On Genesis, Part 20: The Tower of Babel

On Genesis, Part 20: The Tower of Babel

The Roman Catholic, Orthodox and denominational churches have for centuries upheld the myth that all races of hominids on this planet have come from Adam, and that the various races were derived from the different sons of Noah, actually asserting that Noah’s sons had each spawned different races of so-called man. Doing this, they blatantly ignore the fact that the ancient Hebrews had several words for man, including adam, enosh and ish, and that they applied those words only where they were appropriate. The word adam describes a particular race of man, which today we call White, and these are the men who descended from Adam through the sons of Noah. The word enosh describes a mortal man, an adult male hominid, without any connotation of race. They also ignore the fact that there were other so-called men in Scripture who were not descended from Adam, such as the Nephilim and several other groups which are mentioned later, in Genesis chapters 14 and 15. No Nephilim could ever properly be called an adam, but either the sons of Adam or the Nephilim could be referred to as enosh. The later Greek, English and other languages lost this important distinction, and the churches willfully ignore it.

In our last presentation in Genesis, The Appearance of the Sons of Noah, we hope to have sufficiently demonstrated the truth of our assertion, which is that if it can be proven that any one of each of the nations of the families of Shem, Japheth and Ham were originally White, then it must be accepted that all of the sons of Noah were originally White, in spite of the conditions of any of those nations today. Doing that, we presented solid, and even irrefutable, evidence from ancient literary, archaeological and scientific sources demonstrating that the ancient Cushites were White, the ancient Egyptians were White, the ancient Canaanites were White, at least apparently, the ancient Ionians, or the sons of Javan in Genesis chapter 10, were White, the ancient Elamites or Persians were White, the ancient Syrians of the north of modern Syria and Anatolia, whether they were of Aram or Asshur or some other Biblical tribe, were White, and that other Genesis 10 families, such as the Assyrians, Aramaeans, Medes, Arians and others, were also White because the ancient records attest that they were homogeneous and physically indistinguishable from these others.

Of course, our assertion answers the notions of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church, which are still upheld by many Christians to this very day, that the different races of hominids on this planet had originally sprung from different branches of the sons of Noah, as if Noah had three different sons who were each of a different race. It is evident that the Roman Catholic Church began making that profession in the Middle Ages and for political reasons, and for that reason the lie is still perpetuated today. But it is not the reality of actual ancient history. We have demonstrated that at least some of the nations of each of the sons of Noah were demonstrably White, and therefore they all must have been White. The Book of Genesis is the “book of the race of Adam”, and not a book for any other race which did not come from Adam.

In Deuteronomy chapter 32 we read “8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” Paul of Tarsus had alluded to that passage where, as it is recorded in Acts chapter 17, he had told the men of Athens that Yahweh God “26 … hath made of one .. all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation”. Both of those statements are references to Genesis chapters 10 and 11. These two chapters of Genesis are a parallelism describing the division of the earth among the descendants of Noah. Genesis chapter 10 explains the lines along which the earth had been divided, according to the nations which had sprung from the grandsons and great-grandsons of Noah. Genesis chapter 10 also informs us as to when the earth was divided, where it says of Peleg in verse 25 that “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.” So the land was divided in the time of Peleg, and as we proceed with Genesis chapter 11, the approximate time in which that event had occurred shall become evident. Then Genesis chapter 10 concludes in verse 32 by stating that “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.” With this it must be realized what was meant in the statement concerning the time of Peleg.

