The Gods of Nibiru in the Ancient Near East

Book excerpt: No direct explanation is given for the origin and nature of the luminous bodies, the sun, the planets, and the stars. Because, as far back as our written sources go, the Sumerians regarded the moon-god, who went by the names Sin and Nanna, as the son of the air-god Enlil, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that they saw the moon as a bright, air-like body fashioned from the atmosphere. As the sun-god Utu and the Venus goddess Inanna are always referred to in the texts as children of the moon-god, these luminous bodies were probably imagined as having come from the moon after the latter had been formed from the atmosphere. "The big ones walk around (the moon) like wild oxen," and "the little ones that are scattered around (the moon) like grain" are considered the rest of the planets and stars.