Salvation History. Chapter 13. The Tower of Babel.

Chapter 13. The Tower of Babel.

In dealing with the Fall and it’s results and the episode of the evil angelic invasion in Genesis 6 we also touched on the primary reasons for the Flood, namely,
(1) Mankind had reached the point where virtually everybody alive “only thought evil continually (Genesis 6:5)” and there was no hope for redemption for them because the perversion of human nature caused by generational iniquity was so great that they considered evil to be good and good to be evil.
(2) The evils spawned by the fallen angels and their offspring, as recorded in the book of Enoch, led to man crying out for deliverance from this evil, which was greater than their own evil.

God decided the only way to cure the world of this evil was to destroy man and start again. “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8)”, so he worked a deliverance for Noah and his family.

After the Flood men again increased rapidly on the earth as recorded in Genesis 10. The result was that several “cities” developed, communities of people who wanted to band together for mutual support. Rivalry developed between these cities as they got larger and a quest for power, political control, developed.

The next major event in Bible history is the story of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, or Babylon (Genesis 10&11). Though these are not immediately connected in the Bible text it appears they were connected in history.

Nimrod is said to be the “first on earth to be a mighty man (Genesis 10:8)”. By this it means he was the first man to be a warrior, i.e. a man of war. Tradition tells us that Nimrod built a large empire spreading from modern day Iran and Iraq through to Egypt and Sudan, conquering the scattered settlements and making them subject to him. As he had invented the art of warfare and other cities had not developed such techniques this would have been pretty easy to do.

The Bible account of this is found in Genesis 10:6-12.

Genesis 10:6-12.
“The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan.
The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD." The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.”

His empire seems to have begun at Babylon but later on was centred in Ninevah. “Ninevah” means “the House of Ninus”, “Ninus” being another form of the name “Nimrod”. Where it says “he built”, we should probably understand that to mean “he conquered, and then built them up to be fortresses”.

Nimrod's success at war inflated his ego and tradition tells us that he declared himself to be a "god" and demanded worship. This began the pattern of Ancient Near Eastern rulers deifying themselves and demanding worship. The false cult he developed soon covered the whole known world. It incorporated demon worship, a false interpretation of astrology, and Satan worship. Nimrod built a great tower in Babylon to better enable him to interpret the stars for Horoscope predictions. On top of the tower was a temple where fertility prostitution was part of the worship.

Tradition tells us that Shem, who was still alive at the time and an old man, led a rebellion against Nimrod, and Nimrod was put to death and his body cut into pieces and sent as a warning around the empire. A great spiritual awakening resulted and many returned to the Lord.

Nimrod's wife, Semiramus, continued the false cult, but because of the extent of Shem's influence she had to take it "underground", so it became the foundation of the so-called "Mystery religions" of the ancient world. She later became pregnant and claimed the illegitimate son was the promised redeemer. So to the cult was added the worship of the mother and son.

In the late 19th Century, Rev. Alexander Hislop published his groundbreaking work called “The Two Babylons”. This book examines the ancient traditions concerning Nimrod and Babylon. A summary of his work follows.


SUMMARY OF ALEXANDER HISLOP’S FINDING IN HIS BOOK, “THE TWO BABYLONS.”


Hislop analyses the major religious myths of mankind in his book. He convincingly demonstrates that all of these myths are essentially the same and go back to a common source. The only variations are cultural and name changes from culture to culture. He compares religious myths from Britain, Central and South America, the Middle East, India, Scandinavia, Egypt, Greece and Rome to show their essential oneness.

Hislop demonstrates how these myths are all based on the revelation of God's purposes given to Adam by God in the Garden of Eden before man was expelled. This revelation we have previously studied in Chapter 11.

Hislop shows how this original revelation was perverted by interpreting it with respect to events surrounding the tower of Babel, i.e. the original perversion giving rise to the myths is based on a true revelation from God and historical events that have been reinterpreted to fit in with the revelation. The result was a distortion of truth - good was made to appear bad and vica-versa. This is why the mythologies are so powerful - they have truth at their heart. They are a deliberate distortion, hence are iniquity.

Hislop then shows how this religion began at Babel, and is in a true sense the "religion of Babylon", the system of Antichrist. It is Satanic religion in its purest sense. This system, Hislop shows, was adopted into the church virtually unchanged after Constantine made Christian ity the state religion, with only the names of the characters changed. The result was that the church was, in fact, worshiping Satan in the Dark Ages, thinking that it was worshiping Christ. The idea of a "state religion" was well established before Rome so the absorbing of the Church into that worldview was simple.

This Babylonian religion is the source of all false religion. It is, in a very real sense, the "Mother of All Harlots" (Revelation 17:5). It is the system referred to in Revelation, and elsewhere in the Bible.

HISLOP'S HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION.

