Was Jesus an Annunaki?

[TheSearcher]

You have skipped a hypothesis where Enlil could have artificially fertilised the womb of Mary who then gave birth to Jesus....Jesus doesn't need to represent Ninurta,since Ninurta was a warlord and not a peace loving hippy......whereas according to Sitchin's writing the Annunaki were expert biotechnologists who fused their superior DNA with that of primitive ape like man to create us Homo Sapiens,so IVF (in vitro fertilisation) would have been a cake walk for them.

Jesus might not have been contacted by his father apparent till he was in his youth,when he started getting his message from his father.

Considering that Sitchin is not the best of references at best.....well what I'm saying is he is to put in the same category as Erik Von Däniken ....

Anyhow, I'm not sure that you have a defensible position here Harsh. Sitchin's assignment of meanings to ancient words is tendentious, frequently strained and even dead wrong on occasion (meaning he made it up). When critics checked Sitchin's references, they have found him to frequently quote totally out of context or to truncate said quotes in a way that distorts evidence in order to prove his contentions. Any contradictory evidence at all, is just ignored or vilified.

Not a text-book reference really......

To be fair, Sitchin knew how to read several ancient languages (including different cuneiform writings) perfectly well. He just seldom if ever felt the need to correctly report what those writings said. And indeed, the money he routinely got from people just like Harsh would scarcely persuade him to do otherwise. There's an difference between an idiot and a liar.

--Jaylemurph

Pretty right there mate, good liars like Sitchin and EVD are rarely idiots, they do know how to take advantage of the gullible.

Edited March 19, 2013 by TheSearcher

[Abramelin]

You have skipped a hypothesis where Enlil could have artificially fertilised the womb of Mary who then gave birth to Jesus....Jesus doesn't need to represent Ninurta,since Ninurta was a warlord and not a peace loving hippy......whereas according to Sitchin's writing the Annunaki were expert biotechnologists who fused their superior DNA with that of primitive ape like man to create us Homo Sapiens,so IVF (in vitro fertilisation) would have been a cake walk for them.

Jesus might not have been contacted by his father apparent till he was in his youth,when he started getting his message from his father.

Yep, his father was Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera, aka 'angel' to many women in those days.

[Harsh86_Patel]

So, for you, Sitchin - a guy who doesnt know scratch for cuneiform, is a final authority on it????

Sitchin has his interpretation of the cuneiform texts doesn't mean that he is the final authority but to ignore all his suggestions outright would be a mistake.

Sitchin has candidly accepted that he choose between alternative provided by mainstream cuneiform experts to consolidate his work.I don't believe that this is a dishonest approach.His site:

http://www.sitchin.com/

In the second paragraph on the home page there is a note on CDLI an online cuneiform library where he encourages independent researchers to go and explore his translations for themselves.

Most sceptics dislike the conclusion that Sitchin suggests based on the translation and most mainstream critics do not like the fact that he insists that his translations are not only accurate but they are not mythology but fact. If you try to analyse and evaluate just his translations then his method doesn't seem very objectionable.

[Harsh86_Patel]

To be fair, Sitchin knew how to read several ancient languages (including different cuneiform writings) perfectly well. He just seldom if ever felt the need to correctly report what those writings said. And indeed, the money he routinely got from people just like Harsh would scarcely persuade him to do otherwise. There's an difference between an idiot and a liar.

--Jaylemurph

Very true atleast you acknowledged that he is not an Idiot. He has not got any money from me,few of his books are freely available on the net like 'the lost book of Enki' and much of his work is quoted online which can be accessed for free.

You should give him a break before accusing him of profiteering by lying since with no major research institute funding him with trust fund money he had precious little to finance his trips and work.Why don't you rather attack the mainstream websites which charge membership fees for accessing any of their works/published papers etc. These organisations have people funding them but still are greedy enough to charge people to access their work,and people like Sitchin who charge for their books because they don't have any other resources seem like profiteers and cheats to you.

But then again the way you plead Sitchin's guilt,it seems that you have problems with Capitalism. Even if his work is nothing but fiction,it is entertaining for people to read hence they pay for it which i don't think reflects badly on his character.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Considering that Sitchin is not the best of references at best.....well what I'm saying is he is to put in the same category as Erik Von Däniken ....

Anyhow, I'm not sure that you have a defensible position here Harsh. Sitchin's assignment of meanings to ancient words is tendentious, frequently strained and even dead wrong on occasion (meaning he made it up). When critics checked Sitchin's references, they have found him to frequently quote totally out of context or to truncate said quotes in a way that distorts evidence in order to prove his contentions. Any contradictory evidence at all, is just ignored or vilified.

Not a text-book reference really......

Pretty right there mate, good liars like Sitchin and EVD are rarely idiots, they do know how to take advantage of the gullible.

