Chapter X

The Tower of Babel Catastrophe

circa October 25, 1930 B.C.

This crisis day is very ancient; it is the first recorded in extant literature after the Deluge, or Flood. It can be best understood by grasping the other, later October 25 catastrophes (the Case Two events), and particularly the Long Day of Joshua and the Joel-Amos holocausts of 1404 B.C. and 156 B.C., respectively.

As THIS STUDY MOVES into increasingly more ancient times, the data becomes increasingly scarce. Ancient libraries and scholarly institutions suffered the ravages of military wars and, up to 701 B.C., celestial wars. To understand the later, better-recorded crisis days helps to understand these more ancient crisis days.

Dating-Short Term

From the literature, there is no way to ascertain the month or the day of this holocaust. However, the resonant orbit model suggests an approximate date of October 25 for the intersection of these ancient orbits. This is considered accurate within 5 days.

However, from the Talmud there is a way to ascertain the year of the holocaust.

For fifty-two years God had warned the godless; He had made mountains to quake and tremble. They persisted in their sins, and their well-merited punishment overtook them... they [the Sodomites and Gomorrahians] were burnt with fire. ¹

The 52 year period is sufficiently close to the 54 year average of the model to indicate it was another of the cosmic series. It was noted that one of the cycles after the Sodom-Gomorrah Catastrophe was also only 52 years. Thus we suggest in the twentieth century B.C. there were two half-cycles in a row containing only 52 years, two years shorter than the normal half-cycle.

Dating-Long Term

There were three kinds of cycles operating simultaneously. One was the two-year cycle, the average period of the orbit of Mars. A second was the 54-year average of the swinging of the conjunctions of Earth and Mars. Sometimes this involved a 52-year cycle, sometimes probably a 56-year cycle, and once just after the Exodus holocaust a particularly short cycle. The third cycle is a grander cycle of catastrophism, a cycle which spanned five to seven centuries. The mechanics of this grander, or grand cycle are now considered.

Josephus seems to have alluded to this grander cycle in his Antiquities of the Jews when he wrote as follows:

(Speaking of the Noachian era) ... and besides, God afforded them a longer time of line on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in ASTRONOMICAL and geometrical discoveries, which WOULD NOT HAVE AFFORDED THE TIME FOR FORETELLING (THE PERIODS OF THE STARS,) unless they had lived six hundred years, FOR THE GREAT YEAR IS COMPLETED IN THAT INTERVAL.

Now I have for witnesses to what I have said all those that have written Antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian history, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean monuments, and Mochus, Hestiaeus, and besides these Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those that composed the Phoenician history, agree to what I here say: Hesiod also, and Hecataeus, and Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus... ²

Josephus indicates that the ancients studied the stars in their paths, and more particularly, in their periods.

Ovid (Publius Ovidus Naso, 43 B.C. - 17 A.D.), a later Roman historian, in his Metamorphoses, talks about the ancient cycles of catastrophes, or more particularly the intervening years of reconstruction and cultural revitalization, as a series of ancient ages.

The GOLDEN AGE was first, a time that was cherished. ...The years went by in peace. And Earth, untroubled, unharried by hoe or plowshare, brought forth all that men had need for, and those men were happy, gathering berries from the mountain sides, cherries, or blackcaps, and the edible acorns. Spring was forever. ... And Earth, unplowed, brought forth rich grain ... [This seems to be a discussion of the pre-flood era.]

After Saturn was driven to the shadowy land of death, and the world was under Jove, the AGE OF SILVER came in, lower than gold, better than bronze. Jove made the spring-time shorter, added winter, summer and autumn, the seasons as we know them. That was the first time when ...icicles hung down in the winter. And men built houses for themselves. .. and the oxen struggled, groaning and laboring under the heavy yoke. [This seems to be a discussion of the early post-flood era, circa 2500 B.C. to 1930 B.C., ending with the Tower of Babel and the Sodom-Gommorah pair of holocausts.]