Using the myths as a guide he compares myth with myth and is able to isolate out the main points of what happened.


(1) Cush (Genesis 10:6).

Cush was the first apostate after the Flood. He began receiving "revelations" from the "gods", i.e. evil spirits. He founded an apostate cult and worship. He appears in the myths under the following names:

(a) Hermes (Egypt) = "the Son of Ham".

Hermes was considered to be the great original prophet of idolatry, and is recognised by pagans to be the founder of their religious rites. He was known as "the Interpreter of the Gods".

(b) Nebo (Babylon).

He was the prophetic "god" and was the ringleader in a movement that produced the division of tongues (Genesis 11).

(c) Mercury (Greece).

The ringleader in building a tower. Known as "the interpreter of the gods", i.e. a prophet.

(d) Bel - the founder of Babylon = "the confounder" = Baal. Baal worship was a prophetic religion.

(e) Janus (Rome).

The name Cush is related to the word for Chaos, the name of the God of confusion, also called Janus. He was symbolised by a club.

(f) Vulcan (Greece).

The Chaldee word for club also means "to break in pieces and scatter abroad" (Genesis 11:8,9) which in Greek is hephaizt, which is another name for Vulcan, the "father" of the Greek gods who also carried a hammer.

These six, among others, are all names of Cush.

Cush began a great apostacy. He founded Babylon and the tower, but his son Nimrod completed his works. The Tower was an integral part of his false system of worship. There the positions of the stars were studied and astrological predictions made (horoscopes) perverting the original meaning of the revelation in the stars.


(2) Nimrod - the son of Cush.


Was the first king of Babylon. He was the first king to wage war on his neighbours, and legend has it that he formed the first empire - stretching from Iran to Libya.

1 Chronicles 1:10. - "Mighty man" = "warrior".
Genesis 10:11 (alternative translation): "Out of that land he went forth, being made strong, and he builded Nineveh".

Nineveh = nin nevah = the habitation of Ninus (another name for Nimrod).
The ruins of Nineveh are called Nimroud to this day by the locals.

Nimrod appears in the myths under the following names:

(a) Ninus, the son of Bel.

(b) Kronos, or Saturn, the king of the Cyclops.

The Cyclops were known as the inventors of tower building. Saturn is also called the father of the gods. He is called this because in the "mysteries" he was the first man to be deified, i.e. to call himself a god, thus reaching the height of human sin.

He is depicted as a giant horned bull, or Reem.
Reem = Bull, prince, ruler.
Horns - symbolise might, power.
I.e. "horned bull" = mighty prince, ruler (Genesis 10:9).

Nimrod was the son of Cush, therefore he was black. The popular representation of Satan as a black, horned, cloven-footed individual was exactly how Nimrod was depicted as chief of the gods. However the ancient inhabitants of Britain saw black as a symbol of fear, so transferred the symbol to evil when they absorbed Babylonianism (under the name of Woden).

(c) Bacchus. (Greece).

Also known as Dionysus or Iacchus. The son of the Mother God.
The rites of Bacchus and Osiris (Egypt) are the same.
Bacchus was drawn in a coach pulled by leopards.
Bacchus is also called Aithiopais = Son of Aethiops. Aethiops = the Cushites (Black People). I.e. Aethiops = Cush. I.e. Bacchus = son of Cush.

(d) Woden (Mexico and England & elsewhere).

(e) Osiris (Egypt).

Osiris was worshiped the same way as Ninus. He was depicted as black. He was clothed in a leopard skin (The name Nimrod means, "the subduer of the Leopard").
Depicted as a calf or young bull called APIS who is, in Greece, the same as Saturn.

(f) India.

Called Iswara, presented at the breast of his mother Isi, or Parvati.

(g) Other names include Eros, Cupid (son of Venus i.e. Venus = Semiramus), Krishna, Zoroastes, Thor.

Cush began a great apostasy that Nimrod continued.

This involved various themes:
(a) Idol Worship.
In particular the images of Nimrod at first, but others came later, as we shall see.

(b) Spiritism.
That is demon worship. What the fallen angels began the demons now continued with gusto.

(c) Perverted Astrology - for personal predictions.
The purpose of doing this is simple - the original meaning of Astrology showed the truth of the Redeemer and his conflict with evil. This knowledge was available to all. If Satanic deception was to succeed then is was vital that the divinely placed witness to truth be somehow obscured.

(d) The Worship of Man - Humanism.
This culminates in the worship of a man as God, which is the manifestation of the Spirit of Antichrist.

(e) Materialism - the belief that things and power could make you happy.


The Myths tell us that Nimrod was put to death for his sin by the command of a great king:
"Hercules, by the power of God, fought and overcame the giants".

"Giants" = mighty ones = Nimrod and his army.

Nimrod's body was cut into 72 pieces and sent to the corners of the empire as a testimony to the judgment.

