The number for G*d in Hebrew is 26. It's the gemmatria of his name spelled. Jews used a base 10 system. Babylon used a base 12 system. It was said that Babylon worshiped the moon and stars, the moon has a 30 day period approximately. What does this mean? It means that their god was also numerically equivalent in some way or another. They wanted to represent the two equivalently with alternating base systems. So how is 30 written in base 12? "26" Similarly if you take 26 in base 12 it's represented "22" The second letter of the Hebrew alefbet is "ב" The root of Babylon in Hebrew is "בב" which appears numerically "22". This is the root of their name. Which transliterated is "Bav". In Hebrew Babylon is referred to as "Bavyl"
Nation of Akkad. Translated from Akkadian, which was the language of Babylon. It didn't become Aramaic until approx. year 450BCE. Which is why it's so fascinating where the root "Babylon" came from. Most likely the Persians who took over after, slowly replaced Mat Akkad with "Bavyl"...and that's most likely why we have it today. If you consider Persia in this time use to hire Jewish prophets. By the way; Akkadians wrote in Cuneiform...which is interesting, since it was established in Sumer. Coincidently biblically the son of Nimrod is said to be "Akkad", both of which were of Cush. Cush was connected with East Africa. Whereas Raamah (Persian) spoke the Aramaic taken from the Hebrews...as initial Raamahn's would have spoken and written in Cuneiform. Giving great evidence to the overall displacement the Hebrews were as compared to the surrounding nations.
(Insert title here) Cheski It's not that people are arrogant ... or maybe it is. I don't know, that can wait for another day. Truth is, though, that the Religion forum has always struggled with theology, history, and other higher-minded notions of "religion". For the most part, the forum's history is littered with fairly petty and simplistic arguments about whose religion is superior, or what's wrong with atheism, why Christianity is evil, and so on. That said .... Help me out here. There are coincidental correspondences all through religious history. What is the significant aspect of what you're trying to tell us? I mean, when we get down to it, I can follow you from sentence to sentence, but at the end, I'm left murmuring, "Uh-huh. And?" In the meantime, just a couple of points to throw in for consideration: To the other, I'm just grasping for a couple of places to start. I've never explored this particular question before. ____________________ Notes: Lendering, Jona. "Babylon". Livius.org. Viewed October 23, 2008. http://www.livius.org/ba-bd/babylon/babylon.html Uittenbogaard, Arie. "Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Babel, Babylon". Abarim Publications. Viewed October 23, 2008. http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Babel.html
Babylon 1362, from Gk. version of Akkad. Bab-ilani "the gate of the gods," from bab "gate" + ilani, pl. of ilu "god" (cf. Babel). The O.Pers. form, Babiru-, shows characteristic transformation of -l- to -r- in words assimilated from Semitic. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Babylon Funny I don't see any Hebew here, hmm, must be spawn of satan.
Thank you for your reasonable response. First I will address your later statements; The story discussed here ironically depicts the near impossible reconciliation of Christian and Jewish interpretations, nearly entirely rooted in mis-translation. The Greek words often derived their meaning from historic locations, and in Christianity often from the Torah definitions. Some Definitions: Balal = Mix ili = "to be for", the root word is "li" pronounced "leah" 'ל Original Akkadians didn't speak a semitic language, in fact all of their writings are done in cuneiform. Cuneiform is a symbolic language, rather than phonetic...thus more closely resembles Egyptian hieroglyphs in many respects. The language had come from (at that time) Sumer or biblically Chaldea. Similarly; the Sumerians were founded by Nimrod, not the Babylonians. Rather the Babylonians (as they are called) were founded by a son of Nimrod...Akkad. Nimrod, was the son of Cush, which fathered Egypt. Cush - Proto Canaanite Egypt (Mitrahim) - Hieroglyphs Nimrod - Cuneiform Akkad (Babyl) - Akkadian This is why all of their languages were symbolic rather than phonetic. However; later "Bavyl" was held by another group, Ramaah (Persia). Who also descended from Cush. So the question becomes...why all of the sudden did the entire region switch to Aramaic (or Phonetics in general)? Where did it come from? Aramaeans...which were NOT of Cush, rather had the same father as the Jews did, Shem. 'Aram' managed to take babyl (Mat Akkadi)...which was quickly taken by the Ramaah (Persia). The Persians sought out Jews from Israel to work in their kingdom, one of them was Daniel. In any case the name "Bavyl" is what stuck through all of history. Theologically why did the Torah call them "Bavyl"? My initial post describes this. But briefly; the people of the land worshiped the moon...simultaneously they furthered the base 12 system. They wanted their god to be equal to the moon...which was 30...to do this they changed to a base 12 system...which gave the appearance of 30 looking as "26". Thus the number for G*d (26) in Hebrew is written "2 2" in base 12. 2 is the second letter of the Hebrew alefbet in Gemmatria...thus "Bav" is the pronunciation of "2 2". --------- Regarding Genesis 10:10-12; As for רֵאשִׁית meaning "The beginning of his kingdoms"... רֵאשִׁ is really the root which means "The kingdoms in which came from him" or "The kingdoms created because of him". In Torah, the order in which things are placed is not chronological (unless stated with the term "ben" (of)), rather it's the greatness of it. Meaning Bavyl was greater than accad, not before. Evidence is the order in which it lists Shem, Yafet, Hem. When Yafet was the oldest son.
