Friday, October 03, 2014

Ezekiel’s Wheel: An Incursion of the Multidimensional?

Ezekiels_Wheel

My prophets course this semester is now in full swing, and we are reading Ezekiel’s vision of the fantastic wheels this afternoon (Ezek 1:1-28). Last academic year, John D. Willard was taking a course with me and shared the above image. This is his commentary, which I find just fascinating:

In the early 1990s, as part of my job, I visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Fulton, Maryland. There was a group doing a project that involved modeling what multi-dimensional objects (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th dimensions) would look like if they passed through our three dimensional world. This was at a time when computers were slow and the graphics capabilities of the average computer were slim or non-existent. They had huge computers with independent roof-top cooling units. This was impressive stuff!

One of the project managers showed me a graphic model of one of these 5th or 6th dimensional objects. It appeared to be a flower-looking object with sections rotating in one direction, with a lower segment moving in the opposite direction. In the model, it moved around the screen several times. I suddenly remembered the passage from Ezekiel 1:16 of the wheel within a wheel.

IMG_8186

3 Comments:

Blogger adamtheman said...

Can you please attempt to create more images? If possible in HD?

Sat Dec 22, 01:50:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger S and C said...

Thanks John! You really made my day! I’ve got links to lots of my new images in my new Anchor Yale Bible commentary on Ezekiel. In addition, if you contact me by email through my school, I’d be delighted to send you links to even more images. Best holiday wishes!

Sat Dec 22, 01:57:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous John James said...

While doing my own deep dive into ancient history, I came to the same idea Ezekiel Wheel being a higher dimensional object. Would love to hear more, and other's, thoughts on this.

Tue Jul 27, 10:15:00 AM GMT-5  

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