![]() ![]() 91-132), and others follow the more common opinion which identifies the tower of Babel with the ruins of the Birs-Nimrud, in Borsippa, situated on the right side of the Euphrates, some seven or eight miles from the ruins of the city proper. (3) Sayce (Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. To this locality belongs also the tower Etemenanki, or house of the foundation of Heaven and earth, which is composed of six gigantic steps. This agrees with the description of the Tower of Babel as found in Gen., xi, 4: “the top whereof may reach to heaven”. The excavations of the German Orientgesellschaft have laid bare on this spot the ancient national sanctuary Esagila, sacred to Marduk-Bel, with the documentary testimony that the top of the building had been made to reach Heaven. These ruins are situated on the same side of the Euphrates as those of the Babil, and also within the ancient city limits. 74, 171) places the tower on the ruins of Tell-Amram, regarded by Oppert as the remnants of the hanging gardens. (2) Rawlinson (Smith-Sayce, “Chaldean account of the Genesis“, 1880, pp. The position of Babil within the limits of the ancient Babylon agrees with the Biblical location of the tower the name Babil itself may be regarded as a traditional relic of the name Babel interpreted by the inspired writer as referring to the confusion of tongues. Schrader inclines to the same opinion in Riehm’s “Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums” (I, 138), while in “The Cuneiform Inscriptions” (I, 108) he leaves to his reader the choice between Babil and the temple of Borsippa. (I) Pietro della Valle (“Viaggi des-critti”, Rome, 1650) located the tower in the north of the city, on the left bank of the Euphrates, where now lie the ruins called Babil. But there are three principal opinions as to its precise position in the city. ![]() Site of the Tower of Babel.-Both the inspired writer of Genesis and Berosus place the Tower of Babel somewhere in Babylon. Special interest attaches to this reference, since Berosus is now supposed to have drawn his material from Babylonian sources. A more probable reference to the Tower of Babel we find in the “History” of Berosus as it is handed down to us in two variations by Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor respectively (“Histor. Bezold, “Ninive and Babylon“, 128 Jeremias, “Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients” 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1906, 286 Kaulen, “Assyrien unci Babylonien”, 89). 15 Nikel, “ Genesis and Keilschriftforschung”, 188 sqq. “The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia“, I, pl. Oppert finds an allusion to the Tower of Babel in a text of Nabuchodonosor but this opinion is hardly more than a theory (cf. Delitzch pointed out that the translation of the precise words which determine the meaning of the text is most uncertain (Smith-Delitzsch, Chaldaische Genesis“, 1876, 120-124 Anmerk., p. Authorities like George Smith, Chad Boscawen, and Sayce believed they had discovered a reference to the Tower of Babel but Frd. Thus far no Babylonian document has been discovered which refers clearly to the subject. This is the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel. But God confounded their tongue, so that they did not understand one another’s speech, and thus scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. ![]() As their growing number forced them to live in localities more and more distant from their patriarchal homes, “they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands.” The work was soon fairly under way “and they had brick instead of stones, and slime (asphalt) instead of mortar”. ![]() Tigris, then westward across the Tigris into “a plain in the land of Sennaar”. History of the Tower.-The descendants of Noe had migrated from the “east” ( Armenia) first southward, along the course of the. Tower of Babel is the name of the building mentioned in Gen., xi, 1-9. ![]()
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