This is incorrect. Akkadian was a Semitic language and is considered to be Semitic by those who study it today. It's part of the Afro-Asiatic language family and did not come from Sumer, which was an entirely different linguistic evolution. Indeed, Sumerian appears to be a language isolate since it has no demonstrable connection with any other language -particularly Akkadian. Further, cuneiform was a script, not a language. Many languages are (were) written in cuneiform. They weren't founded by either. The Sumerian origins are, as yet, unknown but certainly date to far earlier than "Nimrod" and the Akkadians. The Akkadians followed the Sumerians and even perpetuated their language for a time (Sumerian in Akkad was much like Latin is to Italy -the language of the learned and the pious). If there's any connection with Sumer and the mythic character Nimrod, then it is likely to be through an archetype -the Mesopotamian god, Marduk, is frequently considered to be the archetype for the Judeo-Christian concept of Nimrod. The archetype for the "Tower of Babylon" may have been the large, layer-cake style ziggurats of the Sumerian (and later Akkadian) cult centers. Akkad is a place name, not a person. No ancient text (there are thousands upon thousands of texts of the period) shows this to be a person. Indeed, many of the earliest texts refer to Akkad as "Agade," a cognate, but the same place. Its first "Akkadian" ruler was Sargon, who likely took control from the earlier rule of the nearby Sumerian King in Uruk. If you mean "Kush," which is present-day Sudan, then it's possible that they share common ancestry as the Egyptians (we all do at some point), but there's, so far, no evidence to demonstrate they are the direct ancestors to pre-unified Egypt. It's an hypothesis, but a loose one. No evidence that links Nubian culture with Canaanite culture other than the fact that they were both employed by the Egyptians during the Dynastic periods. These correlations are nonsensical and disjointed. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Their languages or their scripts? Which are you talking about? Their languages were definitely phonetic -they were agglutinative languages to be precise. Their scripts were symbolic as was all writing -as is all writing do one degree or another. But your correlations and conclusions in the two quotes above are nonsensical and non-relational -what are you actually positing? Kush is Nubia, in the region of present-day Sudan. There's no evidence that Nubians migrated to the Arabian Peninsula, the Fertile Crescent, or the Levant. So the question becomes...why all of the sudden did the entire region switch to Aramaic (or Phonetics in general)? Where did it come from? Ancient Aramaic was first written in the Phoenician alphabet, which was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was first introduced at around 1200 BCE though it didn't gain any prominence in the Levant until around 500 BCE. This is because various state rulers needed a language that was common to their subjects for economic trade, thus Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Levant. As to "where did it all come from?", the Aramaeans were probably the people of "Aram" mentioned in the Akkadian text, Naram-Sin, which is an inscription that mentions "Aram" as a placename and is dated to about 2200 BCE. Probably because the word bab-ilu in Akkadian means "gate of god" -same as the word bab-el in Arabic (S.A.M., correct me if I'm wrong). The term may have already existed since the Ishtar Gate was there and the Hebrew authors of the Tanakh took advantage of its cognate to balal -which, and correct me if I'm wrong, means to confuse and confound. For related reading, see "The Rise of the Sumerian Culture
Your quasi-Intellectual analysis shows the comprehension of compiled text book. Not reality, and surely not historical consensus.
