by
Damien F. Mackey
Biblical commentators are generally in agreement about one important calculation, at least, that from Adam to the Flood was 1656 years. We read, for instance, at: https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/condensed-biblical-encyclopedia/antediluvian-chronology.html
“In order to determine the length of time from Adam’s creation to the flood we have only to add the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs--Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah--at the births of their first sons, and add to this the age of Shem at the flood, and we find that it was 1656 years” (Genesis 5:3-32 ; Genesis 7:6).
The Great Genesis (Noachic) Flood is estimated to have occurred - very approximately and in round figures - at 2300 BC. This is the date that Dr. John Osgood gives in his recent books, Over the Face of the Earth (2015), and They Speak with One Voice (2020).
And, for the Babel incident, Dr. Osgood estimates about 2200 BC.
These dates can be only rough estimations at this stage, but they will serve as early approximate anchor points.
Now the real fun begins.
The land of Shinar
“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there”.
Genesis 11:1-2
The Hebrew word miqqedem (מִקֶּדֶם), translated here as “eastward”, can also mean “from the east”, so we don’t need to become too squeezed directionally.
The word can even have the quite different meaning of “in ancient times”.
The meaning of Shinar (שִׁנְעָ֖ר) can be disputed. It may mean “country of two rivers”.
The “plain” (בִקְעָ֛ה), biq’ah, of Shinar may just as accurately be translated as “valley”.
Long tradition has Shinar connected with the name, Sumer, which is thought to have been the region of southern Mesopotamia (or ancient Sumeria), where Babylon is generally considered to have been situated.
From this region, conservative, biblically-minded scholars will build up a whole Babel scenario, humanity having just the one language, and a world-wide dispersion.
Dr. John Osgood, a Creationist, is most insistent about Babel in Sumer-as-Shinar.
In the two books mentioned above, he has an estimated 8000 people, from three families (Shem, Ham and Japheth), arriving in this southern region in c. 2200 BC, and eventually dispersing from there to fill the whole earth after the Babel incident.
Dr. Osgood favours Judi Dagh in SE Turkey as the Noah’s Ark mountain.
(Descent from there into southern Mesopotamia would not really be “eastward”, but almost due south).
Osgood’s would be the approximate scenario that I would have embraced years ago.
I now believe that it is all quite wrong (to be explained).
I need to say immediately that I have found Dr. John Osgood’s research in other areas to have been of considerable benefit and inspiration: e.g., his tracing of watery Flood vestiges; his archaeology for Abram and the four invading kings of Genesis 14, which I would probably never have managed to work out; his fixing of the Middle Bronze I people of archaeology as the Exodus Israelites, conquering Early Bronze III Canaan and Early Bronze IV Transjordania; and his accurate sequences for the city of Jericho.
Dr. Osgood’s Babel model reconstruction, though, I can no longer accept.
And I also think that his more recent efforts (in the two books mentioned above) to revise ancient Egypt and Assyria along biblical lines have not really served to clarify the situation at all.
Not that any of this is easy.
The Bible refers to Shinar only a few times:
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Shinar
“Shinar was used early to describe the land which included the cities of Babel (Babylon), Erech (Warka) and Accad (Agade) within the kingdom of Nimrod (Gen 10:10). This was the place where migrants from the E settled and built the city and tower of Babel (11:2). A king of Shinar (Amraphel) took part in the coalition which raided Sodom and Gomorrah (14:1) and was defeated by Abraham. A fine garment looted by Achan near Jericho was described as coming from Shinar (Josh 7:21, KJV “Babylonish”). It was to this land that Nebuchadnezzar took the captives from Jerusalem (Dan 1:2) and from it the prophet foresaw that the faithful remnant would be gathered (Isa 11:11). It was a distant and wicked place (Zech 5:11)”.
One thing appears to be certain. Babylon was situated in the land of Shinar, because (Daniel 1:2): “And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into [Nebuchednezzar, king of Babylon’s] hand, along with some of the articles from the Temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Shinar and put in the treasure house of his god”.
But, was the city of Babylon also situated in southern Mesopotamia?
