By: Dave Roos | Updated: Oct 20, 202
At the height of its glory in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.E., the ancient city of Babylon was the largest and wealthiest in the world.
Power of the Purse: The Origin of Money – Library of Rickandria
Under the ruthless and ambitious King Nebuchadnezzar II, the sprawling settlement in modern-day Iraq grew into a major city as large as Chicago, and boasted towering temples, ornately tiled palaces and imposing city walls thick enough for two chariots to pass each other side by side.
Destroying Our Past – Library of Rickandria
According to legend, it may also have been home to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and a hubristic sky-scraping temple that some historians believe inspired the biblical Tower of Babel.
How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Work – Library of Rickandria
But the glory days of Babylon were short-lived.
As foretold by Old Testament prophets, the grand ancient city fell to the Persians in 539 B.C.E. and slowly crumbled over centuries of foreign invasions and occupations.
Although Babylon was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, there isn’t much left to see of the once-unstoppable empire that dazzled Greek historians and enslaved its rivals, most famously the biblical Kingdom of Judah.
Babylon – UNESCO World Heritage Centre
If you took a trip to Babylon today, located 55 miles (85 kilometers) south of Baghdad, you’d see a tacky recreation built by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s that’s been partially destroyed by decades of war.
Babylon – Hillah, Iraq – Atlas Obscura
It’s a sad ending to such a fabled city.
Contents
- Hammurabi and His Code
- “By the Rivers of Babylon”
- How Babylon Fell
Hammurabi and His Code
Nebuchadnezzar was the most famous of Babylon’s rulers, but he wasn’t the first.
Several empires rose and fell and rose again over the millennia on the same coveted soil between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The earliest king to unite warring Mesopotamian tribes into a single powerful city-state was the remarkable Hammurabi in the 18th century B.C.E.
Not only did this famous king successfully conquer or forge alliances with Babylon’s fiercest enemies during his 43-year reign, but he also built Babylon (which comprised southern Mesopotamia and part of Assyria, now northern Iraq) into a showplace for innovations in engineering and criminal justice.
Hammurabi ordered the construction of intricate canals to provide Babylon’s citizens with fresh water and fortified the city’s walls against invaders.
He concerned himself with food distribution and public safety in a city that represented something entirely new — the intermingling of hordes of people from wildly different cultures.
In order to keep the peace among people without ties of blood or religion, Hammurabi created his famous Legal Code, essentially a detailed list of crimes and their associated punishments:
“If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
If he breaks another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.
If a man knocks out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.”
This early system of retributive justice — inscribed on an 8-foot (2.4-meter) diorite obelisk that is housed in the Louvre in Paris — is believed to have been the basis of the ancient Hebrews’ code of laws laid out in Exodus, known as:
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
What’s so important about the Code of Hammurabi? – Library of Rickandria
Hammurabi’s singular genius as a military and domestic leader wasn’t passed on to his successor.
Just days after Hammurabi’s death, Babylon’s old enemies declared their independence and readied their armies for invasion.
The Babylonian kingdom fell to pieces and the city wouldn’t return to glory for more than 1,000 years.
“By the Rivers of Babylon”
It was great and terrible Nebuchadnezzar II who rebuilt Babylon as a magnificent paean to the creator god Marduk.
Ruling from 605 to 562 B.C.E., Nebuchadnezzar extended the Babylonian empire across Egypt, Syria and the Kingdom of Judah, where he seized Jerusalem in 597 B.C.E., capturing tens of thousands of Israelites and dragging them off to Babylon as forced laborers where the Bible tells us they “wept” in exile by its rivers.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. (biblehub.com)
Because of Nebuchadnezzar’s imperialist cruelty and penchant for golden shrines to pagan gods, Babylon appears as shorthand for everything ungodly in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
- Pagan (Called Satanic, Gentile or Goyim by the Jews) – Library of Rickandria
- Pagan Programs Before the Jewish Infiltration – Library of Rickandria
- Stolen from the Pagan (Called Satanic, Gentile or Goyim by the Jews) – Library of Rickandria
- Gentiles with Hebrew Names – Library of Rickandria
In the New Testament Book of Revelation, the “Whore of Babylon” makes an appearance,
“Adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.”
