Tower of Babel

“ Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years ”

“ If the cheap will look as well or nearly as well as the dear, why not use it? It is no falser, only sooner falser. When it wears out or burns up or tumbles down, try it again. Be done with the tower of Babel: its curse clings faster to architecture than to speech. ”

“ He rode a few miles further in great glee; but as evening fell, a chain of mountains, steeper than a rampart, and higher than the Tower of Babel would have been when finished, entirely closed the road against the travellers, who were filled with fears. ”

“ According to Genesis, mankind after the flood travelled from the east, that is from Kharsak-kurra, “the mountain of the East,” now Elwend, where the Accadians believed the ark to have rested, to the plain of Shinar or Sumir. Both Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus state that the building of the Tower of Babel was known to Babylonian history, Babel, in fact, being the native form of the name which the Greeks changed into Babylon. The legend of Etana given in the last chapter seems to imply that the Tower was supposed to have been built under the superintendence of this mythical hero. ”

“ The producer can show the impious Babel Tower, going higher and higher into the sky, fascinating and tempting the architects till a confusion of tongues turns those masons into quarrelling mobs that become departing caravans, leaving her blasted and forsaken, a symbol of every Babylon that rose after her. ”

“ In the Babylonian and Assyrian sculptures there are occasionally representations of towers similar in style to the supposed Tower of Babel; one of these is given on the stone of Merodach Baladan I., opposite p. 236 of "Assyrian Discoveries;" another occurs on the sculptures at Nineveh, representing the city of Babylon; this tower is probably the Borsippa pile, which is supposed to represent the Tower of Babel. ”

“ It would suggest a modern Babylon altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the new world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a pyramid as a pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses built by mammoths out of mountains; the cities reared by elephants in their own elephantine school of architecture. And New York does recall the most famous of all sky-scrapers—the tower of Babel. ”

“ The confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel was a further cause of division, and at last all peace and charity shall depart, and the stone shall fall. Thenceforward every man shall dwell either in heaven, where all is peace, or in hell, which is full of discord. ”

“ The walls and beams are big enough to carry the tower of Babel, as if the builders, anticipating our modern ideas and instinctively defying them, had resolved to show how much material they could lavish on a house built for the glory of God, instead of keeping a competitive eye on the advantage of sending in the lowest tender, and scientifically calculating how little material would be enough to prevent the whole affair from tumbling down by its own weight. ”

“ What the ancestors of the Russians did at the Tower of Babel to have been afflicted with such a complicated, contorted, mixed up, utterly incomprehensible language, I can hardly conjecture. I have thought sometimes that they must have built their side of the Tower higher than any of the other tribes, and have been punished for their sinful industry with this jargon of unintelligible sounds, which no man could possibly hope to understand before he became so old and infirm that he could never work on another tower. ”

“ The Lion Frieze of the Citadel and the enamelled beasts of the Ishtar Gate enable us to understand something of the spell she cast. It is [Pg vi] claimed that the site has been identified of her most famous building, the Hanging Gardens of the royal palace; and, if that should prove to be the case, they can hardly be said to have justified their reputation. Far more impressive is the Tower of Babel with its huge Peribolos, enclosing what has been aptly described as the Vatican of Babylon. ”

“ We are apt to think of these men and women as painful products of our own time and of our own land; but they have probably existed since the building of the Tower of Babel,—a nerve-racking piece of work which gave peculiar scope to strenuous and impotent energies. ”

“ So wonderful in themselves are the principal pyramids, and so impressive by reason of their remote antiquity, that all other existing works of man must, I think, in comparison with them, sink into insignificance. I could hardly believe that monuments of such stupendous magnitude, and such admirable construction, were erected several centuries before the period of the Exodus, were it not for the fact that the Tower of Babel, probably an equally wonderful edifice, was raised in an age yet earlier. ”

“ It is written that a drama occurred below, which, it appears to me, is as mysterious in its meaning as it is wonderful in its happening. The Divine frustration of the building of the Tower of Babel, as a rebuke to the presumption of man, in the light of an allegory, finds analogies in every-day life. ”

“ One of the most obscure incidents in the Book of Genesis is undoubtedly the building of the Tower of Babel. So far as we can judge from the fragments of his copyists, there was no reference to it in the work of Berosus, and early writers had to quote from writers of more than doubtful authority in order to confirm it.
Men engaged in Building Columns; from Babylonian Cylinder. ”

