Post on the topic of the tower of Babel. Tower of babel
the most important episode from the story of ancient humanity in the book. Genesis (11.1-9). According to the biblical story, the descendants of Noah spoke the same language and settled in the Sennaar Valley. Here they began the construction of the city and the tower, “tall to the skies, let us make a name for ourselves,” they said, “before [in MT“ not to ”] scatter over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11. 4). However, the construction was suppressed by the Lord, who “mixed tongues”. People who ceased to understand each other stopped building and scattered across the earth (Gen. 11.8). The city received the name "Babylon". T. about., The story of V. b. (Gen. 11. 9) is built on the consonance of the Hebrews. the names “Babylon” (,) and the verb “mix” (,). According to legend, the construction of B. b. led by a descendant of Hama Nimrod (Ios. Flav. Antiq. I 4.2; Epiph. Adv. haer. I 1.6).
The biblical story of V. b. gives a symbolic explanation of the reason for the appearance of a variety of world languages, a cut can be correlated with modern. understanding of the development of human languages. Research in the field of historical linguistics allows us to conclude that there is a single proto-language, conditionally called "nostratic"; Indo-Europe were singled out from it. (yaphetic), Hamito-Semitic, Altai, Uralic, Dravidian, Kartvelian and other languages. The followers of this theory were such scientists as V. M. Illich-Svitych, I. M. Dyakonov, V. N. Toporov and Vyach. Sun Ivanov. In addition, the story of V. b. It is an important indication of the biblical understanding of man and the historical process and, in particular, of the secondary nature of the separation of races and peoples for the human being. In the future, this idea, expressed in other form at ap. Paul, became one of the foundations of Christ. anthropology (Col 3. 11).
In christ. B. traditions are a symbol, firstly, of the pride of people who consider it possible to reach heaven with their own strengths and who have “make a name for themselves” as their main goal, and secondly, the inevitability of punishment for this and the vanity of the human mind, which is not sanctified By divine grace. In the gift of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, scattered humanity gains the once lost ability of complete understanding. Antitezu B. b. represents the miracle of the foundation of the Church, edge connects peoples with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2. 4-6). B. b. is also a prototype of modern. technocracy.
The image of the "city and tower" in the book. Genesis reflected a whole complex of mythological universals, for example, the idea of \u200b\u200ba “center of the world”, a city built by people should become Crimea. The historically attested temples of Mesopotamia did fulfill this mythological function (Oppenheim. P. 135). In the Holy. Scripture construction B. b. described from the standpoint of Divine Revelation, in the light of which it is primarily an expression of human pride. Dr. aspect of the story about B. b. There is an indication of the prospects for the progress of human civilization, and at the same time, the biblical narrative has a negative attitude to the urbanism of Mesopotamian civilization (Nelis J. T. Col. 1864).
The image of B. b. Undoubtedly reveals parallels with the Mesopotamian tradition of temple construction. The temples of Mesopotamia (ziggurats) were stepped structures from several. terraces located one above the other (their number could reach 7), on the upper terrace was the sanctuary of the deity (Parrot. P. 43). Holy Scripture accurately conveys the realities of the Mesopotamian temple construction, where, unlike most other government in Dr. In the Near East, dried in the sun or burnt bricks and resin were used as the main material (cf. Gen. 11. 3).
During an active archaeological study of dr. Mesopotamia made many attempts to find the so-called. "Prototype" V. b. in one of the excavated ziggurats, the most justified assumption is the assumption of the Babylonian temple of Marduk (Jacobsen. P. 334), which had a Sumer. the name "e-temen-an-ki" is the cornerstone temple of heaven and earth.
Find the remains of B. b. tried already in the XII century. Up to the end. XIX - beg. XX century 2 ziggurats were identified with it, in Borsippe and Akar-Kufa, on the site of ancient cities located at a considerable distance from Babylon (in the description of Herodotus the city was so large that it could include both points). With a ziggurat in B. Borsippe b. identified Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, who twice visited Babylonia (between 1160-1173), German. researcher C. Niebuhr (1774), English. artist R. Kerr Porter (1818) and others. In Akar-Kufa V. b. saw the German L. Rauwolf (1573-1576), the merchant J. Eldred, who described in con. XVI century the ruins of the "tower". Ital. the traveler Pietro della Valle, who compiled the first detailed description of the site of Babylon (1616), considered B. b. most sowing. from its hills, which kept the ancient name "Babil". Attempts to find B. b. in one of the 3 tellys - Babille, Borsippe and Akar-Kufa - continued to con. XIX century
In the beginning. XX century the borders of dr. Babylon was identified and neighboring cities were no longer perceived as parts of it. After the excavations of C. J. Rich and H. Rassam in Borsipp (Birs Nimrud settlement, 17 km south-west of Babylon, II-I millennium BC) it became clear that in connection with B. we can’t talk about her ziggurat, which was part of the temple of the goddess Naboo (the Old Babylonian period - 1st half. II millennium BC; restructuring in the New Babylonian period - 625-539). G.K. Rawlinson identified Akar-Kuf with Dur-Kurigalzu, the capital of the Kassite kingdom (30 km west of Babylon, founded in the late XV - early XIV century, left by residents already in the XII century BC) , which excluded the possibility of his ziggurat, dedicated to the god Enlil (excavated in the 40s of the XX century by S. Lloyd and T. Bakir), consider V. b. Finally, the excavation of Babil, the most sowing. from the hills of Babylon, showed that he was not hiding a ziggurat, but one of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar II.
