Page Content (OCR)
65 The second and final ascent of Enoch to Heaven, the scribe of the Book of Enoch stated at the book's conclusion, took place exactly on the day and hour he was born, at age 365. Was this tale of Enoch's heavenly ascent(s) the equivalent of, or inspired by, the Sumerian tale of Adapa? Certain details that are included in both tales point in that direction. Two angels, paralleling the gods Dumuzi and Giz- zida in the Adapa legend, bring the Earthling "before the face of the Lord." The visitor's garments are changed from earthly ones to divine ones. He is anointed. And finally, he is given great knowledge that he writes down in "books." In both instances, the visitor writes what is being dictated to him. These details appear within a framework that without doubt establishes the Sumerian origins of the Enoch "legend." We have already pointed out that by ascribing Enoch's Divine Encounters to "the Elohim," the biblical narrative divulged its Sumerian source. The Sumerian sexagesimal sys- tem reveals itself by some key numbers in the Enoch tale, such as in the sixty days of the first heavenly sojourn and the 360 "books" (tablets) dictated to Enoch. Most intriguing, however, is the assertion that the Divine Abode, site of the supreme Divine Encounter, was the Tenth Heaven. This goes against all the notions of seven divine heavens, with the sev- enth most supreme, a notion based on the assumption that the ancient peoples knew only of seven celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) that could be observed in the skies surrounding the Earth. The Sumerians, so much earlier than the Greeks or Romans, knew, however, of the complete makeup of the Solar System, a family they said of twelve members: Sun and Moon; Mercury, Venus, EARTH, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (we are using the modern names); and a tenth planet, Nibiru, the planet that was the abode of Anu, the "king" or "lord" of all the Anunnaki "gods." (It is noteworthy that in Jewish medieval mysticism known as the Kaballah, the abode of God the Almighty is in the tenth Sefira, a "brilliance" or heavenly place, a Tenth Heaven. The Sefirot (plural) were usually depicted as concen- or The Three Who to Heaven Ascended