Dr. W. F. Albright, though a conventional scholar, defied tradition by identifying the land of Shinar in the region of Hana (“Shinar-Šanḡar and Its Monarch Amraphel”, AJSLL, Vol. 40, no. 2, 1924).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Khana
“The Kingdom of Khana or Kingdom of Hana (late 18th century BC – mid-17th century BC) was the Syrian kingdom from Hana Land in the middle Euphrates region north of Mari, which included the ancient city of Terqa”.
Terqa was located near the mouth of the Khabur river, thus being a trade hub on the Euphrates and Khabur rivers.
This area I believe approximates to the land of Shinar, the “country of two rivers”.
Now, we really appear to be getting somewhere.
For, when the Jews went into Babylonian Exile, the prophet Ezekiel encountered them at the Chebar river, as he tells at the beginning (Ezekiel 1:1; cf. 3:15): “In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Chebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God”.
Surely the Chebar - unknown in the “Babylon” region of southern Mesopotamia - can only be the Khabur river. And, indeed, this was an older commentary opinion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Abib#:~:text=Location,in%20what%20is%20now%20Syria “The Kebar or Chebar Canal (or River) is the setting of several important scenes of the Book of Ezekiel, including the opening verses. The book refers to this river eight times in total. …. Some older biblical commentaries identified the Chebar with the Khabur River in what is now Syria”.
This now means that we must be in the approximate region of the real Babylon in the land of Shinar. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps …”. (Psalm 136:1-2 Douay; 137:1-2 NIV).
W. F. Albright ostensibly made easier the geographical task by reducing Nimrod’s early cities from four to three. While the biblical text, as it stands, reads (Genesis 10:10): “And the beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar”, Dr. Albright, ingeniously, with a slight tweaking of the Masoretic, translated Calneh as “all of them”.
Now, all of Babel, Erech and Akkad (without any Calneh) were in the land of Shinar.
Clever on the part of W.F. Albright, but wrong, I think.
For Calneh (Calno) is referred to several times in the Bible, its approximate location being fairly tightly circumscribed with it being linked by Ezekiel (27:23) to Haran; by Sennacherib (in Isaiah (10:9) to Carchemish,; and by Amos (6:2) to Hamath.
(See next map for Haran, Carchemish and Hamath).
Nimrod ‘the Great’ and his early cities
“Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said,
‘Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord’.”
Genesis 10:8-9
Many scholars have tried their hand at historically identifying the biblical Nimrod.
Dr. David Rohl’s suggested Enmerkar (“Nmr the Hunter”) may be correct. Enmerkar was an early king of Uruk, which could be Nimrod’s “Erech”, so long as the famous Uruk in southern Mesopotamia is not intended.
Dr. David Livingston (I presume) has identified Nimrod with the semi-legendary Gilgamesh, also a king of Uruk, who is reputed to have built walls at Uruk.
http://www.davelivingston.com/nimrod.htm
(i) Erech
A possible candidate for Nimrod’s Erech, then, may be Terqa (T-Erqa), an ancient capital which, as we read, was in the environs of Shinar. Terqa was notable for its walls: https://www.terqa.org/pages/10.html#:~:text=The%20City%20Walls
“If one could typify the impact of the size and scope of the ancient city of Terqa in one image, it would have to be the sight of the massive defensive rings surrounding the city – 60 acres of land surrounded by three concentric, solid masonry walls, 60 feet thick, with an additional 60 foot wide moat encircling the outer ring: these are extraordinary dimensions by any standard.
So wide were these walls, that the outer ring possessed a passageway to allow for circulation along its perimeter. The date of construction for these extraordinary defenses, supported by Carbon 14 determinations as well as by the ceramic sequences, is indicated at 3000 B.C. for the inner wall, followed in turn by the middle and outer walls at one century intervals. This makes the walls of Terqa among the largest, oldest, tallest and most complex monuments in the Near East”.
While the real Nimrod may be a composite of such semi-legendary characters as Enmerkar and Gilgamesh, the most likely full-bodied tyrant-king for him would be, as various scholars have concluded: Sargon the Great of Akkad.
I would enlarge on this, though, by modifying the Akkadian dynasty and identifying Sargon with his supposed grandson, the similarly great Naram-Sin, as well as with Shar kali sharri, and, biblically, with “Amraphel … king of Shinar” (Genesis 14:1). Amraphel was for long (but wrongly) thought to be Hammurabi king of Babylon.
