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without knowing how he got there, and remained stunned, an experience reminiscent of numerous contemporary reports by people claiming abductions.
    We are not so naïve as to believe that the Ezekiel account in the Bible, which was written down centuries after the life of the prophet by that name, represents a first-hand report of an observation, any more than the abduction of Elijah in the previous account. Wikipedia notes that “the academic community has been split into a number of different camps over the authorship of the book. W. Zimmerli proposes that Ezekiel’s original message was influenced by a later school that added a deeper understanding to the prophecies. Other groups, like the one led by M. Greenberg, still tend to see the majority of the work of the book done by Ezekiel himself. Some scholars have suggested that the person described by the Book of Ezekiel may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, which has several characteristic symptoms that are apparent from his writing. These symptoms include hypergraphia, hyperreligiosity, fainting spells, mutism, and pedantism, often collectively ascribed to a condition known as Geschwind syndrome.”
    Even with these qualifications, the account is remarkable for Ezekiel’s description of a phenomenon that would resonate with the people of his time, and still strikes us by its awesome imagery:
    â€œThen I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings.”
    The text goes on: “Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went.
    â€œWhen the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went; when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels” (Ezekiel 1: 4-21).

    Fig. 2: The abduction of Ezekiel
    Later Ezekiel describes what today would be characterized as “abduction”:
    2:9 And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it
    3:12 Then the spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the Lord arose from its place, I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake.
    3:13 It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them that sounded like a great earthquake.
    3:14 The spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me.
    3:15 And I came to the exiles at Tel-Abib, who dwelt by the river Chebar. And I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.
    It is noteworthy that the description includes some words that appear only once in Ezekiel’s writing and some that only appear once in the entire Old Testament, an indication that the prophet was indeed looking for ways to express a vision that surpassed his understanding – and the ability of translators to adequately convey his experience.
    5.
    464 BC, Rome, Italy: Prodigious shapes and figures
    According to fourth-century Roman writer Julius