple’s Holy of Holies and appealed to "Ningirsu, son of Enlil," for additional guidance:

"My heart remains unknowing, the meaning is far from me as the middle of the ocean; as the midst of heaven from me it is distant."

"Lord Ningirsu," Gudea cried out in the darkness, "the temple I will build for thee, but my omen is not yet clear to me!"

He asked for a second omen, and received it. In what scholars call Gudea’s second dream, the position of the king and the encountered deity seem to be crucial. The text (column IX, verses 5-6) states that "for the second time, by the prostrate one, by the prostrate one, the God took his stand." The Sumerian term used, NAD.A, conveys more than the "lying (lat, lying stretched out" that the English term "prostrate" conveys. It implies an element of not-seeing by lying facedown. Gudea, in other words, had to lie down in a manner assuring that he would not see the deity.

The God, on his part, had to position himself at the head of Gudea. If Gudea was asleep, or in a trance, did the God actually speak to him - or was the position near the king’s head intended to facilitate some other, metaphysical method of communication? The text does not make this point clear; it does relate that Gudea was given promises of constant divine help, especially by the God Ningishzidda.

The help of this deity, whom we have identified as the Egyptian deity Thoth, seemed especially important to Ninurta/Ningirsu, as was the expected homage that Magan (Egypt) and Meluhha (Nubia) would pay to Ninurta once his new temple would proclaim his rank of Fifty, "the fifty names of Lordship that by Anu were ordained." This, he explained to Gudea, was why the temple was to be called E.NINNU - "House of Fifty." He promised Gudea that the new temple will not only glorify the deity; it will also bring fame and prosperity to all of Sumer and to Lagash in particular.

The deity then explained to Gudea various details of the temple’s architecture, including the design of,

• the special enclosures for the Divine Black Bird and the Supreme Weapon

• the Gigunu for the divine couple

• an oracle chamber

• a place for the assembly of the Gods

Details of utensils and furnishings were also given. Then the God assured Gudea that "for the building of my temple I will give thee a sign; my commands will teach thee the sign by the heavenly planet."

The construction, he told Gudea, should begin on the "day of the new moon." The particular new moon day will become known to the king by a divine omen - a signal from the skies. The day will start with winds and great rains; by nightfall, the God’s hand shall appear in the skies; it will hold a flame "that shall make the night as light as day:"

At night a light shall shine; it will cause the fields to be brightly lit, as by the sun.

Hearing all that "Gudea understood the favorable plan, a plan that was the clear message of his vision-dream." "Now he was greatly wise and understood great things." After presenting offerings and prayers "to the Anunnaki of Lagash, the faithful shepherd, Gudea, engaged in the work with joy." Losing no time, he proceeded to "purify the city," then "levied taxes upon the land." The taxes were payable in kind - oxen, wild asses, wood and timbers, copper. He amassed building materials from near and far and organized a labor force. As Nanshe had foreseen, he toiled like a Freight-Ass and "good sleep did not come to him."

With everything ready, it was time to start making the bricks. They had to be made from clay according to the mold and sample that appeared to Gudea in his first vision-dream. We read in column XIX, verse 19, that Gudea "brought the brick, placed it in the temple." It follows from this statement that Gudea had the brick (and by inference the required mold) in his physical possession; the brick and mold were thus two more objects (in addition to the lapis lazuli tablet) that crossed the boundary in a Twilight Zone.

Now Gudea contemplated "the sketched ground plan of the temple." But "unlike the Goddess Nisaba who always understands the meaning of dimensions," Gudea was stymied. Again he needed additional divine guidance; and again he resorted to the method that had worked before - but only after obtaining, through divination, a "go-ahead."

The method he used for divination involved the "passing of quiet waters over seeds" and determining the course of action by the appearance of the wet seeds.

"Gudea examined the omens,

and his omens were favorable."

So Gudea laid down his head,
prostrated himself.

The command-vision emerged:

"The building of thy Lord’s House,
the Eninnu, thou shall complete -
from its foundation below to
its top that rises skyward."

