Main news for 11 April 2019

King James Version (en)

Genesis, Chapter 11, verse 4

⁴And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

NOTES

The historical basis of the parable of the Tower of Babel is obvious: Semitic tribes, among whom were the ancestors of the Hebrews, then still living a nomadic life, first saw stepped pyramidal temples--ziggurats--in Mesopotamia, where they first came around the middle of the third millennium BC. Meanwhile, the builders of the ziggurats themselves perceived them as a ladder linking heaven and earth. It is no surprise that in the historical memory of recent nomads, gradually settling on the land in Mesopotamia and joining the civilization of the Sumerians--the builders of sacred towers--traditions arose about builders of ladders leading to heaven.

But on the basis of these traditions, the sacred writer creates his own parable, in which he places his own emphases. First of all, he draws readers' attention to the fact that the builders of the tower want to become famous, "people of name," so that they will not be scattered over the earth. The same kind of "men with a name" as the pre-flood "giants." And in order to carry out the grandiose project, they create a strong state, so that all the builders became "one people" with "one language" (these Hebrew expressions are calques from Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon, in which they denoted unity of power over a certain territory and over certain peoples).

Indeed, how else could fallen humanity assert itself on earth except through a demonstration of its own strength and significance? And for this, great projects carried out by great powers fit perfectly. Only, as we see, God has no need of either these projects or these powers. He "comes down," draws near to the builders, and from His nearness the great power collapses and the great project stops. When God is close, when He is near, those who feel His nearness no longer have time for imperial greatness or "great construction projects."

And meanwhile the story did not end in antiquity: even the contemporaries of the author of the parable, written in Babylon during the exile, could see the same tower. Ziggurats were built not only by the Sumerians, but also by the Babylonians. The history of fallen humanity continued. The history of collapsing great powers and unfinished great construction projects falling into desolation.

The inhabitants of Sumer in the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel are haunted by the "achievements" of their ancestors who lived before the flood. They were the "giants" of whom the sacred writer speaks as "mighty men of old, men of name" (in the Synodal translation they are called "glorious," but the corresponding Hebrew word literally means "men of name," that is, "well-known," "people with a name"). And the inhabitants of the Sumerian valley mentioned in the parable (by which the Mesopotamian lowland is evidently meant) also want to "make a name for themselves," to "become people of name," so that they "may not be scattered over the face of the earth."

And they begin a "great construction project," the first, but by no means the last, in the history of fallen humanity, which will end as ingloriously as all those that follow (the irony of the parable, by the way, also lies in the fact that when it was written, and according to the data available today this was in Babylon during the years of exile, those who read it there in Babylon could see another tower like the one described in the parable). As is clear, the builders were driven not simply by a desire for fame; they wanted to build something that would unite them, that would become a symbol of national unity and state power. It is no accident that the prerequisite for the "great construction project" was precisely the unity of the inhabitants of that land: "one people and one language" in Akkadian usage (and here we evidently have a calque from Akkadian) meant one-man rule.

And so, in order to strengthen unity and, accordingly, increase state power, a grandiose project is undertaken, which in the end fails quite thoroughly. Why is that? Is it only because strong power that carries out projects of this kind always becomes repressive, violating all the laws given by God? No doubt, for that reason too. But perhaps not only for that reason. In the existence of every people, as in the life of every person, there is a meaning connected with God's design for that people or that person. But can that design be seen and understood if the goal is not that design, but greatness, power, and fame? The answer is obvious.

And the repressiveness of power generated by a society that is not seeking meaning is only a consequence. It is no wonder that such a society and such power are doomed. Here one can only ask God to minimize the consequences of the inevitable collapse.

People very often feel sympathy for the figures in this passage. Look, people tried hard, worked, and an unkind God suddenly ruined everything. Was He really begrudging them something?...

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