Bacchus (Nimrod) is called "the Lamented One".
Annual seasons of wailing for Bacchus were practiced in various parts of the ancient world.

The rites of worship of Osiris (Egypt) and the rites of the levels of the Masonic lodge are the same.

(3) Hercules = Shem.

This agrees with the character of Shem as we see it in the Bible.

Names of Shem:

(a) Hercules (Greece).

(b) Sem (Egypt).

Acknowledged to be the Egyptian name of Hercules.

Osiris (= Nimrod) was said to die by the tusk of a wild boar (Shem).
The tusk symbolises power in the mouth, i.e. spiritual power.

(c) Shem is called by the apostates "Typho", the evil one.

Shem means "to desolate, lay waste, the appointed one". Hence he was made to mean "the Destroyer, Desolater" i.e. the Devil.
In the myths the “good-guy”, Shem, is made out to be evil and the “bad-guy”, Nimrod, is made out to be good.

Multitudes were said to follow Shem. A major revival came about and a return to God.


4. Semiramus, Nimrod's widow.

Because of Shem, Semiramus couldn't continue the apostacy openly any more. Hence she began the "Hidden Mysteries" - secret societies which became the basis of the mystery religions and the secret societies of today. Freemasonry is actually based on the Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris.

Semiramus is known by these names:

(a) Rhea, the wife of Ninus, the "mother" of the gods.
(b) Isis (India, Egypt, Freemasonry).
She was pictured with a vulture headdress. Rhea can also be translated "vulture".
(c) Venus (Greece).
Pictured with a golden cup in her hand (Revelation 17:4).
(d) Parvati (India).
(e) Cybele - the goddess of fortifications.
Pictured with a turreted crown on her head.
(f) Diana (Ephesus) - similarly crowned.
(g) The Queen of Heaven.

(5) The Illegitimate Child.

After Nimrod's execution Semiramus became pregnant. To prevent the standard punishment of stoning for immorality she claimed that this was to be "the promised seed of the woman" (Genesis 3:15). The promise of Genesis 3:15 appears in all the myths. It was known that this redeemer would conquer evil by death and resurrection, hence she claimed that this was Nimrod reincarnated (the beginning of the doctrine of reincarnation). Nimrod became hailed as the great savior of the world who laid down his life for the sins of men. He was now being reborn in this child, which fortunately for her, was a son.

She called her dead husband Zoroastes - "the seed of the woman" - and erected the mysteries to worship him. The theology was already present in the stars; she just borrowed it and then used false astrology to obscure the fact.

Nimrod was black, which was unpopular, but the illegitimate son was white, like his mother, so solved that problem. Nimrod was ignored and the child worshipped. The mother derived her glory from the son, but she soon eclipsed him, becoming the main object of worship. The elevation of women over men begins again here with a distortion of the roles of the sexes.

What happened to the child is not certain - he never seems to have been allowed to grow up. It may be that he became a child sacrifice of the sort we find demanded in this religion throughout the world.

Hence we have a trinity - the Father = Nimrod, the Son = the Child, the Spirit = incarnate in the woman who was symbolised by all of the Bible symbols for the Holy Spirit.

The child was always presented as a babe in the mother's arms. The picturing of Mary and Jesus is actually a copy of Babylonian statues and art from centuries before Christ. This explains why Mary is always depicted as a white woman when she was Semitic. Semiramus was white. The church adopted the artwork when the mystery cults became "Christianized" under Constantine.

Nimrod conquered Egypt. In Egypt the legend of Nimrod and the illegitimate child were so mixed that it was difficult to tell the difference between the two.

Child = KHONS (= "to chase") = the huntsman (c/f Genesis 10:9 "a mighty hunter").
Khons = Latin God CONSUS
= NEPTUNE (the keeper of secrets, "who turned the horse" i.e. who tamed it).
= Saturn (the god of mysteries, the Hidden one).

The father of Khons = "The Hidden God". I.e. the father and the son are seen as the same so that the child could be claimed to be Nimrod reincarnated.

The Centaur (half man-half horse) is a memorial to the man who first used horses.

Centaur = Kronos, Saturn
= (In the zodiac Sagittarius, the Archer).


The seasonal cycle of harvests was added to the original mysteries to make them more popular with the common people, but this was clearly not part of the original belief. The "Dying and rising" of the seasons became a handy way of justifying the mystery cult belief of a dying and rising Nimrod.

This system is the basis of all of the mystery cults of ancient times and of mythology and false religion the world over. The system was well established in Babylon at the time of the Tower of Babel, and hence when men were spread by the confusion of tongues it was able to go throughout the world.