Though scholars consider this episode "Gudea’s third dream," the text’s terminology is significantly different. Even on the previous occasions the term translated "dream," MA-MUZU, is more akin to the Hebrew/Semitic Mahazeh which better translates as "a vision." Here, on the third time, the term employed is DUG MUNATAE - a "command-vision that emerges."

On this time around, in this "command-vision" by request, Gudea was shown how to start the building of his Lord’s temple. In front of his very eyes the process of the completion of the Eninnu, "from its foundation below to its top that rises skyward," was taking shape. The vision of a simulated demonstration of the whole process, from the bottom up, "engaged his attention." What was to be done finally became clear; and "with joy he took up the task."

How the work then proceeded, how Gudea was helped by a team of Divine Architects and Gods and Goddesses of astronomy to orient the temple and erect its observatories, how and when calendrical requirements were met, and the ceremonies that inaugurated the new temple, are all told in the balance of Cylinder "A" and in Cylinder "B" of the Sumerian king. We have dealt with this part of the records in When Time Began.

A tablet that appears in a dream and then materializes with powerful effects in the subsequent awakened condition plays a key role in the tale of a Babylonian "Job," a righteous sufferer. The text, titled Ludlul Bel Nemeqi ("I will praise the Lord of Wisdom") after its opening line, tells the story of Shubshi, a righteous man, who laments his misfortune, having been forsaken by his God, "cut off" by his protective Goddess, abandoned by his friends.

He loses his house, his possessions, and - worst of all - his health. He wonders Why?, hires diviners and "interpreters of dreams" to find out the reasons for his sufferings, calls upon exorcists to "appease the divine wrath." But nothing seems to work or help. "I am perplexed at these things," he writes. Debilitated, coughing, limp, with terrible headaches, he is ready to die; but as he reaches the depths of misery and desperation, salvation comes in a series of dreams.

In the first dream he sees "a remarkable young man of outstanding physique, splendid in body, clothed in new garments." As he awakens, he catches a glimpse of this apparition, actually sees the young man "clothed in splendor, robed in awesomeness." The action or speech that takes place in the course of this dream come true are lost by damage to the tablet.

In the second dream a "remarkable Washed One" appeared, "holding in his hand a piece of purifying tamarisk wood." The apparition recited "life-restoring incantations" and poured "purifying waters" over the diseased sufferer.

The third dream was even more remarkable, for it contained a dream within a dream. "A remarkable young woman of shining countenance," a Goddess by all counts, appeared. She spoke to the Babylonian "Job" of deliverance. "Fear not," she said, "I will ... in a dream deliver you from your wretched state." And so, in his dream, the sufferer dreamed that he was seeing in a dream "a bearded young man wearing a head-covering, an exorcist":

He was carrying a tablet.

"Marduk has sent me," [he said].

"To Shubshi, the Righteous Dweller,

from Marduk’s pure hands

I have brought thee wellbeing."

When he awakens, Shubshi finds the tablet that appeared to him in the dream within a dream actually in his possession. The boundary that is the Twilight Zone has been crossed, the metaphysical has become physical. There is cuneiform writing on the tablet, and Shubshi can read it: "in the waking hours, he sees the message." He regains enough strength to "show the favorable sign to my people."

Miraculously, the "illness was quickly over." His fever was broken. The headache was "carried away," the Evil Demon was banished to its domain; the chills were "flowed away to the sea," the "clouded eyes" cleared up, the "obstructions to the hearing" were removed, the toothache was gone - the list of afflictions that disappeared when the mysterious-miraculous tablet appeared goes on and on, leading to the punch line: "Who but Marduk could have restored the dying to life?"
 

The tale ends with a description of the libations, sacrifices, and offerings by the hero of the tale in honor of Marduk and his spouse Sarpanit as the erstwhile sufferer proceeds to the great ziggurat-temple via the sacred precinct’s twelve gates.
The ancient records include additional instances that belong in the Twilight Zone, where objects - or actions - that are part of the dream-vision dimension appear in the ensuing awakened reality.