Not reality? Do you mean, not your reality? Just because you don't want certain things to be true, doesn't mean you get to recreate reality. What, specifically, did you find to be outside of "historical consensus" so that I might provide you with citations that demonstrate the "historical consensus" as well as the archaeological fact of the matter.
You have a book written by men alive today. I have a book written by men alive then. I place my thread in Religion as theology. You removed it to History...wrongfully. Half of the things you "Corrected me on", I already gave evidence earlier of. Another example of poor moderation.
I have a lot of books written by men alive today. I have some written by men who are dead. I have many more peer-reviewed journal articles. And all of these which are relevant to the topic at hand have published their methods and the details of the evidence at hand. Why the appeal to the ancients? Biblical mythology is variously fact/variously myth/variously allegory and metaphor. The inconsistency of religious texts in this regard requires that they be read with a rational and critical eye -thus Judeo-Christian mythology has exactly the same validity and veracity as ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Sumerian, Greek, Vedic, etc. texts, which present stories and allegories intermixed with factual events. What we know about the texts you want entered into academic discourse as "historical" is that they are anything but historical. Indeed, literary analysis of these texts shows the same archetypes and metaphorical styling that is expected in a text that is finally written down after many generations of being retold as an oral tradition. I'm sorry that you've misplaced your expectations of "truth," but choosing to believe in the "factual" nature of a compendium of allegory and myth doesn't imbibe it with facts that are present. Yours are truth claims. As such, they require rational and critical evidence otherwise they are just so much nonsense. You placed an historical topic in the wrong forum. I moved it after it had little real activity to the appropriate forum. If others post, that's great. If they don't, at least its in its appropriate place. I saw no evidence of the mythical character Nimrod "fathering" Sumer perhaps a couple thousand years before he was alleged to exist. Your understanding of the nature of Mesopotamian languages was poor and I saw no evidence that coincided with my corrections. In fact, you basically make up your own opinion on matters that are already well understood by the archaeological and historical community which have zero bases in fact. You have yet to establish this as well. If you have additional information that's productive to the thread, please post it. Otherwise, sit back an allow others to potentially comment or ask questions.
You haven't the slightest clue what "mythology" I am speaking of. The 6 mishnaim were written throughout 70CE and 200CE, some of the people had lived through the events...and they wrote about it. Then again later redacted in 500CE Since the historical name of "Babylon" is "Mat Akkadi" to the actual ancient citizens...Babylon must have came from somewhere. The first appearance of "Babyl" in history is in the Torah. Thus I gave the theological reason why it was named Babyl and not called by its proper name "Mat Akkadi". Actually...it wasn't poor. Theological definitions of "Cush" don't equate to modern definitions of "Kush"...hmm. Since Accad was a biblical figure...I could make the theological argument.
Then perhaps you should be clear on which "events" you're referring to, precisely. On the one hand, your thread title is on the origin of the term "Babylon," which really isn't a mystery. On the other, and within the thread, you speak of origin events of the various empires and cultures within the Near East as well as their languages -on these topics, you make some factual errors, to which I offered correction. It isn't clear how the writings of 70-200CE are those of people who "had lived through the events" of the 3rd millennium BCE -the events to which I was correcting. Sure. No problem. There's an origin of the word "babylon" which is likely due to the Ishtar Gate found there. There's also the coincidence of the Hebrew cognate that I mentioned. Or it could have been part of the whole Hebrew mythology that created the "scattering of the tongues" archetype to explain why so many people speak different languages. This is clearly myth and is to be dismissed, of course, since there is evidence of many different languages going back much further than the Hebrew authors that made that stuff up. What you haven't done is account for the problems with your understanding of language and linguistics -you have clearly mistaken scripts for languages, for instance. Pathetic was the word that came to mind, but I was trying to be kind. Theological arguments are non-factual and don't support truth claims. If you just want to make shit up, you might try a forum other than a science-based forum, which is what SciForums is. Or, you could create and write a blog if you just want to publish your own version and opinions on history. At any rate, theological scholars have long made and accepted the allegorical nature of "Kush/Cush" and "Akkad/Agade/Accad."