Despite the greatness of the Akkadian so-called dynasty, and its fame down through the ages, it is poorly attested stratigraphically. As I have written previously:
The long Akkadian empire phase of history (c. 2350-2150 BC), so admired by subsequent rulers and generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. ….:
“The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?
The Ur III founder, Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.
But here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.
Archaeologists have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!
This is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Lower Mesopotamia.
[End of quote]
“Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?”
So, let us identify emperor Nimrod’s Akkad, not found by archaeologists to this day.
(ii) Akkad (Agade)
What do we know about Akkad?
Well, the mighty Sargon of Akkad (Nimrod himself?) tells in an Inscription that ships (read reed boats) from Magan and Meluḫḫa docked in the Quay of Akkad:
‘The ships from Meluhha the ships from Magan the ships
from Dilmun he made tie-up alongside the quay of Akkad’.
Magan and Meluḫḫa in the Assyrian records are, respectively, Egypt and Ethiopia. But, for Akkadian times, historians strangely (due to wrong geography and other things) identify them differently, as, say, respectively, Oman, in the Persian Gulf (their Sumer region), and the Indus Valley.
Egypt’s maritime trade with NW Syria was on the Mediterranean. So I looked around the area and found, roughly in line with Carchemish, the famous port city of Ugarit. Nimrod would have needed a port city if he were to embark upon important Mediterranean trade.
And here may be the clincher.
Another name for Ugarit (used by the Egyptians) was IKAT (very close to Akkad).
Nimrod’s city of Akkad was, I believe, a Mediterranean port city, and it - contrary to Dr. Albright (his Calneh theory) - was not actually situated in the land of Shinar.
Nimrod did not necessarily found any of these ancient sites, but he built upon them.
All of my four (i-iv) proposed candidates (tentative or otherwise) for Nimrod’s first cities will be sites going right back to (with the possible exception of Terqa) the agricultural and farming age (Neolithic) - appropriate to Noah and his descendants. My four choices were all strategic ancient capitals, key strongholds and trade locations.
First humanity, coming away from the mountain of the Ark’s landing, Karaca dağ, would have arrived at early sites such as Göbekli Tepe; Ur; and Haran; and would then have moved off from there in all directions. The Cretans from Anatolia, for instance, quickly became a technologically advanced sea-faring people.
The land of Shinar, with its waters, early loomed as an attractive prospect.
Shem, who no longer appears textually linked to brothers Ham and Japheth, may well have been an eye-witness to the Babel incident that he has recorded (Genesis 11:1-10): “This is the toledôt of Shem”.
But it needs to be understood that, prior to this famous event, humanity may already have been divided up into nations and languages (cf. Genesis 10:31-32).
Perhaps Ham had already gone to Egypt, “the land of Ham” (Psalm 105:22 Douay), and his son, Cush, to Ethiopia (Kush). Dr. John Osgood has made a very interesting video on: Into Africa - The True History of Man - John Osgood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgAeRFNOOhM
Southern Mesopotamia was apparently not yet habitable due to the Flood water levels.
There are some intriguing debates amongst Creationists, including Dr. John Osgood and Kenneth Griffith (co-discoverer of Noah’s mountain as Karaca dağ) on southern and central Mesopotamia at this early time. These can be read at:
https://answersresearchjournal.org/tower-of-babel/where-is-tower-babel-reply/
(iii and iv) Babel and Calneh
Here, I shall be pinning a lot on the Septuagint version of Isaiah 10:9, which differs appreciably from the usual version according to which: ‘Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?’
These boastful words by the all-conquering Assyrian king Sargon II (Sennacherib) are translated somewhat differently in the Septuagint, with a clue to the Tower of Babel: ‘Have I not taken the country above Babylon and Chalanes, where the Tower was built?’ The name ‘Chalanes’ here is simply one of those several biblical variations for Nimrod’s Calneh, along with ‘Calno’, and ‘Canneh’ (Ezekiel 27:23).
Two vital points arise from this Septuagint verse.
Firstly, by substituting the usual Carchemish with Babylon, the text may be telling us exactly where Babylon was. It was Carchemish. Appropriately, Carchemish lies on a river, the Euphrates, and is situated in the approximate region of Shinar.