First of all the best way to debunk Sitchin's translation is for the actual mainstream to publish their version of the translations in a way that it is acccessible to all. Why don't his critics from the mainstream or otherwise put out the correct translations or the ones that they think are correct.I tried searching a lot but have found very few or practical no alternative translation of the tablets in a continuous coherent manner. If you have access to such sites then please post the links online so ignorant people like me can read and decide what seems more accurate for ourselves.

Just criticising somebody who made an effort and has his version is not justified in my eyes,though i know for a fact that me and many other gullible souls like me who read Sitchin's works would be very keen to read the mainstream versions of the same so please post the links for the mainstream translations if you know any.

[TheSearcher]

First of all the best way to debunk Sitchin's translation is for the actual mainstream to publish their version of the translations in a way that it is acccessible to all. Why don't his critics from the mainstream or otherwise put out the correct translations or the ones that they think are correct.I tried searching a lot but have found very few or practical no alternative translation of the tablets in a continuous coherent manner. If you have access to such sites then please post the links online so ignorant people like me can read and decide what seems more accurate for ourselves.

Just criticising somebody who made an effort and has his version is not justified in my eyes,though i know for a fact that me and many other gullible souls like me who read Sitchin's works would be very keen to read the mainstream versions of the same so please post the links for the mainstream translations if you know any.

Don't play dumb Harsh, if you're on this forum and have used Sitchin before, which I'm sure you have, then you know full well where to look for it. However , I'll post them again for you and the other gullible souls (your words not mine), that might not know (or pretend so) the links. Hell I can even give you a link to an online engine that can translate it for you, made by Oxford university.

However, just for the record, this is the foreword of one of his books, which I quite honestly find very very telling.

In the final version quoted in The 12th Planet, I have compared the available translations against each other and against Hebrew source and the parallel Sumerian and Akkadian texts/tales, to come up with what I believe is the most accurate rendering. (Sitchin, Authors Note)

Lets start with the more obvious one, by Dr; Michael Heiser. http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/

Read through the sections, it's rather an eye opener.Contains links to all the different texts and toold you might need to translate. He also has a very interesting blog about the one thing that Sitchin bases most of his findings on - Sumero-Mesopotamian Astronomy: A Study of Cylinder Seal VA 243 - where the request you asked is answered, comparison between Sitchin and a proffessional.

There is also Zecharia Sitchin's World. Very interesting read.

In the following link you'll find the translation engine, made by Oxford University : http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/

You'll eventually have to use another, rather old media. check the following book, by Prof. Ronald H. Fritze : 'Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions'

I'm actually not criticising somebody who made an effort, I'm telling you the man was a fraud and a proven liar, I tried to be less blunt about it though. But I stand corrected, bluntness is needed it seems.

Edit for typo king reasons

Edited March 19, 2013 by TheSearcher

[Harte]

Sitchin has his interpretation of the cuneiform texts doesn't mean that he is the final authority but to ignore all his suggestions outright would be a mistake.

Sitchin has candidly accepted that he choose between alternative provided by mainstream cuneiform experts to consolidate his work.I don't believe that this is a dishonest approach.His site:

http://www.sitchin.com/

In the second paragraph on the home page there is a note on CDLI an online cuneiform library where he encourages independent researchers to go and explore his translations for themselves.

Sitchin's "translations" cannot be explored through that resource, which is no doubt why the website address was given.

Sitchin rarely strayed from the Enuma Elish in his fantasies. To use the above site to read this text requires that one know that it's called the "Tablets of Creation" in some instances, and the "Sumerian Creation Myth" in others. You'd also need to know that this was the text Sitchin claimed to be using.

A better place to check his "translations" is at Sacred-Texts. Here's a link to their ancient near east listings, including (I believe) two or three different versions of the Enuma Elish/Creation Myth.

Most sceptics dislike the conclusion that Sitchin suggests based on the translation and most mainstream critics do not like the fact that he insists that his translations are not only accurate but they are not mythology but fact. If you try to analyse and evaluate just his translations then his method doesn't seem very objectionable.

I'd like to see a link to any textual reference wherein Sitchin claims to have translated even a single word of cuneiform. Despite what Jaylemurph said, I've seen where Sitchin couldn't tell the difference between Aramaic and Hebrew.

Sitchin was trained as an Historical Economist. As such, he likely could read the numerical portions of cuneiform. However, he made up his own versions of the textual tablets. Read it yourself at the link I provided.

Harte

[kmt_sesh]

First of all the best way to debunk Sitchin's translation is for the actual mainstream to publish their version of the translations in a way that it is acccessible to all. Why don't his critics from the mainstream or otherwise put out the correct translations or the ones that they think are correct.I tried searching a lot but have found very few or practical no alternative translation of the tablets in a continuous coherent manner. If you have access to such sites then please post the links online so ignorant people like me can read and decide what seems more accurate for ourselves.

