This is an engraving by Coenraet Decker for a scholarly work called "Turris Babel" by Athanasius Kircher, published in 1679. According to Wikipedia, Kircher applied modern science to the account in the Book of Genesis. He wrote that it was impossible to build a tower that would reach Heaven:
He explained that the distance from the earth to the lowest celestial sphere, that of the Moon, was twenty-five earth diameters. There were not enough building materials in the world to construct a tower so high, and if it had been built it would have pulled the entire planet over out of its equilibrium at the centre of the universe, causing darkness and extreme climate change in many parts of the world.
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3 comments:
Bart writes: "An estimate of Earth -- Moon distance of 25 Earth diameters is about 200,000 miles. The actual average distance is about 240,000 miles. For 1679, that is remarkably good astronomical reckoning by someone."
R.T. O'Dactyl writes:
The dual spirals in the Coenraet Decker engraving of the Tower of Babel have long reminded me of the 30 St. Mary Axe building, better known as the London Gherkin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:30_St_Mary_Axe,_%27Gherkin%27.JPG
Credit: Wikipedia
Tom T. writes:
The reference to "climate change" in Kircher's work is an anachronistic modernism. Another website gives what I suspect to be a more accurate translation: "a cataclysmic disruption in the order of nature."
https://special-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2013/07/30/highlight-from-the-stacks-kirchers-tower-of-babel-1679/
Yeah, I wondered about that. I guess I was too amused to check!
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