We know from Daniel 1:2 that Babylon was in Shinar.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4027-carchemish
“[Carchemish’s] importance seems to have been based on its situation at the end of the most direct route from the mouth of the Orontes to the Euphrates and to Harran”.
Carchemish, which had treaty relationships with Ugarit (my Akkad), had a name which I think comes linguistically close to a common ancient name for Babylon(ia): Karduniash. The meaning of this last name is not really known.
I have tentatively identified Karduniash also with the famous, but not firmly located, capital city of Tarhuntašša.
Sargon II (Sennacherib) of Assyria initially had great plans for the famous Carchemish, according to Gianni Marchesi (2019, pp. 15-16):
A New Historical Inscription of Sargon II from Karkemish
(3) A New Historical Inscription of Sargon II from Karkemish [CORRECTED ONLINE VERSION] | Gianni Marchesi - Academia.edu
….
In Karkemish, Sargon built not just a dwelling for his provincial governor, but a true royal palace where he stayed for a time and received tribute. In this connection, note the reference to the planting of what appears to be a botanical garden, an essential component of any Assyrian royal palace. Finally, the inauguration ceremony of his palace at Karkemish recalls well the inauguration cerimonies [sic]of Sargon’s palaces in the great Assyrian capitals of Kalhu and Dur-Sharrukenu.
All this is quite telling of the great importance that Sargon attributed to Karkemish, putting the city on the Euphrates in a very special position. Apparently, it was Sargon’s intention that Karkemish would become more than a mere provincial capital, i.e., simply the seat of an Assyrian governor. Rather, because of its glorious past and strategic position, Karkemish was fully entitled to become a sort of western capital of the Assyrian Empire: a perfect place in which to display the grandeur of Assyria, and from which to control the western and north-western territories of the Empire. ….
[End of quote]
Archaeologists have identified a megaflood in the region - much later than the Noachic Flood - which they have put down to climate change.
But might this flood which overwhelmed the region, including Carchemish’s ‘outer town’ of Jerablus (Tahtani), have been the work of the vindictive Sargon II (Sennacherib) who tells us that, regarding Babylon: ‘I devastated it with water so that it became a mere meadow’?:
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/745/the-mutual-destruction-of-sennacherib--babylon/
I swiftly marched to Babylon which I was intent upon conquering. I blew like the onrush of a hurricane and enveloped the city like a fog. I completely surrounded it and captured it by breaching and scaling the walls. I did not spare his mighty warriors, young or old, but filled the city square with their corpses...I turned over to my men to keep the property of that city, silver, gold, gems, all the moveable goods. My men took hold of the statues of the gods in the city and smashed them. They took possession of the property of the gods. The statues of Adad and Shala, gods of the city Ekallati that Marduk-nadin-ahe, king of Babylonia, had taken to Babylon at the time of Tiglath Pileser … King of Assyria, I brought out of Babylon after four hundred and eighteen years. I returned them to the city of Ekallati. The city and houses I completely destroyed from foundations to roof and set fire to them. I tore down both inner and outer city walls, temples, temple-towers made of brick and clay - as many as there were - and threw everything into the Arahtu canal. I dug a ditch inside the city and thereby levelled off the earth on its site with water. I destroyed even the outline of its foundations. I flattened it more than any flood could have done. In order that the site of that city and its temples would never be remembered, I devastated it with water so that it became a mere meadow (Nagle, 26).
“There on the poplars we hung our harps …”. We read in this report on Carchemish: https://dn790009.ca.archive.org/0/items/carchemishreport03brituoft/carchemishreport03brituoft.pdf
“In the mass of debris against slabs B. 22 a and h there were charred pieces of poles, round in section, of a lightgrained wood resembling poplar; some of them were tilted up against the wall, others lay parallel to it. These must have been roofing-poles. The quantity of burnt wood lying on the ground-level underneath the brick rubble was very great”.
Secondly, the way the Septuagint verse is worded, the Tower was built at “Chalanes”, not Babylon. This may be just a matter of the original wording being re-arranged, with Calno usually preceding Carchemish, whereas the Septuagint version has ‘Babylon and Chalanes, where the Tower was built’.
Or, was it that the Tower was actually built in Calneh, and that Carchemish (original name?) became known as Babel (Babylon) afterwards due to its being the leading city of the Shinar region?