Just criticising somebody who made an effort and has his version is not justified in my eyes,though i know for a fact that me and many other gullible souls like me who read Sitchin's works would be very keen to read the mainstream versions of the same so please post the links for the mainstream translations if you know any.

In deference to the esteemed jaylemurph, I don't think Zecharia Sitchin could translate a single word of cuneiform. Any more than I can. He had no training in the field of cuneiform writing. The man's professional training was in economics. At most, as I recall, Sitchin possessed a very basic, passing familiarity with Hebrew. And he continually mistranslated those passages on which he focused. Whether he did this deliberately and dishonestly in the effort to make a buck on his junk books, or was just incompetent but determinedly unaware of it, can be argued. I often wonder if the Sitchins and von Dänikens of this world actually believe the comical tripe they push, or if they merely do it for notoriety and profit.

Everything on which Sitchin focused for his books is indeed out there in the professional literature—and much of it is on display in museums. Sitchin possessed no arcane knowledge nor secret access to "hidden" artifacts, so if you search long enough, you will see professional analyses of the artifacts that interested Sitchin.

Very few professional historians bother to comment on fringe publications in the first place, but a notable exception is Michael Heiser. I don't think anyone has trotted out his website for a while now, so it's worth providing:

Sitchin Is Wrong

Heiser is a professionally trained and educated historian and linguist. I don't know about the story behind what got him started, but something about Sitchin must have frustrated Heiser quite a lot because this website of his is a comprehensive and detailed response to pretty much all of Sitchin's main avenues of argument. And Heiser does so in plain, easily understood English. Anyone who legitimately reads Heiser's site and still believes Sitchin...well, has serious critical-thinking issues.

We're not just criticizing Sitchin for the hell of it. I know from my own reading of Sitchin's take on ancient Egypt and its monuments that he is comically incorrect. His arguments do not survive even cursory scrutiny. That is to say, many of us at UM are quite familiar with Sitchin's body of work, which is how we can refute him confidently.

Sitchin passed away a year or two ago (or three?), but for years Heiser tried to get him to sit down for a personal debate. Heiser wanted to meet with Sitchin to discuss his beliefs and to try to defend them. Sitchin, to his last day, always avoided such encounters. That alone pretty much says it all. Except for one last thing to emphasize: Sitchin is wrong.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Guys i already started this conversation by saying that Sitchin openly admitted that he choose between mainstream translations to consolidate his version of these events/epics. And as far as i can gather even the mainstream does not acknowledge any single translation to be the most accurate, so why so much hate on Sitchin.

The hate people feel for Sitchin is more due to his insisting that these translations were actual events rather then myths.

This Heiser fellow seems like he wants to piggy back on Sitchin's fame by particularly targeting him.

I have gone through his site and most of the matter on his site is criticism of Sitchin and his renditions and less of his own inputs.

Thanks for the links for the alternative translations,but i fear that if these great scholars started insisting that their translations represent actual events,they will probably be hated more then Sitchin.

[TheSearcher]

Guys i already started this conversation by saying that Sitchin openly admitted that he choose between mainstream translations to consolidate his version of these events/epics. And as far as i can gather even the mainstream does not acknowledge any single translation to be the most accurate, so why so much hate on Sitchin.

The hate people feel for Sitchin is more due to his insisting that these translations were actual events rather then myths.

This Heiser fellow seems like he wants to piggy back on Sitchin's fame by particularly targeting him.

I have gone through his site and most of the matter on his site is criticism of Sitchin and his renditions and less of his own inputs.

Thanks for the links for the alternative translations,but i fear that if these great scholars started insisting that their translations represent actual events,they will probably be hated more then Sitchin.

As far as I can tell Heiser is not piggy backing on Sitchin's infamity at all. He's a scholar (a genuine one) and an author in his own right. In my opinion he does not need to piggy back on anybody at all. However he has been accused of it before by others and this was his reaction :

SITCHINISWRONG.COM has been online since 2001. Shortly after I wrote my novel, The Facade (during what should have been my first year of writing my PhD dissertation), I was invited to be a guest on Coast to Coast AM. Former host Art Bell asked me if I would debate Zecharia Sitchin live on the show and I accepted. Sitchin has never returned the favor. I was quickly attacked, though, by other "researchers" who accused me of making piles of money off Sitchin's name. I answered by posting my income tax returns on the Internet. My accusers crawled back under their rocks and I went on to finish my dissertation in Hebrew and ancient Semitic languages (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004).

You know you better have nothing to hide, when you put your income tax return online for the world to see.

And I also read some of Sitchin's books, as far as I could tell he didn't only "choose between mainstream translations", he changed a few things here and there to make it fit. that's not using a translation, that's editing one. In my book he is no better than the infamous EVD, who at least admitted making up half the story and falsifying artefacts.

