The Tower of Babel
This account of the tower of Babel comes straight after the genealogies of the descendants of Noah given in chapter 10. Significantly these genealogies only talk about the origin of tribes who lived in the Middle East. It is as if the Middle East was the only world they knew.
This story gives us many details that help in the dating of this episode.
Shinar
“As men moved eastwards, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.” Genesis 11:1
Shinar was the name given to the land in southern Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Babel, or Babylon, was in the north of Shinar.
Archeology has shown that this area was hardly populated at all prior to 6,000 BC. The city of Ur was founded some time between 5,600 and 5,000 BC. The north of Shinar was populated later than the South, and studies indicate that the city of Babylon was founded at some time between 4,000 and 3,000 BC.
Flavius Josephus was a first century Jewish historian. He attributed the tower of Babel to the arrogant tyrant, Nimrod, who had it built as an act of defiance against God. Nimrod, the great grandson of Noah, is described as being ‘a mighty warrior on the earth’ (Genesis 10:8) and ‘a mighty hunter before the Lord’ (Genesis 10:9). Elsewhere he is described as a man ‘who grew to be a mighty warrior on earth’ (1 Chronicles 1:10). Micah, who prophesied between 750 and 686 BC describes the land of Assyria, which was north of Babylon. as being ‘the land of Nimrod’ (Micah 5:6).
Archbishop Usher suggested that the Babel story occurred just over one hundred years after the Flood, when Peleg was born. This is based on the notion that the ‘dividing’ of the people was the separation occurring after Babel.
“To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.” Genesis 10:25
In the genealogies, Peleg was in the fourth generation after the Flood so this would fit.
The bricks
“They said to each other, ‘Come, lets make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” Genesis 11:3
The baking of bricks, which made them very hard and durable was very expensive as wood for fires was scarce. Baked bricks were therefore only used in prestigious buildings. Studies from hundreds of archeological sites in Babylon have shown that although unbaked bricks were in use since 8,500 BC, baked bricks were first used around 3,000 BC. To build a tall tower would require the use of hardened bricks or stone as otherwise the weight of the edifice would cause it to crumble.
The mortar
Prior to around 3,500 the mortar used to join unbaked bricks was either gypsum or mud. Gypsum is a mined mineral composed of Calcium Sulphate that is still used today to make chalk and plasterboard. Bitumen, otherwise called asphalt, was first used between 3,500 and 3,000 BC, but again its use was limited to prestige buildings because of the expense.
The Tower
Before 3,500 BC the townships of Mesopotamia were small scattered settlements without any significant architectural buildings. Millenia later some cities still boasted a central ‘ziggurat’ or stepped tower that was probably used both as a temple and as well as fortress. A carved stone tablet found in Babylon depicts such a tower that was built in Babylon in the 6th century BC by Nebuchadnezzar II. This tower, or ziggurat, is pictured as having seven stepped tiers, and the cuneiform text below the diagram says that the whole society was involved in that building. It is likely that this giant tower was modelled on earlier ziggurats as they had a religious significance. Nebuchadnezzar’s father Nabopolassar had been told to make the foundation of the Babylonian ziggurat ‘secure in the bosom of the netherworld and make its summit like the heavens.” This is similar to the text in Genesis,
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens.” Genesis 11:4
The first part of this text infers that the original Babylon was built by Noah’s descendants.
A city was certainly established at Babylon well before 2350 B.C.as Sargon I destroyed the city in that year. A reasonable date for the building of the tower of Babel was sometime between 3500 and 2400 B.C.
Languages
Questions about how and when languages began are largely speculative as the spoken word does not leave any artefacts. There are around 5000 languages spoken in the world today (a third of them in Africa), and these have been grouped into less than twenty families based on their having shared words, sounds or grammatical constructions. The theory is that the members of each linguistic group have descended from one original language. Scholars consider that the original languages may be as recent as just a few thousand years ago.
The Indo-European group of languages are spoken by around half of the world's population. This entire group, includes Hindi, Persian, Latin and English, all descended from the language of a tribe of nomads roaming the plains of eastern Europe and western Asia as recently as about 3000 BC.
From about 2000 BC people speaking Indo-European languages began to spread through Europe, eventually reaching the Atlantic coast and the northern shores of the Mediterranean. These languages extended as far into Asia including Iran and much of India.
