Zecharia Sitchin
flickr:3570210615

Zecharia Sitchin (born July 11, 1920 - died October 9, 2010) was an American author specializing in ideas of human origin that involved ancient astronauts. While definitely both a pseudohistorian and a pseudoscientist, he was not, strictly speaking, a 2012 proponent. Despite this, many of his ideas have been co-opted by 2012 doomsayers.

Life

Birth and Early Life

Born in 1920, in Baku, Azerbaijan1, Sitchin was raised in Palestine, and acquired some knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew, as well as other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and the history and archeology of the Near East.

Education

Sitchin graduated from the London School of Economics, University of London, majoring in economic history.

Death

According to a notice posted at http://www.sitchin.com, Zecharia Sitchin passed away in the morning of October 9th, 2010. The cause of death is unknown.

Publications

* The 12th Planet (Earth Chronicles, No. 1), New York: Harper, 1976, ISBN 038039362X
* The Stairway to Heaven (Earth Chronicles, No. 2), 1980, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680890; Harper, 2007, ISBN 0061379204)
* The Wars of Gods and Men (Earth Chronicles, No. 3), 1985, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680904)
* The Lost Realms (Earth Chronicles, No. 4), AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-75890-3
* Genesis Revisited: Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge?, (AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-76159-9)
* When Time Began (Earth Chronicles, No. 5), 1993), (HARPER, 2007, ISBN 006137928X, ISBN 978-0061379284)
* Divine Encounters: A Guide to Visions, Angels and Other Emissaries, AVON BOOKS, 1995, ISBN 0-380-78076-3)
* The Cosmic Code (Earth Chronicles, No. 6), AVON BOOKS, 1998, ISBN 0-380-80157-4)
* The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial god, Bear & Company, 2002, ISBN 1591430372
* The Earth Chronicles Expeditions, Bear & Company, 2004, ISBN 978-1591430766
* The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (Earth Chronicles, No 7), William Morrow, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-123823-9
* Journeys to the Mythical Past (Earth Chronicles Expedition) Bear and Company, 2007 ISBN 978-1591430803

Ideas

Zecharia Sitchin is an author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts, amidst other aspects of pseudoscience. Sitchin, like Velikovsky2, presents himself as erudite and scholarly in a number of books, including The Twelfth Planet (1976) and The Cosmic Code (1998). Both Sitchin and Velikovsky write very knowledgeably of ancient myths and both are nearly scientifically illiterate.

Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the "Anunnaki" (or "Nephilim"), a race of aliens from a planet he calls Nibiru, which he believes to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System and asserts that Sumerian mythology reflects this view.

His speculations are entirely discounted by professional scientists, historians, and archaeologists, who note many problems with his translations of ancient texts and with his understanding of physics.

Criticism

Sitchin's ideas regarding astronomical objects run counter to known facts. The astrophysics of "The 12th Planet" have been discussed and debunked by various authors, including Phil Plait, Michael Heiser (who challenges Sitchin's scholarship and translations [2]), and Rob Hafernik (who challenges Sitchin's astronomy and astrophysics [1]).

The following video shows part of a presentation given by Michael Heiser, webmaster of http://sitchiniswrong.com in which he explains why Sitchin's translations of Sumerian texts were wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ANCw63IkwU

Anyone Can Now Read the Sumerian Texts

Thanks to 2012hoax.org member AquiredCents, who has uploaded the following video which explains how anyone can now read the Sumerian texts and confirm that Sitchin was wrong, using the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and Oxford Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O79Vkz8a5Y8

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License