With the Earth itself being the Mother of human beings, who is the Father? For the
answer we look to our ancient history again and find indeed that he has a name, and it is
El.
El is the name by which the supreme Canaanite deity is known. This is also a name by
which God is called in the Old Testament - El, the God (Elohim) of Israel (el elohe
yisrael: Gen. 33:20). In most prose it occurs more often with an adjunct: El Elyon (the
most high God, Gen. 14:18), El Shaddai (traditionally, God Almighty, Gen. 17:1), El Hai
(The living God, Josh. 3:10), and very commonly in the plural of majesty, Elohim. In
Hebrew poetry El is much more frequent, where it stands quite often without any adjunct
(Ps. 18:31, 33, 48; 68:21; Job 8:3).
The word El is a generic name for "god" in Northwest Semitic (Hebrew and Ugaritic) and
as such it is also used in the Old Testament for heathen deities or idols (Ex. 34:14; Ps.
81:10; Is. 44:10). The original generic term was 'ilum; dropping the mimation and the
nominative case ending (u) becomes 'el in Hebrew. It was almost certainly an adjectival
formation (intransitive participle) from the root "to be strong, powerful" ('wl), meaning
"The Strong (or Powerful) One."
In Canaanite paganism the el, par excellence, was the head of the pantheon. As the god,
El was, in accordance with the general irrationality and moral grossness of Canaanite
religion, a dim and shadowy figure, who, Philo says, had three wives, who were also his
sisters, and who could readily step down from his eminence and become the hero of
sordid escapades and crimes. The Ugaritic poems add the crime of uncontrolled lust to
his character and the description of his seduction of two unnamed women is the most
sensuous in ANE literature (much of Ugaritic literature is R rated at best).
Despite all this. El was considered the exalted "father of years" (abu shanima), the "father
of man" (abu adami), and "father bull", that is, the progenitor of the gods, tacitly likened
to a bull in the midst of a herd of cows. Like Homer's Zeus, he was "the father of men
and gods."
"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters
were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair;
and they took them wives of all which they chose... There were nephilim in the earth in
those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,
and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of
renown." Genesis 6:1-4
According to the Sumerian creation epic. El was the leader of the Nephilim, but who are
they?
Nephilim is often translated as "giants", a legitimate and appropriate interpretation, but
one, which may be only partially accurate. A better definition might be "those who came
down", "those who descended", or "those who were cast down." The Anunnaki of ancient
Sumerian texts is similarly defined as "those who from heaven to earth came". Many
researchers have all identified the Nephilim as the Anunnaki, more specifically,
essentially the rank and file.
Remember too that virtually all open-minded historical and theological scholars agree the
Old Testament's book of Genesis was extracted from the older Sumerian records, if only
because of the similarity in their Comparative Religions. The Enuma Elish, the Sumerian
Epic of Creation, and Genesis have a variety of common elements. Stories of a Great
Flood and Deluge, among other stories, are also common to both Sumerian and Biblical
accounts. An inevitable conclusion is that the Anunnaki were as real as Noah, Moses or
Abraham.
Laurence Gardner, a leading Sumerian researcher, has written: "Every item of written and
pictorial attestation confirms that the ancient Sumerians were absolutely sincere about the
existence of the Anunnaki, and those such as Enki, Enlil, Nin-khursag and Inanna
fulfilled earthly functions with designated community duties. They were patrons and
founders; they were teachers and justices; they were technologists and kingmakers. They
were jointly and severally venerated as archons and masters, but they were certainly not
idols of religious worship as the ritualistic gods of subsequent cultures became.
In fact, the word which was eventually translated to become 'worship' was avod, which
meant quite simply, 'work'. The Anunnaki presence may baffle historians, their language
may confuse linguists and their advanced techniques may bewildered scientists, but to
dismiss them is foolish. The Sumerians have themselves told us precisely who the
Anunnaki were, and neither history nor science can prove otherwise."
The Sumerian records recorded in great detail the stories of the Anunnaki, and among
these, that of Enki, Enlil, Ninki, manna Utu, Ningishzida, Marduk, and many others.
Chief among these stories was the continuing conflict between Enki and
Enlil, the sons of the supreme god of the time, Anu, or El Much of ancient human history,
and the Biblical Genesis, can be explained as the militant differences between these two
half- brothers, and how they affected the life of all sentient beings or Earth.
But the Anunnaki were more than just a pair of squabbling half- brothers. They were the
council of Gods and Goddesses, who periodically met to consider their future actions
with respect to each other, and probably as a smaller, nondescript item on their agenda,
the fate of mankind.
The Anunnaki, depending upon the context, were the Nephilim the gods that Abraham's
father, Terah, (according to the book of Joshua) was reputed to have served, the fallen
angels, the lesser individuals of the race from which Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna and the
other notables had sprung, and the "judges" over the question of life and death. They
were in fact the bene haelohim, which translates as "the sons of the gods", or equally
likely, "the sons of the goddesses."
For example, from Psalm 82:
"Jehovah takes his stand at the Council of El to deliver judgment among the elohim."
"You too are gods, sons of El Elyon, all of you."
The Anunnaki have also been equated with the "Watchers" (who are also mentioned in
the books of Daniel and Jubilees), i.e. "Behold a watcher and an holy one came down
from heaven." Daniel 4:13
