court_, or _gate_ of
Bel, or gate of God.[34:1]

John Fiske confirms this statement by saying:

"The name '_Babel_' is really '_Bab-il_', or '_The Gate of
God_'; but the Hebrew writer _erroneously_ derives the word
from the root '_babal_'--to confuse--and hence arises the
_mystical explanation_, that Babel was a place where human
speech became confused."[34:2]

The "wonderful reports" that reached the Jehovistic writer who inserted
this tale into the Hebrew Scriptures, were from the Chaldean account of
the confusion of tongues. It is related by _Berosus_ as follows:

The first inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their strength and
size,[34:3] and despising the gods, undertook to raise a tower whose top
should reach the sky, in the place where Babylon now stands. But when it
approached the heavens, the winds assisted the gods, and overthrew the
work of the contrivers, and also introduced a diversity of tongues among
men, who till that time had all spoken the same language. The ruins of
this tower are said to be still in Babylon.[34:4]

Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that it was _Nimrod_ who built the
tower, that he was a very wicked man, and that the tower was built in
case the Lord should have a mind to drown the world again. He continues
his account by saying that when Nimrod proposed the building of this
tower, the multitude were very ready to follow the proposition, as they
could then avenge themselves on God for destroying their forefathers.

"And they built a tower, neither sparing any pains nor being
in any degree negligent about the work. And by reason of the
multitude of hands employed on it, it grew very high, sooner
than any one could expect. . . . . It was built of burnt
brick, cemented together, with mortar made of bitumen, that it
might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they had
acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly,
_since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the
former sinners_, but he caused a tumult among them, by
producing in them divers languages, and causing, that through
the multitude of those languages they should not be able to
understand one another. The place where they built the tower
is now called Babylon."[34:5]

The tower in Babylonia, which seems to have been a foundation for the
legend of the confusion of tongues to be built upon, was evide