UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DESINALOA

BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

CLASS: HISTORY IN ACIENT CIVILIZATION

TEACHER: LAURA JIMENEZ LISON

1ST SEMESTER. OCT/20TH/2015

STUDENT: IDRIS CEDRIC ABRAHAM RUIZ TIRADO

THE BABYLONIAN EMPIRE(by the bible)

Babylon rose from a Mesopotamian city on the Euphrates River to become a powerful city-state and later the capital city and namesake of one of the greatest empires in history. The city was located on the eastern side of the Fertile Crescent about 55 miles south of modern Baghdad. Babylons history intersected the biblical time-line early and often. The influence of Babylonia on Israel and on world history is profound.

The Bibles first mention of Babylon comes in Genesis This chapter is referred to as the Table of nations as it traces the descendants of Noah's three sons.

Genesis 10:8-10New International Version (NIV)

8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth. 9 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, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.

The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1-9 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 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, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Why did the Lord (God) divide the people? Many people think it was some sort of punishment, but I've come to believe that it was to produce diversity in the human race. He used the people as seeds, seperating them across the whole earth. Another reason might be found in the adage: don't keep all your eggs in one basket. But why did he confound their language? I believe this was to prevent the tribes of the earth from mixing back together before their time. With their original language destroyed, each tribe must have developed their own distinct language.

Had the Lord not intervened at Babel, the human race may not have survived, and surely would not have attained the rich diversity we have today. So, far from being some kind of punishment for building the tower, it seems to me this was a strategic move made by someone who knew what he was doing.

Babylons Early Growth

There is evidence that man has lived in this area of Mesopotamia since the beginning of civilization. The first records indicates that Babylon was established as a city around the 23rd century BC. Before this it was a provincial capital ruled by the kings of the city of Ur. Then came the migration of the Amorites.
Near the time of Abraham Babylon became an independent city-state ruled by the Amorites. The first Babylonian dynasty included Hammurabi, the sixth king, known for his code of laws. Hammurabi expanded the kingdom, and the area around Babylon became known as Babylonia. During the second dynasty, Babylon was in communication with Egypt and entered a 600-year struggle with Assyria. After a time of subjugation to the Elamite Empire, a fourth dynasty of Babylonian kings thrived under Nebuchadnezzar I. Then Babylon fell under the shadow of Assyria.


By 851 B.C., Babylon was only nominally independent, requiring Assyrian protection and facing many internal upheavals. Finally, the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser III took the throne. The Assyrians and Merodach-baladan, a Chanldean traded power more than once. During one of his times of advantage, Merodach-baladan sent emissaries to threaten Hezekiah, king of Judah(2 kings 20:120-19 When the Chaldean chief Nabopolassar took control of Babylon in 626 B.C., he proceeded to sack Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

Nebuchadnezzar IIs Conquest of Judah
Under the Chaldean dynasty, and, arguably, throughout the rest of history, no king surpassed the glory and absolute power of Nebuchadnezzar ll reign. As the crown prince (son of Nabopolassar), he defeated Pharaoh Necho II, who had come to the aid of the Assyrian army, winning for Babylonia the former Assyrian lands, including Israel. After being crowned king, Nebuchadnezzar forced King Jehoiakim of Judah to become his vassal for three years. But then changed his mind and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar (2 kings 24:12). The king of Babylon, who did not take kindly to being rebelled against, captured Jerusalem and took the king and other leaders, military men and artisans as prisoners to Babylon (2 kings 24:12-16). 12-Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner. 13- As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace, and cut up the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the Lord. 14- He carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisansa total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.15- Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the kings mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land. 16- The king of Babylon also deported to Babylon the entire force of seven thousand fighting men, strong and fit for war, and a thousand skilled workers and artisans.

This deportation marked the beginning of the Babylonian exile of the Jews.

Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah to rule Judah. However, Zedekiah, against the prophet Jeremiahs counsel, joined the Egyptians in a revolt in 589 B.C. This resulted in Nebuchadnezzars return. The remaining Jews were deported, Jerusalem was burned, and the temple was destroyed in August of 587 B.C.

The Prophet Daniel and the Fall of Babylon
Babylon is the setting for the ministry of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, who were both deportees from Judah. Daniel became a leader and royal advisor to the Babylonian and Persian Empires. He had been captured after the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C. (Jeremiah 46:2-12 says : This message concerning Egypt was given in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, the king of Judah, on the occasion of the battle of Carchemish when Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, and his army were defeated beside the Euphrates River by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
. The book of Daniel records Daniels interpretation of Nebuchadnezzasr's (Daniel 2) This chapter of the bible explain how the Lord reveal to the king (Nebuchadnezzasr) a dream which is the fall of babylon but he couldn't know what the dream was about so he ask the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood in front of the king, he said to them, I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.

Then the astrologers answered the king, May the king live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.

The king replied to the astrologers, This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.

The astrologers answered the king, There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks!.

The king tell Arioch the commander of the king's guard, to execute all the wise man of babylon.

When Arioch, the commander of the king's guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.

The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?"
Daniel reply, No, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these: "Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue--an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
This was the dream and Daniel with the help of God was going to tell the king what was the interpretation of these dream.

"After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron--for iron breaks and smashes everything--and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay. "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery."

The fall of the Babylonian Empire came suddenly when the Medes and the Persians overran the city of Babylon in a night attack in 539 b.c. Prior to this event, the Babylonian Empire had already fallen on evil days. When Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 b.c., he was succeeded by his son Amel-Marduk who was assassinated only two years later. In 560 b.c. Neriglissar took the throne. When he died in 556 B.C, after only four years of reign, he was succeeded by his son who was assassinated shortly after he came to the throne. Nabonidus then assumed power appointing his son Belshazzar as co-ruler. It was this Belshazzar who held the ungodly feast and perished at the hands of the Medes and Persians.
In the Bible, Babylon is mentioned from Genesis to Revelation, as it rises from its rebellious beginnings to become a symbol of the Antichrists When Gods people required discipline, God used the Babylonian Empire to accomplish it, but He limited Judahs captivity to 70 years Then, God promised to punish the king of Babylon and his nation for all the wrong they have done in Zion Ultimately, all evil will be judged, as symbolized by Babylons demise. The great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.

Comments:

Did it happen exactly this way?Could this be The growth of civilization.?Do you believe in God? (The Bible)

Extra Comment:

Throughout the ancient near east, at the very beginning of history, it was believed that anyone who founded a city, or rebuilt it, was its creator, and that anyone who drained a swamp, thus creating new land, deserved a place with the gods. The people of the ancient near east understood that concept.

SOURCES>

http://www.gotquestions.org/Babylonian-empire.html

http://biblehub.com/niv/daniel/2.htm

http://www.bible-history.com/babylonia/BabyloniaHistory_of_Babylonia.htm

http://www.emergingtruths.com/tower_of_babel/tower_of_babel.html