Page Content (OCR)
141 both the Landing Place and the erstwhile Mission Control Center were located. Historians tell the ensuing events in terms of the rise and fall of nation-states and the clash of empires. It was circa 1460 B.c.£. that the forgotten kingdoms of Elam and Anshan (later known as Persia, east and southeast of Babylonia) joined to form a new and powerful state, with Susa (the bibli- cal Shushan) as the national capital and Ninurta, the national god, as Shar Ilani—“Lord of the gods”; that newly assertive nation-state was to play a decisive role in ending Babylon’s and Marduk’s supremacy. It was probably no coincidence that at about the same time, a new powerful state arose in the Euphrates region where Mari had once dominated. There the biblical Horites (scholars call them Hurrians) formed a powerful state named Mitanni—“The Weapon of Anu”—which captured the lands that are now Syria and Lebanon and posed a geopolitical and religious challenge to Egypt. That challenge was countered, most ferociously, by Egypt’s Pharaoh Tothmosis III, whom historians describe as an “Egyptian Napoleon.” Interwined with all that was the Israelite exodus from Egypt, that period’s seminal event, if for no other reason than due to its lasting effects, to this day, on Mankind’s religions, social and moral codes, and the centrality of Jerusalem. Its timing was not accidental, for all those developments related to the issue of who shall control the space-related sites when Nibiru’s return will occur. As was shown in previous chapters, Abraham did not just happen to become a Hebrew Patriarch, but was a chosen participant in major international affairs; and the places where his tale took us—Ur, Harran, Egypt, Canaan, Jerusa- lem, the Sinai, Sodom and Gomorrah—were principal sites of the universal story of gods and men in earlier times. The Israelite Exodus from Egypt, recalled and celebrated by the Jewish people during the Passover holiday, was likewise an integral aspect of the events that were then unfolding throughout the ancient lands. The Bible itself, far from The Promised Land