“…Was it Fate, or was it Destiny, that led Marduk by an unseen hand through all his troubles and tribulations over many millennia to his final goal: supremacy on Earth?
“…In the Sumerian language, and thus in Sumerian philosophy and religion, there was a clear distinction between the two. Destiny, NAM, was the predetermined course of events that was unalterable. Fate was NAM.TAR – a predetermined course of events that could be altered; literally, TAR, to cut, break, disturb, change.
“…The fine line distinguishing between the two may be blurred today, but it was a difference well-defined in Sumerian and biblical times. For the Sumerians, Destiny began in the heavens, starting with the preordained orbital paths of the planets. Once the Solar System begot its shape and composition after the Celestial Battle, the planetary orbits became everlasting Destinies; the term and concept could then be applied to the future course of events on Earth, starting with the gods who had celestial counterparts.
“…In the biblical realm, it was Yahweh who controlled Destinies and Fates, but while the former was predetermined and unalterable, the latter could be affected by human decisions… Because of the former powers, the course of future events could be foretold years, centuries and even millennia earlier.
“…But when it came to Fates, the free will and free choice of people and nations could come and did come into play. Unlike destinies, Fates could be changed and punishments could be averted if righteousness replaced sin, if piety replaced profanity, if justice prevailed over injustice. “It is not the death of the evildoer that I seek, but that the wicked shall turn from his ways and live.” The Lord God told the Prophet Ezequiel (33:11).
“…The distinction made by the Sumerians between Fate and Destiny, and how they can both play a role even in the life of a single individual, becomes apparent in the life story of Gilgamesh.
“…A Sumerian text titled by scholars The Death of Gilgamesh provides an answer. The end, it explains, was preordained, there was no way that Gilgamesh, taking his Fate into his own hands over and over again, could have changed his Destiny. The text provides his conclusion by reporting an omen-dream of Gilgamesh that contained a prediction of his end.
“…Here is what Gilgamesh is told:
O Gilgamesh,
this is the meaning of the dream;
The great god Enlil, father of the gods,
had decreed thy destiny.
Thy fate for kingship he determined;
for eternal life he has not destined thee.
“…The Fate of Gilgamesh, he is told, has been overridden by Destiny. He was fated to be a king; he was not destined to avoid death. And so destined, Gilgamesh is described dying. “He who was firm of muscle, lies unable to rise… He who had ascended mountains, lies, rises not” “On the bed of Namtar he lies, rises not.”
“…The What if? question can be expanded from one individual to Mankind as a whole.
“…What would have been the course of events on Earth (and elsewhere in the Solar System) were Ea’s original plan to obtain gold from the waters of the Persian Gulf to succeed? At a crucial turn of events, Anu, Enlil, and Ea drew lots to see who would rule Nibiru, who would go to the mines in southeast Africa, who would be in charge of the expanded Edin. Ea/Enki went to Africa and, encountering there the evolving hominids, could tell the gathered gods: The Being that we need, it exists – all that we have to do is put on it our genetic mark!
the gods had clasped hands together,
had cast lots and had divided.
“…Would the feat of genetic engineering have taken place had either Anu or Enlil been the one to go to southeastern Africa?
“…Would we have shown up on our planet anyway, through evolution alone? Probably – for that is how the Anunnaki (from the same seed of life!) had evolved on Nibiru, but far ahead of us. But on Earth we came about through genetic engineering, when Enki and Nimah jumped the gun on evolution and made Adam the first “test tube baby.”
“…The lesson of the Epic of Gilgamesh is that Fate cannot change Destiny. The emergence of Homo sapiens on Earth we believe, was a matter of destiny, a final outcome that might have been delayed or reached otherwise, but undoubtedly reached. Indeed, we believe that even though the Anunnaki deemed their coming to Earth their own decision for their own needs, that too, we believe, was preordained, destined by a cosmic plan. And equally so, we believe, will be Mankind’s Destiny: to repeat what the Anunnaki had done to us by going to another planet to start the process all over again.
