The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim (16 page)

The Nommos are the ancestral spirits, sometimes referred to as deities, hailing from the star Sirius B and worshipped by the Dogon tribe of Mali, West Africa, their villages situated around the arid Bandiagara Escarpment. The word
Nommos
is derived from a Dogon word meaning “to make one drink.” They are described as being frog-like creatures in both their amphibious and hermaphroditic physiologies. The Nommos were said to have been quite “ugly,” beings that resembled mermen and mermaids. They also appear in Babylonian, Accadian, and the Sumerian myths of the Annedoti and Oannes. The Egyptian goddess Isis, who is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, is also linked with the star Sirius. Dogon folk art depicts the Nommos as creatures with the upper torsos of human beings, and the legs and feet of an amphibian, with a fish-like tail. The Dogon also refer to the ancient Nommos as “Masters of the Water,” “the Monitors,” and “the Teachers.”

We see in Dogon mythology a commonality shared by many creation mythologies: the introduction of multiple births at the point of creation. This element of multiple births is even seen in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve’s twin sons, Cain and Abel. In the case of the Nommos, the multiplicity is demonstrated by the mutation of a single
entity into multiples. Nommo—the singular entity representing the race of Nommos—was the first living creature created by their sky god Amma. Soon after, Nommo underwent a transformative mutation and multiplied into four pairs of twins. One of the twins rebelled against the universal order created by Amma and, to restore order to his creation, Amma sacrificed one of the multiple Nommo progeny, dismembered his body, and scattered it throughout the universe. This dispersal of body parts is seen by the Dogon as the source for the proliferation of Binu shrines throughout the Dogons’ traditional territory; wherever a body part fell, a shrine was erected.

In the latter 1940s, four Dogon priests related to French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen (who had been working with the Dogon since 1931) a belief that the Nommos, according to the Dogon legend, lived on a planet that orbits a star in the Sirius system, identified as Sirius B. The Nommos landed on earth in an “ark” that made a spinning decent to the ground with great noise and wind, like that of thunder and fire. The Dogon apparently possessed traditional astronomical knowledge about Sirius and its two companion stars that would normally be considered impossible without the use of telescopes. Of course, skeptics have attributed this intimate knowledge of the stars to “cultural contamination,” possibly even introduced by the anthropologists themselves. However, that skeptical observation is considered by most to be far too simplistic a speculation.

After arriving, the Nommos, requiring a watery environment in which to exist, immediately set about the task of constructing a reservoir of water and subsequently dove in. According to the myth related to Griaule and Dieterlen, the Nommo divided his body among men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe had drunk of his body, the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings.

According to the Dogon legend, the Nommo was crucified on a tree, but was resurrected and returned to his home world. Dogon legend has it that he will return in the future to revisit the earth in a human form.

“1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

(Genesis 3:1)

The original paradise that rolled off the creative fingertips of God, as stated in the biblical account, is more than simple lore or myth. Despite all the spiritual mythos built up around the Garden of Eden’s existence, understanding its geographic location and the events that the Bible says took place there, are the first steppingstones to understanding the descent of the Watchers and the influence of external entities and races. We are going to take a bit of a diversion in this section in order to establish some background of the character known as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

According to the Book of Genesis, Eden lay in the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, with the Pishon and the Gihon flanking.

“10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”

(Genesis 2:10-14)

But all of this intimate geography may have been altered significantly during the Great Flood, which covered, as the Bible says, the entire surface of the world, even to the tops of the highest mountain peaks.

“17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits [roughly 23 feet or 6.8 meters]. 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.”

(Genesis 7:17-24)

There has been much debate over the land surface that was actually engulfed by the Great Flood. If the purpose of the flood was to destroy all life on the entire planet, then an earth-enveloping deluge is what would have been necessary, even though early human civilization existed only in the Fertile Crescent region of the earth. In the ancient way of understanding and evaluating, the “entire earth” encompassed only the areas that were known to the people alive at that time. Anything else existing on the opposite side of the globe was simply far beyond understanding or comprehension. Some ancient cultures even illustrated the Mesopotamian region as being an island surround by infinite horizons of ocean.

If the Great Flood were a more localized event, it may have simply engulfed the entirety of the Mesopotamian region, consisting of the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys, covering what would have been the highest of mountains in that antediluvian geography. A massive flood of the nature described in the Bible would have altered the landscape
significantly, so the actual location of the Garden of Eden is impossible to pinpoint by today’s geographic markers.

Wherever Eden actually lay on the map, it is clear that it was situated somewhere in the great Mespotamian river valleys, in relatively close proximity to the rising Sumerian civilization and the earliest of cities built in the region.

The region of Eden. Although there is no way to be absolutely sure of its precise location, the Garden of Eden was most likely just to the northwest of the budding Sumerian civilization. The Genesis narrative places the Garden between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, flanked by the Gihon and Pishon rivers, both of whose courses have altered over the millennia due to geologic catastrophe, yet not so much so that the approximate location of the Garden of Eden was rendered a complete mystery
.
Photo courtesy of the author. Copyright 2011.

Now take a different look at the events that took place there:

The Hebrew word used in the Book of Genesis for the word
snake
is
nachash
(pronounced “naw-kawsh”), meaning “magician or enchanter; a spellbinder; to illuminate, shine.” Jewish Rabbinic interpretation never saw this word as meaning a literal snake. It was to be understood as “a shining being with power to enchant.” This is a far cry from a snake in the grass, and in many biblical interpretations is none other than Lucifer himself, although the passage itself never actually calls him out by name. It is this being that influences Eve—or beguiles her, in a more accurate sense—into eating the fruit of the forbidden tree in the midst of the Garden of Eden.

“2 The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

(Genesis 3:2-3)

The Hebrew word for that tree is
ets
, a word that is in very close association with the Hebrew word
toledah
, both meaning “generations.” It is from these words that we draw the modern equivolent of “family tree.” Another variation of the word
ets
is “the wood of a tree as an opening and closing of a door.” In an applicational stretch the same word can apply to the term “portal; opening of one’s mind; enlightenment.”

It has been in some circles suggested that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, from which Eve is said to have eaten the forbidden fruit, was not a literal tree at all, but, rather, symbolic of the pre-Adamic races that lived in the regions surrounding the Garden of Eden. These races are said to encompass the Atlantean civilization.

The phrase
fruit of the tree
is the Hebrew word periy—fruit: produce of the ground; offspring, children, progeny (of the womb); or figuratively: fruit (of actions). The phrase
eat of it
is the Hebrew word
akal
(aw-kal); this word has many uses, among which, one use means to “lay with a woman (sexual intercourse);” and the word
touch
is the Hebrew
word
naga
(naw-gah); to touch, that is, to lay the hand upon (for any purpose); euphemism for: to touch, have sex with a woman.

“4 ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. 5 ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

(Genesis 3:4-7)

This was obviously no ordinary tree. In fact, it wasn’t a literal tree at all. Many biblical scholars interpret this as Lucifer himself.

The phrase
pleasant to the eyes
is the Hebrew word
chamad:
to desire, to covet, to take pleasure in, to delight in, to be desirable, to delight greatly, to desire greatly, desirableness, preciousness.

The word
desired
is the Hebrew word
ta’avah
(tah-av-aw’—to yearn for; to lust after (used of bodily appetites) a longing; by implication: a delight (subjectively, satisfaction, objectively, a charm): a desire, a wish, longings of one’s heart; lust, an appetite, covetousness (in a bad sense); to covet; to wait longingly.