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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 Anunnaki and 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 erudition?
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 beginnings
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.
And so, it shouldn't be a surprise that in the Bible
we have a summary version of all these stories
that ? the Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian texts.
The problem and the shock horror
is that the original versions
the Sumerian versions of these stories make no mention of God at all.
In the Sumerian originals these are stories
of our ancestor's contact with another species.
A species called The Anunnakki.
[Narrator] Could Judaism and Christianity
familiar stories of God
really be a retelling of our ancestor's close encounters
with extraterrestrials?
the cuneiform tablets which has fascinated Nathaniel Schmidt were first on Earth in 1500.
As colonial powers began to escalate the ancient sites of Mesopotamia.
Over the decades had followed some 200,000 clay tablets were uncovered.
The tablets were adorned with strange etchings hieroglyphs
made when the clay was soft.
Scholars of the day divided us to the meanings of these markings
Some believe that the glyphs to be an unknown written language.
Others refuse to accept this.
since the tablets appear to predate any known language.
They presume the markings to be no more than decoration.
And so the tablets were archived,
the secrets were locked away for three centuries.
Until it 1835,
Henry Rawranson arrived. In south western Iran.
Rawranson was a military man. He was employed by the East India Tea Company.
And he was in Iran helping the Shah of Iran to train his troops.
As worth pausing there for a moment because if you thought that
corporations rivaling nations states was something new
take a look at the East India Tea company.
A tea company that's able to move a standing army
around the world and train the armies of nation states.
That's quite a tea company.
In fact, Rawranson presence in Iran wasn't part of