Sitchin v. Heiser The Divide Between the Theory of Alien Involvement in Our Past

As I have read the different threads on ATS I have noticed a strong divide between some members who believe aliens have been involved in our past. Those who adhere to Sitchin's evidence believe the aliens had a strong involvement in our past, they believe aliens were our gods as described in the Sumerian tablets and in our various religious stories. Those who adhere to Heiser's evidence believe that aliens were demons rather than actual gods

Evidence for Heiser's argument Includes Sitchin's misinterpretation of Nephilim

Sitchin's Mistakes

Sitchin assumes "nephilim" comes from the Hebrew word "naphal" which usually means "to fall." He then forces the meaning "to come down" onto the word, creating his "to come down from above" translation. In the form we find it in the Hebrew Bible, if the word nephilim came from Hebrew naphal, it would not be spelled as we find it. The form nephilim cannot mean "fallen ones" (the spelling would then be nephulim). Likewise nephilim does not mean "those who fall" or "those who fall away" (that would be nophelim). The only way in Hebrew to get nephilim from naphal by the rules of Hebrew morphology (word formation) would be to presume a noun spelled naphil and then pluralize it. I say "presume" since this noun does not exist in biblical Hebrew -- unless one counts Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, the two occurrences of nephilim -- but that would then be assuming what one is trying to prove! However, in Aramaic the noun naphil(a) does exist.

Sitchin wants to argue the term nephilim means "those who CAME DOWN from heaven" so he can make the nephilim sound like ancient astronauts. Not only does this confuse two characters in the Genesis 6 episode (the sons of God and the nephilim are not the same; they are different groups; see below), but it is a translation impossibility with respect to biblical Hebrew grammar. The verb "to go down" in biblical Hebrew is not naphal; it is yarad. The verb naphal can mean something approximate to "came down" under one condition: it must occur in the Hiphil ("causative") stem in Hebrew grammar. If you know Hebrew, you know this is because the Hiphil stem adds either a prefixed letter to the verb and an a-class vowel (or both) in the verb conjugations, and any such occurrences in the Hebrew Bible are therefore not spelled "nephilim." SOURCE: sitchiniswrong.com

On the similarities between the bible and Sumerian and Akkadian

No legitimate scholar in biblical studies disputes that there are similarities between the literature of Israel, Sumer, Akkad, Ugarit -- and Egypt, and the Hittite civilization. The question is why the similarities exist. The answer held in great consensus today is that it is because all these civilizations shares a common cultural, linguistic, literary, and religious worldview. Because parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed or edited in Babylon during the exile, the possibility of some borrowing here and there exists, but it is done for fairly obvious reasons of theological polemic. In other words, The Hebrew Bible, as the latest literary creation among these civilizations, at times draws on each of them, not for worldview material (they already had a common pool of ideas), but to make deliberate, often antagonistic, theological statements about the beliefs of the other nations and their belief in the superiority of their God, Yahweh, compared to others.

Here is Some defense for Sitchin

sacredmatrix.com...

www.rense.com...

Personally, I don't really like Micheal Heiser, he comes off as an arrogant, self-promoting ass who critiqued another guy's work used his name to get (some) fame and money and then proceeds to make a website named sitchiniswrong and asks the guy to defend his claims through a debate. If this guy really was such a badass he would have sat outside Sitchin's house and tried to get a debate with Sitchin, but he is not a badass he is a douche.

But just because he is a douche doesn't mean he is wrong, tell me what you think, it appears most religious people tend to say if aliens were involved in our past they were Demons and most proponents of the so Ancient Astronauts Theory believe in Sitchin's findings.

Mate

You should probably post some references and the like.

Such as this one

Cheers

reply to post by KingJames1337


You copied most of your text, verbatim, from the link provided by myselfaswell. Providing references to other peoples work is very, very important. If you're not doing so, you're practically stealing. I would encourage you to make a list of references, and if you're using several sources citations may also be required.

