Bible Skeptics Take Note: Babylon Is Being Rebuilt, Just As Prophesised

flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com ^ | June 28, 2009 | Joel Rosenberg

[GiovannaNicoletta]

Regular readers of this weblog and my books know that Bible prophecy says the ancient city of Babylon, Iraq will be rebuilt and become the greatest center of wealth, commerce and power in the “last days” of history. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Revelation are explicit on this subject. Skeptics and cynics abound, to be sure, but the fact is Babylon is being rebuilt right now, in part with U.S. taxpayer funds. Iraqi leaders hope that eventually millions of tourists will come to visit, and real progress is being made. Consider today’s edition of Stars & Stripes, a U.S. military publication. They have a fascinating story this morning headlined: “U.S., Iraqi experts developing plan to preserve Babylon, build local tourism industry.”

Excerpts:

• Soldiers with the 172nd Infantry Brigade are exploring the ruins as part of a U.S.-Iraqi effort to preserve the ancient city and plan for the return of Western tourists.
• Members of the brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment escorted a group of U.S. heritage tourism experts to the ruins last week for the first of several visits to develop a preservation and tourism plan for the area. U.S. and coalition troops have been criticized in the past for damaging and contaminating artifacts. In a 2006 report, the head of the British Museum’s Near East department said that, among other things, military vehicles crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement, and sand and archeological fragments were used to fill military sandbags. Now the rapidly improving security situation in surrounding Babil province has persuaded the U.S. State Department and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to embark on the preservation project, dubbed the Future of Babylon Project.
• The State Department and the World Monuments Fund have committed $700,000 to the project, which will see U.S. and Iraqi experts develop a plan to preserve the site and develop a local tourism industry, said Diane Siebrandt, the U.S. embassy’s cultural heritage officer. The Babylon project is one of several that the State Department is involved in to conserve ancient sites in partnership with the Iraqi government, she said.
• Two people with expertise developing tourism plans for historic sites in third-world nations, Gina Haney and Jeff Allen, have been employed by the State Department to run the U.S. side of the project. They visited the ruins for the first time last weekend. Haney said the pair will involve the local community in the plan’s development, as they did with a similar project encouraging Western tourists to visit Ghana’s Gold Coast. “You could throw money at it and do all this work, but unless you can create a sustainable situation, your opportunities for tourism will run out,” Allen said. “The idea is to develop something that is going to be here 30 to 40 years from now and has benefits for the local people. We don’t want something that will only benefit outsiders.”
• The Iraqi government will be involved in the planning as well. “If you have 200,000 people a year coming to this site, you will have people staying at hotels, visiting restaurants, buying souvenirs,” Allen said. “The site is in some ways a revenue generator for the local community.” Babylon could be comparable to the Egyptian pyramids, which draw millions of tourists each year. But the area lacks the tourist infrastructure that has been built at sites such as the pyramids, he said. “There is nothing for tourists here, but if you interpret and present it in the right way, you can spark interest,” he said.
• Allen, who has experience designing walkways and signs for other heritage sites, said detailed planning won’t happen until authorities have worked out how best to preserve the ruins. The crumbling rocks of the original city are surrounded by more elaborate and modern fortifications, including a maze-like collection of interior walls built on top of genuine ruins during Saddam Hussein’s time.
• “Some of the past restoration work hasn’t been very good,” he said. “Saddam was trying to inherit the power of the ancients and continue that legacy. His restoration methods helped reinforce that vision of himself, and he created a pattern of restoration and repair work that benefited a certain agenda.”

  Last month, a British art publication had a story headlined, “Controversial move to reopen Babylon: State board of antiquities and heritage believes site needs more protection.” The story indicated that Babylon would be open for tourists on June 1st. Another recent story out of Taiwan noted that a Taiwanese tour agency is starting to take people to Iraq to tour — among other things — the city of Babylon as it is being rebuilt.

  As Iraq becomes increasingly stable and secure, direct foreign investment is going to flood in, and Iraq will become the wealthiest country on the planet. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest company, for example, is positioning itself to become a major investor in the Iraqi energy sector. Other major oil companies are doing the same. The Iraqi government in recent months has been developing investment incentive packages to draw in such companies. And this week, such energy companies will actually begin bidding for licenses to develop Iraq’s immense but badly atrophied oil exploration, drilling, and refining industry. Consider, for example, this headline from the Associated Press: “World’s big oil companies prepare for return to Iraq.” And this is just the beginning.