Find B. b. inside Babylon was one of the tasks assigned to the Germans. expedition of R. Koldevey (1899-1917). In the central part of the city, the remains of a foundation platform were discovered, which in 1901 were identified with the founding of the ziggurat of Etemenanka. In 1913, F. Wetzel cleaned up and measured the monument. His materials, published in 1938, became the basis for new reconstructions. In 1962, Wetzel completed the study of the monument, and H. Schmid carried out a detailed analysis of the materials collected over a century and published (1995) a new, more justified periodization and reconstruction of the zequate of Etemenanka.
Iconography
The biblical story of the construction and destruction of B. b. was already illustrated in the early Christ. period. The earliest surviving image is in the London manuscript of Prince. Genesis (Cotton Genezis. London. Otho. B. VI. Fol. 14, 14v, 15, con. V - early VI century). In its miniatures and mosaics repeating them c. San Marco in Venice (XII century) also presents the separation of people (separation of languages) after the destruction of the tower. In the byzant. Illuminated Octatevhah, as a rule, there is a scene of the destruction of B. b. (Vat. Gr. 747. Fol. 33v, 11th century; Vat. Gr. 746. Fol. 61v, 12th century). Along with illustrations of books Holy. Scripture construction B. b. ("The Babel") as one of the most important episodes of world history is depicted in miniatures of medieval times. works of historical content: the Christian topography of Cosmas Indikoplov, chronographs, paleos, widely used in ancient Russia. bookishness. In the mosaics of San Marco V. b. depicted as a structure on a rectangular base; in the facial lists of the Christian topography of Cosmas Indikoplov (for example, the NLR. OLDP. F 91. L. 25, vol., beginning of the 16th century), it has the appearance of a faceted tower with windows and an expanded top; In the illustrations of the front Pskov Paley (GIM. Sin. 210. L. 65, 65 vol., 1477) the construction of B. b. (in the form of a pillar) and its destruction. In these scenes, builders with various tools are usually depicted carrying a stretcher with a stone, aligning the masonry with a plumb line.
From a book illustration, the scene of the construction of B. b. hit the icons of "St. Trinity in action ”(for example, an icon of the middle of the 16th century, the State Russian Museum): the tower has the appearance of an octahedron with an open top, in front of it is King Nimrod giving orders to the builders, in the heavenly segment - the Lord. To Western Europe. art image B. b. found in illustrations of the Bible, Psalms, world chronicles, in medieval times. maps, in wall paintings and stained-glass windows, as well as in easel painting (eg, “The Tower of Babel” by artist P. Brueghel the Elder, 1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Vienna). In addition to rectangular, polyhedral or round V.'s form. B. it may take the form of a stepped structure (for example, on the frescoes of Ts. Santa Maria Novella in Florence, middle of the XIV century) or a spiral pyramid (as in P. Brueghel).
Lit .: Unger E. Der Turm zu Babel // ZAW. 1927. Bd. 45. S. 162-171; Dombart T. Der Stand der Babelturmsproblem // Klio. 1927. Bd. 21. S. 135-174; Gressmann H. The Tower of Babel. N. Y., 1928; Wetzel F., Weisbach F. H. Das Hauptheiligtum des Marduk in Babylon, Esagila und Etemenanki. Lpz., 1938. (Osnabrück, 1967); Vincent L.-H. De la tour de Babel au temple // RB. 1946. T. 53. P. 403-440; Parrot A. Ziggurat et tour de Babel. P., 1949; Baur G. F., Mauville A. The Tower of Babel // Priestly Studies. 1953. Vol. 21. p. 84-106; Protasyeva T. N. Pskov Paleya 1477 // DRI. M., 1968. [Issue:] The Art of Pskov. S. 97-108; Nelis j. T. Tour de Babel // Dictionnaire Encycl. de la Bible. Tournhaut, 1987. Col. 1864; Jacobsen T. Babel // IDB. Vol. 1. P. 334; Oppenheim A. L. Ancient Mesopotamia: Potrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago, 1977 (Russian translation: Oppenheim A.L. Ancient Mesopotamia: A Portrait of a Dead Civilization. M., 1980); Vicari j. Les ziggurats de Tchoga-Zanbil (Dur-Untash) et de Babylone // Le dessin d "architecture dans les sociétés antiques. Leiden, 1985. P. 47-57; Klengel-Brandt. Tower of Babel: Legend and History: Per. German M., 1991; Allinger-Csollich W. Birs Nimrud II: “Tieftempel” - “Hochtempel”: Vergleichende Studien Borsippa-Babylon // Babylonische Mitteilungen. 1998. Bd. 29. S. 93-330; Schmid H. Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon. Mainz, 1995; Albrecht S. Der Turm zu Babel als bildlicher Mythos: Malerei - Graphik - Architektur // Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiege früher Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne / Hrsg. 1999. S. 553-574.
