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Zecharia Sitchin

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Zecharia Sitchin (born 1922)[1] is an author of books promoting the ancient astronaut theory of human origins. He attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the "Annunaki" (or "Nephilim"), a race of aliens from an undiscovered planet named Nibiru in the Earth's solar system. He asserts that Sumerian mythology reflects this view, though his speculations are entirely discounted by mainstream scientists and historians who see many problems with his translations of ancient texts and with his understanding of physics.[2]

Life

Sitchin was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and was raised in Palestine. He acquired some knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew, other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and the history and archeology of the Near East. Sitchin graduated from the London School of Economics, University of London, majoring in economic history. A journalist and editor in Israel for many years, he now lives and writes in New York City. His books have been widely translated, converted to braille for the blind, and featured on radio and television.

Ideas

According to Sitchin's interpretation of Sumerian cosmology, there is a hypothetical planet which follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. This planet is called Nibiru (the planet associated with Marduk in Babylonian cosmology). Nibiru collided catastrophically with Tiamat, another hypothetical planet located by Sitchin between Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Tiamat, as outlined in the Enûma Elish, is a goddess. According to Sitchin, however, Tiamat may have been what we now know as Earth. When struck by one of planet Nibiru's moons, Tiamat split in two. On a second pass Nibiru itself struck the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat became the asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of Nibiru's moons, was pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth.

This scenario is hard to reconcile with the earth's current small orbital eccentricity of only 0.0167. Sitchin's supporters maintain that it would explain Earth's peculiar early geography due to cleaving from the celestial collision—i.e. solid continents on one side and a giant ocean on the other. While this is consistent with the giant impact hypothesis for the origin of the moon, that event is estimated to have occurred 4.5 billion years ago.

According to Sitchin, Nibiru was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who are called the Nephilim in the Bible. He claims they first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. These "gods" of the Anunnaki were the rank and file workers of the colonial expedition to earth from planet Nibiru. Sitchin believes the Anunnaki genetically engineered Homo sapiens as slave creatures to work their gold mines by crossing extraterrestrial genes with those of Homo erectus. Sitchin claims ancient inscriptions report that human civilization in Sumer of Mesopotamia was set up under the guidance of these "gods", and human kingship was inaugurated to serve as intermediaries between the Anunnaki and mankind. Sitchin believes that fallout from nuclear weapons used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials is the "evil wind" that destroyed Ur around 2000 BC (Sitchin himself claims the exact year is 2024 BC), described in the Lament for Ur.[3] Sitchin claims that his research coincides with many biblical texts, and that the biblical texts come originally from the Sumerian writings of their history.

When Sitchin researched his books, only specialists could read the Sumerian language, but now anyone can check his translations by utilizing the 2006 book Sumerian Lexicon.[4] Sitchin's translations of both individual words and of larger portions of ancient texts are frequently found to be incorrect.[5][6]

Sitchin has also claimed that certain unusual human genes discovered in 2001 were not the result of horizontal gene transfer from bacteria as concluded by geneticists, but were instead inserted into the human genome by aliens. The research itself was challenged shortly after it was published.

Controversy over his views

Sitchin's 'planetary collision' view does superficially resemble a theory which is seriously entertained by modern astronomers —the giant impact theory of the Moon's formation about 4.5 billion years ago by a body impacting with the newly-formed Earth. However, Sitchin's proposed series of rogue planetary collisions differ in both details and timing. As with Immanuel Velikovsky's earlier Worlds in Collision thesis, Sitchin claims to find evidence of ancient human knowledge of rogue celestial motions in a variety of mythological accounts. In Velikovsky's case, these interplanetary collisions were supposed to have taken place within the span of human existence, whereas for Sitchin these occurred during the early stages of planetary formation, but entered the mythological account passed down via the alien race which purportedly evolved on Nibiru after these encounters.