[Harsh86_Patel]

As far as I can tell Heiser is not piggy backing on Sitchin's infamity at all. He's a scholar (a genuine one) and an author in his own right. In my opinion he does not need to piggy back on anybody at all. However he has been accused of it before by others and this was his reaction :

You know you better have nothing to hide, when you put your income tax return online for the world to see.

And I also read some of Sitchin's books, as far as I could tell he didn't only "choose between mainstream translations", he changed a few things here and there to make it fit. that's not using a translation, that's editing one. In my book he is no better than the infamous EVD, who at least admitted making up half the story and falsifying artefacts.

Heiser cannot disassociate his work from Sitchin because his work is based on Criticizing Sitchin. Thought you can tell him to also post the Income tax records of all his family members and any trusts or fund etc that he is associated with. I can be a millionaire without having anything on my name or paying any income tax....how does that prove anything.

If i was in Heiser's position i would have tried to promote my own translations on their own merit other then trying to criticize someone else and making that the basis of my work.

There are quite a few other fringe writers he could have picked on who are not as famous as Sitchin, why didn't he do so?

Even mainstream translators are trying to guess and make things fit,doesn't mean they are lairs and cheats.So if Sitchin tries to make things fit,it doesn't make him a cheat and a lair.What would you call the mainstream evolutionist who heralded PiltDown man as the missing link for such a long time before it was confirmed to be a forgery? Even the evolutionists were trying to make things fit by guessing and they still are....does that make them lairs and cheats?

But i am not a big fan of trying to speculate a researchers motives or character. I rather focus on the information being provided by them.

[TheSearcher]

Heiser cannot disassociate his work from Sitchin because his work is based on Criticizing Sitchin. Thought you can tell him to also post the Income tax records of all his family members and any trusts or fund etc that he is associated with. I can be a millionaire without having anything on my name or paying any income tax....how does that prove anything.

If i was in Heiser's position i would have tried to promote my own translations on their own merit other then trying to criticize someone else and making that the basis of my work.

There are quite a few other fringe writers he could have picked on who are not as famous as Sitchin, why didn't he do so?

Even mainstream translators are trying to guess and make things fit,doesn't mean they are lairs and cheats.So if Sitchin tries to make things fit,it doesn't make him a cheat and a lair.What would you call the mainstream evolutionist who heralded PiltDown man as the missing link for such a long time before it was confirmed to be a forgery? Even the evolutionists were trying to make things fit by guessing and they still are....does that make them lairs and cheats?

But i am not a big fan of trying to speculate a researchers motives or character. I rather focus on the information being provided by them.

You are correct, maybe Heiser should have done that, however it's more than Sitchin ever did, in order to dispell any of his critics. Sitchin carefully avoided any confrontation with professionals, that could have shot his theories to tiny bits in about 20 minutes of discussion.

Sitchin actually had no training in the field of cuneiform writing, so I'm hard-pressed to say that he translated anything at all. So when Sitchin says, I've translated this here word and this is what it means, when said word is known and shown by the ancient writers themselves, to mean something competently opposite, how can it not be considered a lie?

You can use the understanding of the words “shem”, “shamu”, and “MU” as an example. All of these terms are accounted for in LEXICAL LISTS (the bilingual dictionaries, written by the ancient Akkadian and Sumerian themselves) and so we are able to know what they themselves meant by these terms, yet apparently they are wrong according to Sitchin. You can fault Heiser for whatever you want, but you can't fault him for showing the shortcoming and blatant lies, check this page and you'll understand.

And I would call Woodward a victim, as the hoax was perpetrated by someone else, he just was the gullible fool that fell for it.

How about also focusing on the quality of the information? Which in my opinion I find as important as the info itself.

Edit for typo.

Edited March 20, 2013 by TheSearcher

[Harte]

Heiser cannot disassociate his work from Sitchin because his work is based on Criticizing Sitchin.

Correction - his work posted on that website is based on exposing Sitchin's mistakes and flat-out lies.

Heiser has reams of professional papers that have been published by professional journals.

Nowadays, Heiser's full-time job is translating documents/manuscripts/scrolls from the ancient near east for a publishing company.

Harte

Edited March 20, 2013 by Harte

[jaylemurph]

Very true atleast you acknowledged that he is not an Idiot.

Grudgingly.

He has not got any money from me,few of his books are freely available on the net like 'the lost book of Enki' and much of his work is quoted online which can be accessed for free.

You should give him a break before accusing him of profiteering by lying since with no major research institute funding him with trust fund money he had precious little to finance his trips and work.

You do know mass media publishing is a for-profit venture, right? Sitchin wasn't selflessly hacking out these books because he was a dedicated seeker of the truth. He did it because people /gave him money to do so/. A lot of money. And then gave him more when the books sell. He had more than enough to get where he needed to be to make more hack books. And you should research before you make claims -- I think you're simply not aware of how little money gets given to scholars from such institutions. It's certainly not on the level of publishing groups like pay Sitchin.

