EDEN’S VISION had failed, and that is putting it lightly. Yahweh’s created image and the sons of God who had copulated with the daughters of men had failed so miserably in their commissioned tasks that “it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” We also know what became of His sorrow. God destroyed the world with a deluge of water. Afterwards, the family He spared was given the same Edenic responsibility that Adam and Eve had first been tasked with. Noah and his descendants were expected to participate in Yahweh’s administrative affairs. They were to make His name known, not only among their own generation, but those to come. But the children of Noah did not wish to spread the commonwealth of Gods kingdom over the face of the earth. Rather, they inverted the very purpose by which they were created. Nimrod and the people of his dominion wanted “heaven as it is on earth,” but never “earth as it is in heaven.” Like most human movements which advertise God as having endorsed them, the generation of Nimrod jointly declared: “Come, let us make a name for ourselves.”

Scholarly history and the Bible both fall in agreement. Though we do not know if or how the name of Yahweh was borrowed from, the builders of Babel gladly aligned themselves with the divine members of his pantheon; namely the stars above and the sons of God who seem to embody them; so long as gods helped them achieve their ultimate goals—self-salvation.

It is due to Babel headline that God’s divine council reemerges. Yahweh personally comes down from heaven to inspect the city and the tower, perhaps in a similar physical fashion as His earthly visit several chapters later with Sodom. Upon returning to his heavenly assembly, He delivers the following report: “Behold, the people are one, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” A suggestion is then presented and collectively agreed upon. “Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” Though their last documented meeting in Genesis 1:26 discussed the creation of man in their own image, it was God who made it happen. The same is applied here. Moses records: “So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city (Genesis 11:8).”

Thus the genealogy from Shem to Abraham promptly takes flight, and Yahweh’s dispersion is deemed such a success that the whereabouts of the plains of Shinar have long been sought, and are still debated to this day. But the historical location of Babel’s Tower is not what is important here. Unbeknownst to most of us, the story of Babel does not come to an end—far from it. True, the city itself is no longer built, and if the book of Jasher is to be believed as a historical document, the tower is thrown to disastrous ruin, but that is not to say the religion itself has not successfully scattered with her host tongue. It has indeed—that and so much more. The various ziggurats which expanded from the plains of Shinar give ample testimony to that fact. With its initial destruction, the celestial mountain of the gods, which once hosted the common language of the day by casting a dominant shadow over the plains of Shinar, simply became a series of mountain ranges. More shadows would be cast.

In fact, the whole world was darkened by what was contained within them.

IT CAN BE SAID OF THE ZIGGURATS SCATTERED ACROSS ancient Mesopotamia that heaven and the underworld once met halfway on earth. More precisely, gods and men assembled in counsel, and their astrological significance cannot be overstated. The seven levels of the ziggurat attest to this fact. Their function as temporal dwellings of deity—in essence earthly houses for the very starry beings they studied and served—was made manifest with each name. The ziggurat at Til Barsip was called “the house of the seven directions of heaven and earth.” In Babylon it was aptly titled “the house of the foundation of heaven and earth.” And its lower Babylonia sibling was “the house of the bond between heaven and earth.”

Much like their founding counterpart on the plains of Shinar, the ziggurat represented man’s continual attempt at cultivating their own mountainous paradise of Eden apart from the Creator. They personified an Edenic vision grossly perversified. And though few of these muddy ruins of antiquity remain, my reader is likely already advised not to write them off as mere superstition—far from it. The Occult centers of our past, where the Sciences were nurtured from the demonic breast, would have Helena Blavatsky in 1877 asking of her fellow Theosophists: “If modern masters are so much in advance of the old ones, why do they not restore to us the lost arts of our postdiluvian forefathers? The more archaeology and philology advance, the more humiliating to our pride are the discoveries which are daily made, the more glorious testimony do they bear in behalf of those who, perhaps on account of the distance of their remote antiquity, have been until now considered ignorant flounderers in the deepest mire of superstition.” In fact, the Mysteries have strengthened since Blavatsky’s time—quite considerably. Regardless, Blavatsky wasn’t merely grasping for ghosts. So monumental were the intricate inner workings of the Babel religion that the books and epistles of Enoch, Isaiah, Jude, Peter, and John’s Revelation would make careful note of its apocalyptic consequence. In other words, their shadows still loom over us today.

The post-enlightenment Christian will have a ghastly time comprehending the reality behind Mesopotamia’s claimed spiritual experiences, and yet the Bible confirms them as true in so much as the divine sons of Gods, both righteous and wicked, are associated with the heavenly stars of man’s unending adoration. That the Sciences of his devotion were also born and nurtured among these Occult monuments must also be confronted. Today the planetary week remains a human institution. It is Noah’s grandchildren who we might thank for this. They enlisted the zodiac for their studies, even managing to compute the eclipses of the sun and the moon by means of the saros, and it is Herodotus who credited the Babylonians for having passed the sundial and the division of the day into twelve hours to the Greeks.

