"Martyn Iles presents Living in Babylon"

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: "Martyn Iles presents Living in Babylon" · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Unclarity of the French Language - Or of His Memory?

Most Christians Don’t Know THIS About Babylon
Answers in Genesis, 15 May 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7J_NGncv5s

Here are some very few moments when I think he was not beyond getting added to:

6:27 I think you got it somewhat backwards.

They did spread.

They may have worried about the spread leading to a scattering, only.
Or they may have worried about that and about "the next flood" (as Josephus tells us, they didn't rely on the Genesis 8 promise.)

Babel, when founded was not the sole place of human habitation, or even sole apart from Hebrews. It was the international meeting point - somewhere between what Cuzco was to Peruvians before the Spaniards and what Paris and New York is to us.

Ernest Camps

What are your sources for this?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ernest Camps For the spread occuring before Genesis 11?

Two.

1) Own research while calibrating C14 dates to Biblical (Septuagint) Chronology puts Babel in Göbekli Tepe (so far) and men had come to Americas after the Flood before that.
2) Postilla in Libros Geneseos, by St. Thomas Aquinas, if it is a youth work of his, actually also states that the people coming to Babel were an élite, and not the whole human population.

So, this situation and the lack of "liquid currency" reminds me very much of how local chieftains in Peru would get people from villages to work for them, and then send them back to the villages with gifts, and they would themselves go up to Cuzco to serve the Inca (it means "Emperor" and not the ethnicity) and get back to their regions with gifts after a few months.

Walking from some regions of Earth to Göbekli Tepe would take c. 3 years, but if the Babel project lasted 40 years, between Noah's death and Peleg's birth (51 years apart) that's not a major problem.

Ernest Camps

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
1) a. So you are picking secular dates to support this? Septuagint only extends the timeline with +650years towards the flood. Not ~ +5000 that seculars impose.

b. Regardless of ages, you were unable to provide Bible verses supporting this location. Göbekli Tepe is at a location, where the verticals reach ~300m, which topographically isnt plains, but hills region.

You may want repeat the other points you made about this. I think one was: ...as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar...
But as I said, sometimes directions arent exactly like that in the Bible. This is so specially when we dont ultimately know the landing site of Ark - it may be "Nuhun Gemisi" spot, or not.

Here is one interesting, but likely non-related location/mountain for you to have thought anyway, I only lately found the name of it: Mount Balkaya ~2500m asl. It is Directly south from Ararat volcano (280km S), and close to ancient Nineveh (130 km NE). It is just that the shape of the mountain is strange; triangle and it is very large by size, ~9km sides.

Notice, that a town named Harran is 40km S from GT. Where the location seems to be agains the following notes:

Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
-> Ur is also officially located in the vicinity of ~Babel
...to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
-> If the location of Haran is correct, then there seems to be some confusion with the extend of canaan as it is quite far from modern day Israel. But it seems to fit prophetical vision of ~"from river to river".
...that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites,
-> They did not stop at Haran &/ Göbekli Tepe, but went far further.
...But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.
...and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia(1), unto the city of Nahor.
-> na·hă·ra·yim : This cant be Aram(ea), or theyve migrated quite a few km's over the millenias.
The inbetween rivers Eufrat-Khabur shouldnt be called that. But the inbetween region of Eufrat-Tigris extends well to Ur-Babel-Uruk

c. What is Biblical support for "..men had come to Americas after the Flood before that."

2) Im not familiar with this.

a) But as this happened during the earliest moments after the flood, it is unlikely that people from medieval times had some better knowledge about this. Quite a bunch of those Biblical locations are up to debate still todays.

b) According to MT, Peleg died 2 years before Noah. 51years was inbetween according to the others. But why would that timespan matter? MT: Nimrod was grand-granson of Noah, he possibly was born as early as 20 years after the flood; Selah was born 37 years after. 137 according to others. From those the building may have started as early as around 50 to 150 years after the flood. The late number would be closer to 700, if he lived as long as Selah 433/533.

