The Tower of Babel Story: A Cross-Cultural Tale
Have you ever stopped to marvel at the vast variety of languages on Earth? According to Ethnologue, there are about 7,000 total languages found throughout the world. Where exactly did they all come from?
Although there are many hypotheses regarding the origin of language, there is no one general consensus amongst scholars. The oldest belief — that there was a single language that eventually evolved into many — is detailed in many Tower of Babel stories from various cultures. The similarities and differences of these fascinating tales still leave us with unanswered questions.
Tower of Babel Bible Story
The most famous Tower of Babel concept is the one that appears in Genesis.
In the famed tale, the people of the world came together to build a tower that would be tall enough to reach the heavens. At the time, there was one universal language on the planet, which made it easy for the people to communicate with one another and facilitate the tower’s construction.
However, this endeavor dismayed God, as he perceived it to be a shortcut to gain entry into heaven. He decided to put a stop to the construction by confusing the people’s language and scattering the humans all over the world.
Other Tower of Babel Stories
The Tower of Babel tale isn’t exclusive to Christianity or Judaism. Other cultures and religions have their own stories about the Tower of Babel.
Mormonism
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints cites the Genesis tale, but there is another part of the Tower of Babel story that is specific to the Mormon faith.
According to the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, God changed the language of the people to thwart their plans of getting to heaven — except for a few. A man named Jared and his brother both prayed to God that he would not change their language because they still wanted to talk to their families.
Because Jared and his brother were “righteous men” who obeyed the word of God, God answered their prayers and let them keep their language. The disciples of these men became known as the Jaredites, who eventually made their way to the promised land of America.
Sumerian
Sumerian culture talks about a ziggurat called Etemenanki. Known as the “House of Foundation of Heaven on Earth,” Etemenanki was dedicated to Marduk, the patron deity of Babylon. It measured roughly 300 feet tall and featured seven levels.
Today, only the remains of Etemenanki are visible, residing in modern-day Iraq. However, they serve as potential evidence of the existence of the famed Tower of Babel.
Islam
A section of the Qur’an mentions an incident that resembles the Genesis Tower of Babel story, except there are a few key differences. In the Islamic tale, the story takes place in Egypt, and it is the Pharaoh who orders a minister named Haman to build a tower that reaches the heavens.
Judaism
Similarly, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus links the tower’s construction to Noah’s great grandchild, Nimrod. According to the Old Testament, Nimrod allegedly ordered the people to build the tower to rebel against God.
Greek
The tower’s construction is described in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, a text that was written between the first and third centuries. The text describes the condition of Jerusalem after the sack by Nebuchadnezzar.
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch details a vision of Baruch ben Neriah, a scribe and disciple of the prophet Jeremiah. In the vision, he sees the punishment of the builders of the “tower of strife against God,” which many interpret to be the Tower of Babel.
Tower of Babel: Truth to the Story?
All of these stories, despite coming from different cultures and religions, bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. Can this be brushed aside as a bizarre coincidence, or is there some truth to the story of the Tower of Babel? Continue to explore this intriguing topic on your own to come to your own conclusions about the tale’s authenticity.
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New Study of Cave Paintings Say Ancient Man Understood Astronomy
A reinterpretation of one of the world’s most famous primitive cave paintings seems to show our ancient ancestors had a much stronger grasp on astronomy than we’ve given them credit. According to a recent study, cave paintings in France depict animals that represent the constellations, showing the artists who drew them were aware of the precession of the equinoxes — a discovery not thought to have been made before Hipparchus of Ancient Greece.
Of the paintings in question, researchers Martin Sweatman, Ph.D., and Alistar Coombs studied an image titled, “The Shaft,” which portrays a collapsing bird-headed man, a bison eviscerated by a spear, a horse, and a rhinoceros in the Lascaux caves of southern France’s Dordogne region.
In the past, this scene was interpreted as a shamanic ceremony or the scene of a hunt, however the exact meaning has been widely disputed as depictions of men were incredibly uncommon in this era. But according to Sweatman and Coombs’ latest study, the paintings show not only a more primordial understanding of astronomy, but also religion, science, and mathematics.
By comparing radiocarbon dating of paint samples to the position of constellations in the sky when the art was created, the researchers were able to match specific animals with correlating constellations of the solstice and equinox. They used this same method at similar archeological sites, including the ruins of Göbekli Tepe and Catalhöyük, as well as the famous cave art of Chauvet and Altamira.
The two also said they believe the Lascaux paintings commemorate a comet striking Earth, correlating with what they believe to be the cataclysmic impact event that marked the beginning of the Younger Dryas period – evidence of which was recently found in the form of a 19-mile wide crater beneath a Greenland ice sheet.
In addition to these sites, the researchers incorporated the Lion-man figurine from the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany, which dates back 38 thousand BCE and is considered to be the world’s oldest sculpture – they believe it too, may be evidence of zodiacal awareness. Their study was published in the Athens Journal of History.
Like any bold claim made of early humans which challenges long-held archeological timelines, this latest theory has unsurprisingly sparked controversy with some of Sweatman and Coombs’ colleagues who have labeled their method flawed.
According to their model, prehistoric men from the Stone Age discovered the precession of the equinoxes some 36 thousand years before Hipparchus – a bold claim to say the least!
But findings such as this seem to continually piece together disparate pieces of a puzzle that modern archeology has glossed over or ignored entirely. And as Graham Hancock likes to say upon the discovery of new paradigms like this may be, “things just keep getting older.”
For more on the anomalous archeological finds cluing us into our forgotten past, check out this episode of Disclosure with Graham Hancock:
