Location of Babel

Issah Mohammed Challenged Me on Chronology · Location of Babel · Babel, Again ... and some more

Q I

Does the Bible mention the location of the Tower of Babel?
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-Bible-mention-the-location-of-the-Tower-of-Babel/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

15.VII.2022

In fact, it is arguably West of something, which could be the landing place.

Or at least the city of Babel was.

It is also in or close to Mesopotamia:

Genesis 11:2 And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it.

Sennaar = Shinear = (probably all of) Mesopotamia;
from the East = to the West

It is also where you can find a plain that is smaller than the width of Mesopotamia, since the plain is “in the land of Sennaar” and not the land of Sennaar in the plain. At Classic Babylon, it would actually be more like the width of Mesopotamia being inside a plain that is larger on either side.

If the connexion to Nimrod in Genesis 10 holds, this might suggest Assyria.

And there is a place in Assyria that is in (or at the edge of) a plain inside Mesopotamia and is also nearly due West of at least one candidate for the landing place. Göbekli Tepe is on the northern edge of the Harran plain and the Harran plain is a smaller space East to West than from Euphrates to Tigris.

It is also c. 300 km nearly due West of Mount Judi, Cizre, which is one locally very accepted candidate for the landing place of Noah’s Ark.

Q II

Was the Tower of Babel really built?

Answer requested by

Issah Mohammed

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

28.VII.2022

• 1. As far as I can see, it does not say in the Bible. The city got started building and ended unfinished, but the tower, doesn’t say.
• 2. If I am right about what it was, namely a rocket project, no, it didn’t, the tower of Babel was only built and launched c. 4500 years later (from Cape Canaveral and Bajkonur). God made sure it couldn’t get built and launched back then in order to make it possible to build and launch it much later, when there was a sufficient technical knowhow.

Q III

Does the Tower of Babel have anything to do with Babylon?
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-Tower-of-Babel-have-anything-to-do-with-Babylon/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Donald Turner

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

29.VII.2022

There are more than one views on this one, and I’ll give you mine.

The city of Babel and the project to eventually make a tower “the top of which shall reach into heaven” are something which happens between 350 and 401 after the Flood in a certain LXX timeline (without the second Cainan) that I use, since it is in the Roman martyrology.

It is geographically speaking set West of something (Genesis 11:2) and if that something is the landingplace, then Classic Babylon is not the geographic location of Nimrod’s Babel. I think Göbekli Tepe is so.

And this would mean that the two years 2607 and 2556 BC carbon date as 9600 and 8600 BC. This being the charcoal dates for lowest and highest charcoal layers in Göbekli Tepe.

Babylon is associated with archaeological dates (probably indirectly carbon based) in the range of 2300 or 1800 sth BC. If carbon dates are in this range, this would mean during the Israelite stay in Egypt. It was founded by Amorrhites, which in Abraham’s time (carbon dated to 3500 BC) had been forced to leave Asason-Tamar, later known as En-Geddi, in a Mesopotamian incursion. This means, the Amorrhite invasion into Mesopotamia and then founding (or vast enlarging) of Babylon could have been a retaliation for the Genesis 14 invasion into Palestine.

Now, the name very arguably was chosen in memory of Babel, and it is noteworthy that both places are on Euphrates and that the geographic coordinates form so to speak a diagonal between the places. It is possible some source had placed Babel (correctly) so and so far NW of a certain place and instead they went SE. And thought (incorrectly) they had hit the same spot.

I

Daryl Hubber

26.X.2022

The Hebrew for “from the east” can also be translated “eastward” or “to the east”. Modern bible translations appear to be divided on this point, and many provide a footnote highlighting the alternative translation. In the larger context of Genesis, “to the east” agrees with the expulsion of Adam and Eve to a place ‘eastward’ of the garden, Cain’s exile to a land ‘east of Eden’, and Lot’s choice to separate from Abraham and move ‘toward the east’.

Of course, the two key points here are that (i) the word translated “Babel” is exactly the same word used for Babylon elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, the story is about the founding of the city of Babylon, and (ii) we are dealing with a myth designed to mock and lampoon the establishment of the city (particularly as told in the Babylonian Creation Myth, Enuma Elish) by an author who had presumably be exiled to Babylon after his homeland had been destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian empire. This suggests that it is probably pointless to search for a historical kernel to the story in Genesis 11.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.X.2022

“The Hebrew for “from the east” can also be translated “eastward” or “to the east”.”

I’d like to have that sourced, except in passages where “from” and “to” are anyway metaphorical, as dealing with borders.

“In the larger context of Genesis, “to the east” agrees with the expulsion of Adam and Eve to a place ‘eastward’ of the garden,”

Is the direction of expulsion mentioned?

If you meant the Paradise was planted “to the east” of where God had created Adam, that is “miqqedem” in Genesis 2:8, but the “to” is a metaphor in English and the “from” is a metaphor in Hebrew. God didn’t stand in the West and throw trees into the East. The trees didn’t go eastward, they were just growing east of where Adam was standing.

If the direction of expulsion is inferred from to till the earth from which he was taken this would imply Adam and Eve went West of Eden.

