Squint real hard, you might see them.
This video is longer (19:00) because I go through the major lexical resources for Akkadian and Sumerian — all publicly accessible — to show that (surprise!) Zecharia Sitchin’s translations (“rocket ship”; “fiery rocket”) for SHU.MU (shumu) in Sumerian and Akkadian are bogus.
Enjoy (or grind your teeth).
How blessed are we in the 21st century to have free access to these kinds of academic resources from the comfort of our home. Good video.
Unbelievable what I just came across in my search for some Sumerian (Shuruppak precisely) info…a website by some man using the name Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed. Found at bibleorigins.net. The subtitled web moniker is “Forbidden Knowledge: The Bible’s Origins.” It’s a pretty scary place, Mike. Far as I can tell…the place is full of “academic” articles that definitely should be forbidden. Heads up. And God bless.
@Debra: agreed; great. another person with a masters degree in a different field than what he is commenting about. I think I’ll start a blog on brain surgery or mathematics.
Heiser,
I have spent the last day perusing through your offensives on Sitchin, and I am glad to see that the farce has openly been put to rest.
I am quite young, 18, and I have taught myself fluent Deutsch as well as a respectable understanding of the old Greek and Latin. I have ambitions within the modern Indo-European languages for military purposes.
Languages are a most endless joy for me, and I currently have grammars and lexica for Greek, Latin, Deutsch, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Arabic. A short poetic piece can cause me to be enthralled by a language and I must be careful not to fatigue myself with pursuit of the understanding for the grammar. I almost spent a further $200 on French grammar after becoming acquainted with such as ‘La fleur que tu m’avais jetee’ and ‘Les rameaux’.
But enough! My intention is to show that I am young and unqualified but dedicated and self-taught. Yes, I understand that Sitchin most likely has this view of himself also! But when I read “Esiodos’ writings of how the gods made Pandora, I do not take a literal understanding nor begin looking for sensational conspiracies!
I have a personal concern for following this closely. I have an Austrian mentor who is dear to me and who assisted me greatly in achieving fluency in Deutsch within a year. When I first met the man, he had only recently discovered a very ‘alarming’ book written by a qualified linguist called ‘Sitchin’. Over the months, my mentor became quite taken with the theories and began to believe in them (read: ‘fest zu glauben’). This culminated in my friend spending the days after Christmas last year reading a new book he had obtained by Sitchin, not leaving the house for very dedication to it!
When I realised that my mentor, so wonderfully virtuous in all other areas, had let this theory take him away from writing his memoirs, and the thousands of poems which he has compiled and published (Without even searching for critical evidence against the words of one man) I began to feel quite disturbed.
I am monotheistic in belief, but I have great respect for nature (Without being environmentalist!) and believe therefore in placing god-like metaphors upon beings such as the sun if this will cause good and virtuous character, much similar to some Hellenistic custom you may find.
The other constant belief I have is in the intuition and will of man. This is deep-rooted, and causes my mind to flare when I hear the institutionalised pale-faces of the city saying that it is impossible that the ‘Urmensch’ could have built pyramids. As if this was their only and greatest feat!
Yes, to hear Sitchin propose that aliens must have taught us all that we know because we are just primates is quite insulting to the memory of antiquity. Think of the 325lb stone which Byblon lifted and threw over his head with one hand!
Apparently the technological boom of the last century is also rooted in the stars, and yet as a fellow who is quite friendly to such theories as the Olduvai or Malthusian, I am inclined to sink this too.
I am most displeased with the man who has managed to trick my mentor (Who is only three years younger than Sitchin), and I hope that you can prevent the slavery of many another mind, Heiser, for there are too many extremists and escapists of reality and this is because so many of these theories rely on ‘faith’, something which grows rapidly.
You, as a qualified linguist, have the power to unquestionably deny faith to those who read Sitchin’s material. Thank you for your effort.
Now allow me to add my criticism to your writings.
I have not read your book, nor even heard of you until yesterday as I searched for Sitchin. However, millions of others will never read your book but will find your site “SitchinIsWrong” upon searching in Google. This is important, because it means the quality of your authorship and professionalism must be identical to your best, to your published material, if you want the highest credibility.
I understand your outrage at such nonsense being so blindly accepted, and I appreciate your efforts such as maintaining a website and displaying credentials.
But this is no excuse for haughtiness or immaturity in any situation.
I was almost turned to disinterest as I read your Open Letter and responses to W.H. yesterday.
Heiser, you have an opportunity to help people, such as my mentor, view it this way! Do not see this as an attack on Sitchin, it has nothing to do with him – that man is convinced beyond assistance! But others have yet to be convinced, and these you must reassure.