Another mystery of history, to which modern scholars still can not find the answer, is connected with the death of the biblical Babylon and the famous Tower of Babel in Borsippe. This tower, half-burned and melted to a vitreous state by a monstrous temperature, has survived to this day, as a symbol of God's wrath.
It is a clear confirmation of the veracity of biblical texts about the terrible fury of heavenly fire that fell on Earth in the middle of the second millennium BC.
According to biblical legend, Babylon was built by Nimrod, which is usually identified with the giant hunter Orion. This is a very important circumstance in the astral legend, defining one of the five places of the previous appearance of “comet-retribution” in the night sky, which will be discussed in the appropriate place.
Nimrod was the son of Hush and a descendant of Ham, one of Noah’s three sons: “Hush also begat Nimrod: this one began to be strong on the earth. He was a strong hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said: a strong hunter, like Nimrod, is before the Lord. His kingdom at first was: Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Halne, in the land of Senaar. ”/ Gen. 10: 8-10 /
The biblical myth tells that after the Flood of Noah people made an attempt to build the city of Babylon (from the Sumerians. Bab-ily - “the gates of God.”) And the Tower of Babel “tall to the skies”.
And here it is pertinent to say that in mythological texts the name "gates of God", "heavenly gates", and also "gates of hell" are used to designate places of cosmic explosions, in the epicenter of which all living things died from heavenly fire.
Enraged by unprecedented human audacity, Gd “mixed their tongues” and scattered the builders of the Tower of Babel throughout the earth, as a result of which people ceased to understand each other: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of man built. And the Lord said: Behold one people, and one tongue among all; and that’s what they started to do, and they won’t lag behind what they planned to do. Let us go down and mix their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. And the Lord scattered them from there over the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore his name was given: Babylon; for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the whole earth ”/ Gen. 11: 5-9 /.
Therefore, another meaning of the word Babylon is reproduced from the Hebrew word balal - "confusion".
TURRIS BABEL Athanasius Kircher, 1679
This deliberate biblical distortion of the name of the city, based on the similarity of the sound of words, actually reflects historical reality. The results of archaeological excavations indicate that the time of the death of Babylon is a time of the great migration of tribes and peoples, the mixing of their languages \u200b\u200band customs, the development and capture of new territories.
Not far from the city of Babylon are the ruins of Borsippa with the preserved ruins of a burnt ancient temple and a huge temple tower, which is considered to be mentioned in the Bible as the legendary Tower of Babel.
True, some archaeologists dispute this name, on the grounds that the city of Babylon had its own temple tower, no less solid in size.
As archaeologists determined, the tower from Borsippa previously consisted of seven tiers-steps, standing on a massive square base.
Previously, they were painted in seven colors: black, white, purplish red, blue, bright red, silver and golden. Even now, the remains of the tower are impressive. Its melted skeleton, standing on a hill, rises 46 meters above the base of the tower.
The walls of the tower, made of burnt bricks, as well as the huge cult rooms inside, were badly damaged by the fire.
From the heat of inconceivable temperature, the upper, most of the tower literally evaporated, and the remaining, smaller part of the tower melted into a single glassy mass, both from the inside and from the outside.
Here is how Erich Ceren writes about this: “You can’t find an explanation of where the heat came from, which not only heated, but also melted hundreds of burnt bricks, singeing the entire skeleton of the tower, all its clay walls.”
Curious is the testimony of William Koenig, who tried to comprehend the reason for the inconceivable heat, which literally melted the stepped ziggurat tower in Borsipp: “Ordinary building bricks can melt only in very high heat.
ROMANESQUE PAINTER, French The Building of the Tower of Babel Fresco - Abbey Church, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe
And here is how Mark Twain, traveling around Mesopotamia in 1867, described the tower from Borsippa:
“... she had eight tiers, two of which are still standing today - giant masonry scattered in the middle of the earthquake, scorched and half melted by the lightning of an angry Gd.”
I must say that to date, no researcher has been able to satisfactorily explain this monstrous fusion, under the influence of inconceivable temperature, due to which the upper part of the masonry turned into steam, and the remnants of the melted tower seemed to split from top to bottom.
Attempts to explain this fusion by a lightning strike of high power cannot be considered convincing, which is clearly seen from the information on linear lightning given below.
According to modern concepts, linear lightning is a giant spark arising between clouds, or between a cloud and the surface of the earth. Their average dimensions are several kilometers, but sometimes lightnings of up to fifty and even one hundred and fifty kilometers are found. The average discharge current is from 20 to 100 kiloamperes, but sometimes reaches 500 kiloamperes.
The average temperature of the lightning channel is 25,000-30000 degrees Kelvin.
It is quite obvious that not one, even super-powerful lightning, could merge into a single monolith of the Tower of Babel. And even more so, to destroy the temple adjacent to it, as well as the city of Babylon, located a dozen kilometers from it, whose circumference, according to archaeologists, was 18 kilometers, and the wall thickness is estimated at 25 meters.
Peter Bruegel - THE BABYLON TOWER 1563
According to Herodotus, the city of Babylon was an almost regular quadrangle, and was located on both sides of the Euphrates River. Each side of this quadrangle was approximately 22 kilometers, and the wall thickness was 50 cubits (elbow - approx. 52 cm), and six chariots could be driven along them in a row at a time.
