Turris Babel
Turris Babel (
Book one: the generations between Noah and Nimrod
In Book One, Kircher resumed the account he had begun in Arca Noë of the generations that came after Noah.[1]: 18 He addressed the question of how, just 275 years after the Flood, Noah's great-grandson Nimrod could command such a large number of people to build the Tower. He demonstrated that, assuming each of Noah's sons had a son and a daughter each year, and each of them in turn began procreating at the age of thirty, the population of the world would have been 24,328,000,000 by Nimrod's time.[2]: 174 In fact his mathematics were flawed, and by his own method of reckoning the correct total would have been 233,280,000.[3]: 237
Book two: building the Tower of Babel
In Book Two, Kircher devoted much care to demonstrating that Nimrod's project to build a tower to touch the heavens was physically impossible to achieve, and would have been disastrous for the planet if it had. He explained that the distance from the earth to the lowest
: 110–118Book three: the evolution of language
The third book of Turris Babel dealt with
Kircher saw the Confusion of Tongues as being the start of a lapse from the true religion into various forms of
Illustrations
Like many of Kircher's other works, Turris Babel was lavishly illustrated. Some of the plates were created by Coenraet Decker. The most famous plate in the book was of the Tower of Babel itself, based on an earlier illustration by Lievin Cruyl.[7] Kircher must have begun work on the project many years before the work was finally published, because several of the plates which illustrated it are dated to 1670.[6]: 43
The frontispiece, by Gérard de Lairesse, depicts Nimrod, dressed as a Roman soldier, studying the plan for the Tower of Babel while its architect, standing next to him, gestures towards the half-built structure some way off. Above them hovers God's all-seeing eye, and lightning strikes down from stormy clouds to show God's anger.[4]: 21, 56
External links
References
- ^ a b c d Kircher, Athanasius. "Turris Babel, sive Archontologia qua Primo Priscorum post diluvium hominum vita". archive.org. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-94015-3.
- ^ ISBN 90-04-10063-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-62055-465-4.
- ISBN 978-2-600-03471-5.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-500-81022-4.
- ^ a b "Athanasius Kircher Turris Babel Amsterdam, 1679". mhs.ox.ac.uk. Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford. Retrieved 10 April 2020.