Transcription
(gentle music) - [Narrator] In order to talk about the nature of the universe, and to discuss questions such as whether it has a beginning or an end, you have to be clear about what a scientific theory is. I shall take the simple-minded view that a theory is just a model of the universe or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make. It exists only in our minds and does not have any other reality, whatever that might mean. A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements. And it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.
(upbeat music) - [Narrator 2] When the late professor Stephen Hawking wrote that, of course he is referring to a scientific theory which pertains to the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, or any other natural process of the universe. A historical theory on the other hand is defined as a concept with several uses. Often, researchers will provide a theory about historical events and connections. An orderly preconceived impression of the phenomenon to be studied. Used in this way, theory means the same as hypothesis. So what you are about to witness is just that, a historical theory, a hypothesis about the way in which human history may have unfolded. It's a theory about where we've come from and even where we might go. This information does not just come unjustified and out of nowhere, but is based on countless hours of research, translation, interpretation, and discussion among historians, archeologists, linguists, anthropologists and even planetary scientists. We'll be referencing scientific articles and discoveries throughout this feature, which will be sourced on screen at the moment of the claim, with a little one of these. We've also put a link to all of our sources in the author comments as well as in the end credits, just in case you missed them. As professor Hawking wrote this theory we are presenting ultimately exists entirely within our minds. What we do with this theory, with these ideas, the information the story is entirely up to each of us individually. Take it with a grain of Himalayan rock salt, or a dash of pepper if you prefer. Just remember, have your own experience and make it a great one.
(upbeat music) (gentle music) The year is 1847, a young archeologist named Austin Henry Layard was Indiana Jones in his way around ancient Mesopotamian ruins where he properly identified and henceforth discovered the ancient Assyrian city state of Nineveh in an area now known as Iraq. In an absolutely incredible discovery, he found 22,000 clay tablets hidden in the depths of the city. These tablets contained CUNA form, which today is one of, if not the earliest known writing systems known to man, created by the Sumerians 6,000 years ago. Over the years more ancient historical cities were found and excavated. Many of the world's museums now count among their prize exhibits, the ceremonial Gates, winged bulls, chariots, tools, utensils, jewelry, statues and other objects that have been dug out of the mountains that are Assyria and Babylon. But the true treasures of these kingdoms, were their written records. Since the time of that discovery we have believed that the first true civilization in all of humanity arose in Mesopotamian Sumer located in present day Iraq, around 6,000 years ago. This is now being challenged by the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, a far older site dating back nearly 11,000 years. However, this is a conversation we're going to save for a little later on.
Now, Sumer translates to, land of the civilized Kings and their culture exploded onto the scene virtually overnight, becoming the cradle of human civilization. Looking into the artifacts of Sumer is quite interesting as they host a long list of archeological firsts for the human race. Among these finds are the first schools, the first historians, the first methods of writing, the first library, the first doctors and pharmacopeia, the first agriculture and farmer's almanac, the first musical notation, the first bicameral legislature and the first taxes. The Sumerian legal code, also a first, included protection for divorced women as well as price controls on foodstuffs and wagon rentals. We also see the invention of the wheel, the chariot, the sailboat, and the plow. They also invented our standard measurement of time. The concept of 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, and the 12 to 24 hour clock all started with the Sumerians. They also developed the first astronomical and astrological systems, the first maps and cartography, and the first mathematics. Oh, they also seemed to have invented beer, with archeologists finding a 3,900 year old Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi the goddess of brewing which also contains the oldest surviving beer recipe. Ultimately, you put all of this together and you get the first urban civilization in history. The most significant discovery out of all of this, however, was finding that their religion and belief system influenced all of those that followed. Where even today, we find the Sumerian creation epic filtered through the ages and into the old Testament making the Sumerian legends appear to be the source code of many of the world's religions today. One example of this can be found with the epics of Gilgamesh, Ziusudra and Atrahasis. Each of them ancient poetic stories essentially describing the flood of the old Testament, yet transcribed long before Noah was ever written down. The cuneiform tablets of Sumer contain inscriptions of a tremendous magnitude encompassing cosmological tales, epic poems, histories of Kings, temple records, commercial contracts, marriage, and divorce records, astronomical tables, astrological forecasts, mathematical formulas, geographic lists, grammar and vocabulary school texts, and not least of all texts dealing with the names, genealogies, epithets, deeds, powers and duties of the gods.
