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Tower Of Babel

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The Tower of Babel seen by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the ^sixteenth century.

The tower of Babel was under the Genesis a tower that the men wanted to build to reach the sky.

According to the Judeo-Christian traditions, is Nimrod , the "king-hunter" reigning over the descendants of Noah , who had the idea of building in Babel ( Babylon ), a tower high enough that its top reaches the sky.

Descendants of Noah , so they represented all humanity and all were expected to speak the same language and unique on Earth , one and one Adamic language. To thwart their plans he considered full of pride, God multiplied the languages so that people no longer understand. And construction had to stop and the men scattered on the ground.

This story is sometimes seen as an attempt to answer to the mystery of the apparent existence of several languages, but is also the vehicle of a moral education: it illustrates the dangers of wanting to put on a par with God, the challenge in our search for knowledge but also humanity's need to talk, to understand each other for large projects, and the risk of these projects fail when each group of specialists begins to speak only jargon of his discipline. This story can also be seen as a metaphor of human misunderstanding, that unlike animals, humans do not understand by unequivocal signs, but by the ambiguity of meaning.

Babel, it is both a city and a tower: a first collective enterprise to make a name, say the builders, to exist. The interpretation of the episode of Babel may face a huge misunderstanding - misunderstanding. Franois Marty, rightly evokes Babel as a chance for humans. The myth of Babel can be read as establishing, for diversity entails a multiplicity of languages, terms of otherness, of "biodiversity" men . The city becomes a melting pot of humanity . It is God himself who gives a name to this city: Babel is the door of heaven through the conditions of otherness that are well established. Babel is then an invitation to the "openness to others than the other one to me as radically different path that leads to all other" to paraphrase Emmanuel Levinas . This tower has no other purpose than to make sense of what the company building the city. But there is a misunderstanding. Atop the ziggurat is a temple with a bed and a woman who waits. Or so we learn from archeology. So an invitation to God to come and visit the men. Simply, the man reached the summit of the tower is dizzy, that the demiurge. He is then tried to play God himself. We should probably reread the myth of Babel myth of otherness itself, with greater attention to writing beyond the glosses and representations. Babel is first a city and is in its middle men are building a tower, the two are linked. The whole is built on a fault line - the Bible says-Shinar, rift that connects to the Ancients, two worlds: that of men and gods, the Underworld. This text refers indirectly to the first city built by Cain and one whose name Enoch - the beginning - in the land of Nod - from wandering. It is the city of the first creations of men with crafts and arts Tubalcain and Jubal, but alas it is also the city's crime Lamech (Genesis 4, 17-24) and that's why God destroyed by a deluge. That is what we find deluge, coincidentally, the origin in the country where were built Babel, Ur and many other cities with their ziggurats and discover that the Hebrews during their exile in Babylon.

The stories of buildings that were trying to raise men to heaven have long lasting impression, inspiration for many writers and artists.

Summary

1 Possible Cause
2 French text of the Bible
- 2.1 Translation in the Bible
- 2.2 Translation Current
3 A Sumerian inspiration?
4 Other sources
5 Origin of name
6 Appearances and references
7 See also
8 Notes and references

Possible Cause

The origin of this myth is obviously neighboring Mesopotamia but the modalities of development are still poorly defined. Its origin could be deportation to Babylon of part of the Jewish population in 597 after the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II (604-552). The deportation of civilian populations was a common practice at that time to bring calm in the rebel regions. The Jews were conquered by the great ziggurat of the god Marduk , in the heart of the sanctuary of the Esagil "temple whose head is high." The ziggurat itself was called the Etemenanki : "temple-foundation of heaven and earth." According to Francis Joannes, it was conceived as "the linchpin that united heaven and earth and ensured the unity of the universe."