According to historians, Nechuchadnezzar relocated conquered people around the empire to keep them from organizing rebellions against him — under his leadership, Babylon became the biggest and most modern city in the ancient world.
Babylon | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (metmuseum.org)
In addition to building Babylon’s colossal city walls, he was responsible for the stunning Processional Way, a wide thoroughfare lined with ornately tiled walls depicting lions and dragons in bright blues and yellows.
Flying Serpents & Dragons: The Story of Mankind’s Reptilian Past – Library of Rickandria
The Processional Way led to the Ishtar Gate, the city’s grand northern entrance.
One of Nebuchadnezzar’s best-known construction projects was the temple of Marduk, which sat atop a 300-foot (91-meter) ziggurat accessible by a ramp that curved around its exterior.
The Greek historian Herodotus, writing centuries after Babylon’s heyday, described eight towers stacked on top of one another.
It’s not hard to believe that Old Testament authors may have modeled their Tower of Babel after the Marduk temple, known as the:
“House of the frontier between heaven and Earth.”
- The Spaceship Of Babel – Eden Saga – english (eden-saga.com)
- sources mekorot – Tower of Babel – Rocketship? – Mi Yodeya (stackexchange.com)
- SPACESHIP THEOLOGY: 7-The Tower of Babel
- Babelse Verwarring: The Confusion Around The Tower Of Babel Finally Solved | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)
- Ancient Babylonian Tablet Provides Compelling Evidence that the Tower of Babel DID Exist | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)
How Babylon Fell
Just a few short decades after Nebuchadnezzar’s death, Babylon was taken by the Persian conqueror Cyrus II, who reduced the city to just another outpost in his vast, Iran-based empire.
Two centuries later, Alexander the Great planned to make Babylon the jewel of his Asian empire, but ended up dying in the city in 323 B.C.E.
7 Reasons Alexander the Great Was, Well, Great – Library of Rickandria
After a solid sacking by the Parthians in the second century C.E., Babylon never made a comeback.
Two millennia of looting and warfare reduced Babylon to the barest of ruins.
In the early 20th century, German archeologists recovered remnants of the Processional Way and reconstructed its blue-glazed tile murals at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
It was Saddam Hussein who took up Nebuchadnezzar’s mantle and tried to reconstruct some of Babylon’s former glory but ended up with what art historians decried as “Disney for a despot.”
Disney Bloodline: The Skill of Lying, the Art of Deceit – Library of Rickandria
Much to the consternation of archaeologists, Saddam raised city walls of 38 feet (11.5 meters) and built a Roman-style arena on the ruins of old Babylon.
He even stamped his own name on the bricks, just as Nebuchadnezzar had done.
Although some of the recreations were damaged during the prolonged occupations of the Iraq War (2003-11), many of the gaudily painted buildings remain and are open to the public, including Saddam’s Babylonian palace.
Saddam’s Babylon Palace Now Open to Public: NPR
What else can you see in Babylon?
“Visitors can stroll through the remnants of the brick and clay structures which stretch across 10 square kilometers [3.8 square miles], and see the famed Lion of Babylon statue, as well as large portions of the original Ishtar Gate,” reported Reuters in 2019.
Ancient Iraqi city of Babylon designated UNESCO World Heritage Site | Reuters
While Babylon itself is mainly a ruin, it’s located just a few miles from the modern city of Hilla (or al-Hillah) which has a population of about 500,000 people.
Now That’s Confusing
Many historians now believe that the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon may actually have been built 300 miles (482 kilometers) away in Nineveh by King Sennacherib of the Assyrian Empire, rather than Nebuchadnezzar.
Babylon’s hanging garden: ancient scripts give clue to missing wonder | Archaeology | The Guardian
Others think the gardens never existed, as no archaeological evidence has been found, nor was it mentioned in contemporary Babylonian texts.
Hanging Gardens of Babylon – World History Encyclopedia
The first mention of the gardens was in 290 B.C.E., long after Nebuchadnezzar (the alleged builder) had died.
