Shinar and Babel

[Update October 2020: This theory I don't currently consider likely.]

There are a number of theories out there suggesting Shinar isn’t in Mesopotamia, or at least is a part of it that does not include Sumer and Akkad.  Some of these tie into hyper-fringe theories claiming Israel wasn’t in Israel, those can be easily dismissed.

I read one article on Answers in Genesis “Where in The World is The Tower of Babel” suggesting Shinar is in Kurdish Syria by the Habor/Gozan River.  I looked at that theory pretty open mindedly, but their approach to justifying placing Babel somewhere other then the Babylon of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar was to simply say Babel and Babylon have no relation in-spite of the Hebrew text using the exact same spelling, because they have different meanings.

I’m all for the idea of the Babel of Genesis and the Babylon of the Captivity being different places, but suggesting there is no connection massively damages the symmetry of The Bible.  The Hebrew scribes didn’t have to spell Bab-El as Bet-Bet-Lamed, the natural Hebrew spelling of that would be Bet-Bet-Aleph-Lamed, they chose to drop the Aleph.

Sometimes a name can have conflicting etymologies because of something called Folk Etymology (for a modern example the word "History" does NOT actually come from "His Story").  In fact most scholars do think the “Gate of god” meaning of Babylon is a folk etymology, though that’s in the context of thinking "Babel" might not be Semitic at all.  But an argument can also be made that Moses was the one changing the meaning to suite YHWH’s message, since the word for Confusion used when explaining the etymology is spelled Bet-Lamed-Lamed, Balal.

The pagan meaning of Bab-El is arguably strongly implied in what the people building the Tower in Genesis 11 wanted to do, they wanted to use it to in some way access Heaven, or at least symbolically treat it that way.

This issue isn’t even the main reason I rejected their theory however.  I’ve come to find only one alternative location for Shinar viable, it’s one I came to using Scripture itself.  I’m by no means willing to go all in on it yet however, after all I recently made a post arguing for Babel being Nippur.

There is another Hebrew place name that is spelled very similarly to Shinar in the Masoretic text, that is a name rendered in the KJV as Shenir or Senir.  It’s used in four verses, Deuteronomy 3:9 in the Torah, and then Song of Songs 4:8, 1 Chronicles 5:23 and Ezekiel 27:5.  The only difference in the Hebrew between this spelling and Shinar is this one adds a Yot between the N and the R.  Comparing the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts to the Masoretic and Samaritan texts reveals that in those places where the Masoretic is using Yot kind of as a vowel the original version didn’t have a Yot there at all.  So really this name is highly likely to be the exact same name as Shinar.

All four Shenir verses link the name to Hermon (a mountain range bordering Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights), it could be the Masoretic voweled them differently because they already thought Shinar should be Mesopotamia.  Deuteronomy 3:8-9 explicitly makes Shenir an alternate name for Hermon, what the Amorites called Hermon.

Genesis 11 does not say Shinar is a plain, it says they came to a plain in the Land of Shinar.  The Hebrew word translated “plain” here really more specifically means valley, it implies being between two mountains or mountain ranges.  It’s possible their initially founding the City in the valley doesn’t rule out the Migdol(Tower) being on one of the mountains.  There are a few different valleys for which the Hermon Mountains was one of their edges.

In Revelation the word “wilderness” appears three times in the KJV, each time it is a translation of a word that is a legit Greek word for “wilderness”, but it happens to also look like how you might spell Hermon in Greek.  That includes it being identified with the location of Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17.

Ararat is implied to be east of where Babel was built.  That word appears four times in the Hebrew Bible but Genesis 8:4 is the only time it’s in The Torah.  The other three times could be references to Uratu or Aratta, but in Genesis I think it’s really just a form of the word Arar Strongs Number 779.  Arar is translated “curse”, “curseth” and “cursed”.  Curse is also believed to be the meaning of the name Hermon.  Some have already argued Hermon is where Noah’s Ark actually landed, but I need to buy the book to get the full details of their argument which might be tied into other stuff I disagree with.