The ziggurat builders referred to the planets as Interpreters. “Whereas all the other stars are fixed and follow a single circuit in a regular course,” writes Robert Leo Odom in Sunday in Roman Paganism, “these alone [Interpreters], by virtue of following each its own course, point out future events, thus interpreting to mankind the design of the gods.” The planets have exerted the greatest influence for both good and evil upon the nativity of men. “For sometimes by their risings, sometimes by their settings, and again by their color, the Chaldeans say, they give signs of coming events to such as are willing to observe them closely.”

Among their dispensing of hidden knowledge among the mortal councils of men, the Interpreters were accredited for advising on eclipses of the sun and the moon as well as earthquakes. When pressed to the predictability of eclipses in modern astronomy as proof of a globular earth, the present patron of a flat, immovable earth needs only remind him of the religion which his entire belief system is derived upon—Babel. Writes Theosophist Grace F. Knoche in The Mystery Schools: “…the science of prediction of tremendous cyclic occurrences on earth was mastered not only in India to a fine hair’s breath, but also in ancient Chaldea, whose modern representatives of some four and five thousand years ago still held archaic astrology as a major characteristic of their secret Mysteries. The famous ziggurat or high tower of Borsippa in Babylonia is clear testimonial to knowledge of the sevenfold planetary influences on humanity. Called the stages of the seven spheres, each of its stories bore a different color, representative of the seven sacred planets.”

Each floor of the ziggurat found at Babylon not only celebrated the seven luminaries, or Interpreters, matched with the seven metals and colors associated with them, but the number of heavens they wandered through and, just as importantly, ascending planes of spiritual existence they represented. In Chaldea from the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria (1886), Zénaïde A. Ragozin describes the Babylon’s ziggurat as follows: “The ornamentation of the edifice was chiefly by means of color. The seven Stages represented the Seven Spheres, in which moved, according to ancient Chaldean astronomy, the seven planets. To each planet fancy, partly grounding itself upon fact, had from of old assigned a peculiar tint or hue. The Sun (Shamesh) was golden; the Moon (Sin or Nannar), silver; the distant Saturn (Adar) almost beyond the region of light, was black; Jupiter (Marduk) was orange; the fiery Mars (Nergal) was red; Venus (Ishtar) was a pale yellow; Mercury (Nebo or Nabu, whose shrine stood on the top stage), a deep blue. The seven stages of the tower gave a visible embodiment to these fancies….” Later he writes: “That the ziggurats of Chaldea should have been used not only as pedestals to uphold shrines, but as observatories by the priestly astronomers and astrologers, was quite in accordance with the strong mixture of star-worship grafted on the older religion, and with the power ascribed to the heavenly bodies over the acts and destinies of men.”

Furthermore situated among the course of the Interpreters, according to the Chaldeans, were thirty fixed stars, “which they designate as counseling gods,” overseers of the regions above and beneath the earth. Odom writes: “Twelve of these gods, they say, hold chief authority, and to each of these the Chaldeans assign a month…and through the midst of these signs [the zodiac], they say, both the Sun and Moon and the five planets make their course, the Sun completing his cycle in a year and the Moon traversing her circuit in a month.”

This brings us to the matter of the gods themselves. Each city in Mesopotamia housed its own patron god, and that divine being was usually perceived to be the landowner of its host ziggurat and the area immediately surrounding it. For example, Marduk was the god of Babylon; Enki the god of Eridu; Ishtar the goddess of Nineveh; Nergal for Kuthu; Ninazu for Eshnunna; Ninurta for Lagash; Enlil for Nippur; Nanna for Ur; and Inanna (or the Lady of the Sky and Queen of Heaven) for Uruk, the capital city where Gilgamesh ruled. Though the king served as bailiff, it was the priests alone who were allowed inside each ziggurat, simultaneously tasked with attending to the needs of the gods and giving them absolute power over society.

All of this gives way to a very important point.

The confusion of tongues wasn’t merely a disbanding of people as an explanation for various population groups—though this, in and of itself, it certainly a true conclusion to make. Yahweh’s dispersal of the nations at Babel resulted in a far more peculiar truth—one which is rarely discussed nor understood. The ziggurats are testimony to the immediate aftermath. What ultimately resulted at Babel was the worldwide dispersion of gods.

THE APOSTLE PAUL WOULD LATER SUM UP the human tragedy that was Babel when he wrote in Romans 1:18-25 that God gave men over to their persistent rebellion. God decided that the descendant of Noah would no longer be in relationship with Him. If they were only interested in “making a name for themselves” then He was not interested in being their God. In dividing the lands to all people, Yahweh exemplified the first half of the parable of the prodigal son. The unthankful nations could not go out and squander their inheritances however it pleased them.