Though they lack the clear-cut pictorial evidence available in the case of the tablet with the temple’s plan, the other reports suggest that the phenomenon, though rare, was not unique to Gudea. Even there, though Gudea himself does not hold them up for posterity to see, we know from the text that at least two additional objects - the mold and the Brick of Destiny - also materialized into the rational dimension.

Physical objects and actions that transcend the boundary are also encountered in the dreams of Gilgamesh. The "handiwork of Anu" that descended from the skies is reported in Tablet I as seen in a dream; but when the episode is repeated in Tablet II of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the dream becomes a vision of real happenings.

Gilgamesh struggles to extract the artifact’s inner whirring part, and when he finally succeeds he takes the mysterious object to his mother and puts it at her feet.

Later on, as Gilgamesh and Enkidu encamp at the foothills of the Cedar Mountain, Gilgamesh falls asleep, has three dreams, and each time a dreamed-of action - a call, a touch - is transformed into real action that awakens him. The call, the touch are so real that he suspects Enkidu of doing that; but after Enkidu firmly denies calling or touching Gilgamesh, the king realizes that it was the God in his dream that had touched him so realistically that his flesh became numb.

And finally there was the dream-vision of the launched rocketship - a "dream" in which Gilgamesh sees an object the likes of which he had never seen before, a launching the likes of which no one in Uruk had seen (for it was neither a Spaceport nor a Landing Place). He did not end up holding the object in his hand once the vision had dissipated; but we could still see it depicted in the Byblos coin (Fig. 49).

The dream-visions of Daniel, a Jewish captive in the court of Nebuchadnezzar (king of Babylon in the sixth century B.C.), contain even more direct parallels to the physical aspects of the Twilight Zone encounters of Gilgamesh and Gudea.

Describing one of his Divine Encounters at the banks of the Tigris River (the Book of Daniel, chapter 10), he wrote:

I lifted up mine eyes, and behold,
I saw a sole man clothed in linen
whose loins were girded with Ophir gold.
His body gleamed like topaz,
his face shone like lightning,
his eyes flamed like torches,
his arms and feet were the color of bronze,
and his voice was a booming one.

"I alone could see the apparition," Daniel wrote; but though the other people who were with him could not see it, they felt an awesome presence and ran away to hide. He, too, felt suddenly immobilized, able to only hear the divine voice; but

As soon as I heard the voice of his words
I fell asleep face down,
my face touching the ground.

This position was akin to that described by Gudea; ensuing is the similarity to the awakenings that puzzled Gilgamesh, when in his dreams he experienced an actual, physical touch and voice of "a God."

Continuing his narrative, Daniel wrote that,

as he fell asleep facedown,
Suddenly a hand touched me
and pulled me up, to be
upon my knees and the palms of my hands.

The divine person then revealed to Daniel that he was to be shown the future. Overwhelmed, with his face still down, Daniel was speechless. But then the person - "of the appearance of the sons of Man" - touched the lips of Daniel, and Daniel was able to speak. When he apologized for his weakness, the divine person touched him again, and Daniel "regained his strength." All that had taken place while Daniel was seized by a trancelike sleep.

More memorable than the dream-visions of Daniel is the Twilight Zone incident of the Handwriting-on-the-Wall. It took place in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s successor as regent in Babylon, Bel-shar-utzur ("Lord, the Prince preserve") whom the bible calls Belshazzar, circa 540 B.C.

As related in chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar made a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and was feasting and drinking wine - a scene known from several Babylonian and Assyrian depictions of royal banquets (Fig. 62).

Figure 62
 

Drunk with too much wine, he gave orders to fetch the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had seized from the Temple in Jerusalem, so that,

"he and his nobles, his concubines and his courtesans might drink from them. So the vessels of gold and silver from the sanctuary in the House of God in Jerusalem were brought in; and the king and his nobles, his concubines and courtesans, drank from them; they drank wine and praised the Gods of gold and silver, of bronze and iron and of wood and stone."