Many ancient Pagan Temples, Shrines and Idols were built on the Mountains of Hermon and in the Valleys beneath them.  And not just by the indigenous population, all of the Empires to conquer this region saw it as an important place to worship the gods.  Eusebius recognized the religious importance of Hermon in his work Onomasticon (probably written in the first quarter of the 4th century), saying "Until today, the mount in front of Banias and Lebanon is known as Hermon and it is respected by nations as a sanctuary".  The Romans built so many Roman Temples over the sacred sites of the Beqaa/Bekaa Valley west of Hermon that no remains of the Pre-Roman structures seem to be left.  The Temple to Jupiter at Baalbek built by Hadrian’s orders by the same architect who built his Temple to Jupiter in Jerusalem after the Bar-Kochba revolt is the most impressive of them, Ancient Aliens theorists want to deny the existing site there is Roman, Chris White has proven it is in his documentary debunking them, but I do feel the Pre-Hadrian temples may have been no less impressive.

Daniel 1:1-2 is not the same campaign as 2 Chronicles 36:6-7, the latter happened at the end of Jehoiakim’s Reign and the former was in the 3rd year.  So these two places Nebuchadnezzar was taking spoils to from Jerusalem do not have to be the same place, he could have seen value in using them to Honor shines at Hermon.  However it’s also possible the name of Shinar moved to Mesopotamia along with the name of Babel.

In Deuteronomy 3:8-9 Shenir is said to be the name the Amorites called Hermon, if Babel and other place names used in the Genesis verses that mention Babel are also Amorite names, then that means those places could have been called different names by the people who called Hermon by other names like Hermon, Sion(Deuteronomy 4:48) and Sirion which the Sidonians called it.

I date Genesis 14 to between 2251-2226 BC and the Seven year Famine of Joseph to about 2036 BC at the latest, but I’m also open to earlier dates.  The Amorites (or at least some of them) migrated to Mesopotamia because of a drought in the Land of Canaan, possibly the same one that brought Jacob’s family (and perhaps also the Cushites) to Egypt.  Their migration is sometimes said to be as early as 2200 BC, but the Amorite Dynasties weren’t set up till around 1900 BC.  There might have been earlier Semitic Migrations to Mesopotamia caused by the Famine that brought Abraham to Egypt.

The city that would become Babylon on the Euphrates might have existed before the Amorites arrival, but I’ve seen no proof it already had that name.  The Amorite Dynasty were the first Kings of Babylon, as they also were of Larsa.  It could be after moving to this new land the Amorites made Babylon their new Babel and Larsa their new Ellasar like how American Colonists made a New York and New Orleans

The reference to Baalbek in the Epic of Gilgamesh is not in the original Sumerian Bilgames poems.  The other versions of the Epic are all post-Amorite.  What is said of Baalbek in the epic is often misrepresented by fringe theorists.  What’s important here is that I consider it’s presence evidence the site had been important to the Amorites.

Erech could be an Amorite variation on the name of the city of the Arkite tribe of Canaan, which the Strongs says hypothetically would be Erek.  Calneh is mentioned in two other verses, Amos 6:2 and Isaiah 10:9, both contexts make Calneh seem like part of the land of Canaan, closer to Samaria and Hamath then it is to Carchemish and Damascus.

I also think it’s possible the Assyrians (descendants of Asshur) originally lived somewhere else too.  The first 17 Kings of their Kings List are called “Kings who Lived in Tents” implying a nomadic existence, and then 10 who are just ancestors who probably weren’t even really kings but the genealogy of an early King.  The first Assyrian King with a solid dateable Reign was 1927-1906 BC.  It’s possible the Assyrians came to Mesopotamia around the same time the Amorites did.  I also think the Didanu of the Kings who lived in Tents is Dedan son of Jokshan son of Abraham who fathered a tribe of Asshurim.  Nineveh isn’t referred to by that name till Shamshi-Adad I, who was actually an Amorite King of Assyria, and Kalhu is even younger, meanwhile Resen hasn’t been identified at all.

I don’t think the Elam mentioned in Genesis is the Elam of southern Iran either, those people called themselves Haltamti, Elam just happens to resemble the way the Sumerians and Akkadians Butchered that name (like how we refer to Nippon/Nihon as Japan).  I do think some or even most later Biblical uses of this same spelling are about southern Iran.  But I think both of the first two sons of Shem may be who God originally wanted to reclaim the Promised Land from the Canaanites, but after 10 generations they had fallen into Paganism and so he called Abraham from among the descendants of Shem’s third son.  And this Semitic presence is why the Canaanites wound up speaking a Semitic language, which the Haltamti of Iran did not speak.