In that 10th chapter of Genesis there were 70 families, or nations, which were mentioned, according to popular sources, but we would not count more than 46 or 48, depending on the way in which they are counted. In reality, perhaps there should be even less, because of all the sons of Mizraim, only one or two merit distinction. The Bible simply identifies all those living in Egypt as Mizraim, rather than by the names of his sons. Furthermore, most of the individual sons of Joktan, for example, do not merit distinction as nations, nor do those of Aram. As for the sons of Joktan, and perhaps Peleg, historically they were known only as Hebrews. The patriarch Abraham was a descendant of Peleg but he was called a Hebrew. Of course, the circumstances must have been different in remote antiquity, since they did all merit distinction by Moses. But of these 46 or 48 which we should recognize, from a conservative and pragmatic perspective, we were able to associate at least 28 of these nations with definite historical nations or with notable cities of antiquity, and a few others were identified only tentatively. However, considering the fact that many of these 46, or perhaps 70, ancient tribes were consumed in the tumult of the rise and fall of ancient empires over the 1,800 or so years between the flood of Noah and the writings of Moses, this is a more than acceptable rate. So, for example, of the three sons of Gomer we only found Togarmah in the historical records. Of the eight sons of Mizraim we only find the Philistines as a nation distinct from Egypt. If we dug into ancient Egyptian records, we may be able to identify others, but so far as we are aware, the early sons of Gomer or Aram left no such records.

So for our purposes, twenty-eight definite identifications of these ancient nations is sufficient, and then, as we have asserted, we demonstrated that wherever these people could be identified in history and archaeology, the same records serve to elucidate the fact that they were all White. There were other nations for which we could have added even more detail to the list of proofs provided in our last presentation, such as the Lydians, the Thracians or the Tartessians. But those nations, historically inhabiting portions of Europe and Anatolia, do not need to be exhibited since it is rather common knowledge that they were White. Proving, for example, that Egyptians, Hittites and Cushites were White, proves that all of the sons of Ham must have originally been White. Proving that Ionians and Medes were White proves that all of the sons of Japheth were also White. Proving that Elamites, or Persians, and Aramaeans, or Syrians, were White proves that all of the sons of Shem were White. Yet many generations of Roman Catholic priests and the Protestant theologians who followed them have dutifully repeated the lies of the Church, in an effort to convince us that we have a common origin with non-White races, something which is patently ridiculous and which actually blasphemes the very image of Yahweh our God.

Noah and his sons were saved from the race-mixing fornication that the rest of the Adamic race had been committing with the Nephilim, the so-called “giants” of Genesis chapter 6. Noah and his sons were spared because Noah was “perfect in his generations”, or race. It is absurd to imagine that Yahweh God is a hypocrite, and that after the flood Noah would sire men of many different races. So the Church and all those who follow it certainly do blaspheme Yahweh our God. They have also been committing murder for centuries, by approving men and women who engage in that same fornication for which the ancient world was destroyed in a flood, just as they are also doing today, by marrying people of different races. Such marriages are not marriages, but rather, they are systematic and state-sponsored fornication.

Now Genesis chapter 11 is a recapitulation of chapter 10, as it parallels the account in chapter 10. Genesis chapter 10 explained the division of the earth among the sons of Noah when it happened, and now chapter 11 explains both why and how it happened. So now we shall commence with Genesis chapter 11:

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

Once again, the word translated as earth is ארץ or erets, which simply means land, and which is not a reference to the entire planet. The entire land where the children of Noah were at this time was of one language. Apparently, this describes the entire body of the children of Noah, but we can never claim that there could not have been any who had already wandered off, either before or after the flood. What we can know, however, is that if any did wander off, it is not evident that anything of substance had ever come from the wanderers.

If, before the flood of Noah, Sumerian was the original language of both the Adamic race and the Nephilim, or of men and fallen angels, I would not be surprised, but on the other hand, I would not be confounded if it were not. With the information which we can gather from archaeological discovery, Sumerian is the oldest known written language, having been found in inscriptions which are esteemed to date to as early as 2900 BC. It is also considered by linguists to be a language isolate, meaning that its words and its grammar are not close enough to any other language to be grouped together with any other language. There are sufficient similarities among most European languages to understand that they are related, to one degree or another. But evidently that is not the case with Sumerian and the other Mesopotamian or Near Eastern languages. [1]

