Page 25 - Insights Into The Scriptures - The Jaredites

This area would agree with most accounts, and Etemananki is in
this general area. The Tower of Babel would have its roots in what would
become Babylon, or the Mesopotamia Valley. Though the word Babel and
the word Babylon are not necessarily related, Habermehl [13] says that
different translations of the Bible sometimes interchange Babylon and
Shinar. But by all indications, the Tower of Babel was likely somewhere
in the land of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

A side note might be of value here. Christian and Jewish tradition
has it that the king responsible for building the tower was named Nimrod
[14][WL]. Sometimes he is called the king of Kish, a Sumerian city-state
also often associated with the Tower of Babel and the Mesopotamia area.
Genesis 10:9-10 says that Nimrod, the mighty hunter, had Babel as
part of his kingdom.

Genesis 10:9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is
said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

Genesis 10:10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech,
and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

I’ve read the works of many people who suggest it was Nimrod
who instigated the work on the Tower of Babel. Hugh Nibley is one who
says that [5]. Nibley also says that Nimrod is the name of a legendary man
called the Mad Hunter of the Steppes. One thing for sure is that the name
Nimrod is common among the Jaredites both as a place name and later as
the name of one of the Jaredite kings.

Let’s now return to the travel of the Jaredites. Consider the
following map in Figure 10 of the world as we currently know it. I have
indicated an arrow to the area most of the scholarly world assumes the
Tower of Babel could have been, that of Etemenanki. From there, we will
consider the question of where the Jaredites traveled when they left.

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