Why don't you rather attack the mainstream websites which charge membership fees for accessing any of their works/published papers etc. These organisations have people funding them but still are greedy enough to charge people to access their work,and people like Sitchin who charge for their books because they don't have any other resources seem like profiteers and cheats to you.

Again, I'm going out on a limb and say you just don't know what you're talking about. These sites charge people because the funding they recieve is so low and their overhead is so high. What you probably don't realize is that the vast number of peope who do use such sites do not, in fact, pay for it. They log in under university/foundational log-ins. The university pays a flat fee by contract, far lower per person that what individuals are asked to pay. In fact, many universities don't pay a penny for such contracts -- the majority of these sites are run either directly by universities or by not-for-profits set by universities. They will trade access priviledges to other school for access to their own sites.

Once you understand that, and you understand Sitchin is more than well paid, you can dispense with this myth of him as a lone, poor crusader toiling after truth. And he looks a lot more like a person taking advantage of the ignorant to line his own wallet.

But it does show the weakness in your argument. It's not really about the system, since you don't understand it. It's not about the actual historical issues. It's spite. It boils down to the fact that the grown-ups don't like your pet idea, the thing you like, that shows that you, either you alone or the select group of people who happen to have the good taste to agree with you exactly, understand What's Really Going On (TM, Copyright, Patents Pending), and everybody else is just too clogged to understand your personal genius, reflected in the works you happen to like. Sitchin is the moon to fringers: his brillaince is only ever the reflected genius of their own sunlight.

But then again the way you plead Sitchin's guilt,it seems that you have problems with Capitalism. Even if his work is nothing but fiction,it is entertaining for people to read hence they pay for it which i don't think reflects badly on his character.

Why, yes. As a card-carrying socialist, I actually /do/ have a problem with capitalism. (But then again, I don't believe in magic, so the action of the Invisible/Magic hand would give me problems.) Sitchin is only a bad person if he knew he was mistranslating and then deliberately fooled people. I'm not sure whether he was an idiot who believed his own mistakes or a liar who did, but make no mistake: he made money from it. Generally from people who didn't have the wherewithal to judge his translations, so at some level, he was certainly taking advantage of them for personal gain.

But your second point is probably moot. The only way his non-sense would be with consequence (And that's what you argue -- it doesn't really matter what the consequences of his writings are. I urge you to shout out the lie a theatre's on fire when you're in one and see if there's no consequence to saying whatever you fancy...) is if people who knew what they're taking about believed it. To date, there's no evidence of that. No serious scholar credits him, and he affects no serious scholar. So he maintains a little army of fools that whine a bit now and then, but collectively lack the intelligence or the wherewithal to seriously change that, virtually by a self-selected self-definition.

--Jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

Guys i already started this conversation by saying that Sitchin openly admitted that he choose between mainstream translations to consolidate his version of these events/epics. And as far as i can gather even the mainstream does not acknowledge any single translation to be the most accurate, so why so much hate on Sitchin.

The hate people feel for Sitchin is more due to his insisting that these translations were actual events rather then myths.

This Heiser fellow seems like he wants to piggy back on Sitchin's fame by particularly targeting him.

I have gone through his site and most of the matter on his site is criticism of Sitchin and his renditions and less of his own inputs.

Thanks for the links for the alternative translations,but i fear that if these great scholars started insisting that their translations represent actual events,they will probably be hated more then Sitchin.

Look at all of the preceding posts, and from ordinary and every-day people. Sitchin is embraced only by proponents of the fringe—not by ordinary people who have a facility for and understanding of these ancient civilizations, and certainly not by credible and vetted scholars.

I think you may not understand translation work on a professional level and how translations are regarded. There is no such thing in most cases of a single translation judged to be the most accurate. In translating Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Egyptian, or any of the other ancient languages into modern English (or another Western language), the translator has a fair amount of play because of the much-larger vocabulary of modern languages. In the end, regardless of the subtleties of modern vocabulary employed, the sense and meaning of the translation comes out the same. A translation that varies wildly from the greater body of professional literature means almost certainly that the translator is flawed and/or his translation is incorrect. No two ways about it.

Sitchin did not really translate any of this stuff himself. He drew from the greater body of professional literature and invented his own meanings to suit his personal agenda. He comments on a wide variety of traditions and cultures and the textual material they left behind, so anyone who honestly believes that Sitchin possessed a working command of the numerous different languages expressed in cuneiform as well as ancient Egyptian, as well as Aramaic, and as well as Hebrew, has some definite problems with naiveté and gullibility. I cannot even think of a past or present professional scholar who could have or does possess a working knowledge of that many ancient languages and scripts. It's not realistic in the first place.

Some of the stuff Sitchin uses comes from Babylon, some from Akkad, and some even from Sumer. There are only a scant handful of places in the world where a student can learn Sumerian today, so it would be quite comical to assume that Sitchin somehow knew the ancient language, himself.