If none of the other languages of the ancient Near East are similar enough to Sumerian to be grouped with it as a related tongue, and if they are understood to have appeared some time after the Sumerian, then that circumstance fully supports the account of the beginning of languages found here in Genesis chapter 11. The Akkadian language which was later spoken in Sumer and Akkad is documented only as early as 2500 BC. [2] Then, as we have explained at length, the so-called “Semitic languages” which arose in the 2nd millennium and which were spoken by various tribes in the Near East, tribes which were subject to or influenced by the Akkadian empire, were all just dialects of Akkadian, which was the lingua franca of the region for nearly 1,500 years before it was replaced with Aramaic, although Aramaic itself was also only a dialect of Akkadian.

But the Akkadian dialects which modern academics call “Semitic languages” were not necessarily the original languages of each of those nations which had adopted it. They must have first had other languages after this Genesis chapter 11 separation of tongues, and only later did they adopt Akkadian. As we had explained in part 18 of this commentary, titled The Hebrews, Sargon of Akkad, the ruler of the Akkadian empire for 50 years from about 2430 BC, had a policy of forcing subject nations to use the Akkadian language, rather than their own. But it is likely that certain of those nations which had been compelled to use Akkadian, from which their own dialects eventually developed, may have retained aspects or remnants of their original languages.

An example of this is the Mitanni Kingdom, which was ethnically Hurrian (the Biblical Horites or, after a scribal error, Hivites) but which is said to have been “of strong Indo-European coloring” by archaeologist John Wilson. [3] The Wikipedia article for the Mitanni states in part that it “was a Hurrian-speaking state with Indo-Aryan linguistic influences in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia” [4]. Many archaeologists believe these so-called Indo-Aryan linguistic influences, found mostly in the names of kings and other rulers, are from invaders from the north, but that is not true. An example is the work of American archaeologist James P. Mallory, who wrote that “The language of the Mitanni was Hurrian, which we have already met in eastern Anatolia and north Syria. Although the basic language of the Mitanni was non-Indo-European, there is nevertheless, clear evidence of the use of an Indo-European vocabulary in the Mitanni documents. These derive from diplomatic correspondence in foreign archives such as Bogazköy (Hittite) and El Amarna (Egyptian), as the native Mitanni archives have not yet been discovered.” [5]

The Hurrians were Canaanites, and the Hittites, who were also Canaanites, also spoke what is typically classified as an “Indo-European language” [6]. But of the Mitanni we read “There is evidence that they were initially allied with the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia,” and “The Hurrians adopted the Akkadian language and Cuneiform script for their own writing about 2000 BC.” [7] So the language of the Mittani kingdom was Hurrian, a so-called “Semitic language” which was really just a dialect of Akkadian, and the given names of rulers and other notable Hurrians were the reason the Mitanni Kingdom is believed to have been “Indo-European”, at least in part. But the truth is that like the Hittite, it is entirely plausible that the original Hurrian language may have also had features by which linguists may have classified it as Indo-European, but it did not survive except in certain words which appear in documents that were otherwise written in Akkadian. So the Hurrians eventually ended up speaking their own dialect of Akkadian, the lingua franca of the Near East, and for that reason their so-called Indo-European language was lost, although certain words and features such as personal names from the original language were evidently retained.

We have no problems with archaeology, but we do have issues with how archaeologists interpret their findings, and we would rather interpret them in a manner which is consistent with Scripture. So, as we have already asserted in part, we would hold that the nations who spoke so-called “Semitic languages” were really only speaking their own dialects of the Akkadian language, which at a later time had replaced their Genesis chapter 11 tongue by force or some other compulsion according to their relationship with the Akkadian empire. This we have just seen is documented in relation to the Hurrians of the Mitanni kingdom. With this, it is most plausible that Sumerian was the original language of Noah and his sons, and that Akkadian was the post-Genesis chapter 11 language of Cush in Mesopotamia, and also the language of the successors of Nimrod who established his empire there, and some generations after the Genesis chapter 11 separation of tongues, Sargon of Akkad and his successors in that empire compelled their subject states, their Mesopotamian and Syrian neighbors, to adopt Akkadian.