And the project couldve lasted any amount years up to 500ish.

c) There is this school that says Peleg was about the continents. Lately I found ore more piece supporting this view:
Strongs 6389: "Peleg The same as peleg; earthquake (1) ; Peleg, a son of Shem -- Peleg."
Which (1)had eluded me this long.
So the objection AiG, CMi & c. make about earthquakes and tsunamis, seem to be dismissable with that notion.

Ps. The other epics, like Gilgamesh-Uthnapistim, Väinämöinen-AnteroVipunen, seem to suggest that Noah was alive during Nimrod's time, which could counter non-MT sources. Or just that those epics are too corrupted in this. At least the later is extremely distorted, like that the flood was caused by an axe in a knee...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ernest Camps 1) a. I don't think in the category "secular" dates.

I think in the categories:

• historical, including Biblical actual dates (Biblical ones infallible, in at least one of the text versions and possible interpretations)
• carbon 14 dates, from a certain time back and on backwards more and more inflated dates
• other non-historic methods, giving mainly total pseudo-dates, in some cases dates suggesting lots of volcanos and cool water, i e THE date 2957 BC.

My work is in harmonising the carbon 14 dates with the historical especially Biblical ones, by posing a rise of carbon 14 levels in the atmosphere, which makes the amount by which carbon dates are inflated calculable.

b. "Göbekli Tepe is at a location, where the verticals reach ~300m, which topographically isnt plains , but hills region."

It is straight north of a huge square plain called the Harran plain, which includes but is not limited to Harran on the Turkish-Syrian border.

"...as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar..."

Yes, going from the landing place on Mt Judi to Göbekli Tepe is journeying FROM the East.

The Harran plain is a plain INSIDE the Mesopotamian two river border. Down at Woolley's Ur, or Nebuchandnezzar's Babylon, the land of Shinar (between Euphrates and Tigris) is inside the plain. Another criterium where "my" location makes more sense by not inverting the Biblical criterium.

"But as I said, sometimes directions arent exactly like that in the Bible."

Were you the guy who pretended Nebuchadnezzar's swoop on Tyre was proof you could meddle freely with Biblical directions? It was a bad argument then if it was you or if it wasn't, and it is a bad argument now.

"Here is one interesting, but likely non-related location/mountain for you to have thought anyway, I only lately found the name of it: Mount Balkaya ~2500m asl. It is Directly south from Ararat volcano (280km S), and close to ancient Nineveh (130 km NE). It is just that the shape of the mountain is strange; triangle and it is very large by size, ~9km sides."

As said, Mt Judi is my option for the landing place.

"Where the location seems to be agains the following notes:"

Interesting discussion. For the moment I neither agree nor disagree. Need to study that one more.

"The inbetween rivers Eufrat-Khabur shouldnt be called that. But the inbetween region of Eufrat-Tigris extends well to Ur-Babel-Uruk"

Göbekli Tepe is East of Euphrates, but it is also nearly due West of Tigris, since Mt Judi is just East of Tigris, and GT is nearly due West of Mt Judi. That there is also a Khabur between Euphrates and Tigris at this far North West is beside the point. It is still beside THE two rivers.

c. I combine carbon dates, both extended beyond real dates, but coming in the right order, as rising carbon 14 = lower date inflation, with the fact that carbon dates for GT (= Babel) are more recent than those for early people in the Americas.

2) a) i) Medieval people had closer access to parabiblical traditions, including the one in Josephus.

ij) I think you conflate what I have from Historia scholastica with what I have from Postilla in libros Geneseos.

iij) The Church Historians using Josephus and similar have been condensed in the Historia Scholastica, which directly says the project was after Noah died and ended when Peleg was born. A LXX reading without the second Cainan is presumed in the Historia scholastica reference for the date of Christ's birth, with 942 years between Flood and birth of Abraham - but LXX without II Cainan means, Peleg was born 401 years after the Flood, ie 51 years after Noah's death.

iv) Postilla gives me the room needed for using GT, since this archaeologically presumes spread before Babel. Notice, God's command was spread, the two things mentioned in Genesis, both fear of Babelians and act of God, are about scatter. There is a difference between scattering and spreading.

