Enoch

The traditional translation of shem as “name” has kept the tale unintelligible for generations.

Why did the ancient residents of Babel—Babylonia—exert themselves to “make a name”?

Why was the “name” to be placed on “a tower whose top shall reach the heavens”?

How could the “making of a name” counteract the effects of Mankind’s scattering upon Earth?

If all that those people wanted was to make (as scholars explain) a “reputation” for themselves, why did this attempt upset the Lord so much?

Why was the raising of a “name” deemed by the Deity to be a feat after which “anything which they shall scheme to do shall no longer be impossible for them”?

The traditional explanations certainly are insufficient to clarify why the Lord found it necessary to call on other unnamed deities to go down and put an end to this human attempt.

We believe that the answers to all these questions become plausible—even obvious—once we read “skyborne vehicle” rather than “name” for the word shem, which is the term employed in the original Hebrew text of the Bible.

The story would then deal with the concern of Mankind that, as the people spread upon Earth, they would lose contact with one another.

So they decided to build a “skyborne vehicle” and to erect a launch tower for such a vehicle so that they, too, could—like the goddess Ishtar, for example—fly in a mu “over all the peopled lands.”

A portion of the Babylonian text known as the Epic of Creation relates that the first “Gateway of the Gods” was constructed in Babylon by the gods themselves.

The Anunnaki, the rank-and-file gods, were ordered to Construct the Gateway of the Gods… Let its brickwork be fashioned. Its shem shall be in the designated place.

For 2 years, the Anunnaki toiled—“applied the implement … molded bricks”— until “they raised high the top of Eshagila” (“house of Great Gods”) and “built the stage tower as high as High Heaven.”

It was thus some cheek on the part of Mankind to establish its own launch tower on a site originally used for the purpose by the gods, for the name of the place—Babili—literally meant “Gateway of the Gods.”

Is there any other evidence to corroborate the biblical tale and our interpretation of it?

The Babylonian historian-priest Berossus, who in the third century B.C. compiled a history of Mankind, reported that the “first inhabitants of the land, glorying in their own strength … undertook to raise a tower whose ’top’ should reach the sky.”

But the tower was overturned by the gods and heavy winds, “and the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language.”

George Smith (The Chaldean Account of Genesis) found in the writings of the Greek historian Hestaeus a report that, in accordance with “olden traditions,” the people who had escaped the Deluge came to Senaar in Babylonia but were driven away from there by a diversity of tongues.

The historian Alexander Polyhistor (1st century B.C.) wrote that all men formerly spoke the same language. Then some undertook to erect a large and lofty tower so that they might “climb up to heaven.” But the chief god confounded their design by sending a whirlwind; each tribe was given a different language.

“The city where it happened was Babylon.”

There is little doubt by now that the biblical tales, as well as the reports of the Greek historians of 2,000 years ago and of their predecessor Berossus, all stem from earlier—Sumerian—origins. A. H. Sayee (The Religion of the Babylonians) reported reading on a fragmentary tablet in the British Museum “the Babylonian version of the building of the Tower of Babel.”

In all instances, the attempt to reach the heavens and the ensuing confusion of tongues are basic elements of the version. There are other Sumerian texts that record the deliberate confusion of Man’s tongue by an irate god.

Mankind, presumably, did not possess at that time the technology required for such an aerospace project; the guidance and collaboration of a knowledgeable god was essential. Did such a god defy the others to help Mankind? A Sumerian seal depicts a confrontation between armed gods, apparently over the disputed construction by men of a stage tower. (Fig. 74)

Illustration: Confrontation between Armed Gods

A Sumerian stela now on view in Paris in the Louvre may well depict the incident reported in the Book of Genesis.

It was put up circa 2300 B.C. by NaramSin, king of Akkad, and scholars have assumed that it depicts the king victorious over his enemies. But the large central figure is that of a deity and not of the human king, for the person is wearing a helmet adorned with horns—the identifying mark exclusive to the gods. Furthermore, this central figure does not appear to be the leader of the smaller-sized humans, but to be trampling upon them.

These humans, in turn, do not seem to be engaged in any warlike activities, but to be marching toward, and standing in adoration of, the same large conical object on which the deity’s attention is also focused. Armed with a bow and lance, the deity seems to view the object menacingly rather than with adoration. (Fig. 75)

Illustration: Humans advancing on a Shem

The conical object is shown reaching toward three celestial bodies. If its size, shape, and purpose indicate that it was a shem, then the scene depicted an angry and fully armed god trampling upon people celebrating the raising of a shem. Both the Mesopotamian texts and the biblical account impart the same moral: The flying machines were meant for the gods and not for Mankind. Men—assert both Mesopotamian and biblical texts—could ascend to the Heavenly Abode only upon the express wish of the gods. And therein lie more tales of ascents to the heavens and even of space flights.

The Old Testament records the ascent to the heavens of several mortal beings. The first was Enoch, a pre-Diluvial patriarch whom God befriended and who “walked with the Lord.” He was the seventh patriarch in the line of Adam and the great-grandfather of Noah, hero of the Deluge. The fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis lists the genealogies of all these patriarchs and the ages at which they died—except for Enoch, “who was gone, for the Lord had taken him.” By implication and tradition, it was heavenward, to escape mortality on Earth, that God took Enoch. The other mortal was the prophet Elijah, who was lifted off Earth and taken heavenward in a “whirlwind.”

A little-known reference to a third mortal who visited the Divine Abode and was endowed there with great wisdom is provided in the Old Testament, and it concerns the ruler of Tyre (a Phoenician center on the eastern Mediterranean coast). We read in Chapter 28 of the Book of Ezekiel that the Lord commanded the prophet to remind the king how, perfect and wise, he was enabled by the Deity to visit with the gods: Thou art molded by a plan, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy thicket… Thou art an anointed Cberub, protected; and I have placed thee in the sacred mountain; as a god werest thou, moving within the Fiery Stones.

Predicting that the ruler of Tyre should die a death “of the uncircumcised” by the hand of strangers even if he called out to them “I am a Deity,” the Lord then told Ezekiel the reason: After the king was taken to the Divine Abode and given access to all wisdom and riches, his heart “grew haughty,” he misused his wisdom, and he defiled the temples. Because thine heart is haughty, saying “A god am I; in the Abode of the Deity I sat, in the midst of the Waters”; Though thou art a Man, not a god, thou set thy heart as that of a Deity. The Sumerian texts also speak of several men who were privileged to ascend to the heavens. One was Adapa, the “model man” created by Ea. To him Ea “had given wisdom; eternal life he had not given him.” As the years went by, Ea decided to avert Adapa’s mortal end by providing him with a shem with which he was to reach the Heavenly Abode of Anu, there to partake of the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. When Adapa arrived at Anu’s Celestial Abode, Anu demanded to know who had provided Adapa with a shem with which to reach the heavenly location.

There are several important clues to be found in both the biblical and the Mesopotamian tales of the rare ascents of mortals to the Abode of the Gods. Adapa, too, like the king of Tyre, was made of a perfect “mold.” All had to reach and employ a shem—“fiery stone”—to reach the celestial “Eden.” Some had gone up and returned to Earth; others, like the Mesopotamian hero of the Deluge, stayed there to enjoy the company of the gods. It was to find this Mesopotamian “Noah” and obtain from him the secret of the Tree of Life, that the Sumerian Gilgamesh set out.