Citing the article on Semitic languages from the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in part 18 of this commentary, titled The Hebrews, we had seen counted among them “Hebrew and Phoenician, Aramaic, Assyrian, Arabic, Ethiopic”. [8] Now perhaps we may understand that Hebrew and Phoenician, Aramaic and its Arabic bastard stepchild, Assyrian and also Hurrian were all merely dialects of Akkadian. As for Ethiopic, since the original people of Ethiopia were also of Cush, they spoke a dialect of Akkadian the same as the people of Akkad, which was the beginning of the empire of Nimrod the son of Cush.

Here we may have repeated ourselves, at least in some respects. But our insistence is that the Bible is true, and archaeology serves to help prove that it is true. However academic archaeologists and theologians do not believe it is true, they dismiss its contents unless perhaps they are convenient at any given time, and they would therefore rather believe their own lies and conjectures concerning the origin and early development of men and nations. James P. Mallory was not engaged in an honest search of Indo-Europeans, or he would have found them in their original homeland in Mesopotamia and the Levant. All of academia suffers under delusions caused by centuries-old Jewish gaslighting in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, history and theology.

[1 Sumerian language, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language, accessed July 6th, 2023; 2 Akkadian language, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language, accessed July 6th, 2023; 3 The Burden of Egypt, An Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Culture, (later retitled The Culture of Ancient Egypt), John A. Wilson, The University of Chicago Press, 1951, p. 190; 4 Mitanni, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni, accessed July 6th, 2023; 5 In Search of the Indo-Europeans, Language, Archaeology and Myth, James P. Mallory, Thames and Hudson, 1989, p. 37; 6 Hittite language, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language, accessed July 6th, 2023; 7 Hurrians, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrians, accessed July 6th, 2023; 8 Semitic Languages, Prof. Theodore Nöldeke, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1894, 9th edition, Volume XXI, p. 673.]

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Shinar, Σενναάρ or Sennaár in the Septuagint, is the name for the southern portion of Mesopotamia which is used in the Bible, but elsewhere it was often called Sumer, Sumeria, or later, Babylonia or Chaldaea. The word שנער or shinar does not mean “country of two rivers”, as some modern lexicons claim. Both Gesenius and Strong’s state only that the word is “probably of foreign origin”, and neither of them define it. Brown-Driver-Briggs repeats a suggestion that it is equal to Sumer, noting that some linguists object. It may be, however, that it is equal to Sumer, and somehow in Hebrew the ‘m’ sound in Sumer became an ‘n’ sound. The word appears seven times in the King James Version but eight times in Scripture. It is found four times in Genesis chapters 10 through 14, and once each in Isaiah, Daniel and Zachariah. But where the Hebrew has Shinar in Joshua chapter 7, the King James Version translated the word as Babylonish, referring to the garment taken and concealed by Achan.

They journeyed from the east: Speaking of the children of Noah, this does not necessarily mean that they were far east, or even outside of Mesopotamia or what we now consider to be the Near East, which would include Perisa. This seems to indicate that at this time the children of Noah had come from out of the foothills of the east or northeast, to settle in the Mesopotamian plain. But it cannot be told precisely where they had landed in the ark, or how far was their journey to what had later become known as Babylon. It is even possible that the ark had landed in the hills east of the Tigris River. We would only assert that there is nothing in the account which insists that they were ever far from Mesopotamia or outside of the area surrounding the Garden of Eden as it was described by Moses in Genesis chapter 2.