Problems with theory basis

Sitchin bases his arguments on his personal interpretations of Pre-Nubian and Sumerian texts, and the seal VA 243. Sitchin claims these ancient civilizations knew of a 12th planet, when in fact they only knew five.[7] Hundreds of Sumerian astronomical seals and calendars have been decoded and recorded, and the total count of planets on each seal has been five. Seal VA 243 has 12 dots that Sitchin identifies as planets. When translated seal VA 243 reads "You're his Servant" which is now thought to be a message from a nobleman to a servant. The so called sun on Seal VA 243 is not the Sumerian symbol for the sun but is a star, and the dots are also stars.[7][8] Hundreds of sun symbols have been documented, and the symbol on seal VA 243 has no resemblance to the documented symbols.

Similar ideas have been advanced by authors such as Immanuel Velikovsky, Erich von Däniken, Alan F. Alford and Laurence Gardner. Alan Alford, however, later recanted his views and became a critic of Sitchin's interpretation of myth.

Influence

Lorin Morgan-Richards wrote an album, directed and produced a modern dance performance entitled Enki in 1999 based on Zecharia Sitchin's book 'The Twelfth Planet'. Enki premiered in Cleveland, Ohio under the choreography of Michael Medcalf, and was co-produced by Valerie Stoneking.

Raëlism, the UFO religion founded by Claude Vorilhon, draws much of its beliefs from Sitchin's work, as does the Nuwaubian religion founded by Dwight York.

Zetatalk, the internet cult founded by contactee Nancy Leider, describes "Planet X", a large object they claim is about to hit Earth, as "Nibiru" in reference to Sitchin's claims.

David Icke draws on Sitchin's work in his conspiracy theories.

Several websites and forums claim Nibiru is in fact either:

  • 433 Eros, the second-largest asteroid in our solar system, which will pass near Earth on January 31, 2012,
  • Eris, the dwarf planet, or
  • a brown/red dwarf or planet coming towards Earth from the Pleiades, sometimes specifically the KELU-1 brown dwarf.

Sitchin Bibliography

  • The 12th Planet (Earth Chronicles, No. 1), New York: Harper, 1976, ISBN 038039362X
  • The Stairway to Heaven (Earth Chronicles, No. 2), 1980, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680890; Harper, 2007, ISBN 0061379204)
  • The Wars of Gods and Men (Earth Chronicles, No. 3), 1985, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680904)
  • The Lost Realms (Earth Chronicles, No. 4), AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-75890-3
  • Genesis Revisited: Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge?, (AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-76159-9)
  • When Time Began (Earth Chronicles, No. 5), 1993), (HARPER, 2007, ISBN-10:0061 37928X, ISBN-13:978-0061379284)
  • Divine Encounters: A Guide to Visions, Angels and Other Emissaries, AVON BOOKS, 1995, ISBN 0-380-78076-3)
  • The Cosmic Code (Earth Chronicles, No. 6), AVON BOOKS, 1998, ISBN 0-380-80157-4)
  • The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial god, Bear & Company, 2002, ISBN 1591430372
  • The Earth Chronicles Expeditions, Bear & Company, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-1591430766
  • The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (Earth Chronicles, No 7), William Morrow, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-123823-9
  • Journeys to the Mythical Past (Earth Chronicles Expedition) Bear and Company, 2007 ISBN-13:978-1591430803

DVDs

  • Are We Alone in the Universe? (based on Genesis Revisited), documentary, 1978 (2003 DVD release)[9]

References

  1. ^ Ronald Story, ed., The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, (New York New American Library, 2001), s.v. "Zecharia Sitchin," pp. 552.
  2. ^ Sitchin at The Skeptics Dictionary
  3. ^ Evil Wind web page
  4. ^ Halloran, John A. (2006). Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language. The David Brown Book Company.
  5. ^ http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/sitchinerrors.htm
  6. ^ http://www.ianlawton.com/mes6c.htm What's in a Shem?
  7. ^ a b {http://www.michaelsheiser.com/va_243%20page.htm The Myth of a 12th Planet in Sumero-Mesopotamian Astronomy: A Study of Cylinder Seal VA 243 by Dr. Michael S. Heiser
  8. ^ http://www.michaelsheiser.com/VA243seal.pdf The Myth of a 12th Planet: A Brief Analysis of Cylinder Seal VA 243 by Michael S. Heiser
  9. ^ Are We Alone in the Universe? at IMDb

See also

Critical of Sitchin

Pro-Sitchin


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