Editing Zecharia Sitchin (section)

==Criticisms==
Criticism of Sitchin's work falls primarily into three categories: translations and interpretations of ancient texts, astronomical and scientific observations, and literalism of myth.

===Translations and interpretations===
When Sitchin wrote his books, only specialists could read the Sumerian language. However, sources such as the 2006 book ''Sumerian Lexicon''<ref>{{cite book|last=Halloran|first=John A.|date=2006 |title=''Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language''|publisher=The David Brown Book Company|isbn=0-9786429-0-2}}</ref> have made the language more accessible to non-experts.

American biblical scholar [[Michael S. Heiser]] states he has found many inaccuracies in Sitchin's translations and challenges interested parties to use this book to check their validity.<ref name="Pilkington">[http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/199/zechariah_sitchin.html Zechariah Sitchin] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117164717/http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/199/zechariah_sitchin.html |date=2007-11-17 }}, [[Mark Pilkington (writer)|Mark Pilkington]], ''[[Fortean Times]]'', August 2003.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/anunnaki/anunnaki.htm|title=Anunnaki|work=sitchiniswrong.com}}</ref> Prof. [[Ronald H. Fritze]],<ref name="corndancer.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.corndancer.com/fritze/fritzebio.html|title=Ron Fritze's Bio|work=corndancer.com}}</ref> author of the book ''Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-religions'',<ref name="corndancer.com"/> mentions the example of Sitchin's claim that the Sumerian sign ''[[Dingir|DIĜIR]]'' means "pure ones of the blazing rockets", adding that "Sitchin's assignment of meanings to ancient words is tendentious and frequently strained."<ref name="Fritze, Ronald H 2009 p214">Fritze, Ronald H,. (2009). Invented knowledge: false history, fake science and pseudo-religions. Reaktion Books. p. 214. {{ISBN|978-1-86189-430-4}}</ref> Fritze also commented on Sitchin's methodology, writing that "When critics have checked Sitchin's references, they have found that he frequently quotes out of context or truncates his quotes in a way that distorts evidence in order to prove his contentions. Evidence is presented selectively and contradictory evidence is ignored."<ref name="Fritze, Ronald H 2009 p214"/>

Sitchin bases his arguments on his personal interpretations of Egyptian and Sumerian texts, and the seal VA 243. Sitchin wrote that these ancient civilizations knew of a twelfth planet, when in fact they only knew five.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url=http://www.michaelsheiser.com/va_243%20page.htm |title=The Myth of a 12th Planet in Sumero-Mesopotamian Astronomy: A Study of Cylinder Seal VA 243 by Dr. Michael S. Heiser |publisher=Michaelsheiser.com |access-date=2011-04-23}}</ref> Hundreds of Sumerian astronomical seals and calendars have been decoded and recorded, and the total count of planets on each seal has been five. Seal VA 243 has 12 dots that Sitchin identifies as planets. When translated, seal VA 243 reads "You're his Servant" which is now thought to be a message from a nobleman to a servant. According to Heiser, the so-called sun on Seal VA 243 is not the Sumerian symbol for the sun but is a star, and the dots are also stars.<ref name=autogenerated1/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michaelsheiser.com/VA243seal.pdf |title=The Myth of a 12th Planet |access-date=2011-04-23}}</ref> The symbol on seal VA 243 has no resemblance to the hundreds of documented Sumerian sun symbols.

In a 1979 review of ''The Twelfth Planet'', Roger W. Wescott,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.velikovsky.info/Roger_W._Wescott |title=Roger W. Wescott - The Velikovsky Encyclopedia |publisher=Velikovsky.info |access-date=2011-04-23}}</ref> Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at [[Drew University]], Madison, New Jersey, noted Sitchin's [[amateur]]ishness with respect to the primacy of the Sumerian language:

{{blockquote|Sitchin's linguistics seems at least as amateurish as his anthropology, biology, and astronomy. On p. 370, for example, he maintains that "all the ancient languages ... including early Chinese ... stemmed from one primeval source -- Sumerian". Sumerian, of course, is the virtual archetype of what linguistic taxonomists call a [[Language isolate|language-isolate]], meaning a language that does not fall into any of the well-known language-families or exhibit clear cognation with any known language. Even if Sitchin is referring to written rather than to spoken language, it is unlikely that his contention can be persuasively defended, since Sumerian ideograms were preceded by the [[Azilian]] and [[Tărtăria_tablets|Tartarian]]  signaries of Europe as well as by a variety of script-like notational systems between the Nile and Indus rivers.<ref>Wescott, Roger W. 1979. ''Kronos'' Vol. IV, No. 4, pp. 90-92.</ref>}}

===Astronomical and scientific observations===
Sitchin's "planetary collision" hypothesis does superficially resemble one suggested by modern [[astronomer]]s—the [[giant impact hypothesis]] of the [[Moon]]'s formation about 4.5 billion years ago by a body impacting with the newly formed Earth. However, Sitchin's proposed series of rogue planetary collisions differ in both details and timing. As with [[Immanuel Velikovsky]]'s earlier ''Worlds in Collision'' thesis, Sitchin states that he has found evidence of ancient human knowledge of rogue celestial motions in a variety of mythological accounts. In Velikovsky's case, these interplanetary collisions were supposed to have taken place within the span of human existence, whereas for Sitchin these occurred during the early stages of planetary formation, but entered the mythological account passed down via the alien race which purportedly evolved on Nibiru after these encounters.