Hislop shows in the second part of his book how the rituals and practices and many of the so called decrees of the Popes are actually all faithful replicas of beliefs and practices of the ancient Babylonians three thousand years before Christ. Hence the absorption of mystery celebrations such as Christmas and Easter and Guy Fawkes are easy to understand. Funeral pyres were burnt on November 5th in ancient Britain in memory of Woden = Nimrod before there was even Roman contact with the British Isles! The celebration called "Guy Fawkes" has nothing to do with a person who tried to blow up the British Parliament. It has everything to do with Satan worship. It is, in fact, Satan worship!

At this point Hislop tends to get a bit extreme in that he is taking an old Protestant position to try to show that the Roman Catholic Church is not the true Church. At this point I bail out of his argument. Today even many Roman Catholics admit that during the Dark Ages many things were absorbed into the church that were wrong but the thing we need to remember is that it was still the Church of God, even if a corrupted Church. There were then, as there are now, many Godly people in the Roman Catholic Church who were/are trying their best to serve God as best they know how. While we live in this world the church will always be corrupt – it simply is not possible to have a pure church because the raw material that makes up the church, i.e. people, are corrupt. There will always be tares in the wheat until the end of the age (Matthew 13:24-30).

The value of Hislop’s work is in his thorough analysis of ancient mythologies and how they are related, and then in deriving from them a fairly coherent view of the history of the times around the tower of Babel. It hangs together and helps make sense of the many references to Babylon later in the bible, particularly in the book of Revelation where “Babylon” is clearly a symbol of something greater than just a physical city.

SOME NOTES FROM HISLOP’S BOOK: -

(1) The Festivals of Christendom are actually festivals of Nimrod.

(a) Christmas.

Clearly in the Bible is not December 25th as that is winter. Shepherds do not “watch their flocks in the fields at night (Luke 2:8)” in Palestine between October and February.

December 25th is actually the date of the festival in Ancient Babylon celebrating the birth of the child, called Yuleday.

Yule = an ancient Chaldee word meaning "infant, little child".

Christmas trees were common in Ancient Rome and Egypt before Christ.

(b) Lady Day. - 25th March.

Memorial to the miraculous conception of Christ in the womb.
Observed in Pagan Rome in honour of Cybele.

(c) Easter.

“Easter” is derived from Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven.

On the 1st May there were celebrations to Bel. 1st May is called Beltane

Lent - fasting prior to this - was practiced in pagan Mexico and Egypt in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz.

Ancient Babylon celebrated Easter with hot cross buns, painted eggs.

(d) Feast of the Nativity of St John. - 24 June, midsummersday.

In Babylon was one of the big festivals to Tammuz, the sun God. One of the great features were the midsummer night fires on the evening of the 23rd - still practiced in France, Ireland, Switzerland and Scotland. When the fires got low the peasants used to walk through the embers.

(e) St Bacchus the Martyr - Oct 7th.

(f) Feast of Assumption - 15th August.

Both the last two were celebrated in Babylon before Christ.

(2) Doctrines of Babylon.
(i) Baptismal Regeneration.
(ii) Reincarnation.
(iii) Justification by works.
(iv) The fertility cult - rampant sexual immorality. Including homosexulality
(v) The veneration of the woman, and the humiliation of the man. Including Lesbianism. The woman is seen to be the fount of wisdom, Sophia, and is typically symbolised by a snake.
(vi) Child sacrifice. Abortion is the modern equivalent.

All of these are making a comeback today.

SUMMARY - THE SYSTEM OF BABYLON.

The symbol of Babylon in the Bible is very powerful and therefore has several elements to the system it pictures. The main elements are these (and they are all seen in the Tower of Babel):

(a) Empire Building, a one-world government controlled by a Satanically inspired man.

(b) Counterfeit Christianity - a false messiah, an Antichrist who is both religious and political ruler.

(c) Occult worship -including astrology, idol worship and secret rites. The primary rite of this system has always been the destruction of innocent children in worship of this god (see Winkey Pratney's book, "Devil Take the Youngest"). This rite is most clearly seen today in abortion, which is the worship of Satan.

(d) Humanism - the exaltation of men making themselves into god.

(e) Materalism - progress through human achievement.

(f) The cult of Woman - Sophia, goddess of wisdom.

This element is seen in particular in the form of an union of economic and religious systems in society in such a way that we see religious (or philosophic) rulers taking control of the political and economic system of a nation. Whenever religion and politics meet we see an immediate manifestation of the spirit of Antichrist. In its final form we shall see Antichrist himself as a religious and political ruler who performs economic miracles.

These are all expressions of the spirit of Antichrist, which Paul says "is already at work in the world (2 Thessalonians 2).

The importance to us of this history of the Tower of Babel is in the fact that false religion began there in a formalised sense. There had been spirit worship before Babel, but at Babel it took on a definitive form, and it has retained that form for over 4000 years.

The rest of the Bible is a record of the conflict between the true faith in God and this false faith in Satan. For this reason Babylon figures greatly throughout the Bible.