And the height of the walls, and it is almost impossible to believe, reached 100 meters. The city walls had 100 copper gates, and 250 towers stood on the walls themselves. The whole city was surrounded by a wide and deep moat.
In the middle of the second millennium BC, Babylon was the cultural, spiritual and political center of Chaldea, and one of the richest and most powerful cities of the entire Ancient World. It was a time of prosperity and greatness of Babylon. The city had the largest stock of gold in the world, and it seemed that nothing could shake its power.
Contemporaries called it “the beauty of Chaldea”, “granary of Chaldea”, “pride of Chaldea”, “glory of kingdoms”, “golden city”. Bible texts report that “Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord.”
So what destroyed Babylon and melted the Tower of Babel to a glassy state?
Undoubtedly, this monstrous temperature, which is comparable only with the heat of a nuclear explosion, arose as a result of a giant electric discharge explosion of a falling celestial body, the fire pillar of which covered the temple tower, and the released discharge energy, in the form of a tremendous power of the blast wave, hit the city of Babylon, in turning it into piles of ruins in minutes.
The death of the city was so terrible that the biblical writers hardly pick up epithets to indicate its terrible destruction.
Babylon, which was the "golden cup in the hand of the Lord," suddenly within one day "became terror among the nations," "a desolate wilderness," "a pile of ruins," "a house of desolation" and the "dwelling of jackals."
This is what the biblical prophecies look like about the death of Babylon, which happened: “Here comes a fierce day, with anger and burning fury, to make the earth a desert and destroy its sinners from it. Stars of the heavens and bodies do not give light from themselves; the sun fades when it rises, and the moon does not shine with its light. I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity, and put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and destroy the arrogance of the oppressors; ... For this, the heavens will shake, and the earth will move from its place with the fury of the Lord of hosts, on the day of His burning anger .... And Babylon, the beauty of the kingdoms, the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by Gd, like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be populated, and there will be no inhabitants in it in childbirth. ”/ Is. 13: 9-11,13,19-20 /
It must be said that the power of an electric-discharge explosion of a large meteorite can be estimated at hundreds of thousands of megatons of TNT, which is significantly higher than the power of modern thermonuclear charges, so the death of the Babylon surrounded by the cyclopean walls, with its giant ziggurats, lasted less than one hour.
The city was literally swept away from the face of the earth by tremendous power by a blast wave, turning into huge mountains of charred rubble and rubbish.
The ruins of ancient Babylon are located on the banks of the Euphrates, about a hundred kilometers from the modern capital of Iraq, Baghdad, and after the explosion they were giant mountains of garbage and are located near the later Arab settlement Gillah.
These hills of rubble Arabs called Amran ibn Ali, Babil, Dzhumdzhuma and Qasr.
The location of ancient Babylon was originally known to archaeologists, and some of them, including the lucky Leyard and Oppert, even made test excavations on its ruins, but realizing the huge amount of earthwork and the amount of money needed for this, they did not dare to organize serious archaeological research.
And only at the very end of the nineteenth century, in the spring of 1899, the German archaeologist Robert Koldewei, having received a fabulous amount of half a million gold marks for the time, risked excavations, of course not assuming that he would need eighteen years to reach the ruins of the capital ancient chaldea.
To carry out the never before carried out volume of earthwork, he had to write out a field railway from Germany and lay a railway track to the excavation site. I must say that the railway was the first, and, it seems, the only time, it was used in archaeological work of this scale.
The thickness of the layer of land mixed with desert sand, ash and ash over the ruins of Babylon exceeded ten meters, but hard work in the hellish conditions of the desert was rewarded with discoveries that brought Robert Coldeway well-deserved world fame.
On the basis of the excavations of the Robert Koldevei expedition, it became possible to reproduce the reconstruction of Ancient Babylon, in the ruins of which, during the excavation of the gates of the goddess Ishtar, images of the syncretic animal Sirrus, consisting of parts of four syncretic animals, were found: a fantastic four-animal, which could not be identified, an eagle, snakes and a scorpion, which allows us to consider it a prototype of the Great Sphinx.
Bible texts call Babylon the city of sin and debauchery, but in reality it was a real city of the gods. Archaeologists have unearthed dozens of temples of the supreme god Marduk and hundreds of sanctuaries of other deities on its territory. For example, according to cuneiform texts, the city housed “53 temples, 55 sanctuaries of the supreme god Marduk, 300 sanctuaries of the earth and 600 heavenly deities, 180 altars of Ishtar, 180 altars of Nergal and Adadi and 12 other altars.”
But this did not save him from the fury of cosmic fire and the flood.
Remains of a genuine tower of Babel excavated by Robert Coldeway
I must say that none of the researchers and archaeologists want to pay attention to the fact that the ruins of Babylon, destroyed by an electric discharge explosion, were also flooded by the waters of the Noah's Flood.
The Babylon excavated by the workers of Koldevei was a city built on the ruins of numerous, even more ancient buildings, but many years of attempts to reach these cultural layers were unsuccessful, underground waters constantly flooded the mines.
The disaster that destroyed Babylon undermined all the foundations of the Babylonian kingdom and caused its decline.
Historical documents absolutely accurately recorded the date, which is considered the beginning of the New Babylonian kingdom - 1596 BC in modern chronology.