It begins with the very titles of your work.
‘Fun with Sitchin’, ‘More Fun with Sitchin’ – these are titles which are humoured and interesting to those who already are swayed to your side. The follower of Sitchin sees it as inflammatory and insulting, the neutral party sees it as pompous and presumptuous.
William Henry wrote to you in paragraphs of utter nonsense. I also have never seen such lack of coherence and such misinterpretation, but he wrote to you in paragraphs of nonsense. Instead of presenting these as paragraphs, you insert witticisms and other silly commentary on his reply sometimes between clauses!
And when you write pages of criticism and quite childish slander on the fellow as an introduction to his letter, I have no doubt that this is not only a strong repellant to those who are seeking the truth, but also an unmistakeable example that you will not give fair trial to the opposition.
It is your responsibility as the host of the discussion to give the opponents every right of presentation and formality before you set about replying.
Henry’s piece was sufficiently ridiculous that you did not need to write anything in introduction or rebuttal – and you knew this – but regardless you poked and teased and this was very wrong.
Now I realise that this was many a year ago now and I also completely understand the reasons for your behaviour – this blog of yours here is conducted with much less silliness. But for the sake of actually achieving your goal of dismounting the theory of Sitchin I would have you edit and correct your old site, which is the doorway to this one, that discussion may be possible again.
Too many, far too many theory sites and their opponents are split upon the internet like all-boy and all-girl schools. If you made the effort of self-control to give all visitors a fair hearing (And look at the way you treat those who seem to sympathise with Sitchin here! You use asterisks to humiliate them!) and advertise this attitude, it would never matter if Sitchin himself did not reply, so long as his followers came here – perhaps with the intention of converting all those who believe you – perhaps with the result of believing you instead!
Please maintain the standard of respect for this cause, which is a cause to honour the linguists who truly have knowledge of what those earliest men in history thought.
Sumerian is most likely a language which I will never meet, please do not allow others less investigative than myself be convinced that we are the products of alien gold-miners with elongated skulls.
Good luck,
Glenn Robin.
Thank you. Mr. Sitchin can keep his books! What we need in this world today is TRUTH…not some goof-ball making up stuff to turn a quick buck. He ought to be ashamed of himself.
@Glenn Robin, Australia: Thanks for this extended reply. Nice to see you are so interested in language study. Now for some reply of my own.
1. Interesting that you mention the open letter and the reply to William Henry. I just redid my site a week ago, so I’m wondering if you’ve actually seen the new site (the old one has a black background). The open letter on the new site has changed to be less sarcastic. There is no link to William Henry. But, this reply of yours helps me realize such things still live in cyberspace, so I will be removing the William Henry page (but archiving it for sure).
2. The “fun with” titles are provocative. But it’s a little hard for me to believe that anyone so convinced by Sitchin would change their mind just by a title change. But I will consider that. I’m guessing, though, that Google and other search engines will already have the “fun with” link archived, and so a title change may not prevent people from seeing that.
Thanks again!
LOL@GRAussie!!! You are absolutely brilliant! He doesn’t even know he is been mocked! Are you really only 18? If so, perhaps your aura is indigo……
18? Now I’m wondering where you heard that! I’m a lot older than 18 (have four kids, one in college).
Thanks!
@MSH: JDH was talking about Gleen Robin from Australia I think (GR Aussie?), he’s 18 he said.
ah – thanks
Yes sitchin makes a mistake: he divides the SHUMU in SHU.MU. But it is a minor mistake, and i show you why:
Take John Hallorans’ Sumerian Lexicon and look for:
MU2(MUD6)
SHUM2
U5
These are the results:
mud6, mú: to sing; to blow; to ignite, kindle; to make grow; to sprout, appear (reduplication class) (mu, ‘word’, + éd, ‘to go out’).
sum, šúm, sím, sì: to give, lend (with dative) (sum-mu in marû) (cf., sám) [SUM archaic
frequency: 43; concatenates 2 sign variants] .
u5: n., male bird, cock; totality; earth pile or levee; raised area (sometimes written ù) [U5 archaic frequency: 1]. v., to mount (in intercourse); to be on top of; to ride; to board (a boat); to steer, conduct. adj., (raised) high, especially land or ground (sometimes written ù).
I wish you notice the ‘ignite – kindle’ meaning of MU2, the ‘give – lend’ meaning of SHUM2, and the ‘to be on top – to ride – to board’ meaning of U5.
Add this by Daniel Foxvog’s Sumerian Glossary:
u5 to mount, board; to ride on; to transport
These meanings show that a SHUM2+U5 or a MU2+U5 indicate something that kindles/ignites and procures or give elevation.