Babylon FAQ
Where is Babylon now?
In 2019, UNESCO designated Babylon as a World Heritage Site.
To visit Babylon today, you have to go to Iraq, 55 miles south of Baghdad.
Although Saddam Hussein attempted to revive it during the 1970s, he was ultimately unsuccessful due to regional conflicts and wars.
How was Babylon destroyed?
Cyrus II, the Persian conqueror, invaded Babylon, then largely ignored it during his rule.
While Alexander the Great had intentions of rebuilding the city, he died before he could make that a reality.
In the second century C.E., the Parthians ransacked the city, ending any hope of its revival.
It remains in ruin after decades of war in the area.
Who rebuilt Babylon into a beautiful city?
Nebuchadnezzar II, the most powerful king of the Neo-Babylon Empire, rebuilt Babylon into a magnificent city.
He extended his empire across Syria, Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah.
Is Babylon still being rebuilt?
No.
Back in the 1970s, Saddam Hussein tried to recover the city’s lost glory, but his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
Art historians referred to his attempt as “Disney for a despot.”
Some of Saddam’s recreations were destroyed during wars in the region, though others remain accessible to the public today.
What is the Babylonian empire known for?
Historians remember Babylon for Nebuchadnezzar’s successful reign.
Under the ruler’s leadership, Babylon was the most modern city of the ancient world.
Babylon is also believed to be home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Work – Library of Rickandria
BOOKS:
The Hoskins’ Report Babylon is in Three Parts
“The great city was divided into three parts.” Rev 16:19
EGYPT BABYLON IS ORGANIZED IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER: “(Pharaoh) placed officers over them from amongst the children of Israel, and over these officers he placed taskmasters from amongst his servants”. Jasher 77:10 Egypt was organized in the same manner as ancient Babylon. Today’s West is organized the same way. Three forces ruled them – three forces rule us.
• Pharaoh,
• Saxon officers (collaborators).
• Alien taskmasters (over collaborators).
Egypt – Babylon’s Clone
Long before there was an Israel; long before there was a Moses, long before there was a tyrannical Egypt to come out of; there existed a Plan. The Plan was to gather all the world into the hands of Babylon ruled by a King whose land was organized as an episcopacy – rule from the top down.
Forever the WORD warns man against the Tower of Babel. In spite of constant warnings man continues to go to a new Canaanland and work to develop its wealth – only to lose it when Egypt closes in around him, takes his wealth, and reduces him to slavery.
The building of the Tower of Babel is so important that the WORD relates the story of Joseph, the favorite son of Abraham, and cast him in the role of the villain. As such there is no way that the story can be side-tracked except by those who do not wish to see, or those who cannot see.
Review: Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great
ATTORNEY AND CHRISTIAN RESEARCHER EDWARD HENDRIE investigates and reveals one of the greatest exposes of all time–-a book you don’t want to miss.
Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great is packed with documentation. Never before have the crypto-Jews who seized the reins of power in Rome been put under such intense scrutiny.” Texe Marrs, Power of Prophecy. The evidence presented in this book leads to the ineluctable conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church was established by crypto-Jews as a false “Christian” front for a Judaic/Babylonian religion.
That religion is the core of a world conspiracy against man and God. That is not a conspiracy theory based upon speculation, but rather the hard truth based upon authoritative evidence, which is documented in this book. Texe Marrs explains in his foreword to the book: “Who is Mystery Babylon? What is the meaning of the sinister symbols found in these passages? Which city is being described as the ‘Great City’ so full of sin and decadence, and who are its citizens?
Why do the woman and beast of Revelation seek the destruction of the holy people, the saints and martyrs of Jesus? What does it all mean for you and me today? Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great answers these questions and more. Edward Hendrie’s discoveries are not based on prejudice but on solid evidence aligned forthrightly with the ‘whole counsel of God.’ He does not condone, nor will he be a part of any project in which Bible verses are taken out of context, or in which scriptures are twisted to mean what they do not say.
CONTINUE:
Babylonian Brotherhood: Ancient Great White Brotherhood – Library of Rickandria