the tower and city founded by the descendants of Noah in the
plain of Shinar. The different tribes descended from Noah were here
collected, and from this point were dispersed, through the confusion of
their language. The time when this tower was built is differently stated
in the Hebrew and Samaritan chronologies. The former fixes it in the
year 101 after the flood, which Mr. Faber thinks encumbered with
insuperable difficulties. This writer then goes on to show, that the
chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch reconciles every date, and
surmounts every difficulty. It represents Shem as dying nearly a century
and a half before the death of Peleg, instead of more than that number
of years afterward, and almost four centuries and a half before the
death of Abraham; whom, in accordance with the history, it makes to
survive his father Terah precisely a hundred years. It removes the
difficulties with which the Hebrew chronology invests the whole history,
by giving time, while it allows the dispersion to have taken place in
the latter part of Peleg’s life, for the thirteen sons of his younger
brother Joktan to have become heads of families; for Noah and his sons
to have died, as it is proved they must have done, prior to the
emigration from Armenia; for Nimrod, instead of being a boy, to have
been of an age suitable to his exploits, and to have acquired the
sovereign command, not, in the face of all probability, while the four
great patriarchs were living, but after their decease; and for the
families of mankind to have multiplied sufficiently to undertake the
stupendous work of the tower. It explains also the silence respecting
Shem in the history of Abraham, by making the former die in Armenia four
hundred and forty years before the latter was born, instead of surviving
him thirty-five years; and, lastly, it makes sacred history accord with
profane; the Babylonic history of Berosus, and the old records consulted
by Epiphanius, both placing the death of Noah and his sons before the
emigration from Armenia.
The sum of the whole is as follows: All the descendants of Noah remained
in Armenia in peaceable subjection to the patriarchal religion and
government during the lifetime of the four royal patriarchs, or till
about the beginning of the sixth century after the flood; when,
gradually falling off from the pure worship of God, and from their
allegiance to the respective heads of families, and seduced by the
schemes of the ambitious Nimrod, and farther actuated by a restless
disposition, or a desire for a more fertile country, they migrated in a
body southwards, till they reached the plains of Shinar, probably about
sixty years after the death of Shem. Here, under the command of their
new leader, and his dominant military and sacerdotal Cuthites, by whom
the original scheme of idolatry, the groundwork of which was probably
laid in Armenia, was now perfected; and, with the express view to
counteract the designs of the Almighty in their dispersion into
different countries, they began to build the city and tower, and set up
a banner which should serve as a mark of national union, and concentrate
them in one unbroken empire; when they were defeated and dispersed by
the miraculous confusion of tongues. All this probably occupied the
farther space of twenty or twenty-one years; making eighty-one from the
death of Shem, and five hundred and eighty-three after the flood. All of
which also will come within the life of Peleg, who, according to the
Samaritan Pentateuch, died in the year 640. The tower of Belus in
Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus, was probably either the original tower
of Babel repaired, or it was constructed upon its massive foundations.
The remains of this tower are still to be seen, and are thus described
by Captain Mignan, in his Travels in Chaldea:--
“At day light I departed for the ruins, with a mind absorbed by the
objects which I had seen yesterday. An hour’s walk, indulged in intense
reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic northern mass,
on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and distant about four miles and a
half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives, _El
Mujellibah_, ‘the overturned;’ also _Haroot_ and _Maroot_, from a
tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that
near the foot of the ruin there is a well, invisible to mortals, in
which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with
their heels upward, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their
wickedness. This solid mound, which I consider, from its situation and
magnitude, to be the remains of the Tower of Babel, (an opinion likewise
adopted by that venerable and highly distinguished geographer, Major
Rennell,) is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried
bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty-nine
feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes toward the north-east to a
depth of one hundred and ten feet. Its sides face the four cardinal
points. I measured them carefully, and the following is the full extent
of each face: that to the north, along the visible face, is two hundred
and seventy-four yards; to the south, two hundred and fifty-six yards;
to the east, two hundred and twenty-six yards; and to the west, two
hundred and forty yards. The summit is an uneven flat, strewed with
broken and unbroken bricks, the perfect ones measuring thirteen inches
square, by three thick. Many exhibited the arrow-headed character, which
appeared remarkably fresh. Pottery, bitumen, vitrified and petrified
brick, shells, and glass, were all equally abundant. The principal
materials composing this ruin are, doubtless, mud bricks baked in the
sun, and mixed up with straw. It is not difficult to trace brick work
along each front, particularly at the south-west angle, which is faced
by a wall, composed partly of kiln-burnt brick, that in shape exactly
resembles a watch tower or small turret. On its summit there are still
considerable traces of erect building; at the western end is a circular
mass of sold brick work, sloping toward the top, and rising from a
confused heap of rubbish. The chief material forming this fabric
appeared similar to that composing the ruin called Akercouff, a mixture
of chopped straw, with slime used as cement; and regular layers of
unbroken reeds between the horizontal courses of the bricks. The base is
greatly injured by time and the elements; particularly to the
south-east, where it is cloven into a deep furrow from top to bottom.
