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I've been a preacher for more than 30 years. I've studied and taught through
the book of Genesis many, many times in churches all around the world
and I've trained pastors in the skills of interpreting texts
and it's very clear they're not stories about Gods.
They're stories about the powerful ones in the Bible.
And the sky people, the Anunnakki in the Sumerian tablets
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[Narrator] In 1896 eminent scholar Nathaniel Schmidt
was fired from his position as Professor of Semitic languages
at Colgate University
For eleven years, this American University had enjoyed Nathaniel Schmidt rendition ?
and Semitic Languages
He delivered numerous courses in Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic , Arabic , Syriac
and other ancient languages besides
In fact, Nathaniel Schmidt was one of America's leading scholars in the field
So why, after eleven years of outstanding achievement
was he tried for heresy,
and fired from his tenure in 1896?
Though a devout Christian and a Baptist pastor
The authorities considered that his recent
theological papers had struck at the very roots
of two world religions
Christianity and Judaism.
What Nathaniel Schmidt had done wrong
was read the Sumerian and Babylonian
and Assyrian text and notice that they were full
of fascinating parallels. Stories that occurred there
that were uncannily similar to all the stories and begginings
of the Bible.
Stories like: Adam and Eve
The Fall , Cain and Abel
The Flood, the limiting of human life,
the event of the Tower of Babel,
and Schmidt's work demonstrated that
the Sumerian accounts
and those that follow it from nearly 6000 years ago
where in all probability the source of all those familiar ?
biblical stories.
Now, that was a problem in the 1890's
because if you think about it
the Church was still reading from the after effects of
[Paul] Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"
and it is busy putting together
new doctrinal basis
and new doctrines of biblical inherency
to shore up the ship
So the idea that the Bible
might actually be based on somebody else's stories
was a bit of an embarrassment
It shouldn't have been
because Judaism and Christianity
both find their roots
in the story of a Sumerian family.
The family of Abraham and Sarah.
Abraham and Sarah grew up and spent
the best part of their lives in (research name)
A Sumerian culture
and so when they emigrated from there
it's hardly surprising that they would carry with them
[Paul] all the stories of beginnings
that they had grown up with.
and sew them into the foundations
of what was to become
their culture
their religion
and their Bible.