b) I am presuming the description in Historia Scholastica is probable enough, you want to explore other scenarios, do that, see if you come up with better tables for carbon recalibration, better matches archaeology and Bible event than I do between Flood and Genesis 14 (you will arguably agree that Genesis 14 coincides with the end of chalcolithic habitation of En Geddi, I have that from Osgood).

c) In that case, it is possible that Americas were still united to GT over the land bridge that sunk since then called Atlantis.

d (=your PS) I would say, when Nimrod advocated the tower project (though he didn't decide it uniliaterally, but as a stout hunter - of men - he became chief executive) he lied and claimed to have visited Noah, who was already dead. The Gilgamesh epic poses this visit as in a totally different context, but one which was less likely to harrass Nimrod. So, Nimrod gained prestige by a lie, and this prestige lived on way beyond the purpose of the lie, and was repurposed for another theme.

@Ernest Camps "Ur is also officially located in the vicinity of ~Babel"

Did you know "Ur" is Sumerian for "City" - it's more like "urbs" than like a proper name like "Roma"?

Did you know that Edessa, very close to Göbekli Tepe was and is again called Urfa? Now "shanli Urfa" = "venerable Urfa" ...

Ernest Camps

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
1) a. The trouble with those ruins is the same than secular claims about Jericho being the oldest city. The Bible itself tells it was not.
b. 2957 BC? it seems you are missing 50 years, Terah perhaps? AFAIK. the non-MT total missing years is 650.
c. I think there are just too many variables/assumptions going on with c14, to fully pay attention to them. GBY for your work tho.

b1 The Haran area is some 300kms W-SW from the location of that mountain @380m asl. And there is river Tigris just a stonethrow away from there, with plains up to 700m asl. surrounding it to every direction. Those higher , yet flat areas should of been free from the flood earlier.
b2 Why and how did they cross Tigris anyway?

b3 As said Nimrod was born somewhat after the landing, it means they had decades to move around. From ~Ararat volcano: guess which direction the topography is flattest to walk forth? Southeast. If they travelled 600kms that direction within those years, that would fit "ok" within the narrative, then there was only walking to west left.
Israel seemingly travelled even less with their 40 years at Sinai. It seems that their sense of directions were not that accurate to begin with. Yeah, there was something else going on there... It seems there may of been some troubles with directions going on. (1)

b4 From Mt. Judi location, they had to travel nowhere, and they would of had Noah & the oldies with them at all times.
But as stated, we dont even know the real landing site. My pennies go for Ararat volcano surroundings: there seems to be most artifacts thereabouts around. + The size actually matches.

"Another criterium where "my" location makes more sense by not inverting the Biblical criterium."
What do you mean?

"Were you the guy who pretended Nebuchadnezzar's swoop on Tyre was proof you could meddle freely with Biblical directions? It was a bad argument then if it was you or if it wasn't, and it is a bad argument now."
Indeed, and I still stand with statement, I dont recall you debunking that notion at all. = The king came specifically from north, but generally from east. (1) it is not about meddling freely , but seems to be a plausible possibility.

Mt. Balkaya doesnt even have to be a landing site. But it is an interesting local formation regardless.
An another geological thing about this is: AiG, CMi &. do not seem to recognize that plenty of mountains at Ararat region reach 4000-5600m asl., which counters the argument for 1½ mile deep flood. The opposition's view is that some of the mountain forming happened after the flood, during the time of Peleg, duration: 239-339 years.

"It is still beside THE two rivers."
That is true. But If you look at the map, you wont see many a river between those main ones. But Khabur is so, and it seems to set an another watery boundary.

c. "with the fact that carbon dates for GT (= Babel) are more recent than those for early people in the Americas."
That is an error, where you can adjust the times just to fit your narrative. It is just better to ignore those for now, when it contradicts the Book so severely.
+ That alone should hint you that GT was not Babel.