  Skeptics take note: the Bible is coming true, one prophecy at a time.

[BGHater]

‘direct foreign investment is going to flood in, and Iraq will become the wealthiest country on the planet.’

Okay. Sure.

[parsifal]

This isn’t the first time. I think this is like Babylon 5.

parsy, who really liked the Gilgamesh story, particularly the John Gardner one

[nmh]

I am taking note of allot of things ... .

I believe He is coming to remove His own in the very near future.

[MikefromOhio]

maybe not wealthiest country in the world (Hyperbole anyone?) but The Iraqis are still fairly westernized, they have a bountiful resource that is very valuable and they could also develop into a country for ex-pats and other workers of that type to help them build and run things.

Iraq has the ability to rebuild and become a very rich nation the question is WILL Iraq do it? Time will tell.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

Very soon.

[combat_boots]

The Lion of Judah cometh.

[BGHater]

Oh, I believe that Babylon will be rebuilt, but this myth that sunni and Shia will ever get along is insane.

However, Iraq might become the epicenter of the world if there is a electronic hub built there.

Then all of the data traffic, commerce, trade and transactions that passed through there would create it on a large scale the worlds most important area.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

You might find this interesting:

http://www.rapturealert.com/2009/062809greatpause.asp

[nmh]

I'm not some idiotic fanatic but what is happening as I type this is pure prophecy in the news. Obama is certainly an enabler but too idiotic to be the one ... . Obama is pure evil and you can see how EASILY PEOPLE ARE FOOLED. They are being set up for someone worse and it's EASY to see how they will fall for it.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[MikefromOhio]

Possibly.

The Sunni and the Shia have gotten along before - let’s remember that before Saddam and really before the British cut Iraq lose after WWII, the Iraqi region was relatively stable.

Nature abhors a vaccum. When we deposed Saddam in 2003, that gave nuts like Sadr and Z-man/AQ a chance to lead the leaderless. As events have unfolded, Sadr got his fat butt shot by his own guys as we were closing in on him and we blew Z-man up with a Hellfire missile and AQ’s presence and support has pretty much ebbed away.

Nothing helps people be peaceful like a steady paycheck and something to do. This could conceivably happen in Iraq (whereas in Afghanistan the road will be much longer).....

[RansomOttawa]

So turning the ruins of Babylon into a tourist attraction is the equivalent of rebuilding the city and turning it into the seat of world government? OK, sure.

[nmh]

It is interesting. I will read through it.

We're pretribbers.

I see bittersweet times till He takes us home.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

Barack Obama is not the Antichrist. But you are right; to see how slavishly people worship this fraud and three-card-monte pro is to understand how the world will embrace the Antichrist and regard him as god.

No, Obama's role is to destroy America since America is the final remaining obstacle to world government and he is fulfilling his role beautifully.

Things are falling right into place and the time is getting very short.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

I don't know exactly how it will be accomplished but you can rest assured what God said will happen with regard to Babylon will happen.

God has a long, long history of keeping His promises and fulfilling prophecy. Don't poo-poo it just yet.

[Dutchboy88]

Amen, even so, Come Lord Jesus.

[Shelayne]

I'm reading Joel Rosenberg's The Copper Scroll right now. It is the fourth installment in a series. In this book, a leader in Iraq rises and declares Babylon the new capitol and he convinces the rest of middle east to come together to become a superpower, after their countries and leaders are snubbed out in a single day. Of course, the enemy is really Israel, and they want to stop Israel from rebuilding the Temple on where the Dome of the Rock once was.

It is very compelling fiction.

[Jaime2099]

I believe Iraq’s/Babylon’s wealth will come when they merge with Russia as one kingdom. Since Russia combined with Iraq and Iran would be a ridiculous amount of oil and other means of fortune.

[RansomOttawa]

I don't know exactly how it will be accomplished but you can rest assured what God said will happen with regard to Babylon will happen.

That's a disputable conclusion - prophetic literature, being heavily shrouded in figurative language and symbolism, is necessarily obscure. I'm not so hasty to dogmatize on one particular interpretation.