Was There A Pre-Flood Babylon

Hebrew: The Language of Eden

Was There A Pre-Flood Babylon?

This article discusses the possibility that Hebrew might have been         the original language of the world, before the dispersion from Babylon.

The writings of Berosus suggest that the geography of the pre-Flood         world was much the same as it is now, and those who survived in the Ark         returned to Babylon, from where they came.

This might suggest that it         was just a local Flood, and was not as devastating as the Bible would         have us believe, but the reality is not so simple.

Edenics

The Bible and Berosus

Since the publication of my book, Forgotten History of the Western People, some of my readers have pointed out that the original world language, before the dispersion from the Tower of Babel, might have been Hebrew. They believe that Hebrew was the original language of the garden of Eden, and the study of this subject is called "Edenics".

In my book, Forgotten History of the Western People, I have           quoted some of the text of the Babylonian Flood story and compared it           with the Biblical account.

When I first heard of this, I           found it a bit strange because English is an Indo-European language,           and Hebrew is Semitic, and the notion of the Hebrew roots of the           English language runs contrary to modern thinking of linguistics.

They also believe that many English words are derived from Hebrew.

There are many points of similarity, but           some differences, and considering the authorship and context I came to           the conclusion that they were two independent accounts of the same           event, and not just copies of each other.

I           wondered if it might be just another fanciful idea from the British           Israelites, who believe that the British people are descended from the           ten lost tribes of Israel, placing them in a special covenant           realtionship with God.

Since the book was published in November 2002, it has raised some           controversy among Biblical Creationists who say that we should treat           secular accounts with caution because they might introduce           uncertainties that lead us away from Biblical truth.

However, I found that the supporters of Edenics           are not British Israelites and they are not trying to prove any           religious doctrine.

I would say the           opposite, that if we are firmly grounded in the Bible, we have nothing           to fear from the works of Berosus or any other historian of the           ancient world.

So, I decided to look into the subject, and to my surprise I found           there is some quite substantal evidence that Hebrew might indeed be           the original world language.

Berosus is in agreement with the Bible on the following points:

The main source of linguistic evidence is           The Word: The Dictionary That Reveals the Hebrew Source of English,           by Isaac Mozeson.

For a summary of the evidence from various sources, but primarily from Mozeson's book, see Edenic - The First Language.

There were ten kings before the Flood, corresponding to the ten             Biblical patriarchs from Adam to Noah, although Berosus gives them             different names.

God commanded Xisuthrus (Noah) to build a boat, because there             would be a great Flood that would destroy mankind.

Structure of Genesis

When the Flood began to subside, Xisuthrus sent out birds, on             three occasions, and the first two flights of birds came back             because they could not find land.

In addition to the linguistic arguments, I discovered there are           other reasons to believe that Hebrew was the first language, and this           lies in the construction of the Book of Genesis, otherwise known as           the first of the five books of Moses.

When the water subsided further, the boat landed on a mountain.

However, Moses could not have           written it, because it describes events that occurred long before his           time. Instead he compiled it from other documents that were available           to him.

It was commonplace in the ancient world to write a "colophon"           at the end of a document, identifying the author, and sometimes the           date and place when it was written. Colophons have been found on stone           tablets belonging to ancient Babylon, and they are the equivalent of           the modern-day title page that appears at the beginning of a book.

The points of difference are:

Xisuthrus had some of his friends in the boat, including a "pilot",             and not just his family. Among his family there was his daughter who             is not mentioned in the Bible.

Xisuthrus was commanded to write a history of the world and bury             it securely in the City of the Sun at Sippara (Sepharvaim), and the             survivors who emerged from the Ark after the Flood went back there             and recovered it.

The colophons in the Book of Genesis all have a similar form such as           "This the book of the generations of Adam", or "These           are the generations of Noah".

The Hebrew word "toledoth"           is consistently used, which means "generations", "origins"           or "histories", and then there is the name of the person who           is signing off this section of the history.

Xisuthrus and his wife, daughter and the pilot offered sacrifices             when they emerged from the ark, and were immediately translated to             the gods.

In some cases it is           followed by a list of his descendants, and this has led some           commentators to believe that the "toledoth" phrase is an           introduction to a genealogical list. However, there is not always a           genealogy, and the regular repetition of the "toledoth"           phrase indicates that it is genuinely a signing-off phrase and not an           introduction.

The Biblical account says that Noah lived on the earth for             another 350 years.

