There are aliens in the Bible

When I was in college at an evangelical university, a popular poster in the dorms listed the names of God: Adonai, Jehovah, Elohim, etc.

These are names in the Bible's written languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek that are translated to various names for God, like Holy One, Prince of Peace, and Redeemer.

According to an Australian Bible scholar Paul Anthony Wallis, many names are used because the various authors of the Bible were referring to distinct entities, err... let's call them "beings."

Before we go deeper, let me give you a little background on my own history and relationship with the Bibile.

I was an evangelical Christian for the first 25 years of my life. I went to church weekly, and midweek groups enthusiastically. I led a Bible study in college and went on overseas missions trips to "spread the word."

When I was 26, while still a devoted Christian, I challenged the notion that Christians needed to be sexually abstinent until marriage. I wrote about this in my memoir, Shameless.

The book specifically explores the various Bible versus that Christians use to advocate for abstinence. But when I looked at the verses and considered that people in an entirely different culture and speaking in a different language had written this book, and a translator was making a decision to translate a term as "sexual promiscuity"—itself a word subject to interpretation—well, it put everything into a different perspective.

You can't unsee it.

Which brings me to the names of God.

When we've been taught the Bible one way, we easily accept and ignore contradictions.

Presented with new information, you might just see the entire thing differently.

After many years away from direct study of the Bible, I've begun to hear new interpretations of Jesus' teaching through the lens of mysticism. This has helped me reclaim my own spiritual foundation, even as my beliefs push further into the weird worlds of past life regressions, extraterrestrial channelers, and intuitive animal communication.

What I wasn't prepared for was the ultimate crossover episode of Bible study and mystical inquiry.

All the beings referred to as "God" are actually ... extraterrestrials.

Let's review the receipts.