Page 283 - Foundations

Genesis 11:4
And they said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven,
and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

The common rendering of the verse above is not literally accurate. The words “will reach into” do not
appear in the original Hebrew manuscripts. A more literal translation would read, “Come, let us build
for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top the heavens...” The translators have inserted the words
“will reach into” as they believed this is the thought being conveyed. It is a point that is debated,
however. Some Bible scholars and historians believe that a very different meaning was implied. There
is substantial evidence to argue for a translation that would denote that the tower itself, especially its
topmost level, was adorned with the figures of the heavens. E.W. Bullinger’s Companion Study Bible
includes the following note on Genesis 11:4.

may reach. No ellipsis here. Heb. “And its top with the heavens,” i.e. with the Zodiac depicted on
it, as in ancient temples of Denderah and Esneh in Egypt.

Bullinger shares his view that this tower had the zodiac depicted upon it. This is a view supported by
others. In the 1850s, William Goode delivered a set of talks referred to as the Warburtonian Lectures
which were published some years later. William Goode was Dean of Ripon, a Senior Cleric’s position
in the Church of England. In the notes to the published copy of his fourth lecture, Goode re-prints the
account of Lieutenant General Chesney who had visited the ruins of Babylon in present day Iraq on
several occasions.

Nowhere have I seen the desolating effects of time so vividly brought before me as when gazing on
the remains of this once mighty city; and the realization of the prophet’s words, ‘Babylon the great
is fallen,’ recur to the mind with thrilling force... About five miles SW of Hillah, the most remarkable
of all the ruins, the Birs Nimrud of the Arabs arises to a height of 153 feet above the plain from a
base covering a square of 400 feet, or almost four acres. It was constructed of kiln-dried bricks in
seven stages to correspond with the seven spheres (Joseph’s Note - the five known planets, the sun
and the moon), their respective colors corresponding with the planets to which they were dedicated:
the lowermost black, the colour of Saturn; the next orange, for Jupiter; the third red, for Mars, and
so on. These stages were surmounted by a lofty tower, on the summit of which we are told were the
signs of the zodiac and other astronomical figures; thus having (as it should have been translated),
‘a representation of the heavens,’ instead of ‘a top which reached into heaven.’ This temple... was
restored by Nebuchadnezzar, whose name it bears on the bricks and on the cylinders deposited at its
angles.

It seems clear to me that this ruin came within the ruins of ancient Babylon, which, according to
Herodotus, embraced an area of 120 stadia, or fourteen miles each way, which would be at least five
times the size of London; but this of course includes gardens, which are often of considerable extent,
parks, orchards, and even fields, as in most Eastern cities.
[Source: Fulfilled Prophecy, A Proof of the Truth of Revealed Religion: Being the Warburtonian
Lectures for 1854-1858, by the Very Reverend William Goode, Dean of Ripon]

Birs Nimrud is one of a number of ancient ruins in the vicinity of ancient Babel that archaeologists