.......BACKGROUND ON DANIEL AND ANCIENT BABYLON

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THE BOOK OF DANIEL

Author: Daniel

Language: Aramaic or Chaldee (2:4 - 7:28) which was the commercial and diplomatic language of the time. The remainder of the book was written in Hebrew.

ANCIENT BABYLON - FACTS

    • Situated in the origin of the human race, near the Garden of Eden region. Babylon was the most powerful empire up util that time.
    • Ancient historian Herodotus claimed the outer walls were 56 miles in length, 80 feet thick, 320 feet high and extends 35 feet below the ground. Wide enough to allow a four-horse chariot to turn. Strong inner walls. 1/4 mile clear space between outer wall and city. The wall was protected by deep and wide moats filled with water. 250 towers on the wall, guard rooms for soldiers.
    • The Hanging Gardens were one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient world. According to accounts, the gardens were built to cheer up Nebuchadnezzar's homesick wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of the king of the Medes, was married to Nebuchadnezzar to create an alliance between the nations. How big were the gardens? Diodorus tells us it was about 400 feet wide by 400 feet long and more than 80 feet high. Other accounts indicate the height was equal to the outer city walls. Walls that Herodotus said were 320 feet high. (Other wonders of the ancient world: The Great Pyramid of Egypt, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Lighthouse of Alexandria)
    • Tower of Babel - Rising above the city was the famous Tower of Babel, a temple to the god Marduk that seemed to reach to the heavens. --- The confusion of Tongues occurred in the 4th generation after the Flood. Work on the Tower of Babel was stopped temporarily; but was resumed by hose who remained in Babylonia; and the Tower became the center around which Babylon was built. It became the pattern for similar towers in other Babylonian cities and may have suggested the form of Pyramids in Egypt. Halley's Bible Handbook Archaeologists examining the remains of the city of Babylon have found what appears to be the foundation of the tower: a square of earthen embankments some three-hundred feet on each side. The tower's most splendid incarnation was probably under King Nebuchadnezzar II who lived from 605-562 BC. The King rebuilt the tower to stand 295 feet high. According to an inscription made by the king the tower was constructed of "baked brick enameled in brilliant blue." The terraces of the tower may have also been planted with flowers and trees. See Tower of Babel
    • Nebuchadnezzar also had two impressive palaces inside the city.
    • Nebuchadnezzar II, the most important of the Chaldean, or Neo-Babylonian, kings, reigned from 605 to 562 BC. Although he is called Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament, his Babylonian name was Nabu-kudur-usur; modern historians often refer to him as Nebuchadrezzar. His father, Nabopolassar, was founder of the Chaldean dynasty in BABYLONIA. An Assyrian-appointed governor of BABYLON, he revolted in 626, joined the Medes, and destroyed the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612. After driving the last Assyrians into northwestern Mesopotamia, Nabopolassar left military operations in the hands of his son. Nebuchadnezzar dispersed the Assyrians, pushed their Egyptian allies out of Syria, and was about to invade Egypt itself when he received news of his father's death. He returned to Babylon to take the throne.
    • " I have examined," says Sir H. Rawlinson, "the bricks belonging perhaps to a hundred different towns and cities in the neighbourhood of Baghdad, and I never found any other legend than that of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon." Nine-tenths of all the bricks amid the ruins of Babylon are stamped with his name. Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

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