Then came the AGE OF BRONZE. . .. [Ovid gives no details of this area. Perhaps it parallels the era 1930 B.C. 1404 B.C., ending with the Long Day of Joshua.]

And last of all the IRON AGE succeeded. ... Heaven was no safer. Giants attacked the very throne of Heaven, piled Pelion on Ossa, mountain on mountain, up to the very stars. Jove struck them down with thunderbolts ...Jove was witness from his lofty throne. ...He summoned them to council. No one dawdled. Easily seen when the night skies are clear ...Along this road the gods move toward the palace of the Thunder. ³ [This lust of the ages, the iron age, was the era of the founding of Rome, which we already know to be about 750 B.C., between the times of the last two world holocausts of 756 B.C. and 701 B.C.]

While Ovid indicated a series of ages, Seneca (Marcus Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 54 B.C. -39 A.D.) has asserted that the ancient Chaldeans studied “comets”. And he has suggested they studied them in terms of their timing, or periods. What has been termed “comets” undoubtedly includes Mars in its ancient “comet-like” orbit, and the other planets moving across the unmoving constellations.

It was not till the time of Halley's comet, 1682, that modern astronomy began to consider the question of the possibly periodic character of cometic motions with attention. (For my own part, I reject as altogether improbable the statement of Seneca that THE ANCIENT CHALDEAN ASTRONOMERS COULD CALCULATE THE RETURN OF COMETS....) ⁴

We do not claim to have made a perfect analysis of ancient catastrophic history, or ancient cosmology. We suspect a number of catastrophes occurred, and records of them have been blurred or lost across the last 100 or 150 generations of time. However, the general outline is presented in Figure 37. It is a Master Time Line Scale, and must be classified among the most important figures (or tables) in this opus. It is a grand analysis encompassing 20 centuries. In it three grand cycles of catastrophism are detected, the 20th B.C., the 15th B.C. and the 8th B.C, What might be the celestial cause of this grand cycle? Why did the ancients pay close attention not only to the paths or trajectories, but more importantly to the periods or timing of the planets? Did they somehow consider the timing or periods of the planets to be a key or an indicator of future holocausts as well as an indicator of past holocausts?

In Figure 37, we propose that Ovid's age of gold was the pre-flood era when a greenhouse type of climate prevailed from pole to pole, and seasons were inconspicuous if existent at all. ⁵ Ovid's AGE OF SILVER compares to the interlude between the Deluge, circa 2500 B.C., and the 20th century B.C. holocausts. This was “when Saturn was driven to a shadowy land of death, and the world was under Jove.” Later, following the 20th century B.C., pair of holocausts studied in Chapters IX and X, came another five century interlude, the AGE OF BRONZE. After the 15th century B.C. catastrophes, cultures were rebuilt, often by migrating peoples, only to be disrupted by the pair of 8th century B.C. holocausts. This was Ovid's AGE OF IRON. Toward the end of this age, “heaven was no safer ...Jove struck them down with thunderbolts... ”, he summoned the planetary deities (or the planets themselves) to a council, perhaps even some kind of remarkable lineup. After this came the ERA OF ROME, one in which the Olympic deities, or planetary deities were increasingly less important, and awarded correspondingly less attention.

The Master Time Line Chart illustrates the cyclic nature of the 1800 years of recorded astronomical catastrophism. This chart indicates gaps which suggest catastrophes that were not reported in the Hebrew chronicles. Almost all catastrophes are undated in the lores and literatures of other ancient nations.

A Grand Cycle of Catastrophism Theory

In our total model in this book, there are four legs, three of which were presented in the astronomical discussion and models in Chapter IV. To these three aforementioned legs are now added a fourth and final legs of catastrophe theory.

1. The General Theory of Earth - Mars Resonance (2:1)
2. The General Theory of Fragmentation
3. The General Theory of Spin Axis Precession
4. The Resonance of Jupiter and Saturn with Earth - Mars

Earth and Mars are subjects of categories 1 and 3 while Electra and Mars are subjects of category 2. We now add category 4 and the subjects are Jupiter and Saturn.