Understand that Michael Heiser is not "piggybacking" off of Sitchin. Heiser's website is only a lark on his part, a side hobby. The man is a professional scholar and linguist with a published body of literature. If you actually did read through Heiser's website and especially the topic-specific papers you can download, and somehow think that he is merely criticizing Sitchin, you must not have read too carefully. Time and again Heiser picks a specific example which Sitchin misrepresented (e.g., the meaning of Anunnaki, the meaning of Nephilim, the actual meaning of Nibiru, the correct meaning and interpretation of Elohim, the proper analysis and interpretation of the VA243 cylinder seal) and explains in very clear terms exactly why Sitchin's take on such things was misleading and plainly incorrect. Heiser explains the orthodox position and, importantly, cites his work—something Sitchin never properly did in his own books.

Sitchin was at best disingenuous. At worst, outright dishonest for the sake of personal monetary profit and notoriety. In other words, Sitchin was simply typical of the fringe authors who churn out endless books of no historical or scientific merit.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Look at all of the preceding posts, and from ordinary and every-day people. Sitchin is embraced only by proponents of the fringe—not by ordinary people who have a facility for and understanding of these ancient civilizations, and certainly not by credible and vetted scholars.

I think you may not understand translation work on a professional level and how translations are regarded. There is no such thing in most cases of a single translation judged to be the most accurate. In translating Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Egyptian, or any of the other ancient languages into modern English (or another Western language), the translator has a fair amount of play because of the much-larger vocabulary of modern languages. In the end, regardless of the subtleties of modern vocabulary employed, the sense and meaning of the translation comes out the same. A translation that varies wildly from the greater body of professional literature means almost certainly that the translator is flawed and/or his translation is incorrect. No two ways about it.

Sitchin did not really translate any of this stuff himself. He drew from the greater body of professional literature and invented his own meanings to suit his personal agenda. He comments on a wide variety of traditions and cultures and the textual material they left behind, so anyone who honestly believes that Sitchin possessed a working command of the numerous different languages expressed in cuneiform as well as ancient Egyptian, as well as Aramaic, and as well as Hebrew, has some definite problems with naiveté and gullibility. I cannot even think of a past or present professional scholar who could have or does possess a working knowledge of that many ancient languages and scripts. It's not realistic in the first place.

Some of the stuff Sitchin uses comes from Babylon, some from Akkad, and some even from Sumer. There are only a scant handful of places in the world where a student can learn Sumerian today, so it would be quite comical to assume that Sitchin somehow knew the ancient language, himself.

Understand that Michael Heiser is not "piggybacking" off of Sitchin. Heiser's website is only a lark on his part, a side hobby. The man is a professional scholar and linguist with a published body of literature. If you actually did read through Heiser's website and especially the topic-specific papers you can download, and somehow think that he is merely criticizing Sitchin, you must not have read too carefully. Time and again Heiser picks a specific example which Sitchin misrepresented (e.g., the meaning of Anunnaki, the meaning of Nephilim, the actual meaning of Nibiru, the correct meaning and interpretation of Elohim, the proper analysis and interpretation of the VA243 cylinder seal) and explains in very clear terms exactly why Sitchin's take on such things was misleading and plainly incorrect. Heiser explains the orthodox position and, importantly, cites his work—something Sitchin never properly did in his own books.

Sitchin was at best disingenuous. At worst, outright dishonest for the sake of personal monetary profit and notoriety. In other words, Sitchin was simply typical of the fringe authors who churn out endless books of no historical or scientific merit.

I like the first half of your post but i would still not agree with a few points you made.

Sitchin is not famous or embraced only fringe proponents though he might have spawned quite a few.

I am happy that you acknowledge that there is a lot of scope for the translator to use his own interpretation when trying to translate ancient scripts. After doing the translation he has to form a consensus amongst the monopoly club and there are more ways to build consensus other then merit.

Sitchin doesn't seem like a person just after money as there are many other ways to do it,nor do i feel that Sitchin's game plan ever was to invent stories and sell books.I don't think Sitchin ever was confident that so many people would buy his books when he first wrote them.As a proof to my statement i would like to point out that there are thousands of fringe proponents writing books,but not all are that famous.

I never exclude the chance of the majority being wrong and the minority being right (i don't discard the underdog).So even if a professional body does disagree with a translation doesn't mean it is wrong.I would not put down any alternative when the primary theory is based mostly on consensus and not empirical fact.

Your comments on Heiser and his work only strengthen my argument that his work and fame only come by denying and trying to disprove word meanings or interpretations used by Sitchin.Also Heiser doesn't need funds as his work is sponcered.

And again i would like to point out that Sitchin's version is not so bad,but the major beef people have with him is due to the fact that he claims it to be actual events and not just myths.

[TheSearcher]

I like the first half of your post but i would still not agree with a few points you made.

Sitchin is not famous or embraced only fringe proponents though he might have spawned quite a few.