Originally posted by KingJames1337
As I have read the different threads on ATS I have noticed a strong divide between some members who believe aliens have been involved in our past. Those who adhere to Sitchin's evidence believe the aliens had a strong involvement in our past, they believe aliens were our gods as described in the Sumerian tablets and in our various religious stories. Those who adhere to Heiser's evidence believe that aliens were demons rather than actual gods

Evidence for Heiser's argument Includes Sitchin's misinterpretation of Nephilim

Sitchin's Mistakes

Sitchin assumes "nephilim" comes from the Hebrew word "naphal" which usually means "to fall." He then forces the meaning "to come down" onto the word, creating his "to come down from above" translation. In the form we find it in the Hebrew Bible, if the word nephilim came from Hebrew naphal, it would not be spelled as we find it. The form nephilim cannot mean "fallen ones" (the spelling would then be nephulim). Likewise nephilim does not mean "those who fall" or "those who fall away" (that would be nophelim). The only way in Hebrew to get nephilim from naphal by the rules of Hebrew morphology (word formation) would be to presume a noun spelled naphil and then pluralize it. I say "presume" since this noun does not exist in biblical Hebrew -- unless one counts Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, the two occurrences of nephilim -- but that would then be assuming what one is trying to prove! However, in Aramaic the noun naphil(a) does exist.

Sitchin wants to argue the term nephilim means "those who CAME DOWN from heaven" so he can make the nephilim sound like ancient astronauts. Not only does this confuse two characters in the Genesis 6 episode (the sons of God and the nephilim are not the same; they are different groups; see below), but it is a translation impossibility with respect to biblical Hebrew grammar. The verb "to go down" in biblical Hebrew is not naphal; it is yarad. The verb naphal can mean something approximate to "came down" under one condition: it must occur in the Hiphil ("causative") stem in Hebrew grammar. If you know Hebrew, you know this is because the Hiphil stem adds either a prefixed letter to the verb and an a-class vowel (or both) in the verb conjugations, and any such occurrences in the Hebrew Bible are therefore not spelled "nephilim." SOURCE: sitchiniswrong.com

On the similarities between the bible and Sumerian and Akkadian
No legitimate scholar in biblical studies disputes that there are similarities between the literature of Israel, Sumer, Akkad, Ugarit -- and Egypt, and the Hittite civilization. The question is why the similarities exist. The answer held in great consensus today is that it is because all these civilizations shares a common cultural, linguistic, literary, and religious worldview. Because parts of the Hebrew Bible were composed or edited in Babylon during the exile, the possibility of some borrowing here and there exists, but it is done for fairly obvious reasons of theological polemic. In other words, The Hebrew Bible, as the latest literary creation among these civilizations, at times draws on each of them, not for worldview material (they already had a common pool of ideas), but to make deliberate, often antagonistic, theological statements about the beliefs of the other nations and their belief in the superiority of their God, Yahweh, compared to others.

Here is Some defense for Sitchin

sacredmatrix.com...

www.rense.com...

Personally, I don't really like Micheal Heiser, he comes off as an arrogant, self-promoting ass who critiqued another guy's work used his name to get (some) fame and money and then proceeds to make a website named sitchiniswrong and asks the guy to defend his claims through a debate. If this guy really was such a badass he would have sat outside Sitchin's house and tried to get a debate with Sitchin, but he is not a badass he is a douche.

But just because he is a douche doesn't mean he is wrong, tell me what you think, it appears most religious people tend to say if aliens were involved in our past they were Demons and most proponents of the so Ancient Astronauts Theory believe in Sitchin's findings.

That is how your OP should be properly formatted brother. Just a heads up so you don't get spanked by a mod; feel free to copy and paste the format into your OP.

As far as what the guy has to say, getting all uptight over a one letter difference (nephilim vs nephulim,) it seems to me like he's grasping at straws. And honestly, I don't know why he is bothering, because the way I understand it, Sitchin's understanding of Sumerian left a bit to be desired, and his translations are pretty much universally trashed by academia.

Can I ask, why you have a problem with this guy in particular?

reply to post by KingJames1337


Not sure about Sitchin. One thing that bothers me a lot is the fact that he is one of the few experts on dead languages to publish on this. This makes it hard to verify his translations. However, In favor of his ancient astronauts theory, which was actually an expansion on Von Daniken's theory, is the fact that evolutions time track does not make sense.

Think about it, evolution proposes that all improvements from evolution should tend to increase the survivability of the organism. If that is the case, what benefit to survival could our losing massive amounts of body strength and body hair overnight be? Add to that by following the time progression of evolution we humans should not be here for about another million years. How did that jump occur? Sitchin does make a lot of sense, but it is a leap of faith that I won't make on faith.

I also read Von Daniken on his first go around and I have to take him into consideration as well. Similarly there is Alan Alford of London, I have read his books and even exchanged emails with him for a while as well. Michael Cremo's Forbidden Archaeology also tends to support these theories.

Now as for Nephilim...

What I remember from Sitchin's books, and it has been a while, is that he said the Anunaki were the ones "who from heaven to Earth fell", not the Nephilim. My understanding of Nephilim is that they were the giants who were born after the fallen angels slept with the women of men. I do not recall him saying they were demons, just the rebellious group who went fornicating. Now as I said, it has been a while since I read his stuff, but I did read a lot of it, and that is the understanding I have.

Unfortunately I do not have any knowledge of Heiser, but I do firmly believe in reincarnation, and I do not find any credible sources for hell, so I cannot comment to him or his work.

Hope this helps

reply to post by OldCorp


Thanks for the help man. As far as Heiser goes, he just comes off as condescending, egotistical, self-promoting, and disrespectful. He could at least pay respect to the man after he died
michaelsheiser.com...
The man(Sitchin) brought him to semi-national attention and made him money the least he could do is pay his condolences to him.

Originally posted by Ittabena
reply to post by KingJames1337

 

Not sure about Sitchin. One thing that bothers me a lot is the fact that he is one of the few experts on dead languages to publish on this. This makes it hard to verify his translations. However, In favor of his ancient astronauts theory, which was actually an expansion on Von Daniken's theory, is the fact that evolutions time track does not make sense.

Think about it, evolution proposes that all improvements from evolution should tend to increase the survivability of the organism. If that is the case, what benefit to survival could our losing massive amounts of body strength and body hair overnight be? Add to that by following the time progression of evolution we humans should not be here for about another million years. How did that jump occur? Sitchin does make a lot of sense, but it is a leap of faith that I won't make on faith.

I also read Von Daniken on his first go around and I have to take him into consideration as well. Similarly there is Alan Alford of London, I have read his books and even exchanged emails with him for a while as well. Michael Cremo's Forbidden Archaeology also tends to support these theories.

Now as for Nephilim...

What I remember from Sitchin's books, and it has been a while, is that he said the Anunaki were the ones "who from heaven to Earth fell", not the Nephilim. My understanding of Nephilim is that they were the giants who were born after the fallen angels slept with the women of men. I do not recall him saying they were demons, just the rebellious group who went fornicating. Now as I said, it has been a while since I read his stuff, but I did read a lot of it, and that is the understanding I have.

Unfortunately I do not have any knowledge of Heiser, but I do firmly believe in reincarnation, and I do not find any credible sources for hell, so I cannot comment to him or his work.

Hope this helps

edit on 6-9-2011 by Ittabena because: (no reason given)

Thanks for responding, evolution is a long process and intervention could be possible, I read somewhere that around 60,000 years ago all of the homo sapiens neanderthalsis became disappeared and there has yet to be an accepted theory on why.

Furthermore Micheal Heiser is a Stuck-Up Narcissist Chicken#.