Jupiter In Resonance

Today, Jupiter's orbital period is 11.8653 of Earth's orbital period. However we know as a result of the Isaiahic Catastrophe that Earth lost about 1% of its speed, and gained about 1% in angular momentum. Its former orbit was about .99 of its current orbit, placing it, with Mars, in resonance with Jupiter. Earth was in 12:1 resonance with Jupiter, a relatively distant and weak resonance. Simultaneously Mars was in 6:1 resonance with Jupiter, a closer, stronger and controlling resonance. Figure 38 illustrates this three-body resonance, a 1:6:12 resonance.

The effect of Jupiter on Alinda (which is in 3:1 resonance with Jupiter) is to stabilize its orbit in a teeter-totter geometry. This was seen in Figure 5, of chapter IV. In Figure 5, note that the long axis of Alinda's orbit and the long axis of Jupiter's orbit were perpendicular. The long axis of an elliptical orbit is called the “line of apsides.” The particular geometry of this resonance condition results in this perpetual perpendicular relationship of their two orbits.

Note in Figure 38 that the ancient Martian orbit was also perpendicular to Jupiter's orbit, that is, the lines of apsides of the two orbits were perpendicular. Jupiter “stabilized” the Martian orbit. The ancient Martian orbit was stabilized in this sense. Were Earth and Mars acting upon each other alone, without Jupiter, Mars' line of apsides, or its orbit would precess as did its spin axis. Under this condition, Mars would cross Earth's orbit in various months across the centuries as its line of apsides would circulate, or rotate. Jupiter prevented this. Hence Jupiter's influence on Mars was the reason that catastrophes were faithful to the 3rd week of March and the 4th week of October for some 17 or 18 long, catastrophic centuries. Jupiter in a sense “locked Mars in”. And this is also why the 54-year cycle of conjunctions was so common. Without Jupiter, and with a circulating line of apsides for Mars, conjunction cycles would have varied between 50 and 70 or even 80 years.

Jupiter's current period is 11.8653 of Earth's but our model proposes was in 1:12 resonance with Earth's orbit and 1:6 resonance with the orbit. Observe that the line of apsides of Earth and the line of apsides of Mars coincides, and both are perpendicular to the line of apsides of Jupiter. Alinda in 3:1 resonance with Jupiter (see Fig. 5) also has its line of apsides perpendicular to Jupiter's, resulting in the “teeter-totter” effect. Jupiter kept Mars in alignment with Earth's orbit. Hence Jupiter kept Mars faithful to its late October and mid-March ancient engagements with the Earth.

The principle of resonance has existed in the Creator's framework for a long, long time. Resonance in chemistry is merely an extension of the principle of valence, and has been known for about 100 years. Resonance in sound waves has been studied for about 300 years. Resonance in orbits has just begun to have been recognized within the last 5 years, although it has existed since Creation, We now know for instance that two pairs of Saturn's moons are in 2:1 resonance and another pair is in 4:3 resonance. We know that Neptune and Pluto are in 3:2 resonance. We know that Mercury's spin rate and its orbit are in 3:2 resonance. About 2% of the asteroids are in one kind or another of known resonance.

If Earth's ancient orbit was .9888 in period, or about 1% shorter, its orbit, along with that of Mars, would have been precisely in resonance with Jupiter. (And incidentally, Earth at this location would have been very, very close to a 5:8 resonance with Venus; very possibly here was another ancient resonance).

Saturn In Resonance

Saturn has an orbital period of 29.6501 years. Jupiter's is the aforementioned 11.8653 years. These two giant planets are in a 5:2 resonance, a fact just beginning to be recognized in astronomical circles. Saturn is 95 times as massive as Earth; Jupiter is 317 as massive as Earth, This compares to Mars' minuscule .107 mass compared to Earth. This means that there was a Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-Earth resonance system. This resonance was of the order of 2:5:30:60. ⁶ Figure 39 illustrates the Jupiter-Saturn resonance in the ancient era when it integrated with the Earth-Mars resonance.

