Monday, December 31, 2018

Zecharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet: Chapters 7 and 8


“Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal impression from the eighth century 
BCE identified by several sources as a possible depiction of
 the slaying of Tiamat (in) the Enûma Eliš” 
(Wikipedia, citing Geoffrey W. Bromily, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1988, p.1) 
and Roy Willis, World Mythology (2012, p. 62).



[5th of 9 Parts]

Chapter 7 - “Epic of Creation”

Sitchin refers to an ancient “Akkadian text, written in the Old Babylonian dialect," that accordingly recounts the solar system's evolution, including "the Creation of Heaven and Earth” (as well as the Creation of Man, which Sitchin discusses at length in chapter 11).

Known as the Enuma elish (after the first two words in its opening line), translator L.W. King's “authoritative text” rendered it as The Seven Tablets of Creation

It is more popularly known today as the “Epic of Creation.”

In comparing the Creation epic with the Bible’s Creation account in Genesis, Sitchin observes that while the biblical story “begins with the creation of Heaven and Earth,” the Mesopotamian epic deals “with prior events” that take its readers “to the beginning of time” (210).

This is how Sitchin views the epic's characters and events:

The Enuma elish tells of Apsu (the Sun) and Tiamat (the primordial Earth) as the “two primeval celestial bodies” in the solar system. 

They were next joined by Mummu (Mercury), after which the other planets followed: Lahmu (Mars) and Lahamu (Venus), Anshar (Saturn) and Kishar (Jupiter), then Anu (Uranus) and Nudimmud (Neptune). 

Gaga or Pluto, in this account, was Saturn's former satellite. 

Pluto gained its independent (planetary) orbit around the sun when Nibiru (called Marduk by the Babylonians) passed by Saturn's vicinity of Saturn as it (Nibiru) moved “along its path towards an inevitable collision with Tiamat”—which was then, or orignally, between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

As gleaned in the foregoing, the ancient Sumerians counted twelve celestial bodies that compose the solar system: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Earth’s Moon (called Kingu in the epic),  Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Nibiru. 

As is now known, all the planets revolve clockwise around the sun. 

But Nibiru, Sitchin states, has a clockwise orbit, and visits the solar system once every 3,600 years.  

Moving on within the vicinity of Anu/Uranus, Nibiru sprouted four moons from “chunks of matter” due to the gravitational pull of the former. 

Nibiru grew three more satellites when it was “subjected to the tremendous gravitational pull” of Anshar/Saturn and Kishar/Jupiter (222). Nibiru, thus, had a total of seven satellites--which were termed "seven winds" in earlier translations.

These satellites, not Nibiru itself, “smashed into Tiamat” and rendered her “lifeless” (225). 

Tiamat’s then “ten, smaller satellites” “reversed their direction”—and, Sitchin figures that they became, or were the origin of,  comets (225). 

Kingu (Earth’s moon) was Tiamat’s largest moon (the 11th then); as indicated above, it had started—but failed—to gain independent orbit when Nibiru/Marduk was approaching Tiamat.

When Nibiru made another return orbit--that is, 3, 600 years after the dramatic  collision--its satellites and its own “electric bolts” split Tiamat in two.

Tiamat’s upper part, which became “Earth,” was carried to “an orbit where no planet had been orbiting before”--between Venus and Mars.

Tiamat's lower part was smashed into pieces by Nibiru itself and became the “Heavens” (of the Old Testament)—that is, “the Hammered Out Bracelet” now known as the Asteroid Belt, where Tiamat or its orbit used to be: between Mars and Jupiter.

 
Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission


Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission


  

 
Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission
  

  
Chapter 8 - “Kingship in Heaven”



The Solar System, By Beinahegut
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-System.pdf

.
Sitchin points to the “ ‘central position’ ” that Nibiru/Marduk occupies in the solar system--between the inner celestial bodies (Mercury, Venus, Earth and its Moon, and Mars) and the outer (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto). 

In short: between Mars and Jupiter, or the Asteroid Belt.

Interestingly, Sitchin observes that the Old Testament has, in fact,  made quite a number of references to this central planet: “Lord of Hosts” is Isaiah’s term for it; it has “marked out an orbit” in the “farthest limit," says the Book of Job; it is “the glory of the Lord” that “emanates” from “the end of heavens,” according to the Psalms. All of these, Sitchin states, are references that imply the apogee of Nibiru’s orbit (239-240).

Towards the end of the chapter, Sitchin reiterates what scientists have been baffled with (he has called attention to this early in the book—in chapter 1): that life on Earth began too soon (“within a few hundred million years”) after the Earth was formed (“some 4,500,000,000 years ago”) (255).