As the pagan merriment and defilement of the sacred objects from Yahweh’s temple continued,

Suddenly,
There appeared the fingers of a
human hand,
and it wrote upon the plaster of
the palace wall,
opposite the candelabra;
And the king could see the wrist of
the hand as it wrote.

The sight of a human hand - disembodied, floating by itself unconnected to an arm and a body - was disconcerting; the suddenness of the appearance only added to the sense of foreboding.

"The king’s mind was filled with terror, his countenance turned pale, every limb of his became limp, his knees knocked together."

He must have realized that the desecration of the vessels from the Temple of Yahweh had triggered an ominous Divine Encounter with some unknown dire consequences.

He shouted for the seers and diviners of Babylon to be rushed in. Addressing the "wise men of Babylon" he announced that whoever could read the writing and interpret the meaning of the apparition shall be rewarded and elevated to the third highest rank in the kingdom. But none could interpret the vision nor understand the written message. And "Belshazzar sat pale and utterly scared and his nobles all perplexed."

Upon this scene of fear and desperation in walked the queen; and when she heard what had happened, she pointed out that the wise man Daniel had been known for his ability to understand and interpret dreams and divine messages. So Daniel was called in and was told of the promised rewards. Refusing the rewards, he nevertheless agreed to interpret the vision.

By then the writing hand must have vanished, but the writing on the wall remained. Confirming that the bad omen was the result of the desecration of the Temple’s vessels that were consecrated to the God Most High, the Lord of Heaven, Daniel explained the writing and its meaning:

This is why by Him the hand was sent, and why this writing was inscribed.

These are the words of the writing: Mene, mene, lekel u Pharsin.

And here is the words’ interpretation:

Mene: God hath numbered the days of thy kingdom,
and it is finished.
Tekel: Thou are weighed in the balance,
and found wanting.
U Pharsin: Thy kingdom shall be divided,
to the Medes and Persians it shall be given.

Belshazzar kept his promise, and ordered that Daniel be robed in purple and honored with a chain of gold around his neck, and proclaimed third in rank in the kingdom. But "that very night, Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain, and Darius of the Medes took the kingdom" (Daniel 5:30-31).

The message from the Twilight Zone was promptly fulfilled.

Gudea’s Twilight Zone dream-visions, in which he was given divine instructions and plans for the construction of the Eninnu temple in Lagash, preceded by more than a millennium similar divine communications regarding Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem.

Following the detailed instructions given by Yahweh to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Children of Israel built for the Lord a portable Mishkan - literally, "Residence" - in the Sinai wilderness; its most important component was the Ohel Moed ("Tent of Appointment") in whose holiest part the Ark of the Covenant that contained the Tablets of the Law and that was protected by the Cherubim was kept.

After the arrival in Canaan, the Ark of the Covenant was temporarily located at the principal places of worship, awaiting its final and permanent installation in the "House of Yahweh" in Jerusalem. Circa 1000 B.C. David succeeded King Saul as King of Israel. After making Jerusalem his capital, it was the hope and ambition of King David to build there the sacred Temple in whose Holy of Holies the Ark of the Covenant could finally come to rest at a spot held sacred from time immemorial. But divine communications - principally through dreams - had willed otherwise.

As the biblical record tells it, David shared his intention to build the temple with the Prophet Nathan, who gave it his blessing. But,

"it came to pass that very night, that the word of Yahweh came to Nathan, instructing him to tell King David that because he had been involved in wars and the shedding of blood, it would be his son, rather than David himself, who would build the temple."

How the Prophet Nathan had received the divine communication "that very night" is explained at the end of the tale (II Samuel 7:17): "And Nathan related to David all these words, the whole of this vision." It was thus not just a dream, but an epiphany; not a Chalom ("dream") but a Hizzayon ("envisioning"), in which not only were the words heard but the speaker was also "envisioned," as had been explained by Yahweh to the brother and sister of Moses in the Sinai encampment.

