funinspace

This tower had to do with Akadian/Sumerian gods, and nothing to do with Jewish fantasies. I would suggest that Wikipedia is catering to Christian preferences vice reality. There is plenty of Sumerian/Akadian literature to explain the uses of these structures from the actual time period (aka 2,000 BCE) vice extrapolations/fairy tales made up hundreds of years later.

drewjmore

I thought we bombed them dirty mesopotamians back to the stone age back in '95. Deserved it, too. :Cheeky:

:thumbs: On the idea, even a (non-literalist) christian would have to accept the pedantic nature of OT stories, and concede that "historical evidence" will be questionable if not lacking. Perhaps the teacher is anti-fundamentalist, and trying to gently encourage her students to reach their own conclusions?

freigeister

But, my dear fellow, isn't that the point: to find the kernel of truth underneath the legend?

funinspace

Yeah, the kid could do a report on the ziggurats, and how it is completely alien to the Hebrew tale. The only kernel is that the Hebrews expropriated a tower (or another tale of a tower) they didn’t understand and built a mountain out of a mole hill. Things like several known languages existed during the time of these ziggurats; It would have been a tower to the god of that city, not The God; the city (probably Eridu) didn't cease being populated; and on and on. One could draw a tiny kernel that the Hebrews knew some legends of Mesopotamia.

The point I was making is that this is not an "Extra Biblical Account" of the Tower of Babel. This is a contradictory account that comes from real history vice legend built out of taking something out of context. It would be like writing a "History of the Mormon Jaredites settlement of Maya" . Maybe one could do a history regarding language myths from the Chaldeans, Jewish midrash, Mormons, Quran et.al., but would a teacher accept this as being a report on "The History of Babel" or accept a history of the real Babel (aka the Gate of God)?

freigeister

If I were still teaching grade 8, a report like that would definitely blow me away.

spin

By "kernel of truth" here I guess you mean the something that really happened behind it. And that is usually unfindable. It's like getting a line of people, having someone secretly tell the first a message, who tells the next, who tells the next, until it has passed along the whole line, then from the final version you try to work out the original message.


spin

freigeister

Indeed. "But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."—Spinoza, Ethics, Pt. 5, Prop. XLII, Note.

rob117

That's debatable, but I won't argue any more than that. Just reminding that there are mainstream secular interpretations of the archaeological evidence that do not completely reject the united monarchy.

Also, what kind of assignment is this? It could be that the teacher's a nut, not necessarily the school itself.

linwood

Yes I see it but much of it is scriptural as well just not Biblically scriptural and to me there is not much difference between scripture that was accepted as canon and scripture that wasn`t accepted as canon.
IE: The Jubilee and the Midrash and or other mythologies that don`t even touch on the Abrahamic deity .To me and my friend a myth is a myth is a myth regardless of where it came from.
The historical notations can be useful but it isn`t really evident that they are actually refering to "The" Tower of Babel. It seems as if those documents have been used out of context to support "The" Tower of Babel.

This would be very cool and potentially not controversial as far as stating any opinion on revealed faith.

This is the route my friend seems to be taking.

I`ve done a couple of searches on the ziggurats but all I`m coming up with is out of context weakly founded Christian documentation supporting at least one of these structures as the Tower of Babel.
Can you point me to this Sumerian literature documenting their uses in the time period?

Thanks for all the help, I think I`ve got enough to give my friend some solid research avenues to pursue.
The Sumerian literature on the ziggurats would be very helpful though.

I appreciate it.

spin

Not up to scratch, Ghosty.


spin