Just a thought. But why I ask this question is because King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (c. 600 BC, conventional dating) will later appear to identify Borsippa, rather than Babylon, as the place of the Tower – which might also suggest, for the true location of Calneh, a Shinarian Borsippa. The similarly named (phonetically) trio Borsippa (not on map – 11 miles SW of Babylon), Sippar and Nippur are thought to have lain in fairly close proximity to Babylon in southern Mesopotamia.
Interestingly, the uncertain (in that southern Mesopotamian region) Calneh has been traditionally connected with Nippur:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/calneh
“At present there is no acceptable identification of Calneh, although the other cities mentioned together with it in Genesis are known from Akkadian inscriptions. No identification of Calneh can be made on the basis of the "land of Shinar," which serves in this instance, as elsewhere in the Bible, as a synonym for Babylonia (cf. Yoma 10a, which identifies Calneh with נופר, i.e., the modern Tell Nuffar, ancient Nippur, connecting this name with נינפי, i.e., nymphe; the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew כַּלָה, kallah, "bride")”.
Nippur, Borsippa, are regarded as being sacred cities dependent upon Babylon with no independent hegemony, never the seat of a regional power. Could they be the same? And could they (it) equate to Nimrod’s Calneh? Here is what King Nebuchednezzar said about the Tower at Borsippa. It reads very much like Nimrod’s effort:
https://armstronginstitute.org/125-nebuchadnezzars-tower-of-babel
….
One thing Nebuchadnezzar isn’t generally known for, though, is a link with the tower of Babel—the attempt by Nimrod to build a tower up to heaven, dashed by God’s confounding of the languages (Genesis 11). A small handful of artifacts, however, help show an interesting link between Nebuchadnezzar and the biblical colossus.
Birs Cylinders
The Birs Cylinders are a series of clay cylinders dating to c. 600 b.c.e., discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson during the mid-19th century at the Babylonian site of Borsippa. The cylinders, bearing parallel inscriptions, were found inserted into the walls of a massive, heavily damaged tower at the site. This tower—a type of the famous Mesopotamian religious ziggurats—had been heavily repaired during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. Bricks were found around the site, having been stamped with the name of the king. And the wall cylinders had an interesting story to tell. Rawlinson (known as the father of Assyriology) translated the inscriptions as follows:
I am Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon … my great lord has established me in strength, and has urged me to repair his buildings … the Tower of Babylon, I have made and finished … the Tower of Borsippa had been built by a former king. He had completed 42 [cubits?], but he did not finish its head; from the lapse of time it had become ruined … the rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork; the casing of burnt brick had bulged out … Merodach, my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did not change its site, nor did I destroy its foundation platform; but, in a fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, I undertook the rebuilding … I set my hand to build it up, and to finish its summit. As it had been in ancient times, so I built up its structure ….
As translated above, Nebuchadnezzar literally calls this monument the Tower of Babylon. (“Babylon” is interchangeable with Babel.) He describes this tower as an important ancient Babylonian edifice built by a “former king” that, for some reason or other, the workers stopped short in finishing—they “did not finish its head.” Why not? Some clue could be taken from the second name Nebuchadnezzar gives for this tower: the Tower of Borsippa. Borsippa literally means tongue tower, thus providing a link to language. Surely a significant linguistic event must have happened in order for Borsippa to receive its unique name? The Bible—as well as early secular histories—provide the explanation.
Borsippa Ziggurat, a possible location of the Tower of Babel
Yves GELLIE/Gamma-Rapho/ Getty Images
There is another translation of this text that is even more direct in language. This one comes from Rawlinson’s contemporary Assyriologist, Julius Oppert. He translates a couple of lines slightly differently:
… the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it … A former king built it—they reckon 42 ages [ago]—but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it without order expressing their words ….
This translation calls this massive, unfinished tower the most ancient monument of Babylon. This fits squarely with the tower of Babel (Genesis 10:10; 11:4). And, if indeed more accurate, it provides an even stronger link to the language “phenomenon” at the tower of Babel, stating that sometime during this original building project the people had “abandoned it without order expressing their words.” Was this, then, the reason that the tower was named Borsippa—because a great “Babel” of “unordered words” led to the abandonment of the project? And what caused such a linguistic phenomenon, that such a rich and luxurious tower would be built and then abandoned, with only its upper “head” left to finish?