So King David went "and sat before Yahweh," in front of the Ark of the Covenant. He accepted the Lord’s decision, but wished to make sure of both its parts - that he would not build the Temple, and that his son will. Thus sitting before the Ark of the Covenant by means of which Moses had communicated with the Lord, David repeated the Prophet’s words.

The Bible does not report the Lord’s answer; but in that "sitting before Yahweh" may lie a key to understanding a puzzle - the mystery of the origin of the Temple’s plans. For we read in I Chronicles chapter 28 that as David neared the end of his days he called together the leaders and elders of Israel and told them of Yahweh’s decision regarding the building of the Temple.

Announcing that his successor would be Solomon, "David gave Solomon his son the Tavnit" of the Temple with all its parts and chambers, "the Tavnit of all that he had by the Spirit."
 

The Hebrew word Tavnit is commonly translated "pattern," and this term suggests that it could be a design, an architectural plan. But the biblical term implies more accurately a "constructed model" rather than a Tokhnit ("plan" in Hebrew). It was a physical model that apparently was small enough to be handed over by David to Solomon - something that nowadays would be spoken of as a "scale model."

As archaeological finds in Mesopotamia and Egypt attest, scale models were not unknown in the ancient Near East; we can illustrate the fact by showing some of the objects discovered in Mesopotamia (Fig. 63a), as well as some of the numerous Egyptian ones (Fig. 63b).

Figures 63a and 63b
 

In some Sumerian cylinder seal depictions a temple-tower (Fig. 64a) is shown no taller than the human and divine personages in the scene, as is the case of a priestess shown decorating a model of a temple (Fig. 64b). It has been assumed that the structures were drawn not to true scale simply to make them fit the space on the seal; but the discovery of actual clay scale models of temples and shriner, (Fig. 64c) - paralleling the biblical references to the Tavnit, suggests that perhaps in Mesopotamia, too, kings were shown actual models of the temples and shrines they were instructed to build.

Figures 64a, 64b, and 64c
 

The term Tavnit appears earlier in the Bible, in connection with the building of the portable Residence for Yahweh during the Exodus. It was when Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet the Lord, staying there forty days and forty nights, that "Yahweh spoke unto Moses" regarding the Mishkan (a term usually translated Tabernacle but that literally means a "Residence").

After listing a variety of materials needed for the construction - to be obtained from the Israelites as voluntary contributions, not as imposed taxation as Gudea had done - Yahweh showed Moses a Tavnit of the Residence and a Tavnit of the instruments thereof, saying (Exodus 25:8-9):

And they shall make me a sanctuary, and I will reside in the midst of them. In accordance with all that I show thee - the Tavnit of the Mishkan and the Tavnit of all the instruments thereof - so shall ye make it.

Detailed architectural measurements and instructions for the making of the Ark of the Covenant with its two Cherubim, and the Curtain, and the ritual Table and its utensils, and the Candelabra then followed; and the instructions were only interrupted for the admonition, "and see and make them in accordance with their Tavnit that you are being shown on the Mount," after which the explicit architectural directives continued (taking up two additional chapters in the Book of Exodus). Clearly then, Moses was shown models - presumably scale models - of everything that had to be made.

The biblical accounts of the architectural instructions for the Residence in the Sinai and the Temple in Jerusalem, and for the various utensils, ritual instruments, and accessories, are so detailed that modern scholars and artists had no problem in depicting them (Fig. 65).

Figure 65
 

The account in I Chronicles chapter 28, reporting the materials and instructions handed over by King David to Solomon for the construction of the Temple, uses the term Tavnit four times, leaving no doubt regarding the existence of such a model. After the fourth and last mention, David told Solomon that the Tavnit with all its details were literally given him by Yahweh, accompanied by written instructions:

All this,
in writing by his hand,
did Yahweh made me understand
all of the workings of the Tavnit.

All that, according to the bible, was given to David "by the Spirit" as he "sat before Yahweh" in front of the Ark of the Covenant (in its temporary location). How the "Spirit" imparted to David the instructions, including the writings by the hand of Yahweh and the extraordinarily detailed Tavnit, remains a mystery - a Divine Encounter that befits the Twilight Zone.
 