We also need not imagine that it has now been a considerable length of time since the flood. Rather, it is only a short time since the flood, and what is stated in the verses which follow may have occurred not all at once, but over several centuries. According to Genesis chapter 10, Nimrod had establish his empire at Babel, Akkad, Erech and Calneh here in the land of Shinar where these events also occur, and Nimrod was begot by Cush, the son of Ham, so it could not have been too long after the flood that this Genesis chapter 11 process began. Therefore, the population was still quite small when the sons of Noah came to Babel, and these events unfolded over the ensuing centuries as the population multiplied. The events of the verses which follow may have been several centuries later, they do not have to have happened immediately.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

The word for slime is actually חמר or chemar, which is pitch, asphalt or bitumen. There are at least a dozen notable bitumen seeps in and around Mesopotamia, which are known to have been exploited and from which bitumen was mined and traded since perhaps the 4th millennium BC. [9] The sons of Noah must have been familiar with bitumen as it must frequently be processed before being used in this manner. Today bitumen is used for paving, where it is called asphalt, and also in roofing or sometimes as paint.

4 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.

The word for tower here and in verse 5 is מגדל, or migdal, the common word for tower throughout the Old Testament. There are several large and ancient tower-like structures known as ziggurats in Mesopotamia which survive to this very day. The Anu ziggurat at the site of ancient Uruk, the Erech of Nimrod, is esteemed to be as old as the early 3rd millennium BC, and another, in Ur, is dated to about 2100 BC. [10] These seem to be representative of the tower which the sons of Noah sought to build at Babel, and they may have been mimicking the Nephilim who had already occupied portions of Mesopotamia, but that is only conjecture.

[9 Annealing, distilling, reheating and recycling: Bitumen processing in the Ancient Near East, David Hollander and Mark Schwartz, Paléorient, January, 2000, https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2000_num_26_2_4712, accessed July 6th, 2023; 10 Ziggurat, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat, accessed July 7th, 2023.]

Many embellishments and fabulous commentaries are made in reference to this account by popular writers, and none of them are worthy of mention. It should suffice to say that God does not fear man, nor is He threatened by man. Rather, Yahweh God created man for His stated purpose, and He shall cause man to walk in the way in which He wants him to walk. Even if the process takes many millennia to accomplish, His will shall ultimately prevail.

In Genesis chapter 1, the Adamic man was instructed to fill the earth and subdue it, and to have dominion over, or tread down, every living thing upon it, and this commission was repeated to Noah in slightly different language in Genesis chapter 9. Yet here the children of Noah are portrayed as having formulated their own plans, and as expressing a desire to make a name for themselves, rather than following what Yahweh their God had commanded. Evidently, this is a portrayal of secular humanism, which is essentially the elevation of man to the status of a god, that man can determine his own fate and destiny and his own judgment of what is good and evil.

In his discourse to the Athenians in Acts chapter 17, where Paul had referred to this very event, after making his allusion to the passage in Deuteronomy chapter 32 and the separation of the nations, he continued and explained that the purpose of God for doing so was: “27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.” However here it is explained that they would have rather made a name for themselves. Later, in reference to the children of Israel, we read in 2 Samuel chapter 7, in a prayer of David: “22 Wherefore thou art great, O LORD God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 23 And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?” So the purpose of God is that man glorifies Him, and not that man seeks to glorify himself, which is idolatry.

5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Often Yahweh God is described with human attributes, as men need to describe and understand Him in that manner, although it should be evident to the reader that He is not confined to human limitations. Yahweh did not have to physically leave heaven and go down to see what was happening in Sumer any more than He had to creep around the Garden of Eden to see what Adam and Eve were doing in Genesis chapter 3, or physically walk with Enoch in chapter 5, or with Noah in chapter 6.

Of course, this tower, which we would assert represents secular humanism and a departure from God, is later used to represent a world in apostasy in Revelation chapter 18, where the Woman of the Revelation, who represents the twelve tribes of Israel, in chapter 12 is portrayed as fleeing into the wilderness, but later, in chapter 17, she is seen having joined herself to the beast. Then in chapter 18, the world system which is created from that unholy union is described as Mystery Babylon, and the epithet evokes images of this tower. The modern churches, errantly teaching that all races come from Adam, have contributed greatly to a modern Tower of Babel, as they part and parcel with the beast and mystery Babylon.

