HOME
	Click here to read the passage from Pseudodoxia epidemica

Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Preserved Truths

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English author who published Pseudodoxia Epidemica to disprove a number of commonly believed misconceptions about the natural world, human society and culture.

One of the errors discussed by Browne was the belief that 'The Tower of Babel was erected against a second Deluge'. Browne shows the evidence for this opinion, taken primarily from Josephus' account (AD 94). He argues that the Tower of Babel could never have been built tall enough to provide a defence against supernatural flooding, and suggests that it is implausible that people who were afraid of a second deluge should ever have descended from the safety of the mountains to live in Mesopotamia, an area very prone to natural flooding.

Browne suggests that that the building of the Tower was part of Nimrod's secret plan to establish his own dominon over people, and a symbol of the tyranny with which he ruled his subjects. Nimrod had promised the builders of the Tower that they would be famous, in order to convince them to construct a city from which he could rule. Through the confusion of tongues, God had frustrated Nimrod's plot to dominate mankind.