For a discussion of the text, see The First Book of Moses and the 'Toledoth' of Genesis, by Damien F. Mackey.

The Global Flood of Berosus

He credits P.J. Wiseman as the original author who discovered           the toledoth structure in 1936, and since then it has appeared in           various commentaries, including The Genesis Record by Henry           Morris.

There are certain points in the Babylonian story that confirm that           the Flood was global.

Xisuthrus was commanded to build the boat because mankind would             be destroyed.

There are nine sections in the Book of Genesis as follows:

The birds that were sent out from the ark could not find land.

Noah was commanded to write a history of the world, and this             would have been unnecessary in the event of a local flood.

The Book of Heaven and Earth (Gen. 1:1 - 2.4), ending with "These             are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were             created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens".

This must have been written by God because it covers the days of             creation when no man was present.

The story of Xisuthrus being translated to the gods would seem             implausible, even as a fanciful addition to the story, if the flood             was not global.

The Book of Adam (Gen. 2:5 - 5:2), ending with "This is             the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created             man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he             them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when             they were created.".

In contrast to these affirmations of a global Flood, there is one           point in the story that suggests it was not global, or at least the           landscape of Mesopotamia was spared the worst violence of the raging           waters.

After Xisuthrus had been translated to the gods, the remaining           survivors went back to Babylon and found the writings at Sippara.

Note: Gen. 5:2 is probably part of the colophon             because of the use of the word "day", similar to Gen. 2:4.

It           seems unlikely that any point on the landscape could be identified           with such precision after a global Flood.

It is known from the geology           of Mesopotamia that there are thick sedimentary layers containing many           fossils, obviously deposited from a Flood of gigantic proportions.

The Book of Noah (Gen. 5:3 - 6:9a), ending with "These             are the generations of Noah".

In           that case, the writings would have been buried and would never be           found.

The Book of the Sons of Noah (Gen. 6:9b - 10:1a), ending with             "Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem,             Ham, and Japheth".

If we try to be as generous as possible to the story handed down to           us from Berosus, we could imagine that the pre-Flood landscape might           have been a series of undulating hills and valleys, and the sediment           deposited by the receding floodwaters would simply fill up the           valleys.

The Book of Shem (Gen. 10:1b - 11:10a), ending with "These             are the generations of Shem".

If the writings were buried on a hilltop, they might have           escaped much deeper burial under masses of sediment.

Of course they would have to be in a secure sealed container

The Book of Terah (Gen. 11:10b-27a), ending with "Now             these are the generations of Terah".

Such           technology would not be beyond the capabilities of the pre-Flood           world, since we know that the early post-Flood world could make           pyramids and we still can't figure out how they did it.

The Book of Isaac and Ishmael (Gen. 11:27b - 25:19a), ending with             "And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son".

However, even           if the writings escaped burial under sediment, it is unlikely that the           survivors could have found them in a totally changed landscape, unless           God helped them and told them where they were.

It is thought that this large section is mainly from Isaac, but             there is a contribution from Ishmael, ending with "Now             these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the             Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham" (Gen.             25:12).

But if we have to           introduce God into the story in that way, we are getting into a level           of speculation that amounts to the invention of history, or even           mythology.

We just have to accept that we don't know the complete           Babylonian flood story, because only a few fragments of the three           books of Berosus have survived.

The Book of Jacob and Esau (Gen. 25:19b - 37:2a), ending with             "These are the generations of Jacob".

There are             two contributions from Esau. The first one ends with "Now             these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom" (Gen.             36:1), and the second one ends with "And these are the             generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir".             (Gen. 36:9).

To be less generous, we have to say that there is a contradiction in           the Babylonian Flood story.

First we are told that it was global, then           we are told that the landscape was virtually unchanged and the           survivors were able to return to a place where some writings had been           hidden.

In that case, should we discard the whole story as a dangerous           and unreliable fable, and avoid it like the plague? Certainly not!

Instead we should focus on the common ground where we see that Berosus           is in agreement with the Bible.

The Book of the Sons of Jacob (Gen. 37:2b - Exodus 1:4), ending             with "Now these are the names of the children of Israel,             which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.             Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,             Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.".

The Apostle Paul followed this           principle with great effect when he preached his sermon on Mars Hill           and used the altar to the Unknown God as his starting point.

In this case the word "toledoth" is not used in             Exodus 1:1, but the structure is the same, using the word "shemoth"             which means "names".

The names that follow are not a list             of descendants, but the names of the brothers themselves, probably             assembled together for a signing-off ceremony.

