Is Armenia East of Babylonia?

I just on Quora crossed words with a presumed "Catholic" who consideres Genesis 11:1—9 as an etiological myth.

To document that this is not the traditional position, I turn to the Haydock comment.

Here is the comment to the first two verses:

Ver. 1. Speech. Probably Hebrew; in which language we have the most ancient book in the world, the work of Moses. This language has been preserved ever since, though with some alterations. Most of the oriental languages are but like dialects from it, as French, Italian, &c. are from Latin. The arguments which are brought to prove that other languages are more ancient, because the names of men, &c. have a proper significance in them as well as in Hebrew, do not invalidate the right of the latter. The most respectable authors have, therefore, always declared for it. (Haydock)

Ver. 2. The East: Armenia, which lies to the eastward of Babylonia, whither they directed their course in quest of provisions for themselves and cattle, being now grown pretty numerous. (Menochius*)

Let's check.

Yerevan 40°10′53″N 44°30′52″E
Babylon (as Classical Babylon) 32°32′33″N 44°25′16″E

Armenia seems to be lying North, not East of it, N to S. Is sth else meant?

Neo-Babylonian Empire involved lands as far North-West as big portions of Assyria. So, they would technically (from a pov of the second half of the First Millennium BC) be Babylonia as well. Let's try again:

Yerevan 40°10′53″N 44°30′52″E
Edessa 37°09′N 38°48′E

NE to SW. Better.

Or we could take Turkish Armenia:

Cizre 37.332°N 42.187°E
Edessa 37°09′N 38°48′E

E to W. Perfect.

I take it:

• Menochius was no ace in ANE geography;
• he relied on older sources;
• those older sources in their turn relied on limits where Babylonia encompasses Edessa (i e, they are posterior to the fall of Assyria, which fell under Babylonia).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts Paul and Juliana
17.VIII.2024

Ptolemaide, in Palaestina, passio sanctorum Martyrum Pauli, ejusque sororis Julianae Virginis; qui ambo, sub Aureliano Imperatore, cum in Christi confessione permanerent immobiles, jussi sunt variis et dirissimis tormentis affligi ac tandem capite obtruncari.

PS, when Menochius spoke of "Armenia" in relation to Genesis 8 (verse 4 has Requievitque arca mense septimo, vigesimo septimo die mensis, super montes Armeniae) and then Genesis 11 (he assumed "they" who were removing from the East were doing so from the landing place, so do I), he was anachronistically naming the mountain region Urartu / Ararat after its later name, he didn't imagine that the Armenian kingdom had already been established. Like if you were saying "Mid South Iraq" about Sumer or "Turkey-Syria-Iraq" about Mesopotamia / Sennaar. By the way, he could also have considered that Babel was more the region of Edessa than that of Baghdad, which I would agree with./HGL

* Menochius, see wiki:

Giovanni Stefano Menochio, 9 December 1575 - 4 February 1655 (aged 79), was an Italian Jesuit biblical scholar.