As with the parable of the prodigal son, what remained of God’s inheritance would be given to the elder child—mainly, a people who had yet to exist; children whom He would personally help to create through Abraham’s seed and a woman far too old for conception. And He wouldn’t delay either. Though inheritances were divided in Genesis 11, Abraham would receive his call in the following chapter. In this regard, Yahweh generously left room for His own chosen children, a humble sliver of real estate alongside the Mediterranean coast, so that they might cultivate the Edenic vision without any pressure from the surrounding nations.

It is noticeable that the children of Lot and Esau were carefully preserved from disturbing Israel. According to Deuteronomy 2, the LORD instructed the Israelites to venture first northward through the land which had been given unto the children of Esau, and then onward through Moab, which had been given unto the children of Lot. In both instances, they were not to meddle with them, “for I will not give you their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth (Deuteronomy 2:5).”

The Apostle Paul likewise included Babel in his Gospel narrative when addressing the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill. To this effect he said: “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation (Acts 17:26).” If Yahweh determined the appointed times and the bounds of their habitation, He would then need to assign elohim over the people’s so that the laws of the court might be kept. Justice however did not prevail. It is certainly not inconsequential that an endless gauntlet of delirious empires, always ravenous of appetite and salivating at the mouth, would cast their gaze upon the blessed land in order that they might plot to loot it.

A proponent for the Masoretic Text will immediately throw up his arms in protest. If Paul was referencing Deuteronomy 32:8-9, they’ll say, Yahweh then “set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” Such a reading seems straightforward enough. Why must I overcomplicate this? I promised earlier that the Dead Sea Scrolls rendering of sons of God in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, rather than the traditional children of Israel reading in the Masoretic Text, not forgetting the Septuagint’s decision to describe angels of God, would all three find agreement elsewhere.

And they do!

In Deuteronomy 4 the context is the same as chapter 32. The children of Israel are preparing to claim their inheritance in the land which God has kept for them. These are of course instructions on how they are to behave, if they are to be in a relationship with Yahweh. Idolatry is clearly forbidden, “Lest ye corrupt yourselves.” The children of Israel are therefore not to make the graven image of any figure, male or female, the likeness of any beast on the earth, fowl in the air, anything the creepeth on the ground of fish in the waters beneath the earth. Yahweh then describes what they are especially forbidden to worship.

 “19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

20 But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.”

(Deuteronomy 4:19-20 KJV)

The hosts of heaven, God says, have been “divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” At an absolute minimal, the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls’ rendering of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 which, might I remind you are far older than the Masoretic Text, are at least correct in their worldview. After Babel, Yahweh set the bounds of the people according to the number of the sons of God. But that is not to say that the sons of God are not corruptible. Need we revisit the ziggurats?  

Let us rather return to Psalm 82. Once again, it reads:

1 God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He administers judgement in the midst of the gods [elohim].

2 How long will you judge unjustly and show favoritism to the wicked? Selah

3 Judge on behalf of the helpless and the orphan; provide justice to the afflicted and the poor.

4 Rescue the helpless and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

5 They do not know or consider. They go about in the darkness, so that all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 I have said, You are gods [elohim], and sons of the Most High, all of you.

7 However, you will die like men, and you will fall like one of the princes.

Asaph neatly describes a meeting of the divine council in heaven. A multitude of thrones are set up, as Daniel might say. When the Ancient of Days stands in the congregation of the elohim, court proceedings begin. As with the case of Psalm 82, God administers judgement over the elohim before Him—why? Asaph informs us they have judged unjustly among the nations, and accepted persons of wickedness into their favored ranks. Among their wealth and storehouses of hidden knowledge from heaven, they “know not, neither will they understand;” for “they walk on in darkness,” and “all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” Their judgement is clear. While the Lake of Fire is not here revealed, the sons of God “shall die like men.” And what may be a direct reference to the Prince of Tire (Ezekiel 28), or rather Lucifer, they shall “fall like one of the princes.”

With Deuteronomy 4:19-20, Yahweh’s warning to the His children is straightforward enough. Those who worship the stars [and the hidden knowledge of the stars, the religion of the stars, and the Sciences of the stars] will receive their inheritance with them.

Even the stars “will die like men.”

For this very reason, Jesus became lower than the angels. This is what the eighth Psalmist tells us, anyhow. After considering “the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained,” David then turns his attention on the Messiah and a rather peculiar plot point to his ancient Hebrew worldview. “For thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels,” he writes. As a result, God “hast crowned him with glory and honor,” and “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet,” including the elohim who rule the nations. By this we are to understand an important component of the Messiahs mission. Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, would descend to the lower parts of the earth in order that He might inherit the nations which Yahweh had disavowed.

Psalm 82 therefore ends:

“Rise up, O God, judge the earth, because You shall inherit all the nations.”

Noel