GarColga

Religious Tolerance.org, in an article on the Tower of Babel, makes reference to another Tower story in an apocryphal book called 3Baruch. I can't find this book anywhere on the net. Anywhere I've looked, anyway. Can someone point me to a site where this book can be read?

Peter Kirby

GarColga writes: Religious Tolerance.org, in an article on the Tower of Babel, makes reference to another Tower story in an apocryphal book called 3Baruch. I can't find this book anywhere on the net. Anywhere I've looked, anyway. Can someone point me to a site where this book can be read?

The full text in translation (probably that of R. H. Charles) appears here:

<a href="http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/ot/pseudo/3baruch.htm" target="_blank">http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/ot/pseudo/3baruch.htm</a>

But anyone who is even semi-serious about the history of religion owes it to themselves to get the two-volume collection of Jewish apocrypha edited by Charlesworth. It is the most comprehensive and most cited collection of early non-canonical Jewish writings (excluding the Dead Sea Scrolls - pick up a copy of Vermes or Wise for those).

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0385096305/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Old Testament Pseudepigraphia, Vol 1)</a>

The first volume contains the following: Apocalypse of Abraham, Apocalypse of Adam, Testament of Adam, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, Apocalypse of Daniel, Apocalypse of Elijah, 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch, Apocryphon of Ezekiel, Fourth Book of Ezra, Greek Apocalypse of Ezra, Questions of Ezra, Revelation of Ezra, Vision of Ezra, Testament of Job, Testament of Moses, Apocalypse of Sedrach, Treatise of Shem, Sibylline Oracles, Testament of Solomon, Testaments of the Three Patriarchs, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Apocalypse of Zephaniah.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385188137/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Expansions of the 'Old Testament' and Legends, Wisdom and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms, and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works (Old Testament Pseudepigraphia, Vol 2)</a>

The second volume contains the following: Life of Adam and Eve, Ahiqar, Letter of Aristeas, Aristeas the Exegete, Aristobulus, Artapanus, 4 Baruch, Cleodemus Malchus, More Psalms of David, Demetrius the Chronographer, Eldad and Modad, Eupolemus, Pseudo-Eupolemus, Ezekiel the Tragedian, Fragments of Pseudo-Greek Poets, Pseudo-Hecataeus, Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers, Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah, Ladder of Jacob, Prayer of Jacob, Jannes and Jambres, Joseph and Aseneth, History of Joseph, Prayer of Joseph, Jubilees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh, Syriac Menander, Orphica, Philo the Epic Poet, Pseudo-Philo, Pseudo-Phocylides, The Lives of the Prophets, History of the Rechabites, Odes of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon, and Theodotus.

The value of these volumes include hardcopy format, comprehensiveness including documents not on the net, and a source for comparison with (older) translations pulled off the web.

best,
Peter Kirby

GarColga

Thanks very much, Peter. I've only been an 'unbeliever' for a year or so and have a lot to learn!

Tristan Scott

The Tower of Babel may have originated in the Babylonian myth, When On Highor the Enuma Elish where, out of gratitude, the gods build the hero Marduk a structure in Babylon, called Esagila, meaning "house with its head in heaven." The similarities between this myth and the Genesis story are expounded in Alexander Heidel's Babylonian Genesis.