2) a) i) Why would that be. The time gap in between is what matters, not the length. I argue that we might have better access to some of things now, because sciences have advanced quite a bunch.
ij) Wdym? The point is: what was such medieval archeology about Babel that you think they had the upper hand over the modern one?
iij) How exactly did they have better access to Josephus than us? + Josephus is not exactly the Bible, is he?
"which directly says the project was after Noah died and ended when Peleg was born."
The Bible doesnt say that, so you may reconsider that position. There are also numerous historical claims about the tower, but they dont hold water from Bible Pov:
"The 14th-century traveler John Mandeville also included an account of the tower and reported that its height had been 64 furlongs, or 13 km (8 mi), according to the local inhabitants."
iv) That I can see, everything must be fit within worldview. But there would be numerous objections about this.
One would b that; do you realize that the arctics were basically under continental ice quite some after the flood. Those people would of had true dedication, plan, haste, equipment, food supplies, a good map and a compass to reach NA, within the supposed time - before the ice came.
It seems far easier to imagine that they reached the Bering Strait just and just before the ice melted rising the sea levels.
Or possibly they just boated there centuries later.

b) As I said, cant be truly sure about those numbers. They may give some vague approximations, but to resolve Biblical history with such pieces is too far fetched for me.

c) There may of been contact between Americas and "old" continents, up until Peleg did the final divide. It fixes a handful of Imo. faulty assumptions, like how did pumas get to NA, when they are said to be closest relatives to gepards.

d) "10And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.."
He actually seems to have been a ruler; king, tyrant. Hunting seems to be generally a killing thing in the Bible, so it could of been humans, slaves, or animals like lions, or perhaps even dragons. The latter seems a slightly more plausible, why would of he killed his workers. But to kill a dangerous predator has always been a notable feat.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
WP: "Cuneiform ur is a syllabic for "ur", and an alphabetic for "u", or "r". In the Amarna letters, usage is sumerogrammic for English language "dog","
Quora:
"The name UR (AUR, as a Hebrew, derivative) means LIGHT. You could say, CITY OF LIGHT."

What exactly is your source for otherwise?
Australia ≠ Austria, believe it or not.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ernest Camps Last things first.

"What exactly is your source for otherwise?"

L'Histoire Hors-série N° 99 - Mésopotamie - Là où tout à commencé - 05/04/2023

It also says that "Uru-ki" means basically "cityish" or "civil" if I recall correctly.

Another thing. I am not your adept. I am not your pupil. Nor an uncritical one of CMI or AiG. Consider me an independent researcher, including independent of you.

I am also not writing under the most comfortable conditions, so I am not in a mood for a long relaxed chat either.

Please don't take a tone (or practical measure) implying (or presupposing) that my discussing with you is some kind of reconsideration of my views. It's a routine defense of them.

Now to the rest.

​@Hans-Georg Lundahl
1) a. The trouble with your response is that while Jericho is clearly not older than Henoch in Nod, the Bible doesn't tell us whether it's older or younger than Babel. Just that it was not earlier in Nimrod's empire. AND there is no Bible for adding a "clearly not" in parallel to that about Babel = Göbekli Tepe.
b. There are more than one non-MT. I'm using the calculation of St. Jerome, based on Julius Africanus.
c. "I think there are just too many variables/assumptions going on with c14, to fully pay attention to them."

Well, I don't.

"GBY for your work tho."

Js 2:16. If you devalorise my results, and contribute to even more blocking of them, thus keeping me in poverty, what is your "GBY" worth?

b1 I fail to see your point.
b2 & b4 "Why and how did they cross Tigris anyway? From Mt. Judi location, they had to travel nowhere, and they would of had Noah & the oldies with them at all times."

After Noah's death, and especially after recalling the site where people saw Noah naked ... some wanted "change they could believe in" and that meant not feeling even slight shame about Noah, and _also_ not actually obeying his directions.

Hence, removal to a new international meeting place.

b3 "As said Nimrod was born somewhat after the landing, it means they had decades to move around."

Who says everyone moved around all the time?

way·hî bə·nā·sə·‘ām has an imperfect, but it is a wa + yiqtol form telling us what happened next. It would have been a one time decision.

"From ~Ararat volcano: guess which direction the topography is flattest to walk forth? Southeast."