“…One who understood the connection between Fate and the zodiacal constellations was Marduk himself. They constituted what we have termed Celestial Time, the link between Divine Time (the orbital period of Nibiru) and Earthly Time (the Year, months, seasons, days, and nights resulting from the Earth’s orbit, tilt, and revolution upon its own axis). The heavenly signs that Marduk had invoked – the arrival of the Zodiacal Age of the Ram – were signs in the realm of Fate. What he needed to solidify his supremacy, to eliminate from it the notion that, as Fate, it could be changed, or revised, or reversed, was a Celestial Destiny. And to that aim he ordered what can be considered the most audacious falsification ever.
“…We are talking about the most sacred and basic text of the ancient peoples: the Epic of Creation, the core and bedrock of their faith, religion, science. Sometimes called by its opening lines Enuma Elish (When in the Heights of Heaven), it was a tale of events in the heavens that involved celestial gods and a Celestial Battle, the favorable outcome of which made possible all the good things on Earth, including the coming into being of Mankind. Without exception the text was viewed by the scholars who began to piece it together from many fragments as a celestial myth, an allegory of the eternal fight between good and evil. The fact that wall sculptures discovered in Mesopotamia depicted a winged (i.e. celestial) god fighting a winged (i.e. celestial) monster, solidified the notion that here was an ancient forerunner of the tale of St. George and the Dragon. Indeed, some of the early translations of the partial text titled it Bel and the Dragon. In those texts, the Dragon was called Tiamat and Bel (“the Lord”) was none other than Marduk.
“…In our 1976 book The Twelfth Planet we have suggested that neither the Mesopotamian text nor its condensed biblical version was myth or allegory. They were based, we suggested, on a most sophisticated cosmogony that, based on advanced science, described the creation of our Solar System, stage by stage, and then the appearance of a stray planet from outer space that was gradually drawn into our Solar System, resulting in a collision between it and an older member of the Sun’s family. The ensuing Celestial Battle between the invader – “Marduk” – and the olden planet – Tiamat – led to the destruction of Tiamat. Half of it broke into bits and pieces that became a Hammered Bracelet; the other half, shunted to a new orbit, became the planet Earth, carrying with it Tiamat’s larger satellite that we call the Moon. And the invader, attracted into the center of our Solar System and slowed down by the collision, became permanently the twelfth member of our Solar System.
“…By calling the cosmogony underlying the Epic of Creation Sumerian, rather than Babylonian, we provide a clue to the true source and nature of the text… They are now convinced that the extant Babylonian version was a deliberate forgery, intended to equate the Marduk that was on Earth with the celestial/planetary “god” who changed the make of our heavens, gave our Solar System its present shape, and – in a manner of speaking – created the Earth and all that was on it. That included Mankind, for according to the Sumerian original version it was Nibiru, coming from some other part of the universe, that brought with it and imparted to Earth during the collision the “Seed of Life.”
“…(For that matter, it should be realized that the illustration so long deemed to represent Marduk battling the Dragon is also all wrong. It is a depiction from Assyria where the supreme god was Ashur, and not Babylon; the deity is depicted as an Eagleman, which indicates an Enlilite being; the divine cap he wears has three pairs of horns, indicating the rank of 30, which was not Marduk’s rank; and his weapon was the forked lightning, which was the divine weapon of Ishkur/Adad, Enlil’s – not Enki’s son.)
“…‘Destiny’… that was the term used to describe the orbital paths. The everlasting, unchanging orbit was a planet’s Destiny; and that is what Marduk was granted according to Enuma elish.
“…Once one realizes that this is the meaning and significance of the ancient term for “orbits” one can follow the steps by which the Destiny was attained by Marduk.
“…And still based on the Celestial Battle, Marduk appropriated the status of “the invader” Nibiru, to himself, the Babylonians called the invader planet “Marduk.”
Mr. Sitchin explains again the Celestial Battle at this point, which it also appears in his book The 12th Planet. He then continues:
“…Now, finally, Marduk had obtained, permanent, unalterable Destiny – an orbital path that, ever since, has kept bringing the erstwhile invader again and again to the site of the Celestial Battle where Kingu had once been. Together with Marduk, and counting Kingu (our Moon) for it had possessed Destiny, the Sun and its family reached the count of twelve.
