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SitchinIsWrong.com

"For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill"
- Richard Clopton -


Welcome to the website devoted to addressing the flaws of the ancient astronaut hypothesis popularized in the writings of Zecharia Sitchin.

For the past two years, at conferences and on radio shows like Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and George Noory, listeners have asked me numerous times to comment on the teachings of Zecharia Sitchin. Why? Because I am actually what Sitchin claims to be - a scholar of ancient near eastern languages, texts, history, and religion. People think (correctly) that if something's rotten in Sitchin's Denmark (or Nibiru) I ought to know. This site reveals that I do.

I know for many who stop by to browse the experience will be painful. So are tetanus shots, but you need them. You need to see what's on this site, too, if you are really interested in truth-seeking. You see, for the past two years I have had an open letter on the Internet asking Mr. Sitchin to answer some very simple, straightforward questions. If you have the courage to take the red pill and enter this site, I believe you'll also think these questions are entirely fair. They have gone unanswered.

Yes, Mr. Sitchin's webmaster has responded to a few items, and I have reproduced his response and my rejoinder on this site - not only for comic relief, but also explanatory value. What do these exchanges explain? That Mr. Sitchin's arguments, so ably reproduced by his webmaster, have zero academic credibility. I can't say it any other way and remain honest. If academia (as we often hear) is supposed to serve the public interest, consider this my contribution. Although I would disagree with the academic mainstream's fear of testing its own assured conclusions, I agree that it is irresponsible to allow blatant untruths to go uncontested.

Curious? Irritated? I invite you to explore my claims for yourself. Take a deep breath and click on the red pill.

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1. It is interesting to note that this site is anti-Sitchin...

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Originally posted by Wallis:
1. It is interesting to note that this site is anti-Sitchin, while the Nephilim discussion threads support the idea that the ETs are returning.

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2. The conspiratorialist in me has to ask the question that involves disinformation. In other words, supposing that the Truth lies somewhere in the middle.

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Appreciate you bringing this site to our attention.

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It really does matter that each and everyone of us has to make up our own minds and incorporate that belief into our core beings.

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Personally, I am not convinced either way whether the ETs are coming back or not.

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Originally posted by Teachable:
Greeting, Sean

Been playing catch up w/ you on this whole subject. I was especially interested in posting the reasoning behind "what Nephilim is" as it adds a considerable understanding to your assertion that they are giants and evil. I have no computer savvy and I cannot get this copied from your source to post. Can you help?

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4) Mr. Sitchin contends that the word "Nephilim" means "those who came down from above" or "those who descended to earth" or "people of the fiery rockets" (see The Twelfth Planet, pp. vii, 128ff.).

These translations, of course, serve his purpose - to see the Nephilim as ancient astronauts. As such it is hard to over-estimate the importance of Sitchin's work here - if he's wrong about the meaning of "nephilim," much of his overall thesis falls.

Unfortunately for Sitchin, such translations are completely out of step with the Hebrew text and the word which is at the base of "Nephilim." Once again ignoring the grammar of the text (and actually making up his own word meaning in this case), Sitchin makes the following errors, addressed in the PDF files below.

Sitchin assumes "Nephilim" comes from the Hebrew word "naphal" (as opposed to ARAMAIC - see below) which usually means "to fall." He then forces the meaning "to come down" onto the word, creating his "to come down from above" translation. "Nephilim" - in the form we find it in the Hebrew Bible - COULD come from Hebrew "naphal," but it could ONLY be translated one way in light of the spelling - "those who are fallen" (i.e., either "fallen in battle" - which is out of the question given the context of Genesis 6 - or "spiritually fallen" / evil - which fits the context IF the sons of God are evil). To see that the sons of God in Genesis 6 were evil divine beings and this cohabitation was evil, one needs only to turn to either Jude 6-7 and II Peter 2:4-6, or the Book of Enoch.

The scholarly reasons for my assertion are demonstrated in the PDF file on the Nephilim. In short, if you care about the grammar of Hebrew, Sitchin's word meanings CAN'T be correct.

The above file also discusses Sitchin's confusion of the sons of God and the nephilim - and evidence from his own book, Stairway to Heaven, that he cannot distinguish between Hebrew and Aramaic! My suspicion behind this apparent blunder is that Sitchin wants to distance the Annunaki from the evil Watchers of ancient Jewish literature (Hebrew Bible, Enoch, and some Dead Sea Scrolls).