The Temple that Solomon eventually built was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (in 587 B.C.), who took most of the Judean leaders and nobles into exile in Babylon.

Among them was Ezekiel; and when the Lord deemed that the time for the rebuilding of the Temple was nigh, the Divine Spirit - the "Spirit of Elohim" - was upon Ezekiel and he began to prophesy. His experiences truly belong in the Twilight Zone.

And it came to pass in the thirtieth year,
in the fourth month, on the fifth day thereof,
as I was among the captives by the river Chebar,
that the heavens were opened
and I saw Divine Visions.

Thus begins the biblical Book of Ezekiel. Its forty-eight chapters are replete with visions and Divine Encounters; the opening vision, that of a Divine Chariot, is one of the most remarkable records of a UFO witnessed in antiquity.

The detailed technical description of the Chariot and the manner in which it could move in any direction as well as up and down, has intrigued generations of biblical scholars from early on all the way to modern times, and became part of the mystery lore of the Jewish Kaballah, whose study was limited only to Knowing Initiates.

(In recent years the technical interpretation by Joseph Blumrich, an ex-NASA engineer, in The Spaceships of Ezekiel (Fig. 66a) has received favorable attention. An early Chinese depiction of a Flying Chariot (Fig. 66b), attests to the widespread awareness of the phenomenon in antiquity in all parts of the world).

Figures 66a and 66b
 

Inside the Chariot Ezekiel could vaguely see, seated upon what appeared to be a throne, "the likeness of a man" within a brilliance or a fiery halo; and as Ezekiel fell upon his face, he heard a voice speaking. Then he saw "a hand stretched out" toward him, and the hand held a written scroll. "And it was unrolled before me, and, behold, it was covered with writing front and back."

The vision of just a hand representing the deity recalls the Writing on the Wall seen by Belshazzar; and in the Gudea inscriptions it was stated that he was told that, to signal the propitious day for the temple, a God’s hand holding a torch shall appear in the sky. In this regard an eleventh century bronze plaque in the Hildsheim (Germany) cathedral, showing Cain and Abel making their offerings to God, in which the Lord is represented only by a divine hand appearing from the clouds (Fig. 67) is truly inspired.

Figure 67
 

The word "dream" does not appear in the book of Ezekiel even once; instead the Prophet uses the term "vision." "The heavens opened and I saw Divine Visions," Ezekiel states in the very first paragraph of his book. The term used in the Hebrew is actually "Elohim visions," visions relating to the DIN.GIR of Sumerian texts.

The term retains some ambiguity as to the nature of the "vision" - the actual seeing of a scene, or an induced mental image that is created, somehow, in the mind’s eye only. What is certain is that from time to time reality intrudes into these visions - an actual voice, an actual object, a visible hand. In that, the visions of Ezekiel belong in the Twilight Zone.

Among the several Divine Encounters that move Ezekiel along his prophetic path, more than one are instances where the unreal includes a reality that in turn fades into unreality. One has elements of Gudea’s initial dream-vision in which divine beings show him a plan of a temple and hold architectural tools that end up materially in the king’s possession.
"It was in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day thereof," Ezekiel relates in chapter 8.

"As I was sitting in my home, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Lord Yahweh happened upon me,"

And I looked up,

and beheld an apparition,

the likeness of a man.
From his waist down the appearance was of fire,

and from the waist up the appearance was of a brightness,

like the sheen of electrum.

The wording here reveals the Prophet’s own uncertainty regarding the nature of the vision - a reality or a nonreality. He calls what he sees an "apparition," the being that he sees is only a likeness of a man. Is whoever had appeared clad in fire and brilliance, or is he made of fire and brilliance, a make-believe image?

Whatever it was, it was able to perform physically:

And he put forth the shape of a hand,
and seized me by a lock on my head.
And the spirit carried me
between the earth and the heaven,
and brought me to Jerusalem -
in Elohim visions -
to the door of the inner gate that faces north.