The ziggurats were built across Mesopotamia from the late third millennium occupation Achaemenid. The oldest are the work of Ur-Nammu (2112-2095), king of the Sumerian Dynasty of Ur III. Etemenanki was exceptional for its size. It has benefited both of the reconstruction work undertaken by Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) and embellishments made by the neo-Babylonian rulers who took advantage of a huge booty. The ziggurat was a base of 90 meters square and perhaps an equivalent height. This would make it one of the most spectacular monuments of any antiquity. She probably had 7 floors, stained facings of glazed bricks (the number 7 had a symbolic value in Mesopotamia). However its shape was not circular: all ziggurats had a square or rectangular.

The origins of pictorial representations of a round tower may be linked to an association between late tower of Babel and the minaret of the mosque in Samarra, located 205 km north of the site and 125 km north of Baghdad. Tower Malwiya , which is neither more nor less than that can be admired in most representations of the Tower of Babylon , its unique shape, spiral, has influenced many painters and explorers. However, this mosque dates from ^the ninth century , and therefore has no connection with the ancient city of Babylon.

French text of the Bible

The Tower of Babel is mentioned in Genesis , in chapter 11 , verses 1-9:

Translations in the Bible

Everyone was of one language and few words. As men moved to the East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they settled there. They said one to another: "Come! Make bricks and bake them in a fire! "And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. They said: 'Come! Build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven Let us make a name, lest we be scattered throughout the earth! "

God came down to see the city and the tower that the men had built. And God said, 'Here are all one people and speak one language, and this is the beginning of their business! Now, nothing will be impossible for them. Come on! Descend! And there confuse their language so they may not understand one another. God scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth and they stopped building the city. Also named Does it Babel, because there God confused the language of all the inhabitants of the earth and there he scattered them all over the face of the earth.

Current Translation

The tower of Babel painted in 1587 by Lodewyk Toeput. Judeo-Christian dogma he blames the confusion of tongues.

The whole earth had one language and one speech. As they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Chmunter, and they dwelt there. They said one to another, Go! Make bricks and bake them in the fire. And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. And they said: Come! Build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name, that we are not scattered over the face of the earth.

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, the son of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, they are one people and have all one language, and this is what they have undertaken and now nothing will stop them from doing everything they propose. Come on! down and there confuse their language so they will not understand the language of each other. And the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they ceased building the city. That's why we called his name Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the LORD scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth.

Sumerian An inspiration?

There are other myths earlier explaining the origin of languages by divine intervention. The oldest among them is the Sumerian myth called Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta. The text is somewhat fragmentary and difficult to approach. Enmerkar, legendary founder of the city of Uruk, is trying to bring the city of Aratta, located on the Iranian plateau and seeks the help of the goddess Ishtar. It is advised to send a herald to negotiate with rival lord. During negotiations, the herald recites a mantra dedicated to Enki who leads the division of languages. This text offers the ultimate little resemblance to the biblical story, also establish any link between the two texts is for the currently far from clear. Finally, one can find on the Internet a strange story attributed to the Sumerians in which Enki Marduk or deprive humanity of language ... Without serious reference, this myth must be taken with great caution. Sumerian myths were never interested in Marduk, the mere fact that the rise of Babylon, and consequently its patron god, is after the fall of the last dynasty of Ur III. The myths that depict Marduk are developed by the Babylonian priesthood and does not practice this confusion of genres.

Other sources

Protestant interpretation

The confusion of tongues, Gustave Dore

The portion of the tower of Babel - story etiological justifying the diversity of languages and peoples - marks the end of the narrative of origins that extends from Gen. I. This story is marked by sin, by his "rash": the fall, the story of Cain and Abel, singing Lemec , the deluge. However a distinction, we think he should be made. Unlike the fall, the story of Cain and Abel and the song of Lamech, that stigmatize or sins of individual behavior, the unions of angels that will generate the flood and the adventure of building the tower of Babel are sins or collective behavior. In both cases, there are events where humanity is understood as the community of the son of Adam.