But there also, in the Revelation, we see that the people do not reach to heaven. Rather, we read, where it once again speaks of the woman: “5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” So now in like manner we read here:

6 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.

Of course, man has limitations, and also failures. So Yahweh God cannot be imagined to have meant that they would succeed in everything which they would imagine to do, but only that they would be unbridled in their attempts if they were allowed to continue. As it suggests in the Revelation, today the whole earth has slowly come to be of one language, and once again man is unbridled in his endeavors, even imagining for himself to be as a god. Once again, Yahweh God shall ultimately prevail and the intentions of man shall come to nought.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

This event represents the emergence of diverse tongues among the families of the sons of Noah. The earliest records of the Akkadian language are esteemed to date to about 2500 BC, which is about four hundred years more recent than the earliest extant Sumerian records. [11] As we shall see, this is consistent, within reason, with the attestation that the earth was divided among the sons of Noah in the days of Peleg.

[11 Akkadian language, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language, accessed July 7th, 2023.]

Now the reason for the name Babel is given:

9 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.

The confounding of tongues among the families of the sons of Noah is exhibited as the catalyst for at least most of them having left Mesopotamia and migrating to new places where they may dwell alone. So language is portrayed as a natural barrier between the nations of men. But for whatever reason, the Akkadians evidently remained in Sumer, and other nations, such as the Assyrians and many of the Aramaeans, and others, remained close by, or at least, in or around Mesopotamia.

We have already discussed the name Babel at length in part 15 of this commentary, titled The Hamites. There we had doubted the relatively recent claims that the word means “gate of the gods”, citing scholarly Assyrian language dictionaries and other sources. Here it shall suffice to say that in Hebrew, the word בבל or Babel means confusion, from a reduplicated form of a verb, בלל or balal, which means to mix, to pour together or to confound. Wherever the word Babylon appears in later Old Testament Scriptures, the Hebrew word is this same term, Babel. The Assyrians also had a word similar to balal, but the phrase “gate of the gods” was written as bab-i-lu-ti. While the phrase is vaguely similar, it is not the same as the simple word בבל or Babel. Babylon does not mean “gate of the gods”. As the Scripture informs us, it means confusion, and the remedy which Yahweh offered for this confusion at that time, even among families of the same race, was to separate each of them geographically into their own distinct nations.

Before we depart from the account of the flood and its aftermath in the event of the tower of Babel, it may be fitting to discuss a few myths from ancient Mesopotamia. There were three names in the extant Mesopotamian myths, all of them evidently belonging to the same character, who had a role similar to that of Noah, and they were Utnapishtim, Ziusudra and Atrahasis. The Utnapishtim character also appears at length in the Epic of Gilgamesh. He was said to have survived the flood because of a warning from the gods, and with that warning he built a ship in order to survive. The myths describing this character begin with a creation account, and then they have an account of a great flood which destroyed the whole land, preserving only a few of the original inhabitants. While the accounts vary in details from the Sumerian to the Akkadian to the Babylonian versions, they all apparently predate the time of the recording of Genesis by Moses in the 15th century BC.

But this does not somehow call the Biblical account into question. Rather, it helps to establish the Biblical account because it serves to show that other branches of the sons of Noah besides the Hebrews had preserved memories of the account of the flood of Noah, in spite of the various embellishments which they each made on the story. Much later, the Greeks also had a similar flood story, but it had become centered on the Greek world and the title character was named Deucalion.