Now, it's important to know that if we're discussing these Sumerian records, the truth is there's a little, a lot of different writings and tellings available from a number of generations in time. You had the Sumerians, the original civilization which then spread and developed into the Acadians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and eventually the Chaldeans. These tablets that we're referencing were generally written between 2,700 and 1600 BCE. And it appears many were translated down or cultural retellings from older stories. Among all of the tablets of Sumer that had been dug up, there are a wide number of variations and tellings of these ancient stories which described the mythological deities who created the world and the people who live upon it. It can actually be very confusing to learn about these deities because there are a number of contradictions between the tellings, due to how many cultures adopted the stories and fit them to their needs. Ancient History Encyclopedia writes, all of these seeming contradictions stem from Mesopotamia's long history and the different cultures which adopted the Sumerian gods and made them their own with additions and alterations to their stories. Sometimes these changes expand upon or continue older stories, but often different scribes in various eras simply rewrote the tales to suit their purposes.
Now, in our recently published book, "The Book of Spirit," we spend some time discussing the variations of what these ancient cultures could have meant by their description of the gods. Generally, they're interpreted in one of several ways. The most socially acceptable interpretation today is generally that these gods are forces of nature or aspects of life, like night and day, birth and death or the sun and the moon. Often, there are also specific times when the Sumerians reference planets or constellations such as Jupiter or Mercury or even the Pleiades, which for the record was one of the most significant and worshiped star clusters across all of Sumer. However, and generally the least accepted theory in modern academia, is that these gods represented actual physical beings called the Annunaki, supposedly from the planet Nibiru, who were far more technologically advanced than we were and who were involved in the creation of the human race. This idea has become very popular since the story first came out in the 1970s and especially in the last 10 years or so thanks to the internet and a growing interest in these subjects. In order to identify if there's any substantiated evidence to these claims, we're going to begin by looking at the Sumerian creation epic. Now, this rendition of the story is very simple because we don't actually have a lot of information to work with. This is because many of the tablets were broken with time. And also since the stories changed across generations as we looked at before. But with that said, let's have a look and see what we can discover about what the Sumerians believed regarding the creation of everything as interpreted and pieced together by various historians and scholars throughout history.
(gentle music) The Sumerian creation epic begins with the primordial mother goddess named Nammu. Who many suggest represents the creative force behind the entire universe itself. She was the goddess sea, who gives birth to the first actual gods. These are An and Ki, the sky and the earth, who are generally interpreted as being one being, AnKi. Though some interpretations describe that they began as two. At any rate, An and Ki or AnKi gives birth to a child named Enlil, the god of the air. Enlil cleaves An and Ki in two, implying they were singular, separating the heavens and the earth. Finally, Nammu and An create Enki, who is the God of water, and also the God of wisdom, mischief, crafts, and creation. This Pantheon then goes on to create a number of other gods and goddesses such as Utu and Nanna, the sun and moon god, and so on. And many of these created gods, seem to describe different aspects of the world. While there are a number of parables involving interactions between these deities, a great deal of the Sumerian creation epic revolved around these three characters, An, Enlil, and Enki, who formed sort of their own trinity in a sense. In this story, eventually Nammu has an idea and speaks with Enki, having him create human beings to assist the gods in their work. And other, perhaps even more common tellings of the story, it was Enlil's idea who told Nammu about it, who then gave Enki the task. This, in essence, is the basic idea of the original Sumerian creation epic. Due to the passing along of stories over time, and that many tablets are damaged, a lot of the details of this creation story we looked at, remains a mystery.
Now, you might be thinking, gee, Patch, I'm not sure I see the parallel between what you just shared and the Bible. Are you sure that these are related? And the answer is, absolutely. However, in order to see how we get from this, to this, we have to look at the stories in the middle and see how this chain develops from here to here. The middle of the story between these two, is found in the Babylonian creation epic, of which a far more complete telling exists today. In this story, it relates Nammu with the mother goddess named Tiamat and Enlil with a being named Marduk. However, as you will soon see, there are significant differences in the way that these goddesses are portrayed in the literature. Things are about to get very interesting.