The implication is that life on Earth “was itself a descendant of some previous life form, and not the combination of lifeless chemicals and gases” (255). 

In short, life “did not, in fact, evolve on Earth” (255)—as suggested for instance, Sitchin observes, in 1973 by Nobel prize winner Francis Crick and by Dr. Leslie Orgel (255-256).

Sitchin stresses that life on our planet was a result of Earth's collision with a “life-bearing planet, the Twelfth Planet (Nibiru) and its satellites” (255).

During the collision, Sitchin continues, “the life-bearing soil and air of the Twelfth Planet ‘seeded’ Earth, giving it the biological and complex early forms of life for whose early appearance there is no other explanation” (255).


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Saturday, December 29, 2018

Zecharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet: Chapters 5 and 6


Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission


[4th of 9 Parts]


Chapter 5 - “The Nefilim: People of the Fiery Rockets”

Sitchin starts the chapter with a reference to Sumerian and Akkadian texts that "leave no doubt that the peoples of the ancient Near East were certain that the Gods of Heaven and Earth were able to rise from earth and ascend into the Heavens, as well as roam the Earth’s skies at will” with their “fiery rockets” (128).

He goes on to describe one of the goddesses to illustrate his point: Inanna, also known as Ishtar.

Innana flew by mechanical means from Aratta to Uruk (biblical Erech), as well as to “Enki in Eridu”, to “Enlil in Nippur,” to her brother “Utu…in Sippar,” and to her sister Ereshkigal in the Lower World (129-130).

Innana was depicted as having used seven “objects”--or what Sitchin terms as "seven ME's"--relative to her “skyborne travels”: 

(1) a SHU.GAR.RA, on her head; 

(2) “Measuring pendants, on her ears”; 

(3) “Chains of small blue stones, around her neck”; 

(4) “Twin stones, on her shoulders”; 

(5) a “golden cylinder, in her hands”; 

(6) “Straps, clasping her breast”; and a 

(7) “PALA garment, clothed around her body” (130).

Sitchin makes a brief digression to point to the possibility that the “three men” who visited Abraham (in the Bible) were skyborne travelers who were “instantly recognizable as angels” due to “their helmets or uniforms—or what they carried—their weapons” (133). 

(Sitchin would explore this issue at length-- 22 years later--in his Divine Encounters. A Guide to Visions, Angels, and Other Emissaries [1998] ).

Sitchin stresses that the Gods of Heaven and Earth were “divine aeronaut(s)” (134)/

He adds that their temples had an “inner, sacred enclosure” for a mu, which was “an oval-shaped, conical object,” or rocket (140). 

In charge of the rockets and their landing place in Sippar was the god Utu, also called Shamash.            

             An ancient coin depicting a rocket at the 
upper right hand corner
Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission


Chapter 6 - “The Twelfth Planet”

Sitchin remarks that the ancient Sumerians used such terms as “Heavenly Abode,” a “pure place,” or a “primeval abode” in referring to Nibiru (173). 

He goes on to state that a cylinder seal--cataloged as VA/243--now kept in the Berlin Museum of the Ancient Near East, indicates that to the Sumerians the solar system consists of twelve celestial bodies, namely: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Earth’s Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Nibiru (Marduk in Babylonian).


Cylinder seal VA/243 showing the 12 celestial bodies
(near upper left corner)
Illustration Copyright by Zecharia Sitchin
Reprinted by Permission 




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Thursday, December 27, 2018

Zecharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet: Chapters 3 and 4


Akkadian cylinder seal dating to c. 2300 BC, depicting the deities 
Inanna, Utu, Enki, and Isimud” (Enki’s messenger) (Kramer 1961:32-33)
By The British Museum Collections - Version 1 Version 2, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12751616



[3rd of 9 Parts]


Chapter 3 - “Gods of Heaven and Earth”

This chapter starts with the question of what--“after hundreds of thousands and even millions of years of painfully slow human development”--“changed everything so completely,” and 

             in a one-two-three punch—circa 11,000-7400-3800 B.C.—
             transformed primitive nomadic hunters and food gatherers
             into farmers and pottery makers, and then into builders of
             cities, engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, metallurgists,
             merchants, musicians, judges, doctors, authors, librarians,
             (and) priests. (52) 

The Sumerians had one answer: the “gods.”

Who were the gods?

Were they like the gods of Greece?

Sitchin identifies the Greek pantheon of 12 gods/goddesses, and informs that the Greek gods were, among other things, “anthropomorphic,” that is, “as physically similar to mortal men and women, and human in character” (52).

Thus, “they could be happy and angry and jealous; they made love, quarreled, fought; and they procreated like humans, bringing forth offspring through sexual intercourse—with each other or with humans” (52-53).