1) No use to bring in Ararat volcano, it used to be called Mount Ağrı. _All_ of historical Armenia is "Ararat"
2) The Bible doesn't say "from the north" or "from the west" but "from the east"

"If they travelled 600kms that direction within those years, that would fit "ok" within the narrative, then there was only walking to west left."

If they went all the way to China and then came back to any place, they would also have been walking to the West when they actually arrived anywhere Babel was. That (or something like it) was the solution in Historia scholastica.

"Israel seemingly travelled even less with their 40 years at Sinai. It seems that their sense of directions were not that accurate to begin with."

Israel didn't follow its sense of direction as making a journey from Egypt proper to Canaan. They were roaming back and forth within the Sinai area.

"What do you mean?"

First criterium: landing place = Mt Judi (or anything east of it) and Babel = GT, means that miqqedem means miqqedem.
Second criterium, as you brought it up, in NW Mesopotamia you have the Harran plain _inside_ Mesopotamia, the presumable meaning of Shinar, in the area of Classical Babylon, you have Shinar, the two rivers, inside the area of a much bigger plain.

"Indeed, and I still stand with statement, I dont recall you debunking that notion at all."

Bad memory on your part.
1) Nothing says Nebuchadnezzar at that occasion came FROM Babylon. He would have been king OF Babylon even if he started the campaign from Assyria.
2) You specifically admitted they arrived from the North, and there is no reason why this arrival should not be the relevant point.

"An another geological thing about this is: AiG, CMi &. do not seem to recognize that plenty of mountains at Ararat region reach 4000-5600m asl., which counters the argument for 1½ mile deep flood."

The general view about very high mountains is, they rose after the Flood.

"But Khabur is so, and it seems to set an another watery boundary."

Which did not stop Greeks and Romans to call Edessa, 7 miles or 12 km from GT, "Edessa in Mesopotamia."

I shouldn't have said "beside the two rivers" but "between the two rivers" but as said my conditions of work are not comfortable.

c. "That is an error, where you can adjust the times just to fit your narrative."

I'm adjusting the carbon dates to fit:

• the Biblical narrative
• and the idea that one steep rise of carbon 14 levels is more probable physically than two even steeper ones separated by an also even steeper fall.

"It is just better to ignore those for now, when it contradicts the Book so severely."

You have failed to prove any contradiction to the book.

"+ That alone should hint you that GT was not Babel."

Only if you ignore the idea (sic)

[as I said, bad conditions, I jumped back and forth different parts, by distractions, should have said "the idea that spread happened before and 'they' who removed were an élite"]

2) a) i) Sciences may have advanced, but history isn't one.
ij) I think in history, tradition has the upper hand over archaeology. Medieval sources give me a more full spectrum of tradition than the modern debate, so, more to fit against any archaeology we have now.
iij) "How exactly did they have better access to Josephus than us?"

They had Church Historians actually using him, in this context, as opposed to having people mention him mostly only over Testimonium Flavianum.

"+ Josephus is not exactly the Bible, is he?"

No, but a source for Jewish tradition, nearly identic to what it was before Christ.

"The Bible doesnt say that, so you may reconsider that position."

The Bible certainly doesn't deny it. Only a Masoretic / Vulgate chronology would imply such a denial, while the chronology of St. Jerome pretty much confirms or demands the thing I said.

"There are also numerous historical claims about the tower, but they dont hold water from Bible Pov:"

You are forgetting the difference between local claims to fame and historical claims that are the actual source for historical credibility - including for the Bible, which is historically credible even before being recognised as God's word.

iv) "One would b that; do you realize that the arctics were basically under continental ice quite some after the flood. Those people would of had true dedication, plan, haste, equipment, food supplies, a good map and a compass to reach NA, within the supposed time - before the ice came."

We do not know how deep that ice was.

"It seems far easier to imagine that they reached the Bering Strait just and just before the ice melted rising the sea levels."

How about the Spanish theory, they crossed another land bridge, now sunk, the one now below the Atlantic Ocean? Atlantis?

