An excerpt from, "Babylonian Influence on the Hebrews: The Tower of Babel. Hugo Gressmann" by William Creighton Graham, University of Chicago - The Journal of Religion, April 1930:
This series of five lectures, the first to be delivered under the Hilda Stch Stroock Foundation of the Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, constitutes literally the last of the many notable contributions of the late Professor Hugo Gressmann to Old Testament Study. The Preface by Professor Obermann contains a touchingly beautiful appreciation of the author's work and an eloquent tribute to his personality.
The theme of the lectures is the intellectual and spiritual relationship between Israel and the Babylonians. "The Tower of Babel" stands as the symbol of Babylonian civilization, and it is from the angle of the influence of the latter upon Hebrew thought that the theme is approached.
The first lecture deals with the form and the symbolism of the Babylonian temple tower and expounds the influence of these upon the architecture and thought of the whole ancient Near East. In the second lecture this theme is developed by an exposition of the dependence of the "legends of mankind in Genesis i-xi" upon the Babylonian legends. The third lecture discusses Babylonian influence upon the literary forms and ideology of Hebrew prophecy. It is followed, through an examination of the Johannine Apocalypse, by a lecture on the relation between late Hellenistic Judaism and Babylonia. The concluding lecture most interestingly contrasts and compares the religions of Babylon and Israel.
Making all due allowance for Professor Gressmann's well-known enthusiasm for the civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, and for the fact that his theme itself did not permit the presentation of the claims of other civilizations to a part in influencing Hebrew thought and life, these lectures contribute materially to the very desirable end of freeing us from the tendency, fostered by certain dogmatic positions relative to the nature of Scripture, of regarding the Hebrew people as having lived their life, socially speaking, in a vacuum. They also contribute splendidly to a better understanding of the influence of the Semitic world on the origin and development of what we today designate as the scientific view of life.
Hugo Gressmann (March 21, 1877 – April 6, 1927) was a prominent Old Testament scholar in Protestant Germany and a friend and associate of the eminent scholar Hermann Gunkel. He was a member of the history of religions school.
An excerpt from, "The Tower of Babel" by Hugo Gressmann, Jewish Institute of Religion Press, New York, 1928, Pg. 1 - 2:
As the pyramids are the symbol of Egypt, so the tower of Babel is the symbol of Babylonia, not only of its art, but also of its religion and its literature. From an architectural standpoint it belongs to the wonders of the old world. From a religious standpoint it is a necessary part of every Mesopotamian temple, from which it cannot be separated any more than the clock-tower can be divorced from the Christian church, although it had another meaning and is in no way related to Christianity historically. Considered from the view-point of literary history, the tower of Babel not only played a réle for the Mesopotamian authors but also for the peoples of the whole Near East. A great number of legends and motifs associated with it have been the themes of the phantasy of poets and artists even as late as the Christian middle ages.
It is not the purpose of these lectures to gather these stories together and to speak about them, but rather to treat the general relations or Israel to Babylonia. If we have chosen the tower of Babel as the special symbol of Babylonian culture, it is not only because it incorporates the Babylonian spirit and art in its most impressive form but also because we cannot understand the Babylonian influence upon Israel in the truest sense, unless we take into consideration the tower of Babel. For in many instances it will be the centre of our attention because it played such a role in ancient Israel and also in later Judaism. It is therefore fitting that we devote our first lecture to the tower of Babel, in order to grasp its true significance and to illustrate it at least by several examples. It towered to heaven as a titanic work; it was not as a wanton sin against God, but it was as a pious act that they built this gigantic tower, and therefore we are not surprised that it attracted mightily the peoples of the world.
