The Ancient Alien Question (12 page)

En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 12 sars (43,200 years).

En-Men-Ana: This name is not present on all lists.

En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 8 sars (28,800 years).

Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: 10 sars (36,000 years).

En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: 8 sars (28,800 years).

En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: 5 sars and 5 ners (21,000 years).

Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: 5 sars and 1 ner (18,600 years).

Zin-Suddu: This name is not present on all lists.

It’s no wonder that these kings were seen as gods. That is precisely what authors such as Zecharia Sitchin have argued: We should take both the Bible and these lists of kings at face value; they show a reality—namely that we are face-to-face with alien beings.

A lot of ink has gone into puzzling out the purpose of Genesis 5, with some researchers noting that the list of patriarchs functions merely as a bridge between one narrative and the rest, largely there to fast-forward the story a few millennia. They argue that the Sumerian King List may have served as inspiration for this exercise, for during their Babylonian captivity, the Jews would definitely have stumbled upon it, and they may have decided to incorporate this information into their own creation myths.

The Sumerians had a different system of counting, based on the number 60. Some have tried to align Genesis 5 with the information of the Sumerian King List, while the Jewish exegete Cassuto suggested that the figures in Genesis 5 (and 11) were “multiples of five with the addition of seven.”
³
An earlier attempt noted that the figures for the antediluvian patriarchs could be computed by 39 times 42 years, and the period of time from creation to Abraham’s entry into Canaan by 6 × 7 × 7 × 7, or 42 times 49 years. It is clear that we are coming perilously close to a Bible Code, in order to “explain” something that we cannot take, or don’t want to take, at face value.

In this interpretation, we are midway between a literal interpretation and the atheist viewpoint, which is that the Bible as a whole is a literary invention, and hence pure fiction. But if fiction, why not make it more believable, or at least give a moral or logical explanation why characters who had hard-to-believe life-spans were inserted into the story?

Elsewhere, in China, we find that the first dynasties are referred to as those of the Five Monarchs, which confusingly involved nine rulers, whose combined reigns lasted from 2852 to 2206
BC
—or an incredible 70 years each! In Vedic accounts, it is related that until circa 3000
BC
, the human life-span was roughly 1,000 years.

In the late 1800s, theologians sought ways to make the Bible conform to the claims of Darwinian evolution and uniformitarian
geology. One novel way was to offer the idea that the names of the patriarchs were used to refer to entire dynasties, clans, or tribes, and not to actual individuals. This would mean that when the Adam clan had exercised dominion for 130 years, a person was born in the Adam clan who eventually either ruled or was the progenitor of the Seth clan. The Adam clan continued to be powerful for an additional 800 years, and then the Seth clan took over. This idea doesn’t sound too logical, and would be a nightmare from a legal point of view within tribal matters: having to go back 800 years within a clan to find out who could succeed whom?

Others have suggested an astronomical interpretation. For example, Michel Barnouin proposed that the life-spans were actually the synodic periods of the planets—the time required for a body within the solar system to return to the same position relative to the sun as seen by an observer on the Earth. The life-span of Lamech, 777 years, would be related to the cumulative synodic periods of Jupiter and Saturn; 962, the life-span of Jared, would be the cumulative synodic periods of Venus and Saturn.

Another astronomical inroad is the possibility that each patriarch was assigned a star “kingdom”—a distance from one star to another. Their age would then be the number of days to be calculated between the rising and setting of certain stars. For example, Seth is born to Adam and Eve after the birth of Cain and Abel, which have been linked with Castor and Pollux in Gemini, when Adam is 130 years. If the left lower corner star of the Great Square is the heliacal rising star at dawn, it takes 130 days until Sirius—named Sothis in Egypt, and which could be the Seth of the Jews—is the dawn’s rising star. Continuing in this scheme, from the star Sirius (Seth), it is 912 days—its life span—to the star Altair in Aquila. The star Altair sets as the star Sirius rises—coinciding with the notion of “dying.” From this foundation, the entire series of kings in Genesis 5 and 11 has been linked to certain prominent stars and constellations.

As calculated by William Walker III, this system of identifying patriarchs with star regions only applies at around 42.5 degrees latitude—the Black Sea—thus identifying that area as the likely origin of this system.

This “third alternative” thus sits in the middle of the two standard theories: one asking for total faith in the Bible, the other skeptical, arguing that the Bible is fiction. It argues that the Bible is true, but that the patriarchs are not mortal men, but gods—stars. Their “ages” are correct, and they are even life-spans, but of stars and their visibility in the night’s sky. Hence, the Bible is correct—but so are the skeptics.

Of course, there is a fourth possibility, which is that the patriarchs did indeed live hundreds of years, but that their ages were then adjusted to incorporate astronomical knowledge, which would mean that the Bible is not truly factually correct, but an amalgamation of various, diverse knowledge, woven together.

But taken as a whole, it is clear that the Bible does suggest that something strange was going on: There are numerous, quite straightforward references to giant beings living in Canaan, which the incoming Israelites had to fight and defeat before they could reclaim the land. The Israelites named these creatures “Nephilim,” and it is clear that wherever they came from, they were clearly not “human,” as in Homo sapiens. As a whole, Jewish and other legends spoke of how these beings were linked with the gods. The central question is: Were they Gods, or gods?