“ The distinguished explorers Carsten Niebuhr, Claudius Rich, and Robert Ker Porter were also of the opinion that in Birs-Nimrud “we see the very tower of Babel, the stupendous artificial mountain erected by Nimrod in the plain of Shinar and on which in after ages Nebuchadnezzar raised the temple of Belus.” ”

“ For some few years after the Flood, mankind had one religion; the worship of the true God. But so prone is man to err, when unassisted by the Divine grace, that a century had scarcely elapsed before a perverted system was introduced, and the Tower of Babel was built, which caused the dispersion of nations. ”

“ No argument can vitiate the conclusion that as similar myths to that of Genesis abounded in ancient times, it is highly illogical to attach particular importance to any one of them. If one is historic, all are historic. We are justified in holding that the Jewish story of the Tower of Babel is only a modification of the older story of the Temple of Belus. ”

“ The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: "When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon." ”

“ The great city of Babylon commenced with the erection of Babel, and the builders 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 Bishop's description may be found in his “Oriental Missions,” Vol. I, p. 65. He justly calls the Minar “the grandest column of the world.” It is so. Except the tower of Babel, probably nothing ever erected by human hands has produced the same effect, as one stands awe-struck at its base and gazes up upon its majestic form towering to the skies.
It has not been without its tragic incidents. General Sleeman, writing in 1844, tells us that five years previously, “while the Emperor was on a visit to the tomb of Kootub-ad-deen, an insane man got into his private apartment. ”

“ All that take upon them a profession of religion undertake to build a tower, not as the tower of Babel, in opposition to Heaven, which therefore was left unfinished, but in obedience to Heaven, which therefore shall have its top-stone brought forth. Begin low, and lay the foundation deep, lay it on the rock, and make sure work, and then aim as high as heaven. ”

“ To drive them from their country is tyrannical; to make them suddenly speak new tongues is absurd. Hence, they say, we can only regard the story of the tower of Babel as an oriental romance.
I reply to this blasphemy that, since the miracle is described by an author who has recorded so many other miracles, it ought to be believed, like the others. The works of God cannot be expected to resemble the works of man in any way. ”

“ The Tower of Nimrod or Babel is situate on that side of Tygris that Arabia is, and in a very great plaine distant from Babylon seven or eight miles; which tower is ruinated on every side, and with the falling of it there is made a great mountaine ”

“ The base is eaten out of them, because every man that belongs to them has in him that tyrannous, dominant self, which is ever seeking to assert its own supremacy. Here is Babel, with its half-finished tower, built on slime ”

“ There be it that the public shall throng to steep itself in the splendour of possibilities, beholding, under glass, and perhaps in excellent preservation, Penelope’s web and the original designs for the Tower of Babel, the draft made by Mr. ”

“ The Marriage of the Gods |Marriages of the gods in Babylonia and Assyria.| At Babylon the imposing sanctuary of Bel rose like a pyramid above the city in a series of eight towers or stories, planted one on the top of the other. On the highest tower, reached by an ascent which wound about all the rest, there stood a spacious temple, and in the temple a great bed, magnificently draped and cushioned, with a golden table beside it. ”

“ Then I saw the great tower swing like a child’s swing. Dust rose up, cloud after cloud, and cloud over cloud. The cries of people came from out the clouds.
We stood there until we saw the sun shine through a cloud of dust. Then we knew that the Tower of Babylon was indeed fallen. Never again [Pg 106] did we go near the place, but from travelers I have heard that where the tower stood there is emptiness, and that great blocks of stone are scattered far and wide.
VI. How Eean and Bird-of-Gold Went from Babylon
We went into the King’s gardens, carrying with us the Magic Mirror of the Babylonians. ”

“ At the north-western corner rose the great tower, the tomb of the founder of the principal palace. Its basement was encased with massive masonry of stone, relieved by recesses and other architectural ornaments. The upper part built of brick, was most probably painted, like the palaces of Babylon, with figures and mythic emblems. Its summit, I conjecture, to have consisted of several receding gradines like the top of the black obelisk, and I would venture to crown it with an altar on which may have burnt the eternal fire. Adjoining this tower were, two small temples, dedicated to Assyrian gods. ”

“ The parapet ordered by Moses became a potter’s triumph; above that, later, arose towers, plain and fantastic; still later, kings and princes crowned their roofs with summer-houses of marble and gold. When the Babylonian hung gardens in the air, extravagance could push the idea no further.
The lad whom we are following walked slowly across the house-top to a tower built over the northwest corner of the palace. Had he been a stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure as he drew nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted—a darkened mass, low, latticed, pillared, and domed. ”