I am happy that you acknowledge that there is a lot of scope for the translator to use his own interpretation when trying to translate ancient scripts. After doing the translation he has to form a consensus amongst the monopoly club and there are more ways to build consensus other then merit.

Sitchin doesn't seem like a person just after money as there are many other ways to do it,nor do i feel that Sitchin's game plan ever was to invent stories and sell books.I don't think Sitchin ever was confident that so many people would buy his books when he first wrote them.As a proof to my statement i would like to point out that there are thousands of fringe proponents writing books,but not all are that famous.

I never exclude the chance of the majority being wrong and the minority being right (i don't discard the underdog).So even if a professional body does disagree with a translation doesn't mean it is wrong.I would not put down any alternative when the primary theory is based mostly on consensus and not empirical fact.

Your comments on Heiser and his work only strengthen my argument that his work and fame only come by denying and trying to disprove word meanings or interpretations used by Sitchin.Also Heiser doesn't need funds as his work is sponcered.

And again i would like to point out that Sitchin's version is not so bad,but the major beef people have with him is due to the fact that he claims it to be actual events and not just myths.

After that nice post of Kmt, you're still totally missing the point.

You think Heiser piggybacks off sitchin, even if 90 % of his professional work has nothing to do with Sitchin at all. As Kmt said, the site you keep fixating on was just a hobby, more than anything else. But ok, you have your opinion, fair enough.

Let me repost the important part of what Kmt said :

........snip.....

Sitchin did not really translate any of this stuff himself. He drew from the greater body of professional literature and invented his own meanings to suit his personal agenda. He comments on a wide variety of traditions and cultures and the textual material they left behind, so anyone who honestly believes that Sitchin possessed a working command of the numerous different languages expressed in cuneiform as well as ancient Egyptian, as well as Aramaic, and as well as Hebrew, has some definite problems with naiveté and gullibility. I cannot even think of a past or present professional scholar who could have or does possess a working knowledge of that many ancient languages and scripts. It's not realistic in the first place.

Some of the stuff Sitchin uses comes from Babylon, some from Akkad, and some even from Sumer. There are only a scant handful of places in the world where a student can learn Sumerian today, so it would be quite comical to assume that Sitchin somehow knew the ancient language, himself.

........snip.....

Sitchin was at best disingenuous. At worst, outright dishonest for the sake of personal monetary profit and notoriety. In other words, Sitchin was simply typical of the fringe authors who churn out endless books of no historical or scientific merit.

The major beef I personally have with whatever Sitchin has churned out, it the fact that he twists translations of others, gives it the "sitchin workover" and then passes it as his and as the only possible interpretation. That's what I and I imagine, quite a few others, have a problem with.

When push comes to shove, the entire theory that Sitchin has build, rests on the interpretations (because I refuse to call them translations as he didn't do any of it himself) of the tablets and texts. it's the starting point of everything and it all relates back to, it in some way or another.

If you knock those away, what's left? Ah yes,......nothing, that's what.

[Harsh86_Patel]

After that nice post of Kmt, you're still totally missing the point.

You think Heiser piggybacks off sitchin, even if 90 % of his professional work has nothing to do with Sitchin at all. As Kmt said, the site you keep fixating on was just a hobby, more than anything else. But ok, you have your opinion, fair enough.

Let me repost the important part of what Kmt said :

The major beef I personally have with whatever Sitchin has churned out, it the fact that he twists translations of others, gives it the "sitchin workover" and then passes it as his and as the only possible interpretation. That's what I and I imagine, quite a few others, have a problem with.

When push comes to shove, the entire theory that Sitchin has build, rests on the interpretations (because I refuse to call them translations as he didn't do any of it himself) of the tablets and texts. it's the starting point of everything and it all relates back to, it in some way or another.

If you knock those away, what's left? Ah yes,......nothing, that's what.

Sitchin believes what he writes that surely doesn't show him in bad light. Many of his interpretations aim at explaining a few odd occurrences like 250 odd genes that are only found in Humans (where did they come from?),old gold mines in Africa, Possibility of artificial manipulations of genetic code,cultural similarities between apparently unrelated ancient civilizations etc.

But your method of discrediting Sitchin's work is very interesting since if you would apply the same yard stick to Einstein then even his ground breaking formulae of e=mc2 was based on work done by other scientists.(Einstein used to work in a patent office as a clerk where he had access to papers published by other physicists).

[Lava_Lady]

Lost...

[Harte]

Your comments on Heiser and his work only strengthen my argument that his work and fame only come by denying and trying to disprove word meanings or interpretations used by Sitchin.Also Heiser doesn't need funds as his work is sponcered.

You don't read people's posts, do you?

Heiser has a job. With a private company. He works for a living translating ancient manuscripts for publication - primarily things such a the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Hebrew writings, though his job is not limited to Hebrew translations.