How does a name or fame or reputation ‘kindle’? How does a name ‘board’?
Name is MU, not MU2 (MUD6). Now I would like to read Halloran’s opinion, he already went against his own work once, i want to see whether he does it again.
Regards, Alex
this shows you know next to nothing about the language. In English, we can have the same *sounds* for entirely different words that have (zero* relationship. Should I think the word “Theban” = English “the ban”? Or “red” has something to do with “redirect”? The instances and examples are innumerble. Sumerian, since it was verbally uttered, has the same sort of phenomena – it’s called polyphony and polysemy.
But here’s the kicker: How did Halloran, who assembled this dictionary, somehow miss all this when it comes to his own criticisms of Sitchin? Hmmm. Maybe he’s part of the conspiracy.
Not a question of polyphony, it’s a question of a term having multiple meanings or having different terms and showing only one… the debunkers of sitchin’s idea just use the one they prefer in order to say : -you see? MU is ‘name’ not a rocketship- … but none shows that MU2 means ‘to ignite’… they should explain how a nname or a reputation kindles.
As i said, sitchin makes an error: not using the right numerals.
As for Halloran, no surprise to me: on email he also debated that DA doesn’t mean ‘to hold’ when it is written clearly in his Lexicon. But that’s another story.
Regards
okay, I’ll play along. So, we go from “to ignite” to an interstellar rocket ship? Nice leap. Those internal combustion engines are great for space travel, too.
My point of course is that the verb “to ignite” doesn’t translate to a noun for “rocket ship” any more than “to burn” = “nuclear bomb” or “to speak” = “telephone” (the examples are myriad of how this “word logic” breaks down immediately). Show me the text with the noun “rocket ship” in it.
I think ‘to ignite’ fits better with a rocketship than with a name… moreover when it is associated with U5.
The question remains: why, in trying debunking the MU matter by sitchin, you only talk about MU and not MU2? Because this is the point… the technique used… and by the way, I am not saying Sitchin is necessarily correct, i am saying that the way used to debunk him is faultly and misleading.
As regarding the text, in a row like this:
sig-ta nim-she mu-zu he-ngal
commonly translated as : “your name (fame) is established from below to above”
the terms are:
sig: = to be low (stare in basso)
nim: = upper (superiore)
He.gal: = plenty (molto)
she = to, unto, as far as, up to
Ta, dá = from; to; for; by means of
so ‘sig.ta nim.she’ = ‘from low to high’ and the ‘is established’ never occurs in the text.
This action of someway going ‘from low to high’ is attributed to the MU.
There is a term (he.ngal) never translated neither on the ETCSL or anywhere.
The concept of ‘being established’ has been intrduced by Jacobsen who, with no reason, turned ‘low to high’ into ‘south to north’ when in sumerian ‘north’ is ‘mir’ and south is ‘ulu3’.
In this case, too, the movement from low to high, can fit perfectly with ‘something that ignites’.
so vertical posture now translates to ignition? So how is it that the Sumerians missed describing combustion in other applications? Maybe the aliens didn’t tell them how to use it anywhere else.
This is the kicker — Sitchin’s followers (like Erik Parker) want so badly to have the OT be borrowed from Sumerian/Babylonian material, and then they turn around and say shem can’t be “name” (which is precisely what it is in the OT — In Genesis 11 and other passages, clearly meaning “reputation.” It’s called an IDIOM (one we still use, too).
Thanks for taking the trouble to show why Sitchin is so untrustworthy.
Why is it that, the very people who are equipped to blow myths of this kind to nothing, are the very people who are not going to do so ? By not doing so, they allow nonsense to replace knowledge. There is a more serious matter here one man’s poor scholarship (if it can be called that) – for Sitchin & such as he are micturating in the well of knowledge, making it all the more difficult for those they influence to grow in knowledg. This is intolerable.
So please, keep up the good work 🙂
thanks!
Yep. I saw his website too. It’s full of false assumptions and false information. The guy appoints himself as a scholar and believes that a couple of YouTube atheists (Pat Condell and ProfMTH, in particular) are scholars in the field of Biblical scholarship. He doesn’t seem to realize that the notion that the Bible borrows from pagan myths has been debunked and has been shown to be a very conspiratorial and biased notion at best. Basically, his material (both written and via YT) is used to demonize Christians and Jews and to promote himself. When he has a whole webpage devoted to how many people visit his website, you cannot help but be skeptical and draw the conclusion that he is like all of the other “Forbidden Knowledge”-esque people who have nothing better to do with their time than to publically and academically humiliate themselves with false information.