According to former Immanuel Velikovsky assistant turned prolific critic, [[C. Leroy Ellenberger]],<ref name="velikovsky.info">{{cite web|url=http://www.velikovsky.info/C._Leroy_Ellenberger|title=C. Leroy Ellenberger - The Velikovsky Encyclopedia|work=velikovsky.info}}</ref> "[Sitchin states that] from an equal start, the Nephilim evolved on Nibiru 45 million years ahead of comparable development on Earth with its decidedly more favorable environment. Such an outcome is unlikely, to say the least, since Nibiru would spend over 99% of its time beyond Pluto. Sitchin's explanation that heat from radioactive decay and a thick atmosphere keep Nibiru warm is absurd and does not address the problem of darkness in deep space. Also unexplained is how the Nephilim, who evolved long after Nibiru arrived, knew what happened when Nibiru first entered the solar system."<ref name="Ellenberger, C 1981. pp. 3-4" />

The scenario outlined by Sitchin, with Nibiru returning to the inner Solar System regularly every 3,600 years,

<blockquote>...  implies an orbit with a semi-major axis of 235 [[astronomical unit]]s, extending from the asteroid belt to twelve times farther beyond the sun than Pluto. Elementary perturbation theory indicates that, under the most favorable circumstances of avoiding close encounters with other planets, no body with such an eccentric orbit would keep the same period for two consecutive passages. Within twelve orbits the object would be either ejected or converted to a short period object. Thus, the failed search for a trans-Plutonian planet by [[Tom Van Flandern|T.C. Van Flandern]], of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which Sitchin uses to bolster his thesis, is no support at all.<ref name="Ellenberger, C 1981. pp. 3-4">[[C. Leroy Ellenberger|Ellenberger, C. Leroy]] 1981. Marduk Unmasked. ''Frontiers of Science'', May–June, pp. 3-4.</ref></blockquote>

Sitchin in "the case of Adam's alien genes"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sitchin.com/adam.htm |title=the case of Adam's alien genes |publisher=Sitchin.com |access-date=2011-04-23}}</ref> states that 223 genes found by the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium are without the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree. Later researchers have argued that the conclusion from the Human Genome Sequencing Consortium cannot be drawn due to a lack of a comprehensive gene database for comparison. An analysis by [[Steven Salzberg|Salzberg]] identified 40 potential genes laterally transferred into the genome from prokaryotic organisms. Salzberg also argues that gene loss combined with sample size effects and evolutionary rate variation provide an alternative, more biologically plausible explanation.<ref>Salzberg, Steven L., Owen White, et al. "Microbial Genes in the Human Genome: Lateral Transfer or Gene Loss?". Science 292.5523 (2001): 1903 – 3.</ref>

===Literalism of myth===

[[Peter James (historian)|Peter James]], co-author of the controversial book ''Centuries of Darkness'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.centuries.co.uk/|title=Centuries of Darkness by Peter James, I. J. Thorpe, Nikos Kokkinos, Robert Morkot & John Frankish|work=centuries.co.uk}}</ref> has criticized Sitchin both for ignoring the world outside [[Mesopotamia]] and more specifically for wholly misunderstanding [[Sumer]]ian, [[Assyria]]n and [[Babylonian literature]]:

{{blockquote|He uses the Epic of Creation [[Enuma Elish]] as the foundation for his [[cosmogony]], identifying the young god Marduk, who overthrows the older regime of gods and creates the Earth, as the unknown "Twelfth Planet". In order to do this he interprets the Assyrio-Babylonian [[theogony]] as a factual account of the birth of the other "eleven" planets. The Babylonian names for the planets are established beyond a shadow of a doubt—[[Ishtar]] was the deity of Venus, [[Nergal]] of Mars, and Marduk of Jupiter—and confirmed by hundreds of astronomical/astrological tables and treatises on clay tablets and papyri from the Hellenistic period. Sitchin merrily ignores all this and assigns unwarranted planetary identities to the gods mentioned in the theogony. For example, [[Abzu|Apsu]], attested as god of the primeval waters, becomes, of all things, the Sun! [[Enki|Ea]], as it suits Sitchin, is sometimes planet Neptune and sometimes a spaceman. And the identity of Ishtar as the planet Venus, a central feature of Mesopotamian religion, is nowhere mentioned in the book—instead Sitchin arbitrarily assigns to Venus another deity from ''Enuma Elish'', and reserves Ishtar for a role as a female astronaut.<ref>James, Peter ''SIS Workshop'' no. 7, vol. 2, no. 2 (Nov. 1979), reprinted from ''Fortean Times'' no. 27 (Nov. 1978).</ref>}}

[[William Irwin Thompson]] comments on what he calls Sitchin's 'literalism':

{{blockquote|What Sitchin sees is what he needs for his hypothesis. So figure 15 on page 40 is radiation therapy, and figure 71 on page 136 is a god inside a rocket-shaped chamber. If these are gods, why are they stuck with our cheap B movie technology of rockets, microphones, space-suits, and radiation therapy? If they are gods, then why can't they have some really divine technology such as intradimensional worm-hole travel, antigravity, starlight propulsion, or black hole bounce rematerializations? Sitchin has constructed what appears to be a convincing argument, but when he gets close to single images on ancient tablets, he falls back into the literalism of "Here is an image of the gods in rockets." Suddenly, ancient Sumer is made to look like the movie set for ''[[Destination Moon (film)|Destination Moon]]''. Erich Von Däniken's potboiler ''[[Chariots of the Gods?]]'' has the same problem. [[Nazca plains]] in Peru is turned into a World War II landing strip. The gods can cross galactic distances, but by the time they get to Peru, their spaceships are imagined as World War II prop jobs that need an enormous landing strip. This literalization of the imagination doesn't make any sense, but every time it doesn't, you hear Sitchin say "There can be no doubt, but{{nbsp}}..."<ref>Thompson, William Irwin ''Coming into being: artifacts and texts in the evolution of consciousness'' pp.75-76 [https://books.google.com/books?id=YJyF-zbTzo4C&q=++sitchin&pg=PA75]</ref>}}