The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather, but
more generally formed by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for
bricks, and hunting for antiquities.”
plain of Shinar. The different tribes descended from Noah were here
collected, and from this point were dispersed, through the confusion of
their language. The time when this tower was built is differently stated
in the Hebrew and Samaritan chronologies. The former fixes it in the
year 101 after the flood, which Mr. Faber thinks encumbered with
insuperable difficulties. This writer then goes on to show, that the
chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch reconciles every date, and
surmounts every difficulty. It represents Shem as dying nearly a century
and a half before the death of Peleg, instead of more than that number
of years afterward, and almost four centuries and a half before the
death of Abraham; whom, in accordance with the history, it makes to
survive his father Terah precisely a hundred years. It removes the
difficulties with which the Hebrew chronology invests the whole history,
by giving time, while it allows the dispersion to have taken place in
the latter part of Peleg’s life, for the thirteen sons of his younger
brother Joktan to have become heads of families; for Noah and his sons
to have died, as it is proved they must have done, prior to the
emigration from Armenia; for Nimrod, instead of being a boy, to have
been of an age suitable to his exploits, and to have acquired the
sovereign command, not, in the face of all probability, while the four
great patriarchs were living, but after their decease; and for the
families of mankind to have multiplied sufficiently to undertake the
stupendous work of the tower. It explains also the silence respecting
Shem in the history of Abraham, by making the former die in Armenia four
hundred and forty years before the latter was born, instead of surviving
him thirty-five years; and, lastly, it makes sacred history accord with
profane; the Babylonic history of Berosus, and the old records consulted
by Epiphanius, both placing the death of Noah and his sons before the
emigration from Armenia.
The sum of the whole is as follows: All the descendants of Noah remained
in Armenia in peaceable subjection to the patriarchal religion and
government during the lifetime of the four royal patriarchs, or till
about the beginning of the sixth century after the flood; when,
gradually falling off from the pure worship of God, and from their
allegiance to the respective heads of families, and seduced by the
schemes of the ambitious Nimrod, and farther actuated by a restless
disposition, or a desire for a more fertile country, they migrated in a
body southwards, till they reached the plains of Shinar, probably about
sixty years after the death of Shem. Here, under the command of their
new leader, and his dominant military and sacerdotal Cuthites, by whom
the original scheme of idolatry, the groundwork of which was probably
laid in Armenia, was now perfected; and, with the express view to
counteract the designs of the Almighty in their dispersion into
different countries, they began to build the city and tower, and set up
a banner which should serve as a mark of national union, and concentrate
them in one unbroken empire; when they were defeated and dispersed by
the miraculous confusion of tongues. All this probably occupied the
farther space of twenty or twenty-one years; making eighty-one from the
death of Shem, and five hundred and eighty-three after the flood. All of
which also will come within the life of Peleg, who, according to the
Samaritan Pentateuch, died in the year 640. The tower of Belus in
Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus, was probably either the original tower
of Babel repaired, or it was constructed upon its massive foundations.
The remains of this tower are still to be seen, and are thus described
by Captain Mignan, in his Travels in Chaldea:--
“At day light I departed for the ruins, with a mind absorbed by the
objects which I had seen yesterday. An hour’s walk, indulged in intense
reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic northern mass,
on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and distant about four miles and a
half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives, _El
Mujellibah_, ‘the overturned;’ also _Haroot_ and _Maroot_, from a
tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that
near the foot of the ruin there is a well, invisible to mortals, in
which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with
their heels upward, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their
wickedness. This solid mound, which I consider, from its situation and
magnitude, to be the remains of the Tower of Babel, (an opinion likewise
adopted by that venerable and highly distinguished geographer, Major
Rennell,) is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried
bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty-nine
feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes toward the north-east to a
depth of one hundred and ten feet. Its sides face the four cardinal
points. I measured them carefully, and the following is the full extent
of each face: that to the north, along the visible face, is two hundred
and seventy-four yards; to the south, two hundred and fifty-six yards;
to the east, two hundred and twenty-six yards; and to the west, two
hundred and forty yards. The summit is an uneven flat, strewed with
broken and unbroken bricks, the perfect ones measuring thirteen inches
square, by three thick. Many exhibited the arrow-headed character, which
appeared remarkably fresh. Pottery, bitumen, vitrified and petrified
brick, shells, and glass, were all equally abundant. The principal
materials composing this ruin are, doubtless, mud bricks baked in the
sun, and mixed up with straw. It is not difficult to trace brick work
along each front, particularly at the south-west angle, which is faced
by a wall, composed partly of kiln-burnt brick, that in shape exactly
resembles a watch tower or small turret. On its summit there are still
considerable traces of erect building; at the western end is a circular
mass of sold brick work, sloping toward the top, and rising from a
confused heap of rubbish. The chief material forming this fabric
appeared similar to that composing the ruin called Akercouff, a mixture
of chopped straw, with slime used as cement; and regular layers of
unbroken reeds between the horizontal courses of the bricks. The base is
greatly injured by time and the elements; particularly to the
south-east, where it is cloven into a deep furrow from top to bottom.
The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather, but
more generally formed by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for
bricks, and hunting for antiquities.”