Sitchin discerns patterns in the relationship among the gods of Greece, as well as of other peoples of the ancient world—such patterns, for example, as usurpation, castration, and the recurrence of the number 12 relative to the pantheon of each people’s or nation’s major gods.

Based on the aforesaid patterns, Sitchin says that the gods/goddesses of Greece are all traceable in origin to the Near East, particularly Sumer.

As Sitchin writes, “all the corridors of all the temples” of the Greeks, the Aryans, Hittites, Hurrians, Canaanites, Egyptians, and Amorites have “one source: Sumer” (87).


Chapter 4 - “Sumer: Land of the Gods”

Sitchin calls attention to three classifications of gods:

(1) the gods “of the heavens” – which were actually “celestial bodies,” such as Apsu (the Sun), Tiamat (the primordial Earth before it was divided), Anshar (Jupiter), and Kishar (Saturn);

(2) the lesser gods “of Earth,” who were “local deities”; and

(3) the “Gods of Heaven and Earth,” who were “national—indeed, international gods” (88-89).

Sitchin then zeroes in on “a dynasty of gods”--whose rules of succession involve the “recognition of one’s son by his half-sister as heir apparent” (89).

This “divine family” of “closely related but bitterly divided” relatives was headed by a “pantheon” of twelve who were each assigned or associated with a number that signified their rank:

(1)   An or Anu (King of Nibiru), number 60;

Ur III (Middle Bronze Age) form of the cuneiform character DINGIR (AN)
                       (dingir), meaning "heavens" or "deity"  

By Geoff Richards (User:Qef) - Generated by uploader, path data 
rendered using font 'Akkadian', by George Douros.,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4947027


(2)   Antu (Anu’s wife), number 55;

(3)  Enlil (Anu’s son by his official wife; thus, his heir apparent), number 50;

(4)  Ninlil (Enlil’s wife), number 45;

(5) Ea also known as Enki (Anu’s first-born son by Id, one of Anu’s 
     concubines), number 40;

(6)  Damkina or Ninki (Enki’s wife), number 35;

(7)  Nannar or Sin (Enlil’s first-born son by his wife Ninlil), number 30;

(8)  Ningal (Sin’s wife), number 25;

(9)  Utu or Shamash, number 20;
Inanna/Ishtar
By Marie-Lan Nguyen (User:Jastrow), 2009-01-14, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6005529

(10)  Irnini or Ishtar, number 15 (Utu and Irnini were Nannar’s twin 
       offspring);

(11)  Ishkur also known as Adad / Teshub, Enlil’s son, number 10; and 

(12)  Ninhursag (Enki’s and Enlil’s half sister), number 5.


"Marduk."
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/readinglists/marduk.jpg - 
en:Image:Marduk and pet.jpg, Public Domain, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117980


Other Anunnaki gods who "played active roles in the affairs of Earth" were:

a) Marduk (Enki’s son who wanted to claim supremacy among the 
   gods/goddesses, and succeeded for a while after the nuclear holocaust of 
   2024 B.C.);

b)  Ninurta (Enlil’s heir apparent); and

c)  Nergal (Enki’s son who often sided with the Enlilites).


Anu and Antu remained for the most part in their home planet, Nibiru.

Enki or Ea lived in Eridu. His other name was Nudimmud ((“he who  made things”).

"The Ruins of Eridu in 2011,"
By Ltybcc1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17767932


Enlil lived for "21,600 Earth years in Larsa" while a “Mission Control Center” 
was being built in Nibruki (“Earth’s crossing”) or Nippur.

At Nippur’s center, when the Mission Control Center was done, was
"Enlil’s headquarters, the KI.UR (“place of Earth’s root”).

“Ruins from a temple in Naffur (ancient Nippur), Iraq,
are said to be the site for the meeting of Sumerian gods,
as well as the place that man was created" (2009 photo)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruins_from_a_temple_in_Naffur.jpg
Jasmine N. Walthall, U.S. Army [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


Nannar or Sin was installed by Enlil in Bad-tibira, an industrial center. Nannar was also known as Nugig (“he of the night sky”) (297).

Ninurta’s city was Larak. He was also known as Pabilsag (“great protector”).

Utu was assigned at Sippar (“bird”)--when he “matured to take command of the Fiery Rockets;”  “in time,” he was “to become the God of Justice,” and “was assigned the constellation Scorpio and Libra" (298).

Ninhursag or Sud took charge of Shruruppak, the Anunnaki’s medical center.


"List of titles of different occupations, clay tablet from Shuruppak, 
Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq, on display in the Pergamon Museum,"
Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons




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