Jupiter and Saturn in 5:2 resonance. Jupiter and Saturn shift or perturb each other. The Jupiter-Saturn interaction may be the basis for the ancient grand cycle of holocausts which Ovid reported as ages terminated with celestial interventions.

We do not want to go too deeply into the details of the Jupiter-Saturn system. But a few observations will be helpful. There are 3 conjunctions, or lineups of the two planets (with the Sun) every 5 Jupiter years. These line-ups are successively at 120º intervals. One is near perihelion, where the other two are near aphelion, The near perihelion conjunction is the one of vital concern. The whole system tends to rock. The remote pair of line-ups rocks like a teeter-totter; the near conjunctions like the pendulum we have already observed in the 2:1 asteroid-Jupiter and the 2:1 Earth-Mars conditions, Figure 7, of chapter IV, reminds us that Earth and Mars also had 3 conjunctions, or lineups every Mars-year and there are some parallels between the two situations.

Mars is tiny. Earth is rather small. Saturn is large at 97 ✕ Earth, and Jupiter is massive at 317 ✕ Earth. At their distances, Saturn and Jupiter will disturb each other in a cycle of a larger period. Their perihelion conjunctions cycle like a teeter-totter. What is that period? It has not yet been ascertained.

We do know the Neptune-Pluto system cycles in 40 Pluto years. The Hecuba-Jupiter system cycles in 17 Jupiter years, or 34 asteroid-years. The ancient Earth-Mars system cycled in 27 Mars-years, or 54 Earth-years.

Saturn's period is 29.65 years. It's conjunction cycle with Jupiter (in 2:5 ratio) requires 2 Saturn-years, or about 60 Earth-years. With other cycles of 17, 27 and 40 that are known, could it be that Jupiter and Saturn are disturbing or reversing each other on about a 20 cycle or 22 cycle basis for Saturn? This we suspect. And if this proves to be so, this will strongly indicate that Saturn, shifting or disturbing Jupiter in a 600-year cycle (Earth-years) was the prime influence in the 500-year to 600-year grand cycle which has already been detected in history.

On Modes

A good model should contain five characteristics. These characteristics are as follows:

1. HORIZONTAL CONSISTENCY with the understood physical principles of the universe.

2. VERTICAL ALIGNMENT with the known facts of history, be it Earth history recorded in stone, or human history recorded in parchment.

3. FRUITFULNESS OF THOUGHT, catalyzing new research, focusing on new avenues of knowledge.

4. SIMPLICITY OF PREMISE rather than a convoluted premise, overly-flexible to adjust to any kind of incoming data.

5. PREDICTABILITY, Or ability to anticipate new discoveries.

Our model should be judged carefully by these criteria. Our prediction is that Jupiter and Saturn will be found to be cycling, in a teeter-totter fashion (like Alinda and Jupiter) on about a 600-year cycle, as measured by Earth years. This data should be forthcoming within the next two or three years.

On Gambling and Dominoes

In an earlier discussion, we cited Plutarch, who described in his own Latin method the changes in celestial realms at the time of the Isaiahic Catastrophe. Plutarch related that Hermes played craps with the Moon, and won heavily. In fact he won from her the seventieth part of each of her periods of illumination, hence the new 29.5 day, the Moon's (Luna's) record of loss. Hermes, possibly confused with Earth, gained one part in seventy, or 5 day per year, hence the new 365 day system. Celestial crap games were significant to Plutarch. Celestial crap games were apparently some pretty exciting and important, even fearful events some 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. We have this on Plutarch's authority, to name one of several.

Another game is dominoes. Some play dominoes by calculations and drawing. Others play dominoes by lining a series up along the edge of a table and tip the lead one over. Knock the lead domino over and the whole series falls over in lock step.

Jupiter, we have already said, more or less locked in, or at least locked in Mars' line of apsides with Earth's orbit. This caused the orbits of the planets Earth and Mars to faithfully cross at the same location, October 25/26 and March 20/21. But Saturn rocked Jupiter. Jupiter rocked Mars. And Mars was then somewhat variable or erratic in its approach geometry to Earth during various cycles. To simplify, let us consider a four-sequence line of dominoes, falling in lock step. The Saturn domino, a heavy one, pushed the Jupiter domino, a very heavy one. The Jupiter domino then pushed the Mars domino, a very light one (1/3000 as heavy). The Mars domino then collided with the Earth domino and bounced off, out of line, even as a domino might be knocked off the table ledge.