Heiser has no fame. But you're right about Sitchin, he is not famous - he's infamous.

And again i would like to point out that Sitchin's version is not so bad,but the major beef people have with him is due to the fact that he claims it to be actual events and not just myths.

An absurd suggestion, once you recognize that much of what Sitchin has claimed is nowhere to be found in any ancient writings.

Harte

[Harsh86_Patel]

The link below contains a good refutation of Heiser's charges by Sitchin's webmaster:

http://rense.com/general28/eneph.htm

The response by Heiser:

http://www.sitchinis...eErikParker.htm

After you go through both the links,it is very obvious that Heiser is a bag of hot air with precious little to add to anyone's knowledge. Heiser's motives seem very clear once you go through this debate and which is also correctly noted by Sitchin's webmaster. Heiser attempts the age old fallacy of Ad Hominem and relies on his academic record as his major defence and scores self goals during the course of his refutations.

For all of you who hail Heiser as the nemesis of Sitchin please go through his lame duck refutations of Sitchin's claim. I lost all respect for Heiser after reading his refutations.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Harsh86_Patel

[Harsh86_Patel]

More dope on Heiser.........he is affiliated with the Church of the Jesuits and is a Catholic.........lol the mystery just gets deeper.....why he would not wan't anyone to claim that the world is older then 6000 years old.

You don't read people's posts, do you?

Heiser has a job. With a private company. He works for a living translating ancient manuscripts for publication - primarily things such a the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient Hebrew writings, though his job is not limited to Hebrew translations.

Heiser has no fame. But you're right about Sitchin, he is not famous - he's infamous.

An absurd suggestion, once you recognize that much of what Sitchin has claimed is nowhere to be found in any ancient writings.

Harte

There are countless literary referances to the Anunnaki from books dated at the end of the 19th and early 20th century, generally referred to as being 'Great Gods', also 'high priests' and 'Belonging to the Earth'.

Without direct quoting I have provided a list of some of the books.

Babylonian Magic and Sorcery. L W King, 1896

The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol 1; Egypt and Babylonia. 1928

Materials for a Sumerian Lexicon. J D Prince, 1908

Publications of the Babylonian Section, Vol 10, No 2;

The religion of Babylonia and Assyria. M Jastrow, 1898

Some Sumerian-Babylonian Hymns of the Berlin Collection. M I Hussey, 1907

Sumerian Liturgical Texts. S Langdon, 1917

[Harsh86_Patel]

"The more I learned of the Neanderthal, the more in disbelief I felt. Neanderthals predate humans by at least 200,000 years, and further, coexisted with humans for at least 50,000 years. Neanderthals look so much like us; it bothered me greatly to learn that we were not supposed to be descended from them, but homo-erectus instead.

To grasp with all this was difficult, but then I was supposed to go completely against the grain of common sense and make a jump of faith. That's right, Anthropology (the science)was asking me to believe something without being able to prove it.

They were asking me to take homo-erectus which for all entensive purposes looks like big foot and say he miraculously turned into modern man.

And here we have inserted that little devil the missing link, but, had not created because the missing link actually was a problem in the archeological data.

One common tree branch, Homo-Erectus is the foundation from which Neanderthals and Homo-Sapiens are to have sprouted independently from one another. Ninety plus percent of scientists are of the opinion that Homo-Sapiens evolved from Homo-Erectus in the same manner that Neanderthals did, but the problem with all this; there is no gradual change from Homo-Erectus into Homo-Sapien, no gradual mutation from Homo-Erectus into Homo-Sapien.

Just one day, we have a very monkey looking up right walking handsome chimpanzee and the next day we have basically us, which is Cro-Magnum man. Then we have the successful proliferation of these Cro-Magnum men all over the earth, and in record speed, we outflank our predecessor and co-evolved sister race the Neanderthal, and co-exist with them in France and the Middle-East for at least 50,000 years, and then poof, no more Neanderthal.

Zecharia Sitchen's Sumerian creation myth instantly seemed more plausible, and it at least deserved a little looking into. As of now, there is no missing link and, until one is found, maybe the data is all wrong. The missing link may never be found, because there may have been a sudden jump. The Anunnaki would have used a Neanderthal for the hybrid project in which their own genes were introduced to form Cro-Magnum men, Homo Sapiens.

I know it is all a bit overwhelming, but, there you go."

The above is a comment i read in another blog today and it very precisely demonstrates my own doubts of evolution and how Sitchin tried to explain the 250 odd genes that are specific to only humans even before the hunman genome project in which these 250 human specific genes were discovered.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Harsh86_Patel

[Abramelin]

I think you are forgetting about these two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis

[cormac mac airt]

I think you are forgetting about these two:

http://en.wikipedia....i/Homo_ergaster

http://en.wikipedia....heidelbergensis

Particularly the latter and he's not got a handle on the timeframe involved either.

cormac