After the origin story, so this is to mark the collective sin of a human community and to show God's condemnation. A conviction without appeal, without intervention of grace. From these words: "the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth," the story of the Tower of Babel and the origins open to the future in the sense that the question of the relationship between men and God asked.

(Von Rad, Theology of the Old Testament, Vol. I, Geneva, Labor et Fides, p. 146)

The confusion of languages, the source of power

According to Alexander Hislop , the founder of Babylon , Cush , father of Nimrod , was identified with Hermes. So what characterizes the Babylonian system would discover the secret languages of Hermeticism (which is hidden), and this for the sake of power. Power based on the confusion of minds and the emergence of jargon , that is to say, two-way language understood only by insiders, and the deep meaning which the mass of humans would not have access. The upper classes appear so who know the secret languages (priests and noble warriors). Babylon is the first company specialized and hierarchical, foreshadowing all civilizations with their next class, it is based on the retention of information and thus value. The information and value are hoarded (capitalized) by the noble and priestly classes. The bulk of the population receives a simplified information, uninteresting, irrelevant, intended to produce an image of the mad world of superstition, fostered by the clergy.

It is in this desire to promote secret languages lies the power of the upper classes, and also the cause of the confusion of languages and their proliferation among nations. Humans of Babel ( Babylon ) and found their punishment in the system of power that they themselves have invented.

Islamic tradition

The Sunnah does not explicitly address the myth of the Tower of Babel, or confusion of languages, nor the existence of a tower of some sort. What could be considered the tower of Babel, is called in Arabic Palatinum and more commonly as-Sarh, whose definition is "a single house built on a lonely and rugged, rising high in the sky; any building being a high sarh. In the tradition, Babel is mentioned once, in case the "Chapter on prayer in the ruins and places of pain" from the important collection of Islamic traditions: The Authentic al-Bukhari (194/810 - 256 / 870) for Muslims is Nimrod who wants to build this tower (sarh) to reach God. The story of the tower has a relationship with the Prophet Ibrahim. The Quran says: "Did not you know the story of one who, because Allah had given him increased cons Ibrahim about his Lord? Ibrahim having said:" My Lord is He who gives life and death, "" Me too, "said another, I give life and death" Then Ibrahim said: "Puisqu'Allah brought the sun from the east, do it then come from the West." The miscreant remained confused. Allah does not guide the unjust. " Notice to that effect, that despite the characterization of Babel as a place of Ascension to Heaven is the Holy City of Jerusalem that the prophet Mohammed flew to the throne of God during his night journey al-Isra wa- l-Mi'rdj.

Origin of name

Babel comes from the word Akkadian Bab-allah (The Gate of God), Bab meaning "door" and ilu meaning "God". (Declined allah) Other service-bab'el (City of God). One can also see an onomatopoeia : see babble.

This origin is clearly a reference to Babylon , located in Chapter 11 of Genesis in the land of Shinar ( Sumer ).

Appearances and references

Literature

The Library of Babel (1941) of Jorge Luis Borges : The Story of a comprehensive library
Babel, the language of promise, Alain-Abehsera Abraham, BibliEurope - Connectives, 1999 (essay on the universal kinship of language with the Hebrew Bible). ISBN 2-911398-34-3
The man who defied Babel Centassi Rene and Henri Masson (Biographical Work on Ludwik Zamenhof Lejzer ; foreword by Louis-Christophe Zaleski Zamenhof), Editions Ramsay, ISBN 2-7475-1808-6 , 2002.
Babel towers of Jacques Derrida
Babel Jean-Claude Franklin
Babel, Tower of men Daniel Brentwood
Babel or incompleteness of Paul Zumthor , Editions du Seuil
The Sacrifice prohibits Chapter 3 of Mary Balmary Editions Grasset, 1999.
The Tower of Babel song Guy Bart
Tower of Babel Glenmor song from the album "Tribute to Morvan Lebesque"
The Tower of Bab-El and The Wrath of Enki, Volume 5 and 6 of the Quebec series Amos Daragon of Bryan Perro.
The Galaxy's Guide to Douglas Adams : The Babelfish translator is a fish that slips into the ear of a living being.

