hæc perpetua mundi dementia est, neglecto cœlo immortalitatem quærere in terra, ubi nihil est non caducum et evanidum (Calv.).
3. Parallels.—No Babylonian version of the story has been discovered; and for the reason given above (p. 226) it is extremely unlikely that anything resembling the biblical form of it will ever be found there.[1] In Greek mythology there are dim traces of a legend ascribing the diversities of language to an act of the gods, whether as a punishment on the creatures for demanding the gift of immortality (Philo, De Conf. ling.), or without ethical motive, as in the 143rd fable of Hyginus.[2] But while these myths are no doubt independent of Jewish influence, their resemblance to the Genesis narrative is too slight to suggest a common origin. It is only in the literature of the Hellenistic period that we find real parallels to the story of the Tower of Babel; and these agree so closely with the biblical account that it is extremely doubtful if they embody any separate tradition.[3] The difference to which most importance is attached is naturally the polytheistic phraseology ('the gods') employed by some of the writers named (Polyhistor, Abyd.); but the polytheism is only in the language, and is probably nothing more than conscious or unconscious Hellenising of the scriptural narrative. Other differences—such as the identification of the tower-builders with the race of giants (the Nephîlîm of 64?), and the destruction of the tower by a storm—are easily explicable as accretions to the legend of Genesis.[4] The remarkable Mexican legend of the pyramid of Cholula, cited by Jeremias from von Humboldt,[5] has a special interest on account of the unmistakable resemblance between the Mexican pyramids and the Babylonian zikkurats. If this fact could be accepted)
- ↑ The fragment (K 3657) translated in Smith-Sayce, Chald. Gen. 163 ff. (cf. HCM2, 153 f.), and supposed to contain obscure allusions to the building of a tower in Babylon, its overthrow by a god during the night, and a confusion of speech, has since been shown to contain nothing of the sort: see King, Creation Tablets, i. 219 f.; Je. ATLO2, 286.
- ↑ "Sed postquam Mercurius sermones hominum interpretatus est . . . id est nationes distribuit, tum discordia inter mortales esse cœpit, quod Jovi placitum non est."
- ↑ Cf. Orac. Sibyll. iii. 98 ff. (Kautzsch, Pseudepigraphen, 187); Alexander
Polyhistor (Eus. Chron. i. 23 [ed. Schoene]); Abydenus (ib. i. 33);
Jos. Ant. i. 118; Eupolemos (Eus. Præp. Ev. ix. 17); and Book of Jub. x. 18-27. The lines of the Sibyl (iii. 99 f.) may be quoted as a
typical example of this class of legends:
(
Greek characters).
(Greek characters);
(Greek characters),
(Greek characters);
(Greek characters).
- ↑ So Gu.2 88 f. On the other side, cf. Gruppe, Griechische Culte und Mythen, i. 677 ff.; Sta. Ak. Red. 277 f.; Je. ATLO2, 383 ff.
- ↑ Vues des Cordilleres (Paris, 1810), 24, 32 ff.
