Page 220 - Foundations

If you look closely you will see that the city of Babel, or Babylon, lies on the border of Babylonia and
Chaldea. There was much interchange of culture and information between all three of these nations.
Babylonia pre-dates Assyria, and the Assyrians acknowledge having received much of their
knowledge of history and astronomy from the Babylonians. Because the Chaldeans became the
dominant influence in Babylonia, and Babylonia had such an influence upon Assyria, one will often
find the term Chaldean used to describe any of the cultures or peoples of these three nations. This
seems to be the manner in which George Smith is employing the term, for the tablets he found were
Assyrian, but he speaks of them as Chaldean.

Bible students will recall that the ten northern tribes of Israel were taken captive into Assyria. This
occurred in 722 B.C. during the reign of the Assyrian king Sargon II. In 597 B.C. Judah was
conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and this began the first of three deportations to that
nation, the last of which occurred in 582 B.C..

The Bible informs us that Babel was among the first of the great cities established after the flood of
Noah. Ham was one of the three sons of Noah that went aboard the ark, along with his wife. Ham had
a son named Cush, and Cush in turn was the father of Nimrod who was the founder of Babel.

Genesis 10:10-12
And the beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land
of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah,
and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.

The date estimated for the founding of Babel is around 2300 B.C., approximately two centuries after
the flood of Noah. At that time Noah and his sons would still have been alive as the Bible tells us that
Noah lived 350 years after the flood, dying at an age of 950 years. The Genesis account in the Bible
further informs us that Shem was 98 years of age when the flood ended and he lived 502 years after
the flood, living to 600 years of age (Genesis 11:10-11). Shem was the father of the Shemites
(Semites, or Semitic people), and a forebear of Abraham, thus his genealogy is carefully recorded.
We are not told how long his brothers Ham and Japheth lived, but it can be assumed that they enjoyed
a similar lifespan. Thus we see that the founding of Babel by Nimrod overlapped the lives of Noah
and his sons. Any pre-flood knowledge they may have had of divine astronomy would certainly have
been passed down to their descendants, eventually to be found at Babel.

The tablets of The Chaldean Account of Genesis parallel the Biblical book of Genesis in numerous
areas. They begin with a lengthy description of the creation of the heavens and the earth, culminating
in the creation of man. They include a narrative of the rebellion of a celestial being that corresponds
to Satan, and the resulting war in heaven. They speak of man’s fall, and a terrible curse that results.
The building of the tower of Babel is also noted on the Chaldean tablets. Although these events
parallel the account of Genesis in the Bible, they depart from the Scriptural narrative in significant
ways. There is evidence of much corruption and vanity entering into the tale, though the basic events
remain recognizable.

The dates of the Assyrian Genesis tablets can be confidently dated to the reign of Assurbanipul who
rose to power in 670 B.C.. However, these library copies of the Assyrian Genesis account were