We theorize that Mars almost went out of resonance during the Sodom-Gomorrah event. This is based on the general rhythm, but also on the report of the slightly shortened 52-year cycle. Next, after another grand cycle of about 500 years, Mars almost went out of resonance during the Exodus Catastrophe. This too is based on the general rhythm, but also on the observation of the shortened 42-year cycle leading into the famous Long Day of Joshua. The orbit of Mars was alternately under the influence of Jupiter and Earth, but Jupiter shifted back and forth in a grand cycle. The system was under stress, a stress which was threatened during the first grand cycle, which was under even greater stress at the end of the second grand cycle, and which broke up at the end of the third cycle. The era of the third cycle was introduced by the Joel-Amos Holocaust, and was climaxed by the Isaiahic Catastrophe.

This third and last grand cycle broke up during the evening of March 20, 701 B.C. while the youthful Habakkuk watched from the lonely Negev desert, while Hezekiah implored God to deliver his city, while Sennacherib sutured his burns, and while Romulus pondered his “father.” This is the era to which Plutarch referred to in his account of the celestial crap game, but it was Isaiah who called the million-to-one shot, the Jerusalem Bolide which delivered his city and his people from scheduled, unmerciful slaughter. And the hand of God, or what Norman Newell refers to (disapprovingly) as “deux ex machina” ⁷, ⁸ guided these events.

Crap games in general can become catastrophes, much less the kind that Plutarch described, celestial crap games, if one loses. If one lives in an agricultural context, collapse of barns or dams are catastrophes. Perhaps an abandoned barn will stand 50 or 75 years, but eventually, if untended, it will collapse. An untended earthen dam may stand for a century or more before collapsing, depending on construction and local climatic rhythms. The system we describe is not a barn or a dam, but an orbital resonance system. This structure stood for about 1800 years, or three “generations” (i.e. grand cycles) before it too collapsed.

The collapse of barns and dams are unwelcome events in an agricultural context, especially if one lives in a village located immediately downstream of the dam. The collapse of this ancient orbital system, however, was welcomed by the sages of the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries B.C., sages who somehow understood that planets had shifted and catastrophes threatened no more. This is the basis for shifting attitudes among the sages of this post catastrophe era. Daniel, a sage of ancient Babylon (the second empire) observed that God had changed the times and the seasons (Daniel 2:21). About a century later, Socrates (circa 470 B.C. - 399 B.C.) was awarded a hemlock cocktail because he no longer could recommend the Olympic deities such as Zeus, Apollo, Chronos and Aphrodite. But Socrates' non-catastrophic world-view was already becoming widespread on the Achaean Peninsula, and elsewhere.

On Saturn

We have already cited Ovid and his attention to Jupiter and Saturn, during the “silver,” the “bronze” and the “iron” ages, the catastrophic era. Saturn is extremely dim in the nocturnal heavens. Today probably not one Roman in 50,000 could locate it. It is all but invisible to the naked eye. Yet the Romans built temples to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn within 25 years of the founding of Rome, by 725 B.C. The temple of Mars became the military headquarters on the grassy plain, the Campus Martius. The temple of Jupiter on Capitoline Hill became the political headquarters of the young state. The temple dedicated to Saturn on Palatine Hill became the imperial treasury. Mars, Jupiter and Quirinus were the celestial triad of Rome. Quirinus is not identified by contemporary mythologists, but we are quite sure it is the Latinized form of Chronos, the Greek deity representing Saturn.