That being said, in the inscriptions known as the Sumerian King List there is listed a king known as Etana. Who was a legendary shepherd king in the years following the flood of Noah. The following is from an introduction to the legend of Etana found in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament: “The legendary dynasty of Kish which followed the Flood lists among its rulers ‘Etana, a shepherd, the one who to heaven ascended.’ Cylinder seals of the Old Akkadian period depict a shepherd rising heavenwards on the wings of an eagle. And a figure by the name of Etana—a mortal in all respects, except that his name may be written with the determinative for ‘god,’ a usage applied also to kings of the Old Akkadian and some of the succeeding dynasties—is the subject of an elaborate legend. The subject matter is thus clearly one of great antiquity. Its popularity, moreover, is attested by the fact that the legend has come down to us in fragments of three recensions: The Old Babylonian; the Middle Assyrian; and the Neo-Assyrian — from the library of Ashurbanipal.” 12

Then, in the Sumerian King List, we read in part that “After the Flood had swept over (the earth) (and) when kingship was lowered (again) from heaven, kingship was (first) in Kish. In Kish, Ga[ . . . ]ur became king and ruled 1,200 years — (original) destroyed! legible (only) to heavenly Nidaba (the goddess of writing) — ruled 960 years. [Pala-kinatim ruled 900 years; Nangish-lishma ruled . . . years] ;6 Bah[i]na ruled . . . years; BU.AN. [ . . ] . [um] ruled [8]40 ye[ars]; Kalibum ruled 960 years; Qalumum ruled 840 years; Zuqaqip ruled 900 years; Atab ruled 600 years; [Mashda, son]6 of Atab ruled 840 years; Arwi'um, son of Mashda, ruled 720 years; Etana, a shepherd, he who ascended to heaven (and) who consolidated all countries, became king and ruled 1,560 (var.: 1,500) years; Balih, son of Etana, ruled 400 (var.: 410) years; En-me-nunna ruled 660 years; Melam-Kishi, son of En-me-nunna ruled 900 years; Bar-sal-nunna, son of En-me-nunna, ruled 1,200 years; Samug, son of Bar-sal-nunna, ruled 140 years; Tizkar, son of Samug, ruled 305 years; Ilku' ruled 900 years; Ilta-sadum ruled 1,200 years; En-men-barage-si, he who carried away as spoil the "weapon" of Elam, became king and ruled 900 years; Aka, son of En-men-barage-si, ruled 629 years. Twenty-three kings (thus) ruled it for 24,510 years, 3 months, and days.” [13]

Most of these kings are not considered to be historical, as there are no surviving records of them found in inscriptions. However Etana is considered to be historical, as there are legends and other inscriptions attesting to his life. The number of years here is fantastic, and reading the entire list, it can certainly be imagined that this reflects a confounding of Adamic history with that of the Nephilim. What is more important, however, is the memory of a king who was titled a shepherd, who was said to have ascended to heaven, and who consolidated all countries. So the account of Etana seems to be a memory of the tower of Babel event here in Genesis chapter 11, and after the time of Nimrod, it is plausible that his successors retained rule over his empire into the historical period. At the same time, Etana resembles an archaic antichrist, and today all world leaders aspire to be like Etana.

We would not embellish Scripture with this pagan mythology, however once again we see that the kindred peoples of Mesopotamia had independently retained certain memories of these events which are later related by Moses here in Genesis.

[12 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, p. 271; 13 ibid., p. 265]

Now to commence with Genesis chapter 11 and the continuing account of the descendants of Shem, as that is the line chosen from which Yahweh God would later choose Abraham:

10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 11 And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.

In our last presentation in this commentary, The Hebrews, we have already discussed what we thought was fitting or which needed to be discussed from the names of the descendants of Arphaxad down through the sons of Heber, which are Joktan and Peleg, so we shall not repeat any of that here. Much earlier, in part 7 of this commentary on Genesis, titled The Book of the Race of Adam, in relation to Arphaxad we stated the following, in part:

Arphaxad was born in the 2264th year of Adam, and the discrepancy with the Masoretic Text still remains at 606 years. We shall resume this chronology when we reach that point in our commentary, Yahweh willing, in the weeks and months to come.

