It is well known that the Chaldeans were great astronomers. When Alexander the Great conquered the city of Babylon, the Chaldean priests boasted to the Greek philosophers, who followed his army, that they had continued their astronomical calculations through a period of more than forty thousand years.[102:8] Although this statement cannot be credited, yet the great antiquity of Chaldea cannot be doubted, and its immediate connection with Hindostan, or Egypt, is abundantly proved by the little that is known concerning its religion, and by the few fragments that remain of its former grandeur. In regard to the story of "_The Tower of Babel_" little need be said. This, as well as the story of the Creation and Fall of Man, and the Deluge, was borrowed from the Babylonians.[102:9] "It seems," says George Smith, "from the indications in the (cuneiform) inscriptions, that there happened in the interval between 2000 and 1850 B. C. a general _collection_ of the development of the various traditions of the Creation, Flood, Tower of Babel, and other similar legends." "These legends were, however, traditions before they were committed to writing, _and were common in some form to all the country_."[103:1] The Tower of Babel, or the confusion of tongues, is nowhere alluded to in the Old Testament outside of Genesis, where the story is related. The next story in order is "_The Trial of Abraham's Faith_." In this connection we have shown similar legends taken from _Grecian_ mythology, which legends may have given _the idea_ to the writer of the Hebrew story. It may appear strange that the _Hebrews_ should have been acquainted with _Grecian_ mythology, yet we know this was the case. The fact is accounted for in the following manner: Many of the Jews taken captive at the Edomite sack of Jerusalem were sold to the _Grecians_,[103:2] who took them to their country. While there, they became acquainted with Grecian legends, and when they returned from "the Islands of the Sea"--as they called the Western countries--_they brought them to Jerusalem_.[103:3] This legend, as we stated in the chapter which treated of it, was written at the time when the Mosaic party in Israel were endeavoring to abolish human sacrifices and other "abominations," and the author of the story invented it to make it appear that the Lord had abolished them in the time of Abraham. The earliest _Targum_[103:4] knows nothing about the legend, showing that the story was not in the Pentateuch at the time this Targum was written.