Part 8 (1/2)
[31:4] On each of which the name of a _planet_ was engraved.
[31:5] ”There was to be seen in Laconia, _seven_ columns erected in honor of the _seven planets_.” (Dupuis: Origin of Religious Belief, p.
34.)
[31:6] ”The Jews believed that the Throne of Jehovah was surrounded by his _seven_ high chiefs: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, &c.” (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 46.)
[32:1] Each one being consecrated to a planet, and the Sun and Moon.
Sunday, ”_Dies Solis_,” sacred to the SUN. Monday, ”Dies Lunae,” sacred to the MOON. Tuesday, sacred to Tuiso or MARS. Wednesday, sacred to Odin or Woden, and to MERCURY. Thursday, sacred to Thor and others. Friday, sacred to Freia and VENUS. Sat.u.r.day, sacred to SATURN. ”The (ancient) Egyptians a.s.signed a day of the week to the SUN, MOON, and five planets, and the number SEVEN was held there in great reverence.” (Kenrick: Egypt, i. 238.)
[32:2] ”The Egyptian priests chanted the _seven_ vowels as a hymn addressed to _Serapis_.” (The Rosicrucians, p. 143.)
[32:3] _Sura_: the Sun-G.o.d of the Hindoos.
CHAPTER III.
THE TOWER OF BABEL.
We are informed that, at one time, ”the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pa.s.s, as they (the inhabitants of the earth) journeyed from the East, that they found a plain in the land of s.h.i.+nar, and they dwelt there.
”And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
”And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, _whose top may reach unto heaven_, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. _And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower_, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 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; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”[33:1]
Such is the ”Scripture” account of the origin of languages, which differs somewhat from the ideas of Prof. Max Muller and other philologists.
Bishop Colenso tells us that:
”The story of the dispensation of tongues is connected by the Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of _Belus_, of which probably some wonderful reports had reached him. . . . The derivation of the name _Babel_ from the Hebrew word _babal_ (confound) which seems to be the connecting point between the story and the tower of Babel, _is altogether incorrect_.”[33:2]
The literal meaning of the word being _house_, or _court_, or _gate_ of Bel, or gate of G.o.d.[34:1]
John Fiske confirms this statement by saying:
”The name '_Babel_' is really '_Bab-il_', or '_The Gate of G.o.d_'; but the Hebrew writer _erroneously_ derives the word from the root '_babal_'--to confuse--and hence arises the _mystical explanation_, that Babel was a place where human speech became confused.”[34:2]
The ”wonderful reports” that reached the Jehovistic writer who inserted this tale into the Hebrew Scriptures, were from the Chaldean account of the confusion of tongues. It is related by _Berosus_ as follows:
The first inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their strength and size,[34:3] and despising the G.o.ds, undertook to raise a tower whose top should reach the sky, in the place where Babylon now stands. But when it approached the heavens, the winds a.s.sisted the G.o.ds, and overthrew the work of the contrivers, and also introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language. The ruins of this tower are said to be still in Babylon.[34:4]
Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that it was _Nimrod_ who built the tower, that he was a very wicked man, and that the tower was built in case the Lord should have a mind to drown the world again. He continues his account by saying that when Nimrod proposed the building of this tower, the mult.i.tude were very ready to follow the proposition, as they could then avenge themselves on G.o.d for destroying their forefathers.
”And they built a tower, neither sparing any pains nor being in any degree negligent about the work. And by reason of the mult.i.tude of hands employed on it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect. . . . . It was built of burnt brick, cemented together, with mortar made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When G.o.d saw that they had acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, _since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners_, but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them divers languages, and causing, that through the mult.i.tude of those languages they should not be able to understand one another. The place where they built the tower is now called Babylon.”[34:5]
The tower in Babylonia, which seems to have been a foundation for the legend of the confusion of tongues to be built upon, was evidently originally built for _astronomical purposes_.[35:1] This is clearly seen from the fact that it was called the ”Stages of the Seven Spheres,”[35:2] and that each one of these stages was consecrated to the Sun, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury.[35:3]
Nebuchadnezzar says of it in his _cylinders_:
”The building named the 'Stages of the Seven Spheres,' which was the tower of Borsippa (Babel), had been built by a former king. He had completed forty-two cubits, but he did not finish its head. From the lapse of time, it had become ruined; they had not taken care of the exits of the waters, so the rain and wet had penetrated into the brick-work; the casing of burnt brick had bulged out, and the terraces of crude brick lay scattered in heaps. Merobach, my great Lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did not change its site, nor did I destroy its foundation, but, in a fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, I undertook the rebuilding of the crude brick terraces and burnt brick casing, &c., &c.”[35:4]