On Zecharia Sitchin's Bum Rap

Zecharia Sitchin. Mr. Twelfth Planet. Mr. 'Gene splicing aliens created humanity to mine gold' guy. Mr. Bunkey Mc Bunk Cakes to some folks. Some of Sitchin's wilder theories were based on translated Sumerian texts. Translation of these documents was not possible until the mid twentieth century. Sitchin's translations, replete with fantastic tales of gene splicing aliens and space battles, were met with scorn and derision at the time of his publications, and have continued to be derided since.

Perhaps rightly so. He does seem to be the only linguist to produce this translation, and his conclusions certainly fly in the face of the well entrenched Egyptological school of thought.

Of course, Sitchin's translations are only a small part of his work. What I found to be much more interesting and compelling about it was the comparative archaeology, history, and mythology that he presents in his Earth Chronicles series. I've read this series of books, and I can't dismiss the body of evidence presented by Sitchin. Most of it is pretty mainstream really, just presented comparatively.

Hence this thread. I know Egyptologists come out of the woodworks and start frothing at the mouth to shout him down whenever Sitchin's name gets mentioned. Have at ye, then! Convince the reader if you can that there's nothing to see from Zecharia Sitchin! I don't think you can. Perhaps I can encourage a few readers to have another look at the man's work while we're at it.

I'll start by leaving the most often linked Sitchin debunking website here in the OP for an easy reference:
www.sitchiniswrong.com...
I thought a broad general argument was the best way to start this one. We'll get more into the details a little farther down. Begin.

originally posted by: TheBadCabbie
Some of Sitchin's wilder theories were based on translated Sumerian texts.

No, they were based on what Sitchin claimed those text's said, not what they actually said.

Convince the reader if you can that there's nothing to see from Zecharia Sitchin

Sorry, the real world does not work that way. No one has to disprove Sitchin's nonsense, he or his supporters have to prove he was correct.

I can't dismiss the body of evidence presented by Sitchin.

Exactly what "body of evidence" would that be?

rationalwiki.org...

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

So you want to disprove a negative?? That's not how reality works if you make a claim you need to present evidence to support it. In his case he has none even his translations of sumarian were wrong. See he made a mistake he didn't think any one could read sumarian little did he know he was wrong. But because he thought it was an unknown laguage he figured he could make up his own interpretation. Consider it like someone not knowing we can read Greek and decide to post up there interpretation of the language. Just made him look like a fool but in his defense not a lot of people knew we had deciphered sumarian.

Now to your op it's stupid you can't disprove something doesn't exist or didn't occur. All you can do is show the circumstances to be highly unlikely. For example you can't disprove fairies don't exist or even Santa Clause. But that's not the way life works if I make a claim that fairies exist then I'm obligated to show proof for my belief. If I do not it is nothing more than my belief. So in your op what you should be doing is posting evidence his position is right. If your unable to do that than its nothing more than his belief.

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

Of course, Sitchin's translations are only a small part of his work. What I found to be much more interesting and compelling about it was the comparative archaeology, history, and mythology that he presents in his Earth Chronicles series.

If you like that then you might love Immanuel Velikovsky works en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: TheBadCabbie
Egyptologists study Mesopotamia now? Anyway, Sitchin could not even get basic translations correct. As a glaring example, he translates Anu.naki as "those who from heaven to earth came", despite the obvious fact that Anu is the name of a god. Offspring of Anu, it means, to those who aren't selling books.

originally posted by: SargonThrall
a reply to: TheBadCabbie
Egyptologists study Mesopotamia now? Anyway, Sitchin could not even get basic translations correct. As a glaring example, he translates Anu.naki as "those who from heaven to earth came", despite the obvious fact that Anu is the name of a god. Offspring of Anu, it means, to those who aren't selling books.

This is a subject im only vaguely familiar with but those two translations are basically the same. If im not mistaken Anu being a god and having offspring wouldn't they technically be from heaven? Before you tear me a new one im just pointing that out for you. Since i am someone not well versed on this topic you will have to put forth a better argument to discredit this guy. I and others without a firm stance on this will form our feelings on the matter from you guys in the know.

I read one of his books, it might have been The Twelfth Planet, and found it interesting enough to investigate ancient Mesopotamia which I hadn't heard of before.

I'd been taught about ancient Egypt and Greece at school and taken an interest in India but, without Sitchin, I think I would have remained ignorant of Mesopotamia. As far as I'm concerned, I owe him some gratitude.