The fascinating account on the cylinders—either translation—matches beautifully with the biblical record, found in Genesis 11:4, 6-9 (King James Version):
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven …. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language …. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth ….
Borsippa today lies in ruins; however, the imposing remains of the ziggurat still tower to a height of 52 meters above the plain. Borsippa is also commonly known as Birs Nimrud, due to the strong traditional connection with Nimrod.
Not only does Nebuchadnezzar describe, on these cylinders, a rebuilding of this tower, another of his inscriptions depicts what it may have looked like.
Tower of Babel Stele (Smithsonian Channel screenshot)
Smithsonian Channel/Christian News Network
Tower of Babel Stele
The Tower of Babel Stele is a black ceremonial stone, about 50 centimeters (20 inches) tall, discovered just over a century ago among the ruins of the city of Babylon.
Since then, it has been kept as part of the private Norwegian Schøyen Collection. It has only recently been restudied, and the conclusions have led to great excitement in the scientific community, along with a corresponding video production by the Smithsonian Channel reexamining the authenticity of the Tower of Babel story.
[End of quotes]
Nimrod’s Calneh has proven somewhat troublesome for commentators.
Taking Isaiah’s seemingly close association of Calneh with Babylon-Carchemish (10:9 Septuagint), and considering that it may be the original Borsippa-Nippur, then I would connect it with the almost identically named (as Borsippa) site of Til Barsip (see map).
We may well find the name Borsippa reproduced in Til Barsip (modern Tall al-Ahmar), located about 20 kilometres south of Carchemish.
Situationally, this accords very well with the conventional Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), which is located about 11 miles SW of Babylon.
And both Til Barsip and Birs Nimrud are to be found to the east of the Euphrates River.
Borsippa was closely connected with Babylon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borsippa
“Borsippa is mentioned, usually in connection with Babylon, in texts from the Third Dynasty of Ur through the Seleucid Empire and even in early Islamic texts. It is also mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 36a, Avodah Zarah 11b) and other rabbinic literature”.
Akkadian culture
Before proceeding to a consideration of the Babel incident itself, I need to return briefly to these phenomena:
“The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?
Hopefully the second of these questions has now been answered (ii) Akkad (Agade) above.
As to the first question, part of the answer may be that (as also argued above) the Akkadian dynasty - whilst being mighty and famous - was by no means as lengthy as is thought, with duplication (triplication?) occurring in the lists.
As to the worrying lack of a stratigraphical culture, this may be due to chronological miscalculation. I have proposed that the brilliant Halaf culture (c. 6500-5500 BC, conventional dating), geographically most appropriate for the empire of Nimrod (including Nineveh, see map below) needs to be massively re-dated (lowered by some 4000 to 3000 years) to impact upon the Akkadian era (c. 2300 BC, conventional dating).
Globalisation of the Babel Incident
Shem writes in his toledôt history (Genesis 11:1-10):
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly’. They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth’.
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other’.
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
This is the account of Shem’s family line.
As with the interpretation of any parts of early Genesis, idiom, original language, scribal methods, ancient customs, etc., all have to be taken into consideration.
Idiom will be important here.
Conservative scholars have a tendency to globalise the Flood and Babel incidents, with phrases such as “the whole earth” meaning for them the globe, and including everybody. The biblical scribes tended to think more locally. The whole earth, in the case of the Babel incident, for instance, could simply mean the whole region of Shinar.
Nor is Babel probably all about language as tends to be concluded.
Sam Boyd, finding similar sentiments to the Babel account in Sargon II’s Dūr-Šarrukīn Cylinder Inscription, has suggested that the point of the story is, not about a single language, but about speaking in harmony. In other words, the tyrant Nimrod had instigated a program to which his obedient (terrified?) subjects had conformed, as one.