Redesigning the Landscape

Joseph's name is             missing because he had died, as recorded in the last verse of             Genesis.

In that case, the signing-off ceremony was probably soon             after Joseph's funeral. They were all assembled at Joseph's house,             and they looked at the books that had been written so far, and then              they wrote their own book and signed it off.

The Bible gives us a more consistent story, where the Flood is truly           global, and the landscape is changed as you would expect. We are given           some details of the geography of the pre-Flood world as follows:

The complete collection             of books remained in the royal archive, and would have been             available to Moses who was brought up in Pharaoh's house.

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he           put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord           God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for           food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree           of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water           the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.           The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole           land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is           good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second           river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of           Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it           which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is           Euphrates. Gen. 2:8-14.

Note: The word "generation" which             appears in Exodus 1:6 is not "toledoth". Instead it is "dor",             which means "circle" or "generation" and is             commonly used to imply continuity.

Having established that the Book of Genesis consists of nine           separate books, written by different people, the question arises, in           what language were all these books written?

The name "Hebrew",           referring to both the people and the language of the Israelites, is           attributed to their ancestor Heber, the great-grandson of Shem, so it           must be a very ancient language.

All the books from Terah onwards must           have been written in Hebrew, because he was the fifth-generation           descendant of Heber.

The earlier books must also have been written in           Hebrew, for the following reasons:

The term "eastward in Eden" probably means "to the           east", from the point of view of Moses who wrote the Book of           Genesis, although we are not told exactly where it was.

The passage           implies that the garden was planted as a dwelling place for Adam,           within a larger area known as Eden.

Within this larger area there was           an un-named river that went towards the garden, and at that point it           split unto four.

The language structure is essentially the same throughout the             book of Genesis, including the colophons, and there is no reason to             believe that the earlier books were translations from something             else.

We are given the destinations of these four rivers,           and two of them are countries that we know today, namely Ethiopia and           Assyria.

However, this does not imply that these countries survived           the Flood as geographical entities. It is more likely that they were           entirely wiped out, so that it was impossible to locate them on the           new landscape.

Moses and his scribes were not linguists and there is no reason             to believe that they were compiling and translating documents from             different languages.

As the descendants of Noah dispersed around the world,           they set up new kingdoms, giving them names that were borrowed from           the pre-Flood world.

This is a common practice among settlers who           arrive in a new and unfamiliar place, for example in America we have           New York, New Jersey, Birmingham and Rome.

The Hebrew scribes had such reverence for the language of the             Torah, that if an error was made while copying a scroll, they would             throw the entire scroll away.

There were no critical revisions, as             might be expected with translations.

They behaved entirely as if             they were dealing with original text, and not just any old text, but             something very precious that had been handed down to them from the             beginning of the world.

We know that the landscape was drastically changed because there is           no river in the world today that splits into a delta with four rivers           called Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. Instead there are four           entirely different rivers with the same names, each with its own           source in the mountains of Ararat.

Conclusion

The Pison, now known as the Coruh, has its source in northern             Turkey and flows through a valley between the Pontine and Armenian             Mountains, discharging into the Black Sea near Batumi.

I have referred to the linguistic arguments of Mozeson, that the           original language of the pre-flood world might have been Hebrew, and I           have also given the structure of the book of Genesis, on the basis of           the well-known "toledoth" phrases.

Havilah is             thought to be the goldfield in the Pontine Mountains near Trabzon,             and this is where Jason and the Argonauts might have searched for             the Golden Fleece, because miners used sheepskins to catch the gold.

However, I have not yet           found any books or web pages suggesting that the structure of Genesis           adds weight to the argument, that Hebrew was the language of Eden.

Have I discovered something new, or have I simply rediscovered           something that was known to our ancestors, whose work is buried           somewhere in a mountain of forgotten histories?

The Gihon, now known as the Araxas or Araks, has three sources to             the north of Mt. Ararat and flows eastward, joining the River Kura             and discharging into the Caspian Sea to the south of Baku.

The Hiddekel, otherwise known as the Tigris, has a number of             sources in southern Turkey, and flows south-east through Iraq,             discharging into the Persian Gulf.

The Euphrates has a number of sources in central Turkey and flows             south-east through Iraq, joining the Tigris and discharging into the             Persian Gulf.