Originally posted by KingJames1337
Furthermore Micheal Heiser is a Stuck-Up Narcissist Chicken#.

edit on 6-9-2011 by KingJames1337 because: (no reason given)

you forgot to add

hieser is correct & sitchin mades things up

Originally posted by ignorant_ape

Originally posted by KingJames1337
Furthermore Micheal Heiser is a Stuck-Up Narcissist Chicken#.

edit on 6-9-2011 by KingJames1337 because: (no reason given)

you forgot to add

hieser is correct & sitchin mades things up

I mention that at the end it doesn't mean he is wrong.

i don't think heiser is stuck up, he's just one of those brainy people who feel obligated to defend his area of expertise, because that's his primary field of study. i don't think the nephul vs. nephal vs. nephil argument is very convincing since alot of words in that area did a weird dyslexic type change. b's became d's and p's. for example. local dialects also made a big impact. but to the degree his criticism has earned him money, it has also earned sitchin money by drawing attention to the earth chronicles.

currently, i'm trying to find evidence of sitchin's belief that enlil had a command center in jerusalem and the anunnaki spaceport in sinai peninsula, he refers to.

that spaceport was supposedly blown the heck up during the "pyramid wars." one of my problems is, i have faulty memory retrieval ...it leaks data or simply drops it out of incoming buffer faster than it should. so i often have to re-read things multiple times in order to remember it. i also had cancer and the chemotherapy ruined my eyesight. i'm stubbornly resisting the whole process of getting eyeglasses, and just purchased some 4 dollar bifocals from the nearby drug store for reading. even then, it's extremely uncomfortable to read small text such that found in most books. so i pick up an earth chronicle (i have them all except the lost book of enki), try to read it, and give up not long after out of discomfort.

if you recall or have any additional data to share on his spaceport in sinai or command center in jerusalem theory, i'd be muchly happy if you'd post snippets or paraphrase it or something.

reply to post by undo


Thank you for responding, I'm sure I'll come up with questions and it's always nice to have an expert answer them.
You see what's going on on the other thread guy keeps repeatedly changing my words saying I'am using the Argument of ignorance.

Originally posted by KingJames1337
reply to post by undo

 

Thank you for responding, I'm sure I'll come up with questions and it's always nice to have an expert answer them.
You see what's going on on the other thread guy keeps repeatedly changing my words saying I'am using the Argument of ignorance.

i'm there.
read my post directly above yours.

Originally posted by KingJames1337
But just because he is a douche doesn't mean he is wrong, tell me what you think, it appears most religious people tend to say if aliens were involved in our past they were Demons and most proponents of the so Ancient Astronauts Theory believe in Sitchin's findings.

It's the same taking of sides--there's just two--that has been going on throughout all of our history.

Let's assume for a minute that Sitchin's "aliens" really are the fallen ones. They "claimed" to be our makers--and maybe our Creator did use them in some way other than "watching" back in the mists of time--but it's THESE perps that introduced widespread war & new technologies to our world and seek the undeserved worship of themselves.

And, ultimately, Sitchin's theory begs the question of just who invented our alleged inventors? Sitchin himself realized that little paradox/conundrum in both his later work and in a discussion with the very learned Father Balducci.

I don't follow the Catholics teachings myself, but below are some excerpts of their convo that I do find interesting.

As the last line in the following exchange between Zechariah Sitchin and Father Balducci suggest, "it seems to me that we are ascending the same stairway to heaven, though from different steps."

...As Balducci made clear, "Angels" are beings who are purely spiritual, devoid of bodies, while humans are made up of spirit and matter, but the spiritual part would be at "at a low level". Balducci then made the following provocative statement:

It is entirely credible that in the enormous distance between Angels and humans, there could be found some middle stage, that is beings with a body like ours but more elevated spiritually...

...However, when I personally interviewed Sitchin in Washington DC in 1995, his point-blank answer to the question of the genesis of the Anunnaki on their planet was "evolution."..