And this once again testifies that the death of the Old Babylonian kingdom was a consequence of the cosmic catastrophe of 1596 BC, which modern historians are not yet aware of.
Tower of Babel Gustave Dore Bible Illustration
In chapter 11 we find a biblical tradition dedicated to the construction of the Tower of Babel / Babel crowding.
Biblical tradition of the Tower of Babel.
The tower of Babel. Hendrick III van Cleve, 1563After the Great Flood, only members of his family managed to escape. Accordingly, humanity in the years after the Flood was represented by one people speaking the same language. Mankind has settled on the earth, but their language was common. When Noah and his family left the Ark, God commanded them:
"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."
However, the descendants of Noah moved east and decided to build a city and a tower
"Before scattering all over the face of the earth."
The descendants of Noah decided to build the city of Babylon (the "gate of the gods") and a tower to heaven. Towering to heaven, these people wanted to exalt themselves, or, as the Bible says, "make a name for yourself." Surprisingly, the phrases “Tower of Babel” and “Babel Babel” are not mentioned in the Bible. In the Bible we find only the "city and tower." According to the Bible, the city of Babylon received the name "Babel" from the Hebrew word ball, i.e mix and confuse.
The tower was supposed to exalt a man, but not God, so the Lord was angry. God interrupted the construction of the Tower of Babel, creating different languages \u200b\u200bso that the builders could not communicate. People, having ceased to understand each other, left Babylon and scattered across the Earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel is a biblical version of the emergence of different languages.
Interesting fact: the 10th chapter of Genesis tells about the descendants of Noah, about 70 of them are mentioned. It is interesting that there are about 70 separate language groups on Earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel in biblical and apocryphal texts.
The story of the Tower of Babel is found in several texts:
The Book of Genesis. Beginning of chapter 11:
1 On the whole earth there was one language and one dialect.
2 Moving from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, We will make bricks and burn them with fire. And they began to have bricks instead of stones, and earthen tar instead of lime.
4 And they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower high up to heaven, and make a name for ourselves before we scatter over the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of man built.
6 And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and one has one tongue; and this is what they began to do, and they won’t lag behind what they intended to do;
7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other.
8 And the Lord scattered them from there over the whole earth; and they stopped building the city [and the tower].
9 Therefore a name was given to him: Babylon, for there the Lord mixed the tongue of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the whole earth.
Book of Jubilees. Chapter 10
Gives the most detailed description of the construction of the tower.
“Behold, the sons of men became evil through the vile plan that they would build a city and a tower in the land of Sinaar, for they had moved from Ararat east to Sinaar.” For in his days they built a city and a tower, saying: "We will ascend through it into heaven." And they began to build in the fourth week, and burned with fire (bricks), and bricks served them instead of stone, and the cement with which they strengthened the gaps was asphalt from the sea and from water sources in the country of Sinaar. And they built it for forty-three years. And the Lord our God told us: “Behold, this is one people, and he began to do it! And now I will not depart from them! Now, we will come down and mix their tongues, so that they do not understand each other and disperse into countries and peoples, and may their plan never be realized before the day of judgment! ”And the Lord came down, and we went down with Him, to see the city and the tower, which the sons of man built; and He dissolved every word of their language, and no one understood the word of another. And so they refused to build a city and a tower. For this reason, the whole country of Sinaar was called Babel (Babylon). For thus God divulged all the languages \u200b\u200bof the sons of men; and from there they scattered to their cities according to their languages \u200b\u200band peoples. And God sent a strong wind to their tower and cast it to the ground. And so she stood between the land of Assur and Babylon in the land of Sinaar; and they called her the name of the ruin.
Greek Apocalypse of Baruch. Chapter 3
And I asked the Angel: “Please, Sir, tell me who these people are?”
And he said: “These are those who gave advice to build a tower.
They themselves, whom you see, drove many men and women to make bricks.
The woman alone, who made bricks, when it came time for her to give birth, they were not allowed to leave, but, making bricks, she gave birth and she carried her baby in a towel and made bricks.
And having appeared to them, Yahweh changed their tongues when the tower reached a height of three hundred and sixty-three cubits.
And taking a drill, they began to try to drill the sky, saying: "Let's see, the clay sky, copper or iron."
Seeing this, God did not allow them, but struck them with blindness and multilingualism and left them as you see them. "
The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel in terms of Christian morality.
The story of the Tower of Babel emphasizes the stark contrast between a person’s opinion of his own accomplishments and God's point of view on those accomplishments. The Tower of Babel was supposed to be the first grand construction project of mankind, but did not.
According to the Bible, people used brick instead of stone and resin instead of lime mortar for building - they used “man-made” and not natural “God-given” materials. People did not trust in the Lord in their construction, and therefore failed. The Tower of Babel was created by people to draw attention to their abilities and achievements, and not in order to give glory to God.
Nevertheless, the history of the construction of the Tower of Babel also teaches us that in unity is our strength. However, this power is not always for the benefit of man. The book of Genesis says:
... And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and one has one tongue; and that’s what they started to do, and they won’t lag behind what they planned to do.
By this, God indicates that when people are united for their own purposes, they can perform impossible feats, noble and noble.