One doesn't have to just take his word for everything (or anything). The fact is he brought a wonderful civilization to a wider audience who are perfectly capable of studying further, as I did.

eta: until we're all able to read ancient texts, not to mention make head or tail of what they actually mean, we're at the mercy of scholars who claim to be able to do such a thing. It seems to me there's a fair bit of squabbling amongst them, too. It's probably best to study what interests you but stay open-minded and be prepared for whatever new interpretations and information come along later.

originally posted by: TheBadCabbie
Zecharia Sitchin. Mr. Twelfth Planet. Mr. 'Gene splicing aliens created humanity to mine gold' guy. Mr. Bunkey Mc Bunk Cakes to some folks. Some of Sitchin's wilder theories were based on translated Sumerian texts. Translation of these documents was not possible until the mid twentieth century.

Sorry, cuneiform writing was pretty much entirely deciphered in the early 1800's.

originally posted by: [post=21810597]Sitchin's translations, replete with fantastic tales of gene splicing aliens and space battles, were met with scorn and derision at the time of his publications, and have continued to be derided since.

Perhaps rightly so. He does seem to be the only linguist to produce this translation, and his conclusions certainly fly in the face of the well entrenched Egyptological school of thought.

Sitchin wasn't even remotely a "linguist," and since he couldn't read cuneiform, he never produced any translations at all. He just took other people's translations and changed a few words here and there to support his con game.

originally posted by: [post=21810597]Of course, Sitchin's translations are only a small part of his work. What I found to be much more interesting and compelling about it was the comparative archaeology, history, and mythology that he presents in his Earth Chronicles series. I've read this series of books, and I can't dismiss the body of evidence presented by Sitchin. Most of it is pretty mainstream really, just presented comparatively.

Presented with his own slant, and leaving out any detail that would contradict his scam.

originally posted by: [post=21810597]Hence this thread. I know Egyptologists come out of the woodworks and start frothing at the mouth to shout him down whenever Sitchin's name gets mentioned. Have at ye, then! Convince the reader if you can that there's nothing to see from Zecharia Sitchin! I don't think you can. Perhaps I can encourage a few readers to have another look at the man's work while we're at it.

In fact, Egyptologists have almost entirely ignored Sitchin. I'd bet that 99.9% of Egyptologists have never even heard of him. These people have better things to do than peruse the New Age aisles at bookstores.

originally posted by: [post=21810597]I'll start by leaving the most often linked Sitchin debunking website here in the OP for an easy reference:
www.sitchiniswrong.com...
I thought a broad general argument was the best way to start this one. We'll get more into the details a little farther down. Begin.

Perhaps you should read the info at your link.

Harte

originally posted by: Jahari

originally posted by: SargonThrall
a reply to: TheBadCabbie
Egyptologists study Mesopotamia now? Anyway, Sitchin could not even get basic translations correct. As a glaring example, he translates Anu.naki as "those who from heaven to earth came", despite the obvious fact that Anu is the name of a god. Offspring of Anu, it means, to those who aren't selling books.

This is a subject im only vaguely familiar with but those two translations are basically the same. If im not mistaken Anu being a god and having offspring wouldn't they technically be from heaven?

You mean despite the fact that the Sumerian texts themselves tell us that his offspring were born right here on Earth?

Harte

originally posted by: Jahari
This is a subject im only vaguely familiar with but those two translations are basically the same. If im not mistaken Anu being a god and having offspring wouldn't they technically be from heaven?

When Sitchin first came up with the Anunaki as Spacemen, he wasn't aware that the Anuna, were actually Cthonic underworld deities as opposed to the IGIGI the gods of heaven, so he even got that wrong, its an error on the scale of thinking that Satan was YHWH
He also invented cylinder seals which don't exist, which is why most of his supporting artwork, was hand drawn and not photographed.

He also made other claims, like the Wooden horse of Troy was an armoured personnel carrier. Its also worth noting that in the 70s, he was claiming that the Gods landed in one way space capsules (NASA technology of the time) and then in the mid 80s. he discovered that the Annunaki were using a space shuttle (NASA technology of the time)

But then, he was a qualified economist and journalist, which means he was good at finding a market and then selling books to it, in this case the market was people too ignorant to fact check

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: Jahari

originally posted by: SargonThrall
a reply to: TheBadCabbie
Egyptologists study Mesopotamia now? Anyway, Sitchin could not even get basic translations correct. As a glaring example, he translates Anu.naki as "those who from heaven to earth came", despite the obvious fact that Anu is the name of a god. Offspring of Anu, it means, to those who aren't selling books.