Update, July 28, 2003

Since I wrote this article, I found some Jewish people who say that,           according to Jewish tradition, Hebrew is the language of Eden, and           this is what the Jews have always believed. They call it L'shon           HaKodesh which means The Holy Language

Clearly, the survivors who emerged from the Ark must have surveyed           the landscape and named these four rivers according to the rivers that           they knew from the pre-Flood world.

In the case of the Pison, the name           was given when they became aware that there was gold in the area.

and there are many           references to the special status of Hebrew in the Jewish literature.

It           seems unlikely that the early settlers would have considered gold to           be important, even if they found it, because they were more concerned           with finding food and other necessary means of survival, but their           descendants in later generations might have gone out searching for           gold and given the river its name.

To give just one example, the Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XXXI:8 says that           "Just as the Torah was given in Hebrew, so was the world           created with Hebrew".

There are other occasions where pre-Flood names are used in the           post-Flood world, as the names of both people and places. For example:

Havilah, the son of Joktan, lived in Western Arabia and another             Havilah, the son of Cush, lived in Eastern Arabia near the Persian             Gulf. Both of them gave their names to the places where they lived.

Gihon is also thought to be the Ganges, the Nile, or the Pyramus             which discharges into the Mediterranean at Adana in Southern Turkey.

Strangely enough, there is no river in the post-Flood world           corresponding to the river that passed through Eden.

Clearly, this           river has disappeared, together with the four rivers that emerged from           it, but it would be easy enough for someone to invent a name, such as           the River Eden, and apply it to any new river.

The reason why this has           not happened is because, in the Genesis account, the river that passed           through Eden never had a name.

Why should the four rivers all have           names, but the river that provided their source never had one?

The reason is because the descendants of Adam and Eve never saw it.

Adam           and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden after they had taken the           forbidden fruit, and cherubims and a flaming sword were placed at the           east of the garden to prevent them from accessing the tree of life.

If           this restricted access also prevented them from accessing the river,           it would explain why it had no name. The descendants of Adam and Eve           could only see the four rivers, as they emerged from the boundaries of           the garden, but they could never access their source.

Landscape of Berosus

Returning to the account of Berosus, we find that in addition to           Babylon and Sippara, where the survivors returned after the Flood,           there are other place names that are described in a way that implies           an identical pre-Flood and post-Flood geography.

For example:

Some of the pre-Flood kings, including the first one who             corresponds to Adam, were Chaldeans.

The last two kings who precede Xisuthrus (Noah) were from Larissa             (Larsa) in southern Iraq.

Oannes, the fish-man, came out of the Erythrean Sea (Persian             Gulf) which borders on Babylonia. At that time, Babylonia was             between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and it had a border with             Arabia which was desert. All of this corresponds to the present-day             geography.

This implies that either that the work of Berosus became garbled as           it passed through the hands of later historians, who might have added           place names to the story, or else Berosus himself failed to understand           the implications of a global Flood.

We know that he was an astronomer,           but he might not have also been a geologist, and he might not have           realised that large parts of the earth would be covered with thick           layers of sediment after a global Flood.

He might have thought that           all the place names, borrowed from the pre-Flood world, actually           corresponded to an identical geography.

Conclusions

The work of Berosus, together with the work of other ancient           historians who I have not mentioned here, do not present any kind of           threat to those who believe in the Biblical account of a global Flood.           Those who are firmly grounded in the Bible have nothing to be afraid           of.

For three hundred years after the Reformation, it was commonplace           for the Bible to be read in schools every morning, during a corporate           act of worship, and then the children would go to their classes.

They           would study the arts and sciences, and many schools had a strong           emphasis on Latin and Greek, so that they could study classical           history, literature and mythology.

They understood that after the           dispersal of the early descendants of Noah, history becomes distorted           with mythology, and then it comes back together again as real history,           but it didn't bother them.

Nobody was concerned that the faith of           impressionable schoolchildren would be distorted by Greek and Latin           fables, because they were already fully grounded in the Bible.

Creation History has always been with us, although it has been           neglected for the most part of the last century.

Now it is coming           back, and a new generation of Creationists, who are mostly steeped in           science, regard it as something new and unfamiliar, and some regard it           with suspicion because it does not satisfy their appetite for           certainty.

I can only give one piece of advice for anyone who wants to           get involved in this subject, that you should first become fully           grounded in the Bible and teach others also.

For those who have little           or no understanding of the Bible, I hope that my book will encourage           them to study it, because without the Bible my book will not really           make all that much sense.

Was There A Pre-Flood Babylon

Would you like to comment?