Perhaps reasons that transcend our current understanding existed for the ancients. Saturn, though very dim, was considered quite significant to the astronomers and star-gazers of that era, who paid particular attention to its PERIOD. Greek cosmo-mythology suggests, even claims that Chronos, or Saturn, indeed had something to do with the cause of the Deluge. Such an ancient theme is not to be taken too lightly. We have presented a case that Saturn's period (in resonance with Jupiter, and disturbing Mars indirectly) was related to the grand cycle of catastrophism, the extremely severe ones. With his grand cycle theory presented, and some of the correlating mythology presented, we now return to the more mundane matter of details of the Tower of Babel Holocaust, which may be described as a 20th century event, B.C.

Earthquakes and/or Earth-Shakings

For fifty-two years God had warned the godless; He had made the mountains to QUAKE AND TREMBLE ... ⁹

And as to the tower which the sons of men built, the EARTH OPENED ITS MOUTH and swallowed up one third part thereof, and a fire also descended from heaven and burned another third, and the other third is left to this day ... ¹⁰

As for the unfinished tower, A PART SANK INTO THE EARTH, and another part was consumed by fire ... ¹¹

As for the earth out of it cometh BREAD ¹² and under it is turned up as it were fire.
(Job 28:5)

From these representative quotations, it is clear that the destruction of the famed tower was a two-fold event. Part of the crisis came from the Earth's crust, and part from the celestial zones.

Bolides and Meteorites

And the Lord sent A MIGHTY WIND against the tower and overthrew it upon the earth, and behold it was between Asshur and Babylon in the land of Shinar, and they called its name “Overthrow.” ¹³

The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: “When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods SENT STORMS OF WIND and overthrew the tower...” ¹⁴

In Chapter VIII it was seen that the “mighty wind” which blew down the home of Job's oldest son during a birthday party, was not a wind at all, but ruwach, a blast. This was the same word used to describe the blast that hit Sennacherib's bivouac in 701 B.C., destroying an entire army in seconds. We believe the mighty wind which hit the tower was shock waves from an exploding bolide, including a flash burn radiation effect or wave, not just a heavy gust of wind or rain storm.

This idea is reinforced by the report that the tower was destroyed one-third by fire descending from heaven which would indicate the falling of meteorites and bolides. It is a typical Case Two catastrophe like the Joel-Amos event or the Long Day of Joshua.

How severe was the catastrophe? It was sufficiently severe to be the leading reported event in two hundred years of time. It was sufficiently severe to cause mass migrations of peoples to the four directions. To underestimate its intensity would be easy, but instead, we are inclined to equate it on a par with the Long Day of Joshua, a Mars fly-by at about 75,000 miles. If this estimate is correct, then this is one of the three worst Case Two catastrophes of ancient times, (along with the Joshuaic holocaust and the Joel-Amos event).

Helios, the original sun deity in Greece, in his regular traverse across the heavens. Helios’ regularity brought springtime, seasons and warmth, making livestock, maidens and city folk all happy. From D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, p. 83, courtesy of Doubleday & Co.

Phaetnon in temporary, havoc-filled relief of his father in celestial duties. The solar steeds bucked and the sun wandered crazily across the heavens, i.e., the Earth's spin axis precessed as poles migrated and tilt angle shifted. There is a 50% probability that this cosmic legend originated among Proto-Greeks trying to describe the Tower of Babel holocaust in their region. The Phaetheon event may describe BOTH the Tower of Babel and the Long Day of Joshua events, one event reinforcing the other in Greek cosmo-mythology. Observe the prominence of Scorpio, venerated in October in the zodiac. From D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, p. 85, Courtesy of Doubleday & Co.

This event, with its bolides and meteors, indicates that Mars fragmented Electra sometime before 1930 B.C. We believe it was some time after the Deluge, circa 2500 B.C. The fire and brimstone, of course, are the Mars-asteroids, part of Electra's heritage to the solar system along with the Sun-asteroids.