The narrative then described what Ezekiel had seen in Jerusalem (including the women mourning Dumuzi). And when the prophetic instructions were completed, and the Divine Chariot "lifted off from the city and rested upon the mount that is to the east of the city,"

The spirit carried me and brought me
to Chaldea, to the place of exile.
lit was] in a Vision of the Spirit of Elohim.
And then the vision that I had seen
was lifted off me.

The biblical text stresses more than once that the airborne journey was in a Divine Vision, a "Vision of the Spirit of Elohim.’" Yet there clearly is a description of a physical visit to Jerusalem, discussions with its residents, and even the "putting of a mark on the foreheads" of the righteous ones who were to be spared the predicted carnage and final destruction of the city.

(Chapter 33 records the arrival of a refugee from Jerusalem in the twelfth year of the first exile, informing the exiles in Babylon that the prophecy regarding Jerusalem had come to pass).

Fourteen years later, in the twenty-fifth year of the first exile, on New Year’s Day, "the hand of Yahweh came upon" Ezekiel once more, and the hand took him to Jerusalem.

"In Elohim Visions he brought me to the Land of Israel, and placed me on a very high mountain, by which was the model of a city, to the south."

And as he brought me there, behold -
There was a man whose appearance was that
of copper
He held a cord of flax in his hand,
and a measuring rod;
and he stood at the gate.

(A measuring cord and rod have been depicted in Sumerian times as sacred objects granted by a Divine Architect to a king chosen to build a temple - Fig. 68.)

Figure 68
 

The Divine Measurer instructed Ezekiel to pay attention to everything he would hear and see, and especially so to note all the measurements, so that he could report it all accurately back to the exiles. No sooner were these instructions given, than the image in front of Ezekiel changed. Suddenly the scene of a distant man changed to that of a wall surrounding a large house - as though, in terms from our time, a camera was refocused to a telescopic lens. From a close-up, Ezekiel could see "the man with the measure" starting to take the measurements of the house.

From the scene outside the house, at the surrounding wall, Ezekiel could now see the measurer as he kept going and measuring; and as this went on, the scene - as though a television camera was following the man - kept changing; and instead of the outside scenes Ezekiel could see images of the inner parts of the house - courtyards, chambers, chapels. From an examination of the general architecture the images now switched to the perception of details of construction and decorative fine points. It became evident to Ezekiel that he was being shown the future, rebuilt Temple, with its Holy of Holies and sacred utensils, and the locations for the priests, and the place of the Cherubim.

The description, which takes up three long chapters in the Book of Ezekiel, is so detailed and the measurements and architectural data so precise, that modern draftsmen were able to draw the Temple’s plans with little difficulty (Fig. 69).

Figure 69
 

As one envisioned scene followed the other, in a simulation that beats the most advanced "Virtual Reality" techniques that are still being developed at the end of the twentieth century A.D., Ezekiel was then - more than 2,500 years ago - taken into the vision. As though physically, he was led to the east-facing gate to the Temple compound; and there he saw "the glory of the God of Israel" coming through the eastern entrance, in a "vision like the vision seen before" on two previous occasions.
And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and I beheld that the Glory of Yahweh filled the Temple.
And now he heard a voice addressing him from inside the Temple.

It was not the "man" whom he had seen before with the measuring cord and rod, for that man was now standing beside him. And the voice from inside the Temple announced that that would be where the Divine Throne will be placed, and where the Lord’s feet shall touch the ground. Finally, Ezekiel was instructed to inform the House of Israel of all that he had heard and seen, and give them the plan’s measurements, so that the New Temple could be properly built.

The Book of Ezekiel then ends with long instructions for the sacred services in the future Temple. It mentions that Ezekiel "was brought back" to see the Glory of Yahweh through the north gate. Presumably, it was therefrom that Ezekiel was returned from his Divine Vision; but the Book of Ezekiel leaves this unstated.
 

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