(gentle music) The Babylonian Epic of creation begins with the primordial God and goddess Apsu and Tiamat. These two are described as the God of freshwater and the goddess of saltwater, which is commonly interpreted to be not as physical water, but primordial substance in the early universe. However, Apsu is sometimes seen as the freshwater aquifers underneath Mesopotamia and Tiamat being the saltwater sea. In the story, Apsu also has a vizier whose name is Mummu. Together, Apsu and Tiamat mingle their waters and they create two deities, Lahmu and Lahamu. As they're growing, two more deities are created, Anshar and Kishar, who excelled beyond the first two. Anshar and Kishar form Anu, who is quite powerful himself, who then gets Ea. Both Anu and Ea are the same beings as An and Enki from the previous story. All of these newly created children make a ton of noise and problems, surging back and forth and disturbing Tiamat's belly. Even Apsu believes their behavior is loathsome. Apsu declares that he's going to destroy these children and end their annoying ways. Tiamat says, "No, don't do that, be patient with our children," and is very upset that Apsu wants to kill them. Mummu, on the other hand, is very supportive and encouraging of Apsu's plan. These children find out about Apsu's intent. With fear of imminent death, the children go to one of their own, the resourceful Ea, who performs some magic so that Apsu drops into an eternal sleep, subduing all of his power and effectively killing him. Ea then chains Mummu up as a prisoner and takes the throne of Apsu. He names his new King's chamber after Apsu, and it is here that he and his wife, Domkina, who is often related with Ki from the original Sumerian story, give birth to a new God called Marduk. Marduk is a very interesting character, for it says that he was very manly with remarkable divinity. It also says that he had four eyes and four ears and that he breathed fire when he moved his lips. Anu gives Marduk something called the four winds, as well, and by the power of the four winds, a wave of intention is sent towards Tiamat to cause her upset and frustration. Soon after this, Tiamat is told by the gods that when her husband was slain, she did nothing, and now she too will be punished. The result of this is that Tiamat summons a small army of 11 monsters and dragons around her, who all had very curious names. There was venomous snake, the big weathered beast, exalted serpent, furious snake, the hairy one, great dragon, mad lion, scorpion man, violent storms, fishman, and Bullman. In addition to these 11, there was also her consort Kingu, who becomes the lead general of her army. Tiamat gives him something called the tablet of destinies, which is an object that confers upon the bearer the supreme authority as the ruler of the universe. Kingu advises her to destroy her children, who seem to be clearly plotting against her. And in her sorrow for the loss of her husband and anger towards her children, she then becomes the antagonist in the story. In many interpretations of the tablets, Tiamat herself transforms into a great sea dragon. Ea speaks with Anshar and asks for advice. And Anshar basically says, "Ea, you started it, you killed her husband and you made her really mad. Take responsibility for your actions. Talk to her, try to help her calm down." Ea responds by explaining that he didn't feel like he had much of a choice, because all of them would be destroyed otherwise, but he takes Anshar's advice. Ea then attempts to speak with Tiamat but retreats quickly, for her strength is too mighty and she is filled with dread, unable to hear Ea's plea. Anshar then sends Anu to do the same. Anu does what his father asks but finds Tiamat's magic too much for him and retreats as well. It is soon realized that only one person can save the day. And so, Ea summons Marduk to his chambers and asks him to go and see Anshar. When Marduk sees Anshar, Marduk understands what is needed of him and agrees to put an end to Tiamat's rampage. But in exchange, he asks that he be named the King of the gods when it is done. Anshar sends his vizier, whose name is Gaga, off to inform Lahmu and Lahamu of this development. Who summon a council of gods and over beer and pastries, they discuss and agree to Marduk's request. And so, Marduk prepares for war.
(suspenseful music) Marduk arms himself with a number of weapons: a net, a bow with some arrows, a club, and in addition to his four winds, also creates three more: the evil wind, the dust storm, and the tempest. He also brings with him the storm flood, his mightiest weapon. And he rode a chariot of irresistible storm, which were pulled by four steeds: the destroyer, the merciless, the trampler, and the fleet. As he approached Tiamat, Marduk observed Kingu and his shining tablet of destinies. As Marduk looked, his determination fell, and he faltered. Many of his divine aides who were marching at his side saw the warrior and their vision went dim. How could they even stand a chance? Summoning his courage, Marduk curls the storm flood at Tiamat and yells something to the effect of, "Tiamat, why are you aggressive and arrogant and strive to provoke battle? Against all of the gods, you have stirred up and established trouble. Deploy your troops, secure your weapons, you and I will take our stand and do battle." When Tiamat heard this, she went insane. A great celestial battle commenced.
(suspenseful music) When Marduk gets close enough to Tiamat, he first traps her in his net. Then he shoots the evil wind at her face, who opens her mouth to swallow it, but she is unable to, and it holds her mouth open. He then shoots an arrow into her belly which cuts through her insides and extinguishes her life. Marduk then binds up her small army, who are now cowering in fear, and retrieves the tablet of destinies from Kingu. Then, he returns to Tiamat and with his merciless club crushes her head and then cuts her in two. Half of her body is used to create the earth, and the other half is used to create the heavens. Following this, Marduk is crowned the King of the gods. He positions 500 gods in the earth and 300 in the heavens. And the city of Babylon is created in his honor. And the other gods praise him. Marduk conceives a desire to accomplish clever things, and he announces that using divine blood, he will create a new being called man, who will continue the work of the gods so that they may all rest and be peaceful. Ea proposes that one of Tiamat's defeated warrior gods be used for the blood, and so Marduk asks the gods, "Who caused Tiamat to rebel and instigate warfare?" The gods respond that it was Kingu, and so they bring him forth, bounded up, and slay him. Kingu's blood is then mixed with clay from the earth, and with this mixture and his wife, the birth goddess, created humans. Ea doesn't want to make them exactly as the gods, but gives them many abilities and traits, but withholds immortality. On them, Marduk imposes labor, commanding that they serve the gods by their work in the fields and cities, and provide offerings and worship regularly. Our story comes to a grand finale, and ends with Marduk being given 50 names by which he can be worshiped, and reminding people that against Marduk, no one else can face him, for he is the Supreme ruler of the universe.