The Bible teaches that in unity is power, but care must be taken: unity of purpose in worldly affairs can ultimately be destructive. Division and one's own point of view in worldly affairs is sometimes preferable to the great universal feats for the glory of idolatry and apostasy. For this reason, God sometimes intervenes in human affairs to prevent further human arrogance. God upsets people's plans so that they do not transgress God's limits.
The story of the Tower of Babel is also interesting in the sense that here the Lord first speaks of himself in a plural person, referring to the Trinity:
... let us go down and mix their language there ...
The story of the Tower of Babel continues the theme of competition between man and God, begun in. Josephus explains the construction of the tower as an arrogant act of disobedience against God the arrogant tyrant Nimrod. The Bible does not explicitly indicate that the Tower of Babel ordered the construction of Nimrod, but many other sources link its construction with Nimrod.
Some scholars, historians and biblical scholars have an alternative point of view on the significance of the episode of the construction of the Tower of Babel. They see the punishment of the Lord not as a punishment for pride, but as God's understanding of the need for cultural differences. These scholars represent Babylon as the cradle of all civilizations.
What do scientists say about the Tower of Babel?
One of the possible approaches to the history of the Babel crowding is a literal approach. If we admit that the Tower of Babel is a historical fact, then one would expect that some remnants or ruins of the Tower of Babel exist and will be found. However, the remains of the Tower were not found by archaeologists.
However, perhaps history still has a historical background. Many scholars, including biblical scholars, compare the Tower of Babel with the ancient structures of Mesopotamia - ziggurats. Ziggurats also served for religious rites. The Jews who fell into the Babylonian captivity were undoubtedly aware of these buildings.
The candidate for the title of the Tower of Babel is the ziggurat of Etemenanka in Babylon. It was a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, the supreme deity of the pantheon of Babylon. It is known that this, the highest, ziggurat was located in Babylon. The tower was probably over 90 meters. The construction time is unknown, but it is known for certain that in the 18th century BC the tower already existed. The tower (ziggurat) was destroyed, or rather dismantled by Alexander the Great with a view to its reconstruction. However, the plans were not destined to come true due to the death of Alexander. The ruins of a ziggurat were discovered by the German scientist R. Koldeway in 1897-1898.
Ziggurat of Etemenanka in Babylon. Astronomical version.
There is another explanation (pseudoscientific?) Of the Babel crowds, this time from the point of view of astronomical phenomena. It is known that at the estimated time of the construction of the Tower of Babel, disturbances in the atmosphere of Jupiter influenced the movement of Mercury, pushing it closer to the Sun. In its new orbit, Mercury came into close contact with the Earth. Their magnetospheres touched each other, which caused a surge of electromagnetic energy towards the Earth. Perhaps this phenomenon influenced the thinking of people on Earth. This version takes place, since it is proved that with electric shock a person can lose speech and memory. If a similar electromagnetic surge was observed in Babylon, then this could serve as a reason for the confusion of languages \u200b\u200band the Babel Babel.
Who is the author of the story of the construction of the Tower of Babel?
The tradition of attributing the authorship of Genesis, and indeed the entire Pentateuch to Moses; however, at the end of the 19th century a different hypothesis was put forward ( documentary hypothesis) about the existence of four primary sources, called sources J, E, P and D. According to this version, the story of the Tower of Babel came to us from source J (Yahwist).
Phraseologism Tower of Babel.
What does phraseology mean the Tower of Babel?
Definition 1.
The Tower of Babel is a tall building.
Definition 2.
The Tower of Babel is a grandiose project, the implementation of which is problematic.
Definition 3.
The Tower of Babel is an undertaking that will perish due to excessive pride and arrogance.
Phraseologism Babylonian pandemonium.
Babel Babel value 1.
The word pandemonium means the construction of a pillar (Church Slavonic name of the tower).
Expression babel means confusion, promiscuous, fussy, disordered activity, which is not able to lead to positive results.
Babel Babel Meaning 2.
Phraseologism Babylonian pandemonium means polyphonic noise, clutter, clamor, chaotic crowd of people.
Footage of the Tower of Babel in culture.
Painting.
The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel is reflected in many paintings. For example, the Tower of Babel is the subject of three paintings by Peter Brueghel the Elder. The first picture was created after Bruegel visited Rome and was a miniature on ivory. Unfortunately, this picture did not reach us. Two other paintings, written in 1563, are preserved.
These canvases are called the Tower of Babel and the Lesser Tower of Babel
Little Tower of Babel Peter Brueghel the Elder, 1563 (Rotterdam)
The tower of Babel. Peter Brueghel the Elder, 1563 (Vienna) Images of the Tower of Babel of Brueghel purposely resemble the Roman Colosseum, which for a long time was seen by Christians as a symbol of pride.
Lucas Van Falkenborch, a contemporary of Brueghel, also depicted the Tower of Babel on his canvases.
The tower of Babel. Lucas van Falkenborch, 1595 
The tower of Babel. Lucas van Falkenborch, 1594 The plot of the Tower of Babel is common in Christian iconography.
The tower of Babel in literature.