"Or possibly they just boated there centuries later."

Given Babel = GT, carbon dated starting 9600 BC, and given mammoth bones and others in Old Crow Flats with signs of human tools being used carbon date 40 000 to 25 000 BP or 38 000 to 23 000 BC, given also that one steep rise of carbon 14 is more probable than two way steeper ones, with a steep decline between, this arrival in the Americas was before Göbekli Tepe.

b) Feel free to be as sceptical as you like. I've done my work, it can stand up to scrutiny.

http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

c) I agree that Atlantis hypothesis fixes pumas and gepards.

I'd just have the sinking of Atlantis _before_ Babel, as Younger Dryas (a carbon dated geological period!) is before GT.

d) "He actually seems to have been a ruler; king, tyrant. Hunting seems to be generally a killing thing in the Bible, so it could of been humans, slaves, or animals like lions, or perhaps even dragons. The latter seems a slightly more plausible, why would of he killed his workers."

A hunter of men in a building project would imply killing _shirkers_ (while rewarding workers). We have people from the GT period whom I consider as candidates for killed shirkers, refusing to take the mark of Nimrod.

"But to kill a dangerous predator has always been a notable feat."

Or a mammoth. I believe Nimrod did that kind of stuff in the palaeolithic, a few decades before GT (but with carbon levels rising and distorting carbon dates, the decades become millennia, like 40 to 51 years from (slightly in between) 2607 and 2556 BC become the thousand years from 9600 BC to 8600 BC in carbon dates.

Even mammoth hunting would have been communal, dinosaur hunting even more so, and in order to get his teams, he would have already practised manhunt in some form.

16:32 You might tell your audience that St. Augustine of Hippo noted this before you, after the sack of Rome by Alaric, in a work called De Civitate Dei, or in English translation City of God.

Sorry, hadn't noted you were speaking to youngsters, who may be less interested in exact references.

Ernest Camps

What are you on about? That the mysterly Babylon is Rome &/ Vatican?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ernest Camps No.

Not the least. Not even whether the Vatican II Sect qualifies as such.

What Martyn Iles was saying was how Babylon could be so tolerant of all error, and then tended to single out truth for disfavour - this is not a totally new pov, I stated that I had read the same thing in City of God, which St. Augustine wrote after the sack of Rome. He believed POLITICAL Rome was Babylon, and there were still Emperors in Rome after he died.

Ernest Camps

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
This is the point (?):
"He believed POLITICAL Rome was Babylon,"
And you say you agreeing with this?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Ernest Camps Yes. The senate in his time still contained practising Pagans, and I think even had Pagan rites ongoing.

Circus games were still ongoing in Rome.

The Popes (Pope Leo, I think) escaped one of these sacks by obeying "get out of her" judging Apocalypse 18 to be referring to this (remnant of) Pagan Rome.

As a Catholic, why wouldn't I agree with this?

30:23 I am reminded of how someone analysed the plot of Lord of the Rings from a comment by Gandalf.

Yes, Tolkien was a Christian, he believed exactly that : evil means will never serve the evil purpose, but only harm it.

41:11 It so happens.

The cult of individual self can never be a complete Paganism.

In Genesis 2, God speaks as an individualist.
In Genesis 3, Satan speaks as a collectivist.

52:23 You would agree with me, when c. 20 years ago, at the outset of a carreere of writing on the internet and poverty, just before the end of my carreere as a student, I wrote an essay called "Antikristna akademiker" (both Swedish words are international, I won't translate), I was not expressing some kind of wild paranoia about what I had seen in my (in all, some not yet then) 5 years and 1 week + a failed quarterterm of academic life?

54:55 An audience of ONE - and of THREE.

St. Thomas says the major ones in the Old Testament - Patriarchs, Kings, Priests, Prophets - knew the Trinity and the as yet upcoming Incarnation, but were not allowed to directly tell.

58:43 I will not deny Daniel could have had sth to do with that.

I will however say, there is a tradition that the Magi had been waiting since Bileam or Balaam (both versions occur in Bibles) had made a prophecy. That's centuries before Daniel.