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The word "Nephilim" is formed / spelled TWO ways in the Old Testament Hebrew text:
~ylpn and ~ylypn (see Numbers 13:33, e.g.)
The difference between them, of course, is the extra letter in the second spelling:
~ylypn

This difference in spelling is critical to understanding where the word comes from and how it should be translated. As many readers know, ancient Hebrew, like other Semitic languages, was originally spelled WITHOUT vowels (there were only consonants). Around the 6th century BC, Hebrew began to use certain CONSONANTS for vowel sounds – the letters essentially did "double duty." Among these consonants was the letter indicated by the arrow above – the Hebrew letter "yod".
The reason for this development was the preservation of correct pronunciation. Such "double duty" consonant-vowels are called matres lectiones (Latin for "mothers of reading" – they were to guide the reader into correct reading / pronunciation). These letters preserved permanently LONG vowel sounds (in Hebrew, long “i” is pronounced like English long “ee”).
Depending on the preference of the scribe who was copying the Hebrew Bible, a word in which such a consonant was used could be written WITH or WITHOUT that consonant – it depended on the reading of the text, and whether or not he felt that the "reading guide" (the "fuller spelling") was necessary. He could use the technical, grammatically correct way of writing it (with the middle yod), or he could use a "contraction" – in which case the " i " vowel would have been marked with a dot below the letter (the difference in practice is analogous to your old English teacher taking points off on a paper for using "can't" – spelled with an apostrophe - when the stylistically "proper" spelling is "cannot").
THE IMPORTANT POINT in all this is that the "middle yod" of "nephilim" tells us that the word was CORRECTLY pronounced as “ne6 – fee – leem," and that the "proper" way of spelling the word was ~ylypn.
AS A RESULT of this scribal spelling clue, we can do two things:
1) Weed out incorrect spelling alternatives – and the "root words" that go with them; and
2) Deduce the root words that may legitimately be behind "nephilim"
Let's go through the options, including Sitchin's explanations:
What ~yliypin. (Nephilim) Does NOT mean:
1) "those who fall upon" (implying they were mere human warriors) – many Christians hold this view
This interpretation ASSUMES that the Hebrew was originally written as ~ylpn, and fails to take the middle "y" into account. This is significant, since if the word meant the above ("those who fall upon"), the consonants would be pointed (i.e., spelled with vowels – notice the little dots) as what Hebrew grammar calls a Qal plural participle, like this:
~ylip.no (“Nophelim")
* note that the vowel dot is ABOVE the letter, which indicates long "o", not the required long " i ". As a result of not accounting for the proper vowel, this cannot be the meaning of Nephilim.
2) Some argue for a passive meaning, "those who are fallen (through some circumstance).” A passive verb is a verb that denotes the subject of the verb is acted UPON by an outside force. In Hebrew, if this were the meaning, the word would have to be pointed as a Qal passive participle, constructed like this:
~yliWpn. (“Nephulim")
(but this adds a letter not in the original text – the W )
The verdict, then, is that this meaning cannot be the meaning of Nephilim. This meaning IS POSSIBLE, though, if the root word is NOT Hebrew, but Aramaic –see below.
3) Sitchin's Proposals:
"those came down from above"
"those who were cast down"
"people of the fiery rockets"
Simply stated, these options are far from the mark. The last one in particular is completely bogus and self-serving.
First, the verb that usually is used for "to come down" (meaning "direction as in a journey") is yarad - dry, not naphal (lpn). If we go with Sitchin's "those who were CAST down," we would need a participle of yarad spelled as a Hiphil stem (stems are like conjugations) which, in the Hebrew language, requires the letter "m" (m) on the front. This form would be spelled: ~ydyrwm. Standard dictionaries of Hebrew "naphal" show that the "direction in a journey sense" is foreign to the word anyway. Clearly there is no relationship to ~ylypn.
Second, standard Hebrew dictionaries1 DO at times allow for a meaning "to cast down" – but in Hebrew, all such cases are also Hiphil stem as above – and require an extra letter added to the front in the verb / participle form (either an "m" or "h" – m or h). Examples of these forms are found in the following verses (note how NONE of them even look like ~ylypn / nephilim):
Ezekiel 6:4 - yTil.P;hi - hippalti Daniel 9:18 - ~yliyPim; - mappilim
Daniel 9:20 - lyPim; - mappil Daniel 8:10 - lPeT; - tappel Exodus 21:27 - lPey: - yappel (knock out a tooth) Psalm 22:19 - WlyPiy: - yappilu (cast lots)
Third, Sitchin's "people of the fiery rockets" is absolutely contrived. Naphal has nothing to do with fire or rockets (check any Biblical Hebrew dictionary or lexicon). This translation is absolutely bogus. Go back to my website where I have scanned the range of word meanings described in the leading Hebrew Lexicon, Koehler – Baumgartner (English translation, Brill). You will find Sitchin's understanding in NO dictionary; he makes it up.
What ~yliypin. (Nephilim) DOES – or can – mean:
There are two options for the correct meaning of "nephilim" – meanings that preserve the correct middle "y" letter and hence the middle " i " vowel – but they BOTH are based on Aramaic roots.
1. In Aramaic, however, you could have a Naphal root, and the spelling would be !yliypin> ("nephilin") – the "n" ending is the standard plural ending in Aramaic nouns (Aramaic was the language spoken in Babylon, where Israel was exiled in the 6th century – the SAME century in which the matres lectiones consonant-vowels begin to appear). When Aramaic words were carried into the Hebrew Bible by those who wrote or edited the final form of the Hebrew Bible, the proper Hebrew "m" plural was substituted for the Aramaic "n" to "convert" the form to proper Hebrew (see any good reference grammar here; e.g., Jouon-Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, vol. 1, p. 271; and Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar, ed. Kautsch, p. 242). Once this word was incorporated into the Hebrew Bible and the above ending change affected, we have ~yliypin> – the exact form we find in the Hebrew Bible at Numbers 13:33.
If Aramaic "naphal" is the correct root behind "nephilim," then the ONLY thing this spelling can mean is "those who fell / were fallen.” The reason for this narrowness is that the spelling reflects the Aramaic
passive Pe-il participle. This meaning is discussed by rabbis – that these offspring of the Genesis 6 cohabitation between human women and the sons of God were "spiritually fallen" (evil).
2. Interestingly, however, the view Sitchin thinks is impossible (based on his childhood anecdote about not accepting his teacher's answer to the meaning of "nephilim") is actually the most likely meaning. Unfortunately, Sitchin's teacher didn’t know any more about the structure of the word than Sitchin apparently does now. The spelling !yliypin> is also the plural for "giants" (singular = Jewish Aramaic al'ypin> - note the middle "y"). Once this word was incorporated into the Hebrew Bible, the above ending change (-m for –n) would also have taken place, producing ~yliypin> – again the exact form we find in the Hebrew Bible at Numbers 13:33. (It is curious how Sitchin could deny his teacher’s answer that the Nephilim were giants, while Numbers 13:33 clearly establishes the Nephilim were in fact giants. Apparently Sitchin is banking on his readers not finding this verse).
My guess is that BOTH meanings work in tandem – the GIANTS produced by the cohabitation were EVIL / "FALLEN".
One thing is absolutely certain, though – Sitchin is wrong on all counts with respect to the meaning of “Nephilim.” Once his Nephilim scenario is undone, everything built upon it falls.
LASTLY: A Truly Incredible Sitchin Error in Regard to the Nephilim:
From his Stairway to Heaven pp. 110-112
Nylypnlw )yh Ny#ydq Nmw )tn)yrh Nyry( Nm yd yblb tb#x Nyd)b )h
Sitchin notes: "But as we examine the Hebrew original, we find it does not say 'watchers'; it says 'Nephilim' – the very term used in Gen 6. Thus do all the ancient texts and ancient confirm each other. The days before the deluge were the days when the Nephilim were upon the earth, the mighty ones, the people of the rocket ships."
The above text is from the Genesis Apocryphon found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and concerns a myth about the conception of Noah. Sitchin is at pains here to make the sons of God (the "holy ones") equal to the Nephilim (see above), and thus have Noah as a Nephilim descendant, as well as to distinguish the Nephilim from the evil Watchers of Intertestamental literature. He even emphasizes the word "nephilim" to make sure we know what word he is talking about (see underlining). Unfortunately, he makes two amazing blunders:
1) The language is Aramaic, not Hebrew (contra his quote); this is detectable to someone who knows the difference. You can tell by virtue of the endings " – in" (Ny -) plural endings (as opposed to - im / My - of Hebrew; cf. Nylypnl (spelled in English letters here "nephilin" with an "n" ending), Ny#ydq and Nyry(.
2) When Sitchin says the text does not say "watchers" he misses the word IN THE LINE a few words prior to "nephilin". The enlarged word is WATCHERS in Aramaic!
Nylypnlw )yh Ny#ydq Nmw )tn)yrh Nyry( Nm yd yblb tb#x Nyd)b )h
Once again, Sitchin's scholarship is dubious. The Watchers are NOT the nephilim, and the nephilim are NOT the "holy ones". The ones who came from heaven, the sons of God –called Watchers in Enoch, fell into sin and fathered the Nephilim. Sitchin is undeniably wrong.
By the way – the term "Watcher" and "holy ones" are EQUATED in the book of Daniel (ch. 4). Didn't Sitchin look?
1 See the entry for lpn in The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Francis Brown, S. Driver, C. Briggs (eds.), Hendrickson Publishers; Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Vols. 1-4), Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner (eds.), Brill; Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Johannes Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Eerdmans.

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One thing is absolutely certain, though – Sitchin is wrong on all counts with respect to the meaning of “Nephilim.” Once his Nephilim scenario is undone, everything built upon it falls.

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