“Sargon's Dūr-Šarrukīn Cylinder Inscription and Language Ideology: A Reconsideration and Connection to Genesis 11:1-9”:
(6) Sargon's Dūr-Šarrukīn Cylinder Inscription and Language Ideology: A Reconsideration and Connection to Genesis 11:1-9 | Sam Boyd - Academia.edu
Sam Boyd writes:
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One of the foremost pieces of evidence in this discussion has been Sargon II’s Dūr-Šarrukīn cylinder inscription, in which he mentions the role of administrators and overseers in an attempt to consolidate his empire and allegedly to impose “one mouth” (pâ ištēn) on rebellious groups. The passage that has gained particular attention is the following, with phrases that will be important in the analysis below translated in boldface:
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Subjects of the four regions, foreign people, of non-harmonious speech, dwellers of mountains and lands, as many as the light of the gods, lord of all, guides, whom, by the order of Assur my lord, with the power of my scepter, I plundered.
I made them act in concert, and I settled them in its (Dūr-Šarrukīn’s) midst. Natives of Assyria, masters of every craft, I dispatched them as overseers and officials to teach correct behavior, namely fear of god and king.
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… I claim that Genesis 11:1–9 is not a story about language, and rather that the idioms that have been translated as such concern political action and the authority to govern. I am not the first to argue so, noting especially Christoph Uehlinger’s groundbreaking 1990 study Weltreich und “eine Rede,” and works as old as Campegius Vitringa’s 17th century dissertation De confusione linguarum. My argument, however, diverges from Uehlinger’s analysis in three distinct ways—concerning the term pûm ištēn, the meaning of שׂפה, and diachronic considerations regarding the biblical text. Moreover, my explanation both uses more of a political than a personal lens than Virtringa’s interpretation, and makes better exegetical sense of Genesis 11:7 in particular.
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… Neo-Assyrian kings not only developed rhetoric, imagery, and literary and artistic motifs to provide justification to expand and to organize the empire, but, in doing so, also met with resistance. For example, texts from Sargon II’s time indicate a dissatisfaction with the king’s building campaign, specifically the Weidner Chronicle from Babylon. Several key elements of criticism correspond to themes in Genesis 11:1–9. As Marc Van de Mieroop argues, Assyrian kings had long taken credit for the construction of buildings, but did not ever claim credit for the founding of cities per se. The act of selecting the site for a new capital was the prerogative of the divine realm. In contrast, Sargon claimed credit for the identification of the location of his capital Dūr-Šarrukīn, comparing himself to the sage Adapa in the process, in addition to the construction of the capital buildings (part of a massive building campaign generally). Even the dimensions of the city contained proportions that called to mind his name, ensuring that the “measure of the city walls represents a numerical cryptographic writing of his name.” Yet the founding of the city had cosmological significance as well, and Sargon inscribed the language of creation from the Enūma Eliš in his description of his new capital. Sargon, then, not only created a parallel between himself and Adapa, but between himself and the creative acts of Marduk.
This building act and the rhetoric that accompanied it was met with criticism. As Beate Pongraz-Leisten argues, “founding a new city was considered a primordial act of creation by the gods; when performed by a king, it was regarded as an act of hubris.” Indeed, the Babylonian Weidner Chronicle was likely written in the Neo-Assyrian period, possibly to criticize Sargon II’s building campaign. Given the themes that Uehlinger noted, the criticisms seen in the Weidner Chronicle attacking Sargon’s hubris for taking the divine right of founding a city has obvious correlations to the Tower of Babel episode.
Indeed, just as the builders of the tower met with divine wrath, so also Sargon II’s untimely death was interpreted as an act of divine retribution in the “Sin of Sargon.” …. Other political transformations have also been identified during Sargon’s reign according to some scholars, most notably the use of Aramaic as a lingua franca. This innovation and a certain inscription that supposedly attests to it have also been connected to Genesis 11:1–9, as discussed below. ….
Sargon II may so have admired Nimrod that he took his name, Sargon (‘True King’), and, as Nimrod may have imposed Akkadian, Sargon II did the same with Aramaïc:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/king-sargon-akkad#:~:text=Sargon%20sent%20Akkadian%20governors%20to,within%20Mesopotamia%20and%20well%20beyond.
“Sargon sent Akkadian governors to rule Sumerian cities and tear down defensive walls. He left the Sumerian religion in place but made Akkadian the official language of all Mesopotamia [sic]. By lowering physical and linguistic barriers and unifying his realm, he promoted commerce both within Mesopotamia and well beyond”.
