The End of Days - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

Page 278 of 319

Page 278 of 319
The End of Days - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

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270 body for burial in Egypt, considered themselves his true heirs and, by and large, continued his tolerant attitude toward others’ religions. They established the famed Library of Al- exandria, and assigned an Egyptian priest, known as Mane- tho, to write down Egypt’s dynastic history and divine prehistory for the Greeks (archaeology has confirmed what is still known of Manetho’s writings). That convinced the Ptolemies that their civilization was a continuation of the Egyptian one, and they thus considered themselves rightful successors to the Pharaohs. Greek savants showed particular interest in the religion and writings of the Jews, so much so that the Ptolemies arranged for the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (a translation known as the Septuagint) and allowed the Jews complete religious freedom of worship in Judea, as well as in their growing communities in Egypt. Like the Ptolemies, the Seleucids also retained a Greek- speaking scholar, a former priest of Marduk known as Ber- ossus, to compile for them the history and prehistory of Mankind and its gods according to Mesopotamian knowl- edge. In a twist of history, he researched and wrote at a li- brary of cuneiform tablets located near Harran. It is from his three books (which we know of only from fragmented quota- tions in the writings of others in antiquity) that the Western world, of Greece and then Rome, learnt of the Anunnaki and their coming to Earth, the prediluvial era, the creation of Wise Man, the Deluge, and what followed. Thus it was from Berossus (as later confirmed by the discovery and decipher- ment of the cuneiform tablets) that the 3600 “Sar” as the “year” of the gods was first learnt. In 200 B.c.k. the Seleucids crossed the Ptolemaic bound- ary and captured Judea. As in other instances, historians have searched for geopolitical and economic reasons for the war—ignoring the religious-messianic aspects. It was in the report about the Deluge that the tidbit information was given by Berossus, that Ea/Enki instructed Ziusudra (the Sumerian “Noah”) to “conceal every available writing in Sippar, the city of Shamash,” for post-Diluvial recovery, because those writings “were about beginnings, middles and ends.” Ac- cording to Berossus, the world undergoes periodic cata- THE END OF DAYS