The plot of the Tower of Babel has received widespread understanding in world literature. He was addressed by Franz Kafka in the parable “The Coat of Arms of the City”, Thomas Mann in the novel “Joseph and His Brothers”, Andrei Platonov in the novel “Pit”, Ray Bradberry in the dystopian novel “451 degrees Fahrenheit”, Clive Lewis in the novel “Foul power ”, Victor Pelevin in the novel“ Generation P ”, Neil Stevenson in the novel“ Avalanche ”, etc.
The Tower of Babel in music.
The most famous interpretations of the plot about the construction of the Tower of Babel in music is A. Rubinstein’s oratorio “The Tower of Babel”. The Tower of Babel is often mentioned in popular music (Elton John, Bobby McFerrin, Bad Religion, Aquarium, Kipelov, etc.)
7 Wonders of the World. The tower of Babel.
The tower of Babel.
The Tower of Babel (Hebrew מִגְדָּל בָּלַל Migdal Bawel) is a tower dedicated to the biblical tradition set forth in chapter 2 of “Noah” (verses 11: 1-11: 9) of Genesis.
The Tower of Babel is not on the “official” list of wonders of the world. However, it is one of the most prominent structures of Ancient Babylon, and its name is still a symbol of confusion and disorder.
Jan Collaert 1579
According to an ancient biblical legend, after the Flood, more than four thousand years ago, all people lived in Mesopotamia (from the east people came to the land of Sennaar), that is, in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and everyone spoke the same language. Since the land of these places was very fertile, people lived richly. They decided to build a city (Babylon) and a tower sky-high to "make a name for themselves."
Marten Van Valckenborch I (1535-1612)
For the construction of the monumental structure, people did not use stone, but unbaked raw brick, bitumen (mountain resin) was used instead of lime to connect the bricks. The tower grew and grew in height.
Theodosius Rihel 1574-1578
Finally, God was angry with the unreasonable and conceited people and punished them: he forced the builders to speak different languages. Because of this, the stupid pride ceased to understand each other and, having abandoned their guns, stopped building the tower, and then dispersed to different sides of the Earth. So the tower was unfinished, and the city where the construction took place and all languages \u200b\u200bwere mixed, was called Babylon. Thus, the story of the Tower of Babel explains the emergence of various languages \u200b\u200bafter the Flood.
A number of biblical scholars trace the connection of the legend of the Tower of Babel with the construction of high temple towers called Ziggurats in Mesopotamia. The tops of the towers were used for worship and astronomical observations.
Fresco 1100g.
The highest ziggurat (91 m high, one rectangular step and seven spiral ones - a total of 8) was located in Babylon. It was called Etemenanka, which means "a house where heaven and earth converge." It is not known exactly when the initial construction of this tower was carried out, but it already existed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC).
Assyrian king Sinaherib in 689 BC e. destroyed Babylon, the Etemenanka suffered the same fate. Ziggurat was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II. Jews, forcibly resettled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon after the destruction of the kingdom of Judea, became acquainted with the culture and religion of Mesopotamia and, undoubtedly, knew about the existence of ziggurats.
During excavations in Babylon, the German scientist Robert Koldevey managed to discover the foundation and ruins of the tower. The tower mentioned in the Bible was probably destroyed before the time of Hammurabi. To replace her, another was built, which was erected in memory of the first. According to Koldevey, it had a square base, each side of which was 90 meters. The height of the tower was also 90 m., The first tier had a height of 33 m, the second - 18, the third and fifth - 6 m each, the seventh - the sanctuary of the god Marduk - was 15 m high. By modern standards, the structure reached a height of 30- storey skyscraper.
Calculations allow us to say that about 85 million bricks were used to build this tower. A monumental staircase led to the upper platform of the tower, where the temple rushed into the sky. The tower was part of the temple complex, located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The clay tablets with inscriptions found by archaeologists suggest that each section of the tower had its own special meaning. The same tablets give information about the religious rituals that went in this temple.
The tower stood on the left bank of the Euphrates in the plain of Sahn, which literally translates as - “pan”. It was surrounded by houses of priests, temple structures, and houses for pilgrims who flocked here from all over Babylonia. The description of the Tower of Babel was left by Herodotus, who thoroughly examined it and, perhaps, even visited its top. This is the only documentary description of an eyewitness from Europe.
Tobias Verhaecht, The Tower Of Babel.
The Tower of Babel was a stepped eight-tier pyramid, lined with burnt brick on the outside. Moreover, each tier had a strictly defined color. At the top of the ziggurat was a sanctuary lined with blue tiles and decorated in the corners with golden horns (a symbol of fertility). It was considered the habitat of the god Marduk - the patron saint of the city. In addition, inside the sanctuary were a gilded table and a bed of Marduk. Stairs led to the tiers; religious processions rose on them. Ziggurat was a shrine that belonged to all the people, it was a place where thousands of people flocked to worship the supreme deity Marduk.
The upper sites of the ziggurats were used not only for cult, but also for practical purposes: for review by the guard-guards of the surrounding area. Cyrus, who took possession of Babylon after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, was the first conqueror to leave the city intact. He was struck by the scale of the Etemenanka, and he not only forbade to destroy anything, but ordered to erect a monument on his grave in the form of a miniature ziggurat, a small tower of Babel.