“Cain’s exile to a land ‘east of Eden’,”

No, Gen. 4:16 has “qidmat Eden” - no “miqqedem” there. Can be added I don’t know Hebrew, but still.

“Lot’s choice to separate from Abraham and move ‘toward the east’.”

Depends on where Abraham was going. Gen 13:11 certainly has “miqqedem” and this is “from the east” in Douay Rheims, so, if Abraham went anywhere West of Sodom directly, we would have a miqqedem translateable as “to the east” … but you’d first need to prove that the “Chanaan” where Abraham was immediately afterwards was indeed further West than Sodom.

But even if you put the landingplace on Greater Ararat, you would still have a journey mainly to the South.

“the word translated “Babel” is exactly the same word used for Babylon elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.”

Would mean that there is some kind of continuity, if only a broken and resumed one, between Nimrod’s Babel and the one that the exile went to. And it does not imply a geographically identical spot.

Rome is in a very real political sense Troy, since Aeneas was Trojan. Nevertheless Hissarlik is not on the Tiber.

Babylon is about as close South East of Nineve as Göbekli Tepe is North West of it. This suggests the location of Babylon can have been chosen with a past and lost Babel = GT in mind.

“In other words, the story is about the founding of the city of Babylon,”

No, it’s not, for the very simple reason that Babylon was founded at a time when different languages already existed, and also for the reason that “they ceased to build the city” would be perfectly correct about Göbekli Tepe and totally incorrect about Babylon, which was an ongoing building project.

“we are dealing with a myth designed to mock and lampoon the establishment of the city (particularly as told in the Babylonian Creation Myth, Enuma Elish) by an author who had presumably be exiled to Babylon after his homeland had been destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian empire.”

You think you are dealing with that, but that idea is reconstruction.

To the ancients, the furthest back we can go about reception, Genesis 11:1 - 9 was the history of a key event between the Flood and the birth of Abraham.

As a linguist, with c. 1000 years between Flood and birth of Abraham, without a supernatural language split, there is no way you could have both Egyptian and Sumerian in Abraham’s time. Language development just isn’t that fast.

“This suggests that it is probably pointless to search for a historical kernel to the story in Genesis 11.”

I am not searching for a “historic kernel” I am taking it as history - and finding the corresponding archaeology in Göbekli Tepe.

II

16.VIII.2025

Glenn White

I have thought that Gobleki Tepe or Karahan Tepe and that early Neolithic beginning is recalled by the stories of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. The culture of Gobleki Tepe and Karahan Tepe appears to be one of hunter gatherers. Perhaps the reference to Nimrod as a mighty hunter rather than a mighty king points to a time of hunter gatherers. Also, the confusion of language might be a memory of the proto Indo European language that existed before the Indo European dispersion. It could be a memory of the time when the proto Indo European language was still a common language. The geographical location of Gobleki Tepe near the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris is where Eden supposedly was. Also, the mountains of Ararat are in the area. The flood, Eden and Tower of Babel myths may be memories of people whose beginnings were in the early Neolithic in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.

17.VIII.2025

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“points to a time of hunter gatherers.”

I think he began his career as a mammoth hunter.

“Also, the confusion of language might be a memory of the proto Indo European language that existed before the Indo European dispersion”

The timeline doesn’t match.

“The geographical location of Gobleki Tepe near the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris is where Eden supposedly was.”

Unless they ran the other way before the Flood.

“Also, the mountains of Ararat are in the area.”

Just 300 + km East of GT, you have Mount Judi East of the Tigris. As Ararat geographically (but not ethnically) means Armenia and Mount Judi is in Turkish Armenia, this is pretty correct.

I would go further than just “memories” and say “exact recorded memory” … it’s the modern reconstruction that’s incorrect.

Glenn White

“The timeline doesn’t match.”

Actually, I think the time-line is broad enough to accommodate a lot. It extends from c. 9600 bce to c. 3500 bce in prehistoric times. Then perhaps written in various forms or even continuous oral traditions in historical times before finally put together in Genesis with the purpose to support the Hebrew beliefs and any necessary editing. A broad time-line like that allows for a lot.

18.VIII.2025

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“c. 9600 bce to c. 3500 bce”

That’s the carbon dates taken at face value.

I reduce 9600 BC to 2607 BC as = 350 after the Flood, Noah dies, Babel begins (Babel ends 401 after the Flood when Peleg is born).

As to 3500 BC, that’s 1935 BC based on Genesis 14.

In that chapter, the Amorrheans of Asason-Tamar are attacked, we know Asason-Tamar is En Geddi, and we know the archaeology of En Geddi as it’s latest possible match for them has a habitation ending in carbon dated 3500 BC.

2607 - 1935 = less than 600 years.

“Then perhaps written in various forms or even continuous oral traditions in historical times before finally put together in Genesis”

That part I support. But I think the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 were part of that oral tradition and kept track of the actual timelapse.

Q IV

Who was the king when the Tower of Babel was being built?
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-king-when-the-Tower-of-Babel-was-being-built/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Lewis Button

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

31.VII.2022

Nimrod was more like “project leader” than king when the City of Babel was being built and the tower was being projected.

The Bible never calls him “king” and he is in fact applying more like a democratic or oligarchic decision than taking one himself.