To any Jewish readers.
All of the time when the Tanakh was written, including the books you reject, like II Maccabees, Babylon existed. Sumerian and Akkadian were known at least as dead or classic languages.
What was the principal enemy of Israel? Babylon.
Can the defeat of Babylon be seen as a sign that the Messiah came? I think so.
Here* is a fairly significant passage from the French wiki article on Babylon:
| La période parthe voit Babylone décliner et se dépeupler progressivement, les grands centres du pouvoir s'étant définitivement déplacés plus au nord sur le Tigre (Séleucie, Ctesiphon, et bien plus tard Bagdad). | The Parthian period sees Babylon progressively decline and get depopulated, the great centres of power having been definitely relocated more to the North on the Tigris (Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and, much later, Baghdad). | |
| Mais ses monuments principaux sont encore en activité : Pline l'Ancien écrit au début du ier siècle de notre ère que le temple continue à être actif, bien que la cité soit en ruines62 et une inscription en grec datable du iie siècle ap. J.-C. indique que le théâtre est encore restauré63. | But its principal monuments are still active: Pliny the Elder writes at the beginning of the 1st C. of our era that the temple continues to be active, even if the city be in ruins, and an inscription in Greek datable to the 2nd C AD indicates that the theatre is still being restored. | |
| Elle reste une ville commerciale active, où on trouve des communautés de divers horizons en plus des communautés babylonienne et grecque (qui se sont sans doute liées depuis longtemps), notamment des marchands de Palmyre, tandis que les premières communautés chrétiennes s'installent dans la région64. | She remains an active commercial city, where one finds communities from diverse horizons, on top of the Babylonian and Greek communities (which had, no doubt, been linked since long before), notably merchants from Palmyra, while the first Christian communities settle in the region. | |
| Les mentions de cette ville comme un champ de ruines dans les textes gréco-romains, ainsi Dion Cassius quand il rapporte la venue sur place de l'empereur Trajan lors de sa campagne de 115 ap. J.-C., illustrent néanmoins le fait que son déclin a été important et a marqué les visiteurs imprégnés des récits relatifs à sa splendeur passée65. | The mentions of this city as a ruin field in Greco-Roman texts, like Dio Cassius, when he reports the arrival on spot by Emperor Trajan, during the campaign of 115 AD, nevertheless illustrate the fact that her decline has been important, and marked visitors who had imbibed the stories of her past splendour. |
So, one second C. narration is about Trajan finding a field of ruins. Another one is a Greek inscription - not a cuneiform one - of the theatre (a Greek culture thing) being restored.
The article goes on to say, the Babylonian temple was still functioning at the beginning of the 3rd C. AD. But ...
Attested from c. 2900 BC. Effectively extinct from about 2000–1800 BC; used as a classical language until about 100 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language
c. 2500 – 500 BC; academic or liturgical use until AD 100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language
When St. John came to Heaven, he seems to have obtained the eradication of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. From "dead" as in Classic languages, they became really dead, what is also called extinct languages. The Babylonian temple would have changed language before it ceased some time in the 3rd C. AD.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Invention of the Holy Cross
3.V.2023
Hierosolymis Inventio sacrosanctae Crucis Dominicae, sub Constantino Imperatore.
* https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylone#La_fin_de_la_Babylone_antique
Footnotes 62 to 65, as given in the text:
62) Pline l'Ancien, L'Histoire naturelle, VI, 30
63) « B. Van der Spek, « The “theater inscription” », Livius.org, non daté (consulté le 15 mars 2011) » [archive]
64) J. Teixidor, « La Babylonie au tournant de notre ère », dans Babylone 2008, i e Béatrice André-Salvini (dir.), Babylone, Paris, Hazan - Musée du Louvre éditions, 2008. p. 380
65) Radner 2020, i e Karen Radner, A Short History of Babylon, Londres et New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, p. 16-18.