This is a subject im only vaguely familiar with but those two translations are basically the same. If im not mistaken Anu being a god and having offspring wouldn't they technically be from heaven?

You mean despite the fact that the Sumerian texts themselves tell us that his offspring were born right here on Earth?

Harte

That dont matter much imh opinion. If my parents were from mexico but had me in the states it would still make me Mexican.

originally posted by: Marduk

originally posted by: Jahari
This is a subject im only vaguely familiar with but those two translations are basically the same. If im not mistaken Anu being a god and having offspring wouldn't they technically be from heaven?

When Sitchin first came up with the Anunaki as Spacemen, he wasn't aware that the Anuna, were actually Cthonic underworld deities as opposed to the IGIGI the gods of heaven, so he even got that wrong, its an error on the scale of thinking that Satan was YHWH
He also invented cylinder seals which don't exist, which is why most of his supporting artwork, was hand drawn and not photographed.

He also made other claims, like the Wooden horse of Troy was an armoured personnel carrier. Its also worth noting that in the 70s, he was claiming that the Gods landed in one way space capsules (NASA technology of the time) and then in the mid 80s. he discovered that the Annunaki were using a space shuttle (NASA technology of the time)

But then, he was a qualified economist and journalist, which means he was good at finding a market and then selling books to it, in this case the market was people too ignorant to fact check

Is there any other interpretations i could read that are accepted in academia.

a reply to: Jahari

There's a wide number of peer reviewed journals that deal with Assyriology. Any one of them would be a fine starting point.

ETA: Also, if you want to check this thread I discuss Sitchin a little and provide some sources.

The Truth About Nibiru

a reply to: TheBadCabbie

I took a look at the sitchiniswrong site and found several problems. He never really addresses any of the problems. He just kind of states authoritatively that Sitchin is wrong without explaining HOW he is wrong and he fails to illustrate the actual reasons and ways in which he is wrong.

The one time I saw him actually give an illustration of how he is wrong is in the word morphology of nephilim and how it couldn't be from Nephal which means to fall. His explanation here is sorely lacking. The books which mention nephilim were passed down through oral tradition for generations before they were ever written down, so aramaic spelling would have ZERO basis on the word morphology. The word as an individual meaning would've been cemented for hundreds of years before it was spelled for the first time so written morphology would've had no basis for ascertaining initial origin. Sithcin's attempt using phonetic morphology is more likely to be accurate. That's not to say that Sitchin is right in this case, just that the argument postulated falls short of being compelling, let alone difinitive.



Jaden

originally posted by: Jahari
Is there any other interpretations i could read that are accepted in academia.

You can read several of the very same texts (accepted by academia) Sitchin copied and altered right here:Sacred Texts.com - Ancient Near East section
More here: The Eridu Genesis

And here is the source for Sitchin's claim of ancient genetic manipulation/cloning of Man: etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk...#

Harte

originally posted by: Masterjaden
a reply to: TheBadCabbie

I took a look at the sitchiniswrong site and found several problems. He never really addresses any of the problems. He just kind of states authoritatively that Sitchin is wrong without explaining HOW he is wrong and he fails to illustrate the actual reasons and ways in which he is wrong.

The one time I saw him actually give an illustration of how he is wrong is in the word morphology of nephilim and how it couldn't be from Nephal which means to fall. His explanation here is sorely lacking. The books which mention nephilim were passed down through oral tradition for generations before they were ever written down, so aramaic spelling would have ZERO basis on the word morphology. The word as an individual meaning would've been cemented for hundreds of years before it was spelled for the first time so written morphology would've had no basis for ascertaining initial origin. Sithcin's attempt using phonetic morphology is more likely to be accurate. That's not to say that Sitchin is right in this case, just that the argument postulated falls short of being compelling, let alone difinitive.

Jaden

You should read his pdf on Sitchin's deliberate misinterpretation of cylinder seal VA 243

Harte

In my opinion Sitchin was similar to Norman Bergrun, in that he used the ignorance of those not specialized in specific fields in order to push stories as truth, for profit.

Bergrun used imagery. Sitchin used language.

a reply to: Harte

And that's really the first and last nail in Sitchin's coffin. He used VA 243 as his proof for Nibiru and yet not a single thing he claimed about it is even remotely true.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254

The Truth About Nibiru

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: Harte

And that's really the first and last nail in Sitchin's coffin. He used VA 243 as his proof for Nibiru and yet not a single thing he claimed about it is even remotely true.

Just going to leave this here
www.abovetopsecret.com...

What about the Tower of Babel myth? Also doesn't elohim translate as 'heavenly host'?