...Yet, with the writing of his last book in the Earth Chronicles series, Sitchin’s thinking had slowly evolved from this idea that the Anunnaki were products of evolution on their planet.

As he later began to explain it, the Anunnaki were "emissaries" of God. By the time he met Monsignor Balducci earlier this year, Sitchin had long made room for the possibility that the Anunnaki were carrying out "the Almighty God’s wishes and plans," and did not merely "come here for selfish reasons and to fashion us because they needed workers." We must wonder what has caused Sitchin’s change of heart.

As Balducci has argued,
"If such extraterrestrials were so involved, even by your own interpretation they had to do with Man’s physics, body and rationality; but God alone had to do with the Soul!"

Sitchin’s second book, which deals with
"Man’s aspiration to ascend the heavens," is titled The Stairway to Heaven. Sitchin ended his conversation with Msgr. Balducci by saying,

"it seems to me that we are ascending the same stairway to heaven, though from different steps."
www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

Balducci defines his theory of "extraterrestrials.

reply to post by The GUT


oh he doesn't ignore the inventors of the inventors. he believed in evolution, just not that the current homo sapiens was purely the result of evolution. his theory was that cave men that had evolved here, were genetically modified and upgraded by anunnaki dna, as a result of enki's effort to provide suitable replacements for the anunna (junior gods, who were tired of doing all the refurbishing labor). so enki took cave man and spliced his own dna and that of the birth goddesses dna and the caveman's dna, creating a new species, homo sapiens, capable of doing the work.that's his theory in a nutshell.

i didn't see any evidence that he ever came to believe in a supernatural deity in the strictest sense of the word, but perhaps he did.

Heiser is a friend of mine and actually a very nice guy with a low tolerance for BS. Stichin simply took advantage of peoples' ignorance. He had zero qualifications, he was not trained in ancient languages, he just made stuff up to suit his conclusions. Heiser has proven this hands down for anyone who looks at the evidence. It comes down to qualifications and expertise.

Originally posted by KingJames1337
Furthermore Micheal Heiser is a Stuck-Up Narcissist Chicken#.

edit on 6-9-2011 by KingJames1337 because: (no reason given)

Now that's a convincing argument for Stichin. Seriously, it seems as if you take it personally. Dispute the information or just be quiet. Immature personal attacks just show you have no legitimate arguments.

reply to post by undo
A lot of Sitchin books are available as pdf if you search "Sitchin Earth Chronicles pdf." This way you can enlarge the pages to view them without straining your eyes too much.

Originally posted by Bigwhammy

Originally posted by KingJames1337
Furthermore Micheal Heiser is a Stuck-Up Narcissist Chicken#.

edit on 6-9-2011 by KingJames1337 because: (no reason given)

Now that's a convincing argument for Stichin.

Seriously, it seems as if you take it personally. Dispute the information or just be quiet. Immature personal attacks just show you have no legitimate arguments.

# you, why don't you open your eyes and read the rest of the OP I never said he was wrong or am disputing his information I'm saying what I think of him. Perhaps what I said was a bit extreme but I still don't like him and just because you are his friend isn't going to change that. Who said I was arguing for Sitchin, the only thing I'am saying is your douchebag friend could have at least payed his respects for the person who helped make him money. Why don't you post this on his narcissitic blog. I repeat I am not siding with Sitchin but I'am not going to suck up to Heiser because he is probably right, show some respect to the person that is the reason you even have a wikipedia page and don't send an open letter to the people reading your website which is respecfully named Sitchiniswrong to try to defend Sitchin's claims. It appears you and Heiser have something in common you both like to criticize other people's writings, at least heiser doesn't change other people's positions to attack others. And by the way Sitchin is a No-Talent Assclown to me and did not deserve his money. Furthermore Heiser is probably not stuck-up or a chicken# I just wanted to say chicken#. But from what I have read so far he does seem narcissitic this is probably not fair to assume as I do not know him and cannot make this judgement from personal experience and might be the exact opposite of what he is but this is how I feel currently.