Descriptive Cosmic Scenery

And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, LET US GO DOWN, and there confound their language. ... So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence....
(Genesis 11:6-8)

This abbreviated reference to the Tower of Babel Catastrophe indicates the edifice was not sacked and burned by mercenary armies, nor was it looted by Chaldean rioters. It was accomplished from on high (“let us GO DOWN”), by cosmic forces from the heavens. The Tower was intended to be the capitol building of the ruling city for the human race, the idolatrous political and religious capitol of the world. It was something like a United Nations building of the twentieth century B.C. (That the mammoth project failed was considered a benefit to all freedom-loving peoples, according to the ancient Jewish historians.)

The Structure and Purpose of the Tower of Babel

The purposes of the Tower were multiple. One was to make this edifice the masterpiece of world architecture. Another was to make this edifice the political and religious capitol of the world, a center of world control. A third was to worship the planets with astrology, magic and witchcraft. The religious structure at the apex of this six-storied tower was to be the observatory, planetarium and temple. Yet another purpose was to provide the elite of Chaldea a place of refuge “if God should choose again to flood” their world, their “world” being the flat Mesopotamian Plain within their regional context.

Gerald Hawkins, a researcher on Stonehenge, estimated 1:5 million man-days went into construction labor for that megalithic site. And it was just one, although a large one, of some 500 megalithic astronomical temple sites in England and Scotland. The Tower of Babel was clearly an even more impressive effort than Stonehenge in terms of construction labor input (with records indicating a drafted labor force of 600,000 slaves involved in its construction). The Tower of Babel was also more impressive than Stonehenge in terms of its ornamental hardware of gold and other precious metals, and its blue-clay exterior. It could have involved one billion man-days for its planning, its construction and decorating.

The iniquity and godlessness of Nimrod reached their climax in the building of the Tower of Babel. His counsellors had proposed the plan of erecting such a tower, Nimrod had agreed to it, and it was executed in Shinar by a mob of six hundred thousand men. ¹⁵

Robert Koldewey was an archaeologist who understood that ancient records contained cores of facts and were not myths. He set out to find and excavate the site of the Tower of Babel in 1898 A.D. His find was astonishing. He located the second Tower of Babel build by Nebuchadnezzar, and under that he found the foundation of the original Tower of Babel.

Every large Babylonian city had its ziggurat, but none compared with the Tower of Babel. Fifty-eight million bricks went into the Tower's construction, and the whole landscape was dominated by its terraced mass. The Tower of Babel was built by slaves. ¹⁶

The original Tower rose up in a series of enormous terraces. Herodotus describes a series of eight superimposed stages, each one somewhat smaller than the one below it. The uppermost terrace formed the base of a temple that looked out far over the land. ¹⁷

The base of the Tower was 288 feet on a side, the total height of Tower and temple also 288 feet. The first stage was 105.6 feet in height; the second, 57.6 feet; the third, fourth, fifth and sixth, 19.2 feet each; and the Temple of Marduk 48 feet in height. The temple housed the most important god in the Babylonian pantheon. The walls of the temple were plated with gold, and decorated with enameled brickwork of a bluish hue, which glittered in the sun, greeting the traveler's eye from afar. ¹⁸

If Herodotus can be credited with accuracy, the gold in the statue and accoutrements amounted to 800 talents of pure gold, worth $24,000,000 at 1951 values. Its weight was 23,700 kilograms or 26.07 tons of pure gold. The gigantic steps leading up to the first terrace rose 105.6 feet in elevation.

The Talmud states that the Tower was 42 years in building and was completed, although the surrounding gateways and streets were incomplete when the catastrophe struck.

This is the record of the building planned to house Bel-Merodech, or Bel Marduk, or Baal-Mars. Its construction was undertaken in the tenth generation after the Deluge, in a decadent generation involved in unrestrained, “snowballing” tyranny. Tyranny had replaced freedom; government enterprise with taxation and conscripted labor had superseded private enterprise; astrology and idolatry had superseded monotheism. ¹⁹ (By way of analogy, our nation today, in the tenth generation from Plymouth Rock, is becoming decadent in the public sector by statism to the disadvantages of the private entrepreneur. We too are becoming engrossed in one-worldism, in empty church-ism and in our era of a settled solar system, even in astrology.)

