New Babylon?

Over the past couple of weeks I've been reading an in depth Bible commentary on the book of Revelation by Tim Lahaye (co-author of the Left Behind series). I'm almost finished with it and its been quite enlightening. One of the most interesting interpretations is the reconstruction of the city of Babylon.

For those of you not readily familiar with the book, Revelation discusses the universal church as "the whore of Babylon" in Ch. 17. However, it goes on in Ch. 18 and implys that there will be a separate Babylon which is the commercial center and seat of the Antichrist's power. Apparently, many scholars have come along and suggested places that this Babylon will be (New York is currently very popular as a choice). But Mr. Lehaye is of the opinion that it will be the actual city of Babylon, reconstructed. He bases this interpretation on prophesies in Isaiah 13-14 and Jeremiah 50-51 as well as very literal read of Rev. Ch. 18. I myself have no opinion on this interpretation at the moment but I'm not going to put it out of the realm of possibility.

What struck me most however was the plausibility of the rebuilding of Babylon given recent events. The ruins of Babylon are located about 50 miles to the south of Baghdad, right outside the Iraqi city of Hillah, itself becoming a fairsized metropolis. Over the past few years, archaeologists have been travelling to the site and have reported that Saddam Hussein was making efforts to rebuild the city of Babylon. Saddam was well known to be obsessed with the idea of casting himself as the successor to Nebuchadnezzar and rebuilding the old capital would have done a great deal towards creating that impression. Now that he's out of power, the city will probably be given fully over to local archaeologists to comb over. However, fears of robbing the state of its national identity (exacerbated by the great Iraqi nationalism that's springing up) will probably restrict excavation and fuel efforts to rebuild the site as a means of uniting the Iraqi's around their ancient heritage. This is just speculation, but with current times as they are, I think it could prove an interesting distraction to the people. Especially when it gets sold as a way of picking up the economy and creating the capitalistic hub of the Middle East. Now, I imagine this is still a number of years off as we are going to be in the country for quite a while, irregardless of who wins the election. Still, it creates tantalizing possibilities in the mind.