Another linguistic group, is the Semitic family of languages. These also are believed to derive from the language of just one tribal group, possibly nomads in southern Arabia. By about 3000 BC Semitic languages were spoken over a large tract of desert territory from southern Arabia to the north of Syria. Several Semitic peoples play a prominent part in the early civilization of the region, and include the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. Aramaic, a language in this group became the common language of the Middle East until superseded by first Greek, then Latin and finally Arabic. If the Semitic languages were those derived from the divisions after Babel these dates would be reconcilable.
The Sumerian language is one of the first to be written down, the earliest forms being composed of pictures. The limestone Kish tablet, that can be seen in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford has been dated at 3,500 BC and is the earliest known form of picture writing.
The Kish tablet
The Dispilio tablet is a wooden tablet bearing inscribed markings, unearthed during excavations of in Greece, and carbon dated to 5202 (± 123) BC. The site appears to have been occupied over a long period, from around 5,600 BC to 3,000 BC. A number of items were found, including ceramics, wooden structural elements and the remains of wooden walkways,, seeds, bones, figurines, personal ornaments, flutes as well as this inscribed tablet. On it are a variety of symbols that have some relationship with earliest forms of writing but its significance is hotly debated.
It is almost certain that peoples before 3,500 BC, such as those living in Dispilio, did communicate by speech. How else could they pass on the details of farming and home life?
The story of Babel begins,
“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” Genesis 11:1
So the question remains as to how we should understand the wording of Genesis 11:1. it could well be that the writer is saying that everybody in their world spoke a common language. This is perfectly possible as their world was dominated by one family, the descendants of Noah, everybody else in the region having been destroyed by the great flood. It is surely no coincidence that civilisation as we know it appears to have started in Mesopotamia, the region in which first Adam and then Noah and his descendants lived.
Evidence such as that summarised here does support that there is a cohesion between the Bible’s account and the discoveries of modern science. Some difficulties remain but overall there is good evidence that Adam and his descendant Noah lived in the not too distant past.
The significance of Babel
Clearly the story of Babel was not written just to tell us a few historical facts, even though these are very interesting. The prime purpose of the Bible is to deal with man’s relationship with God. We read in the New Testament,
“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” Hebrews 11:7
We are told that the Tower of Babel was erected for selfish and not Godly reasons,
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth.” Genesis 11:4
The Lord intended for all men to live in harmony with himself and when we reject his rule he is deeply concerned.
“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that men were building. The LORD said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come let us go down and confuse their language so that they will not understand each other.’” Genesis 11:5-7
Surely we are meant to understand that the presence of many languages is a reminder that a refusal to recognise our creator will result in confusion and conflict.
Ancient references to Babel (1)
Alexander Polyhistor (c. 105–35 BC) was a Greek scholar, historian, and teacher known for compiling a vast number of quotations and summaries of earlier writers, many of whose original works are now lost. He recorded a quote from an even older historian Eupolemus on the Jewish presence in Assyria as is recorded by Eusebius, stated,
“Eupolemus in his book Concerning the Jews of Assyria says that the city Babylon was first founded by those who escaped from the Deluge; and that they were giants, and built the tower renowned in history. But when this had been overthrown by the act of God, the giants were dispersed over the whole earth.”
The connection of the Tower being built were Babylon stood is again identified, and that this “tower [is] renowned in history” because every nation knew of it as part of their own history since their ancestors departed from it.
The Greek Sibyls were legendary female prophets that went back to around 800-1000 BC. The word Sibyl’ simply means ‘prophet’. They made different statements relating to the Tower of Babel of which we have two surviving. One is recorded by Josephus, a first century Jewish historian,
“When all men were of one language, some of them built a tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon.”
Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–340 AD) was a Christian bishop, historian, theologian, and writer, best known as the “Father of Church History.”, He repeats the above quote but follows it immediately with a citation from Hestiaeus, a student of Plato, saying:
“And the plain which is called Sennaar in the country of Babylonia is mentioned by Hestiaeus, who speaks thus: “But those of the priests who escaped took the sacred things of Zeus Enyalios, and came to Sennaar in Babylonia: afterwards they were scattered thence, and everywhere formed their communities from speaking the same language, and took possession of the land which each lighted upon.”
Another Sibyl stated,
“When are fulfilled the threats of the great God, With which He threatened men, when formerly In the Assyrian land they built a tower, And all were of one speech, and wished to rise Even till they climbed unto the starry heaven, Then the Immortal raised a mighty wind And laid upon them strong necessity; For when the wind threw down the mighty tower, Then rose among mankind fierce strife and hate.
One speech was changed to many dialects, And earth was filled with divers tribes and kings.”
BVP
(1) Quotes obtained from https://truthwatchers.com/tower-of-babel-part-2-historical-documents-continued/