Now here we are, at that point in this commentary, and we shall resume our presentation of the chronology of Genesis, hopefully through the call of Abraham and down to the time when Jacob goes to Egypt, if Yahweh sees fit that we can finish this project.

12 And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: 13 And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

Here there is a serious discrepancy with the Septuagint, where there is a mentioned a Cainan as having been in between Arphaxad and Salah. But Cainan is not mentioned in Genesis chapter 10 in either the Septuagint or the Masoretic Text, and neither source mentions Cainan where the genealogy is repeated in 1 Chronicles chapter 1.

The Septuagint account of these verses from Genesis chapter 11 reads as follows, as it was translated by Brenton: “12 And Arphaxad lived a hundred and thirty-five years, and begot Cainan. 13 And Arphaxad lived after he had begotten Cainan, four hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died. And Cainan lived a hundred and thirty years and begot Sala; and Canaan lived after he had begotten Sala, three hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.”

We may have ignored the interpolation of Cainan in the Septuagint here, since it is not found in Genesis chapter 10 or 1 Chronicles chapter 1. However it cannot be ignored, because the Gospel of Luke supports this reading from the Septuagint here in Genesis chapter 11, where it reads in the genealogy of Christ in Luke chapter 3 after mentioning Nachor, and according to the King James Version it says: “35 Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, 36 Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem…” So the Gospel of Luke has this Cainan in a generation between Arphaxad and Salah, which the Masoretic Text is wanting here. We are compelled to follow the apostle of Christ, and therefore we shall reckon the account of Cainan with our chronology, which has been following the Septuagint all along.

Therefore Arphaxad was born in the 2264th year of Adam, and Cainan was born 135 years later, in the 2,399th year of Adam, and Salah was born 130 years after him, in the 2529th year of Adam. The discrepancy with the Masoretic Text with the birth of Salah now stands at 936 years.

14 And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: 15 And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.

In the Septuagint account, Eber was born when Salah was 130 years old, and now it is the 2659th year of Adam.

16 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: 17 And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.

Here we must recall that in the days of Peleg, the nations were divided. Peleg was born when Eber was 134 years old, according to the Septuagint, which is the 2793rd year of Adam.

18 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu: 19 And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.

According to the Septuagint, Reu was born when Peleg was 130 years old, again, in the 2923rd year of Adam.

While it has no bearing on the general chronology, Peleg lived for another two hundred and nine years. So he lived from the 2793rd year of Adam for 339 years, which is until the 3132 year of Adam. Getting ahead of ourselves, Abraham was born in the 3494th year of Adam (Somehow Clifton has 3492, but I will review these figures as we progress through the chapter).

Now we can estimate a few things. If the Exodus happened some time around 1450 BC, which is justly approximate as we have reckoned elsewhere in our commentaries on Scripture, and if, as Paul of Tarsus had attested in Galatians chapter 3, the call of Abraham was 430 years before the year of the Exodus when the law was given at Sinai, then the call of Abraham was some time around 1880 BC. Since Abraham was 75 years old at that time, according to Scripture, then he was born some time around 1955 BC.

Therefore the 3494th year of Adam was around 1955 BC, and the first year of Adam was around 5449 BC. So Peleg lived from around 2656 BC, and he died around 2317 BC, and it was during that time that the languages were confused and the land was divided among the sons of Noah. That accords with the emergence of those languages in the archaeological records, such as Akkadian around 2500 BC, and with that we see that the Bible is indeed in agreement with archaeology. While there are some anomalies which we shall discuss as our commentary progresses, they will not upset this paradigm.

This same chronology dates the year of the flood of Noah to about 3187 BC. But the calculations which are usually made from the chronology of the Masoretic Text, which all the churches follow, date it to around 2345 BC, which is impossible when it is compared to ancient history, and that date cannot be defended.

Yahweh willing, we shall refine this chronology somewhat, and return to Genesis chapter 11 down through the call of Abraham when we return in the near future.