Babble

[dreamer_easy]

I think I've mentioned before the enormous excitement generated when Mesopotamian and Egyptian writings began to be translated, and found to cover some of the same ground as the Hebrew Bible. It must have been staggering to find what appeared to be independent confirmation of at least some of the details of the OT stories. It threw up stumbling blocks as well, though. I've just been wrecking my eyes trying to read the Hebrew characters of Genesis 11:9:

"Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth." (ASV)

This is one of many passages that explains a place name: the city of Babel, as in the Tower of Babel, got its name from the Hebrew word balal, roughly meaning "mix". (If you stare long enough at the passage in Hebrew you'll pick out the city's name and the verb - the fourth and sixth words.) This is witty, and given that Babylon would've been full of people from different cultures speaking different languages (not to mention containing a whacking great ziggurat aimed straight at heaven) it rather suits the place. But finding the city's name in cuneiform would have presented a scholars with a problem: it was bab-ilu, Akkadian for "the gate of the god". (Later, it became bab-ilani, the gate of the gods plural, from whence the Greek Babylon.) So suddenly, after almost a couple of millennia, they would've been faced with a completely different etymology for the name.

But what I'm confused by is why the Septuagint version of the verse doesn't contain the word "Babel". ?!

ETA: With the aid of the Perseus Digital Library and Babelfish, I think the Greek text reads, "Therefore the name of that was called Confusion because the Lord confused their tongues". Don't put money on that, though. (Oh hey, this is where the phrase "the Lord thy God" comes from - kyrios o theos. Cool.)

Comments

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

Kate, I never have anything at all to contribute to when you go all Research Girl on this stuff, but fwiw it's fascinating. :) I really dig that you do this.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

*blushes very hard* This is not very original or sophisticated stuff, I'll have you know. I'm just looking up some stuff about Nebuchadnezzar And All That and got hooked on the passage. (When you write "Nineveh" in cuneiform, you write it with a symbol meaning "big fish". Take that, Jonah! :)

[megthelegend.livejournal.com]

Welllllllllllll, see, that sounds plenty original & sophistimacated to me, madam. :P :P :P

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

But what I'm confused by is why the Septuagint version of the verse doesn't contain the word "Babel". ?!

Duh. No spellcheck.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Looks at icon. But... but... that's not the album that "Land of Confusion" was on... :-)

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that I'd derive the Greek Babylon from the Akkadian, rather than the straightforward transliteration of Bavel in the Hebrew - the Greeks generally translated the second letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet as a "B" whether or not it had a dagesh (accent) - without it, it's a "v" sound. (This same effect is how you go from Shabbat to "Sabbath").

Did you have a contemporaneous source which followed the word from Akkadian into Greek?

Off-topic, but it's Dr Who

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5002256.ece