7-The Tower of Babel

The Orient

Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 6:10.  The sons of Ham were Cush ... Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. ... the beginning of his kingdom was Babel ... in the land of Shinar.10:6,8,10.

There are a few things to notice in these Bible verses: 

• Some of Ham's descendants moved eastward to the land of Shinar, where Babylon used to be.
• According to some genealogists, some of Noah's descendants moved even further east and were the ones who populated India and China.
• The reason this is interesting is that 11:2 states that before the building of the Tower of Babel they journeyed from the east, (and) they found a plain in the land of Shinar.  
• Were they now returning from India or China, back to their origins, close to where, according to the Bible, the ark had come to rest?

In Hebrew and Christian tradition, Nimrod is considered the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, though the Bible never actually states this. ... Several of these early Judaic sources also assert that the king Amraphel, who wars with Abraham later in Genesis (chapter 14), is none other than Nimrod himself.

Judaic interpreters as early as Philo and Yochanan ben Zakai (1st century AD) interpreted "a mighty hunter before the Lord" (lit. "in the face of the Lord") as signifying "in opposition to the Lord". (Wikipedia)

In 10:20 the writer mentions that the different families, the sons of Ham, had different languages, each according to their own tribe, then, a few verses later, in 11:1, he writes, the whole earth had one language and one speech.  It could be argued, but not very convincingly, that 10:20 speaks of a time after the Tower of Babel, even though, in the Bible, it is placed sooner.

Another way of looking at this could be that when the writer said, the whole earth, he meant the whole world in and surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates Valley.  This is the same way in which many people interpret the meaning of "the whole world" when speaking of "Noah's Flood".  It covered the whole world from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.  Then, new tribes of people, maybe from India or China, with a new language, invade the fertile crescent, and of course, there will be a confusion of tongues.

As we study the Sumerian tablets we find that early humans were reported to be a constant headache to their Custodial masters (demigods).  The slave creatures (humans) not only disobeyed their rulers, they often banded together and rebelled. This made human unity undesirable to Earth’s Custodial rulers—it was better that humans be disunited. One of the ways in which the problem of human unity was solved is described in the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel—a tale which also has its roots in early Mesopotamian writings.

The Twelfth Planet, Mr Sitchin

Spaceships

According to the Bible, this is what happened after the Great Flood:

And the whole earth spoke one language, and used the same words.
And it came to pass, as they migrated from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Sh’nar [Babylonia: a region in Mesopotamia] and settled there.

And they said, Come on, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose top will reach the skies; and let us make a name for ourselves, otherwise we will be scattered all over the face of the earth.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the men were building.

And the Lord said, Look, the people are united, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will stop them from doing what they take in their minds to do.

Come on, let us go down, and there confuse their language so that they cannot understand one another’s speech. 

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there all over the face of the earth: and they stopped building the city. 

Therefore the name of it is called Babel: because the Lord did there confuse the language of the entire earth: and from there did the Lord scatter them abroad over the face of the whole Earth. Gen. 11:1-9. 

In The Twelfth Planet, Mr Sitchin offers an intriguing analysis of the Tower of Babel story. According to his research, the word name in the passage let us make a name for ourselves was a translation of the ancient word shem.  The Bible’s translation of shem may be in error, says Mr Sitchin, because shem comes from the root word shamah, which means that which is highward.  Ancient shems are the obelisk monuments that were so prevalent in many ancient societies. Those shems, or obelisks, were copied after the rocket-shaped vehicles in which the Custodial “Gods” were said to fly.  Mr Sitchin, therefore, believes that the word Shem in Mesopotamian texts should be translated to read sky vehicle, meaning rocketship.

When this translation is placed into the above Biblical passage, we find that the ancient Babylonians were not trying to make a name (i.e., reputation) for themselves; they were trying to make a “sky vehicle” or rocket! The implication is that they wanted to match the technological might of their hated Custodial masters (the demigods) and thereby put an end to their enslavement. The tower itself may have been intended as the launching pad for a human shem (rocket ship).

The idea that the descendants of Noah, who, at that time, were busy being slaves, had time, the knowledge and the supplies to design and build space rockets seems rather far-fetched.

The story of Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, and the story of the Tower of Babel is really just an interlude in the writer's continuing genealogy.  The writer is simply connecting the dots between Noah and Abraham, where Jewish history begins and where the writer of Genesis finally arrives in Genesis 11:26.