The Tower of Babel: A New Translation and Commentary of Genesis 11:1-9

By Richie Cooley

This is a new translation of and commentary on the Tower of Babel account. It is written from a fundamental Christian perspective, with special emphases on archaeology and creation science.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richie Cooley
• Release date: Feb 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463886793

Richie Cooley

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The Tower of Babel:

A New Translation and Commentary of Genesis 11:1-9

by Richie Cooley

Licensed by:

Richie Cooley (February, 2020); [edited: (April, 2020)]

Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International

Email: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

I. Famous Claims and Names

II. From Man to God: Verses 1-4

III. From God to Man: Verses 5-9

IV. The Current Infamous Claim

V. Citations

VI. Works by Me

Before getting started, let’s review a few notes that are common to my writings…

*British spelling is often used, except for the quoted material, which normally employs U.S. spelling.

*Old Testament Scripture is normally taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

*New Testament Scripture is normally taken from the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT3). Copyright © 2007 by Gary F. Zeolla of Darkness to Light ministry. Previously copyrighted © 1999, 2001, 2005 by Gary Zeolla.

*For the sake of harmonizing the format, slight changes were made to some of the NASB and ALT3 verses.

*The ALT3 distinguishes between singular and plural second-person pronouns by means of an asterisk (*).

*The terms LORD, GOD, and Hashem are all ways to describe the personal name of God, also rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah.

*Divine pronouns are normally not capitalized, unless they appear that way in Bible versions or other quotes.

*As a general rule, words that appear in brackets within quotes are not found in the original texts, and were added by the translators or are my personal comments, etc.

I. Famous Claims and Names

A. General Introduction

According to the prologue of a popular book about World War II and memorabilia forgery, Selling Hitler, only Jesus Christ has been written about more than the late dictator has. This fact shouldn’t cause a neo-Nazi’s head to swell, for I really don’t believe that too many people truly care for the hell-bound German. The popularity is probably owing to the same fascination with serial killers or ghosts and goblins; for in Adolf Hitler you had both: a goblin who was also a serial killer. Put another way, he seemed mystical, otherworldly, and wraithlike while committing the unparalleled crime of industrial murder.

The book, Selling Hitler, details the ins-and-outs of a big scandal in the 1980s. There had long been rumoured to be various personal communications from Hitler in existence among the debris of post-war Europe. Eventually someone stepped forward and claimed to have personal diaries. The global popular press doggedly wanted a piece of the financial windfall this sensation would create, and then the whole thing went belly up—as the diaries were actually a crude forgery.

As Robert Harris pointed out in his prologue, the idea of Hitler diaries easily strikes a very resonant chord. For with Hitler, many people are fascinated about how his perverse mind worked; yet, because he was evasive and secretive, they feel to know very little about him. Diaries would fill in the blanks. At least, that was probably the crude math that led to the forgery and the subsequent sensation.

In my contrary opinion, even if Hitler diaries existed, they would largely be a waste of time. He would always be writing with a large audience in view. Besides, the felonious goblin isn’t a mystery at all. He was merely an egotistical demagogue, largely leavened through hodgepodge theosophy, who laid hold on the most expedient way to stroke his ego and vaunt his reputation to the heavens.

I think Robert Harris in the prologue did a wonderful job of giving his readers the most important personal thoughts of Hitler. Like many cult-leaders before and after him, the dictator used religion as a self-aggrandize-quick-gimmick. He flaked and formed Biblical notions and Germanic myths together—along with plenty of pseudo-science—in order to convince himself and his inner circle that he was the man of destiny…

By the time Adolf Hitler had passed his fifty-second birthday, there was no longer a human being left in history who could provide a precedent for his impact on the earth…He was remaking the world. ‘Mark my words, Bormann,’ he announced one evening over dinner, ‘I’m going to become very religious.’

‘You’ve always been very religious,’ replied Bormann.

But Hitler was not thinking of himself as a mere participant in some future act of worship: he was to be the object of it.

‘I’m going to become a religious figure,’ he insisted. ‘Soon I’ll be the great chief of the Tartars. Already Arabs and Moroccans are mingling my name with their prayers. Amongst the Tartars I shall become Khan…’

When the warm weather returned he would finish off the Red Army. Then he would ‘put things in order for a thousand years’…

Opponents would be confined behind barbed wire in the lengthening chain of concentration camps now opening up in the Eastern territories. At the first sign of trouble, all inmates would be ‘liquidated’. As for the Jews, they would simply be ‘got rid of’…

The Berghof, his private home on the Obersalzberg, would, in due course, become a museum. Here, propped up in bed, while the rest of the household slept, Hitler had found the inspiration for his dreams, gazing out ‘for hours’ at ‘the mountains lit up by the moon’. When his dreams were reality, it would become a place of pilgrimage for a grateful race…

Almost half a century has now passed since Adolf Hitler and his vision were buried in the rubble of Berlin. All that remains today of the Berghof are a few piles of stone, overgrown with moss and trees.¹

Homemade religion creates a crude pyramid