CHAPTER 1

Ancient Land Of Shinar

In the biblical account of the land of Shinar the narrativebegins with the descendants of Noah, who after the Flood began tospread across the earth. At that particular time the Bible says:

"... the whole earth used the same language and thesame words. It came about as they journeyed east, thatthey found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.They said one to another, `Come, let us make bricks andburn them throughly.' And they used brick for stone, andthey used tar for mortar. They said, `Come, let us buildfor ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach intoheaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwisewe will be scattered abroad over the face of the wholeearth'" (Gen. 11:1-4; NASV).

The "land of Shinar" is the name given to the Babylonianplain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is the very part ofWestern Asia that was first settled after the Great Flood. Scholarsagree that when the people, who were called Sumerians, settledthe land of Shinar, meaning "between the rivers," they developed ahigh degree of civilization. Establishing villages scattered across theplain these early settlers developed an intricate network of irrigationcanals and dikes that allowed them to grow fruits, grains, andvegetables and transport them to market, enabling them to developa prosperous economy and sustain an ever-growing population. Inaddition, they were heavily engaged in fishing and raising cattle,and mastered the skills of weaving, pottery making, carpentry, andmasonry. From these exploits emerged a new and more complexsociety. Villages became cities comprised of a social, political, andjudicial system that was based on a city-state model.

A highly inventive people, the early settlers were the first to usethe arch and wheel. They also understood the complex technology ofalloying tin and copper to make bronze and then fashioning it intousable tools. In mathematics, they originated a system of numericalnotations, based on 10's and 6's, which persist to this day in the waywe tell time and in the division of the circle into 360 Degrees.

Their most crowning achievement was the development ofwriting, called cuneiform, using wedge-shaped marks pressed ontoclay tablets. This was the beginning of written history. Survivingclay tablets have left modern civilization a remarkable collectionof early Sumerian literature, such as epic tales, hymns, myths, andthe earliest known law code. They even wrote a heroic poem, theEpic of Gilgamesh, which came close to the biblical account of thejudgment of God on sinful man in the story of the Great Flood,which covered the earth long before it was recorded in the HebrewScriptures by Moses.

The above map shows the land of Shinar, which included thesouthern and parts of northern Mesopotamia. It was in this regionthat the Euphrates and Tigris rivers deposited rich fertile soil thatproduced an abundance of fruits, vegetables and grains. Here citieswere built of mud-brick that were dominated by step-pyramidscalled ziggurats that honored their gods.

In the biblical narrative the Hebrew name "Shinar," as ageographical name, appears alongside the great cities of Mesopotamia:Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh (Gen. 10:10). In the Septuagint(Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures), the name "Shinar" istranslated "Babylonia" (e.g. Isa. 11:11 and Zech. 5:11). Addressing thisancient understanding, the scholars of the Jewish Encyclopedia state:

In the Bible, Babylon and the country of Babyloniaare not always clearly distinguished, in most cases the sameword (Babylon) being used for both. In some passages theland of Babylon is called Shinar; while in the post-exilicliterature it is called the land of the Chaldeans.... Inthe historical books, Babylonia is frequently referred to(there are no fewer than thirty-one allusions in the Bookof Kings) though the lack of a clear distinction betweenthe city and the country is something puzzling.... TheGreek name Mesopotamia, which arose after Alexander'stime, means identically the same.

Tower of Babel

Although there is nothing in the biblical narrative to indicatethat the Tower of Babel was a temple tower or ziggurat, scholarsagree that the `tower' referred to in Genesis 11 is a ziggurat orMesopotamian temple tower. The word ziggurat means "to raiseup, to elevate," and was the central feature of the great temples andshrines built in every important Mesopotamian city. The scholars ofUnger's Bible Dictionary inform us that these step-pyramid zigguratswere consecrated to the guardian deity and protector of the city.The scholars of The...