Painting

The tower of Babel painted in 1594 by Lucas van Valckenborch.

Lucas van Valckenborch (1535-1597) The tower of Babel ( Paris , Muse du Louvre), 1594, oil on wood, 41 x 56 cm
Lucas van Valckenborch (1535-1597) Construction of the tower of Babel ( Koblenz , Mittelrhein-Museum, Inv. Nr M 31), 1595 (?), oil on wood, 42 x 68 cm
Martin van Valckenborch (1535-1612), The Tower of Babel, oil on wood 49.5 x 66.6 cm (Pinacoteca, Siena)

Cinema

In the film Metropolis , a scene tells the story of the Tower of Babel: its purpose, its construction, the misunderstandings between the hand and head and end. In the modern manga with the same title, a man tries to rise above the others by using a robot to the appearance of a little girl that can control the world from atop a tower called Ziggurat , done just like the tower of Babel.
In the film Alexander by Oliver Stone , a scene showing the Tower of Babel located in Babylon.
The film of Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu , Babel refers to the myth building on the difficulties encountered by men to communicate, then they are all united by a common humanity.

Animation

The Tower of Babel made his appearance in Nadia, the secret of blue water. It was built by the Atlanteans , but it also served to their destruction.
In The Castle in the sky , behind the castle is not known but is reminiscent of the generic theme of men who wanted to rise to the rank of gods (life in the clouds, infinite power who can do good or evil according to their will) and were nearly annihilated, the survivors having to relearn everything. The link is even more obvious that one of these castles appear in the credits closely resembles the representation of Peter Bruegel.
In Patlabor , E. Hoba (in reference to Jehovah ) is trying to sabotage the project Babylon by introducing a virus that causes the appearance of the word "Babel" on computer screens and madness robots infected with the virus. This maneuver is intended to prevent the return of God, meant to punish man, as in the Old Testament , following the Pharaonic project Babylon.

Video games

In Babylon Rising (iPhone and WiiWare), workers are trying to build the tower of Babel. The player is God, and must stop them by launching seven powers at his disposal.
In Sun , a former SEGA game in which the hero climbing the tower of Babel, passes tests to reach the top of the tower, and another more difficult to reach the heavens. It's a rabbit in a village near Fleur Burned "which tells us that humans have difficulty communicating with each other.
In Illusion of Time in which a hero evolves in the interior of a tower like the tower of Babel
In Super Mario Bros.. 3 where it is a small level in the world 5 which is precisely the world of heaven.
In Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones , produced by Ubisoft, one can climb the tower in the final stages of the game
In Xenogears , where it constitutes an important step in the game The symbol of the link with God and the rise of man to heaven is reused in this game scenario very mystical.
In Nostalgeo No Kaze : The Tower of Babel at the graphics perfectly recalling the painting by Brueghel the Elder.
In Sim City Creator , the Tower of Babel is the monument to ancient times, it is similar to painting by Brueghel the Elder.
In Painkiller , the level 3 of Chapter 4 is called "Babel." It takes place in a large eastern city where the famous tower rises.
In Atlantica Online , where she is a dungeon nation available from level 100. It has 4 floors.
In Golden Sun (Game Boy Advance), a character named Babi built a tower called the "Babi Lighthouse" in order to locate a lost island that holds the secrets of immortality. The building collapsed before its completion.

Comics

Tower of Schuiten Francis and Benoit Peeters tells the story of a maintainer in a tower with a huge size, referring to the tower of Babel.
Volume 5 of the comic Universal War One is called Babel, with reference to the Tower of Babel, whose story is told.

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Tower Of Babel

Summary

Possible Cause