For this reason Reu called his son Serug, because all mankind had turned aside unto sin and transgression. When he grew to manhood, the name was seen to have been chosen fittingly, for he, too, worshipped idols, and when he himself had a son, Nahor by name, he taught him the arts of the Chaldees, how to be a soothsayer and practice magic according to signs in the heavens. ²⁰

When the Tower of Babel rocked, shivered and began to collapse, the masonry, artwork and wealth of four decades began to collapse in a series of avalanches of brick, mortar, gold and other accoutrements.

But as to the plain of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: “Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia.” ²¹

(This was just after the Tower had fallen, and some of the sacred hardwares were salvaged and kept in adoration at other sites.) Mars-Baal did not perform well. No doubt as Baal-Mars approached closer and closer during that fateful month of 1930 B.C., the frenzied priests and priestesses of Baal-Mars implored Mars to turn aside, but Baal-Mars failed to hear their tortured petitions. Abraham, at this time was about 48 years of age.

Later, when Abraham left Chaldea and migrated into Egypt, he was considered to be an authority on science.

He communicated to them [the Egyptians] arithmetic, AND DELIVERED TO THEM THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning, for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also. ²²

In the twentieth century A.D., we have telescopes, radio astronomy, spectroscopy, photometry, space modules, booster engines, computers and radar. None of these sophistications existed in the twentieth century B.C. Nevertheless, a large proportion of the citizens of Babylon and other Sumerian cities could locate in the nocturnal skies not only Venus and the wandering Mars, but also Jupiter, Saturn and numerous constellations, one of which was the first point of Aries (the first sector of the zodiac). Today, hardly one person in 10,000 can locate the dim Jupiter, and few persons know more than a half dozen constellations.

The ancients, too, were interested in the astronomical scene. They were concerned about such matters as paths across the zodiac, lunar eclipses, Mars eclipses, conjunctions, comets, irregular orbits, regular orbits, obelisks, gnomons, sun caves, calendaric systems and reformed systems, catastrophic appointment days and so forth. Today, perhaps ¼% to ½% of our gross national product is involved in space exploration, thlunar missions, the Mariner missions and until cancelled, the “grand tour” in two stages, with space craft containing extremely complicated components. Since 600,000 slaves were employed in the building of the Tower of Babel (only one ziggurat), and since some 26 tons of inlaid gold were used, and since those slaves required tax support, it is quite possible that about 15% or perhaps more of the gross national product of Babylonia went into astrology/astronomy. The same is true for England with its Stonehenge project, and Egypt with its pyramids, its planet temples, and other astronomical-related architectures. Yes, the ancients were interested, very interested, in cosmology and celestial scenery, especially in the years of appointment, every 52 or 54 years in that era.

The Peleg Catastrophe - Estimated 2146 B.C.

Was the Tower of Babel the first of the post-flood catastrophes? Our answer is, in all probability, no. Scriptures contain a vague but significant remark about a special time some two centuries earlier.

And unto Eber was born two sons:
the name of one was Peleg;
FOR IN HIS DAYS WAS THE EARTH DIVIDED....
(Genesis 10:25)

Peleg's life span included 239 years in that era of longer life, and the dates of his life are approximately 2168 B.C. to 1929 B.C. If we pursue dating by the model, earlier crisis years would have been the following:

The division of the Earth during the days of Peleg was not linguistic. The cleavage was due to a new equatorial zone of oblateness, the forces already welling up within Earth's crust. ²³ Our estimated date for the Peleg Catastrophe is 2146 B.C., two cycles before the Tower of Babel holocaust. This estimate compares with our dating of the Job catastrophe two cycles or 216 years before the Exodus event. This dating methodology is patterned after the cyclic pattern of the Greater Davidic Catastrophe, just 216 years (two full cycles) before the Joel-Amos holocaust.

The object of science is not only to apply the different substances in nature to the advantage, benefit, and comfort of man, but likewise to set forth that wonderful and magnificent history of wisdom and intelligence which is written in legible characters both in the heavens and on the earth.
--Sir Humphry Davy

Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
--The Bible (Book of Isaiah)

NOTES