Hendrick III van Cleve (1525 - 1589)
Nevertheless, the tower was again destroyed. The Persian king Xerxes left from her only the ruins that Alexander of Macedon saw on his way to India. He was also struck by gigantic ruins - he also stood in front of them as bewitched. Alexander the Great intended to build it again. “But, as Strabo writes,“ this work required a lot of time and effort, for the ruins would have had to be removed by ten thousand people for two months, and he did not fulfill his plan, as he soon became ill and died. ”
Lucas van Valckenborch 1594
Lucas van Valckenborch 1595
Currently, only the foundation and the lower part of the wall are left of the legendary Tower of Babel. But thanks to cuneiform tablets there is a description of the famous ziggurat and even its image.
Peter Brueghel the Elder. Tower of Babel 1564.
The plot of the Tower of Babel is common in Christian iconography - in numerous miniatures, manuscripts and printed editions of the Bible (for example, in a miniature of an English manuscript of the XI century); as well as in mosaics and frescoes of cathedrals and churches (for example, the mosaic of the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice, late XII - early XIII century).
Fresco of the Tower of Babel from the Venetian Cathedral of San Marco.
In Iraq, there are still towers of this type — very tall, stepped or spiral-shaped. In Babylon itself, almost nothing reminds of the tower, only a part of the wall and foundation, as well as beautiful ancient reliefs of the royal palace in the excavations, are preserved there.
The current building of the European Parliament is designed on the model of a picture of the unfinished Tower of Babel, written in 1563 by Peter Brueghel the Elder. The motto of the European Parliament in French: “Many languages \u200b\u200b- one vote” distorts the meaning of the biblical text. The building is designed to give the impression of unfinished. In fact, this is the completed construction of the European Parliament, the construction of which was completed in December 2000.
Who in our time has not heard the myth of the legendary Tower of Babel? This unfinished building to heaven will be known in deep childhood. But not every skeptic knows that this tower has confirmed its real existence. This is evidenced by notes of the ancients and modern archaeological research. Today we go to Babylon to the remains of the Tower of Babel.
Biblical legend of the tower of babel
The biblical legend about how people wanted to build a tower to heaven, and for this they received the punishment in the form of separation of languages, is better to read in the biblical original:
1. On the whole earth there was one language and one dialect.
2 Moving from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, We will make bricks and burn them with fire. And they began to have bricks instead of stones, and earthen tar instead of lime.
4 And they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower high up to heaven, and make a name for ourselves before we scatter over the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of man built.
6 And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and one has one tongue; and this is what they began to do, and they won’t lag behind what they intended to do;
7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other.
8 And the Lord scattered them from there over the whole earth; and they stopped building the city [and the tower].
9 Therefore a name was given to him: Babylon, for there the Lord mixed the tongue of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the whole earth.
History, construction and description of the ziggurat of Etemenanka
Babylon is known for many of its structures. One of the main personalities in the exaltation of this glorious ancient city is Nebuchadnezzar II. It was in his time that the walls of Babylon, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the gates of Ishtar and the Procession Road were built. But this is only the edge of the iceberg - during all forty years of his reign Nebuchadnezzar was engaged in the construction, restoration and decoration of Babylon. He left a large text about his work done. We will not dwell on all points, but it is here that there is a mention of ziggurat in the city.
This Tower of Babel, which, according to legend, could not be completed due to the fact that the builders began to speak different languages, has another name - Etemenanki, which means the cornerstone house of heaven and earth. Archaeologists during the excavation were able to discover the huge foundation of this building. This turned out to be a typical ziggurat for Mesopotamia (we can also read about ziggurat in Ur), located at the main temple of Babylon Esagilas.
Painting "Tower of Babel", Peter Brueghel the Elder (1563 )
For all the time the tower was demolished several times and rebuilt. For the first time in this place a ziggurat was built before Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), before it had already been dismantled. The legendary structure itself appeared during the reign of King Nabupalassar, and the final construction of the peak was taken over by his successor Nebuchadnezzar.
A huge ziggurat was erected under the guidance of an architect from Assyria Aradahdeshu. It consisted of seven tiers with a total height of about 100 meters. The diameter of the structure was about 90 meters.
At the top of the ziggurat was a sanctuary covered with traditional Babylonian glazed bricks. The sanctuary was dedicated to the main deity of Babylon - Marduk, and it was for him that a gilded bed and table were installed here, and on the top of the sanctuary gilded horns were fixed.
At the base of the Tower of Babel in the Lower Temple was a statue of Marduk himself, made of pure gold with a total weight of 2.5 tons. About 85 million bricks were used to build the Etemenanka ziggurat in Babylon. The tower stood out among all the buildings of the city and created the impression of power and grandeur. The inhabitants of this city sincerely believed in the convergence of Marduk in their habitat on earth and even spoke about it to the famous Herodotus, who visited here in 458 BC (a century and a half after construction).
From the top of the Tower of Babel, another from the neighboring city, Euriminanka in Barsippe, was visible. It was the ruins of this tower for a long time attributed to the biblical. When Alexander the Great lived in the city, he proposed to rebuild the majestic structure anew, but his death in 323 BC left the building permanently dismantled. In 275, Esagila was restored, but the Etemenans were not rebuilt. A reminder of the former great building remained only its foundation and immortal mention in the texts.