Now, the story we just looked at is written down in exceptional detail in a series of tablets called the Enuma Elish, of which several main translations are available online for anyone out there who's curious to read them. The story begins in a very similar way to the Sumerian edition that we discussed prior with Nammu. However, the Enuma Elish expands upon it further, taking the story into one of a terrifying battle and the rise of a new, very strong masculine power. Throughout history, this story gained prominence in Babylon and, as we heard in the story itself, is used to explain how Babylon came to be. Eventually, this story even influenced the creation of the Bible. Now, you might be thinking, "Hold up. There is no way that there's this epic battle in the Bible." However, in Psalm 74, in the midst of God ordering the sea and the dry land, establishing the sun, the moon, the stars and the seasons, he's also destroying sea monsters. "Yet God, my King, is from old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your might, you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of the Leviathan and you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness." Sure enough, fighting sea dragons, right there in the Bible. We can also see a rather curious correlation to the Bible by the fact that Marduk is given 50 Holy names, many of which follow a similar naming convention by the names of God found in the Bible. For example, where in Hebrew, it goes, "Yahweh, and then Yahweh-Jireh, Yahweh-Rapha, Yahweh-Nissi," and so on. Marduk's 50 names also give him a title and then to expand upon it several times before repeating this pattern with another title, such as Tutu, Tutu-Ziukkinna, Tutu-Ziku, Tutu-Agaku, and so on.
Ultimately, the question remains, what does it all mean? And what does it have to do with us? Why do we care? Now, previously, we looked at the various possible interpretations of the title, gods, as either planets, people, or forces of nature. When looking into the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian records, the honest truth is that today we don't really understand exactly what they were referring to, although there are some popular theories about it. To most in the academic world, this story is an allegory for the formation of the universe from the primordial substance of creation. It is seen as a triumph of order over chaos and light over darkness. It has been observed as a parable of the rise of Babylon and Babylonian culture over the older Sumerian model of civilization. Further, this tale can be understood as an illustration of the concept of life as perpetual change. In this myth, the old static gods in the story are replaced by the younger, more dynamic gods who then introduced the concept of change and mutability to the universe through the creation of mortal beings who are subject to death. These creatures are tasked with helping the gods maintain their creation, and so, although they themselves are not eternal, they play an integral role in the work of the gods. In a lecture that he did, Jordan Peterson describes that the story truly explains original sin in a different form than we're familiar with. Because humans are created from the blood of the slain Kingu, who was the chief warrior for Tiamat, representing primordial chaos and a force of powerful evil. Because of this, humans have the capacity for evil. And this story was one of the ways that early humanity made sense of this. And personally, we also see a huge correlation between this story and the Kabbalistic tree of life. In the beginning, there was Apsu and Tiamat, who, if we correlate the stories together, emerged from Nammu. Then we have the creation of six deities in pairs of two, which creates these paired opposites along the left and right side of the tree, bringing us to the bottom. In the resulting struggle for the rulership and harmonization of the entire tree, or the totality of creation, Marduk wins, creating the center of Tiferet. Further, there are a number of other ways we could position these characters in relationship to the tree, such as putting Apsu at the top and Tiamat at the bottom, since she is the earth, after all. And all of the other gods being created between them. This is, of course, just a curious musing of ours, but a very interesting correlation nonetheless.
Now, this may very well be the end of the story that these ancient myths are steeped in metaphors and ideas which reflect human consciousness, and that's that. However, in the last 50 years or so, a different idea about what the story meant came to light. This new telling suggested that, in fact, the story was a bit of a secret code, a story with clues alluding to something that really happened in history. This story has planetary collisions, alien spacemen, and so much more. When this telling came out, it became one of the first times that the world truly took an interest in these tablets. And this story only came about because a young boy became obsessed with a burning question. Although this is the end of part one, the adventure is just beginning. For anyone who really wants to go deep into this subject, we have put the entire Sumerian epic into "The Book of Spirit." It's available right now in paperback and hardcover, and can be found on our eshop.
(upbeat music) The story of the great celestial battle is interpreted in a new way, which redefines our history and changes the way that we look at our solar system. This interpretation provides an explanation for the strange gravitational anomalies with Uranus, the creation of Pluto, the asteroid belt, and even the Earth itself. How will things turn out? Find out next time on Spirit Science, The Twelfth Planet.
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