It was this count, we suggest, that determined twelve to be the celestial number, and thus the twelve stations (“houses”) of the zodiac, twelve months of the year, twelve double-hours in a day-night cycle, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles of Jesus.
“…The distinction between an unalterable Destiny, and a Fate that could be altered and averted was expressed in a two-part Hymn to Enlil, that describes both his powers as a decreer of Fates and as a pronouncer of Destinies:
Enlil:
In the heavens he is the Prince,
On Earth he is the Chief,
His command is far-reaching,
His utterance is lofty and holy;
The shepherd Enlil decrees the Fates.Enlil:
His command in the heights made the heavens tremble,
down below he made the Earth quake.
He pronounces destinies into the distant future,
his decrees are unchangeable.
He is the Lord who knows the destiny of the Land.
“…Destinies, the Sumerians believed, were of a celestial nature. As high-ranking as Enlil was, his pronouncements of unalterable Destinies were not the result of his own decisions or plans. The information was made known to him; he was a “lord who knows the Destiny of the land,” he was a “trustworthy called-one” – not a human prophet but a divine prophet.
“…That was quite different from the instances when – in consultation with other gods – he decreed Fates. Sometimes he consulted just his trusted vizier, Nusku…
“…Not only Nusku, Enlil’s chamberlain, but also his spouse Ninlil is depicted in [a] hymn as participant in deciding Fates.
“…Fates, the Sumerians believed, were made, decreed and altered on Earth; and in spite of the hymnal words of adoration or minimal consultation, it appears that the determination of Fates – including that of Enlil himself – was achieved by a process that was more democratic, more akin to that of a constitutional monarchy. The powers of Enlil seemed to stem not only from above, from Anu and Nibiru, but also from below, from an Assembly of the Gods (a kind of parliament or congress). The most crucial decisions – were made at a Council of the Great Gods, a kind of Cabinet of Ministers where discussions sometimes became debates and as often as not turned into heated exchanges . . .
“…The references to the Council and the Assembly of the Anunnaki gods are numerous. The creation of the Adam… the decision to wipe Mankind off the face of the Earth at the time of the Deluge…
“…And after the Deluge, when the remnants of Mankind began to fill the Earth again and the Anunnaki started to give Mankind civilization and institute Kingship a way to deal with the growing human masses.
“…This manner of determining Fates was not limited to the affairs of Man.
“…Such was the manner, according to the Babylonian version of Enuma Elish, that the Destiny of Marduk, to be supreme on Earth (and in the celestial counterpart), was confirmed. In that text the Assembly of the Gods is described as a gathering of Senior Gods, coming from various places (and perhaps not only from Earth, for in addition to Anunnaki the delegates also included Igigi).
“…They bestowed on him the scepter, the throne and the royal robe… “From this day,” they announced, thy decree shall be unrivaled, thy command as that of Anu… No one among the gods shall transgress thy boundaries.”
“…Other texts that concern the decision-making process suggest that the Assembly stage at which fifty Senior Gods participated was followed by a separate stage of a meeting of the Seven Great Gods Who Judge; and the actual pronouncements of the decision, of the Fate or the Destiny, was made by Enlil in consultation with or after approval by Anu.
“…Assemblies of the Gods were sometimes called not to proclaim new Fates, but to ascertain what had been determined at an earlier time, on the Tablets of Destinies.
“…Without doubt one of the most crucial, longest, bitterest, and literally fateful was the Assembly of the Gods where it was determined to approve the use of nuclear weapons to vaporize the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula.
“…The occurrence is also one of the clearest if tragic examples of how Fate and Destiny could be interwoven.
Nannar/Sin, the beloved god of Ur… cried his eyes out to Anu, to Enlil made supplications “Let not my city be destroyed, verily I say to them,” Nannar/Sin later recorded. “Let not the people perish!”
“…But the response, coming from Enlil, was harsh and decisive:
Ur was granted Kingship;
Eternal reign it was not granted.
Zecharia Sitchin Index 