There is something about Jeremiah 49 that has me thinking the Elam there could be a coded way of referring to Ephraim.  In Ezekiel 40-48’s geography the Temple is north of YHWH-Shammah not in it, at either Shechem, Shiloh or Bethel if YHWH-Shammah is Jerusalem depending on your math.  Fitting Ephraim being where YHWH will place His Throne.  So perhaps Elam in Genesis was in the land later allotted to the sons of Joseph.

On the subject of Genesis 14 geography, I support the view that Sodom and Gomorrah (and the other three cities) were north of the Dead Sea not south of it.

I have a couple of reasons for thinking the three cities Nimrod founded in Asshur could be the area that would become Jerusalem.  Isaiah links the Tophet to Asshur(The Assyrian), this is usually explained by saying Ahaz got the idea from something in Assyria on the Tigris, but no proof of that exists.  And one of those cities is being called a “Great City”, a title given to Jerusalem in Revelation but also to Gibeon in Joshua, Gibeon was a city in Benjamin that I have a hunch became the the main site of post-Captivity Jerusalem, I think the Great Stone of Gibeon is the Rock of the Dome of the Rock and the Tabernacle at Nod was where the Second Temple was and/or the Al Aqsa Mosque is now.  So this trio of cities could be either Gibeah, Gibeon and Jebus or Gibeon, Jebus and Ir-David/Zion.

Where specifically to look for Babel?

Interestingly both the mainstream Tel-Dan site, and the location Immanuel Velikovsky argued was the Dan of Jeroboam, Baalbek, were in Valleys beneath Mount Hermon.  Velikovsky also argued that Baalbek was a sacred site already long before the Danites came there.  It could be the city the Amorites called Babel was called by others Laish, Leshem, Rehob and Baalgad.  Velikovsky cited local oral traditions associating Baalbek with Solomon, well there were also local traditions which associated Baalbek with Nimrod and identified it as the site of the Tower of Babel.  Laurent d’Arvieux, writing in 1660 published in his Memoires in 1735 (2.26, trans. L. Mooyaart).  

I have a theory that the etymology of Nimrod's name is tied to the Hebrew word for Leopard, Namer, rather Rebellion, in which case it's interesting that Song of Songs Chapter 4 Verse 8 seemingly calls these very Mountains the Mountains of the Leopards.

Bethel was the site of Jacob’s Ladder also called the “Gate of Heaven”.  Maybe both Jeroboam's Idols were built at places viewed as connecting Heaven and Earth?

But that’s just one theory.

Mount/Mountain in the Bible really often means a Mountain Range, as is the case with Hermon.  It’s possible how many mountains the ancients viewed as still part of the Hemron range could have been wider then how we define it.  Joshua 11:3 is possibly defining all of Canaan as being beneath Mount Hermon in some sense.  But more importantly Psalm 89:12 is seemingly defining Tabor as a mountain of Hermon.  And that opens up the possibility that the Valley we are looking for is the Valley of Jezreel.  Perhaps making this Accad a variation on the name of Accho (Acre of the Crusades), and Mount Tabor where Noah’s Ark landed.

The etymology of the name Megiddo/Megiddon is actually a mystery to linguists. Herodotus in his Histories Book II:159 while talking about Necho/Neko/Neco II of Egypt refers to the same Battle of Megiddo where King Josiah was wounded but spells it Magdolos, suggesting that the name is somehow derived from Migdol, the same Hebrew word for Tower used in Genesis 11.  The Wikipedia Page for Tel Megiddo says in the Early Bronze Age section that in the period of 3500-3100 BC Megiddo had the largest Temple in the Near East at that time.

The message to Thyatira in Revelation 3 when compared to Revelation 17 and 18 seems to be symbolically associating the name of Jezebel with the Harlot of Babylon, Jezebel was Queen in Jezreel.  The name of Thyatira comes from the Greek word for Daughter, the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar was sometimes called the Daughter of Babel.  Armageddon is the gathering place of the armies in Revelation 16.

We’ve spent Two Thousand years assuming The Bible agrees with Iraq’s claim to be the Cradle of Civilization.  But doesn’t it make more sense to see Israel’s Bible as claiming Israel is the Cradle of Civilization?  The Bible and Judeo-Christian lore has always treated Israel as the center of the Earth, so it should be from where the nations were dispersed.