According to the _Chaldean_ account--which is the oldest one known--there were _seven_ persons saved in the ark.[102:2] There were also _seven_ persons saved, according to some of the _Hindoo_ accounts.[102:3] That this referred to the sun, moon, and five planets looks very probable. We have also seen that Noah was the _tenth_ patriarch, and Xisuthrus (who is the Chaldean hero) was the _tenth_ king.[102:4] Now, according to the Babylonian table, their _Zodiac_ contained _ten_ gods called the "_Ten Zodiac_ gods."[102:5] They also believed that whenever all the _planets_ met in the sign of Capricorn, _the whole earth was overwhelmed with a deluge of water_.[102:6] The _Hindoos_ and other nations had a similar belief.[102:7]
It is well known that the Chaldeans were great astronomers. When Alexander the Great conquered the city of Babylon, the Chaldean priests boasted to the Greek philosophers, who followed his army, that they had continued their astronomical calculations through a period of more than forty thousand years.[102:8] Although this statement cannot be credited, yet the great antiquity of Chaldea cannot be doubted, and its immediate connection with Hindostan, or Egypt, is abundantly proved by the little that is known concerning its religion, and by the few fragments that remain of its former grandeur.
In regard to the story of "_The Tower of Babel_" little need be said. This, as well as the story of the Creation and Fall of Man, and the Deluge, was borrowed from the Babylonians.[102:9]
"It seems," says George Smith, "from the indications in the (cuneiform) inscriptions, that there happened in the interval between 2000 and 1850 B. C. a general _collection_ of the development of the various traditions of the Creation, Flood, Tower of Babel, and other similar legends." "These legends were, however, traditions before they were committed to writing, _and were common in some form to all the country_."[103:1]
The Tower of Babel, or the confusion of tongues, is nowhere alluded to in the Old Testament outside of Genesis, where the story is related.
The next story in order is "_The Trial of Abraham's Faith_."
In this connection we have shown similar legends taken from _Grecian_ mythology, which legends may have given _the idea_ to the writer of the Hebrew story.