Baalazel

The story of Babel is very interesting to me. I think the passages that make up Genesis from the Garden in Eden to the Tower of Babel are a set piece meant to reveal something about the nature of God. The evolution of God if you will.

We all understand that Genesis is a collection of stories and legends reworked and rewritten time and again before they took the form we have today. Genesis is essentially a political document created to support the positions of powerful agents in the struggle for the dominance of Israel. It was important that these factions be able to call upon Yahweh to strengthen their hold on those they ruled.

And what better way than to present Yahweh in a book. A book that was a talismanic representation of their devotion to Yahweh and of his devotion to them. So we have a straight forward presentation of Yahweh and his power in the hands of a class not shy in claiming that power for themselves.

But is it that straight forward? Is there another current that flows under the orthodoxy of the stories of creation and Babel? I think there is. I think this collection contains an account of the nature of Yahweh hidden by the redactor in plain sight. Here is how I think it was done.

First we should understand that the book of Genesis is a tale of separation. It is clearly seen in the creation stories in the first two chapters. God separates the light from the darkness Gen.1:4. He separates the waters and the firmament in 1:6, the waters and the land in 1:9. In some sense even the animals and plants are separated from the seas and the land. In this same sense God separated Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam.

If we go past the Babel story into the legends of Abraham -which is not my intent- we find Abraham separated from his home. Gods promise to Abraham to separate a land out for his decedents. The separation of Abraham from Lot. A quick read makes the point that the theme of separation is used throughout the book of Genesis.

Now let’s look at how Yahweh is presented. The first time we can approach Yahweh as a being of substance is in chapter 2 when he rests from his labors of creation. Such a human image, the worker, hot and tired who needs relief from the strain of toiling in the fields. And he has the need as well to stop and reflect on his work. To admire his work. To experience the sense of satisfaction that comes after the work is done.

This is not a minor point. Yahweh has separated doing from knowing. Action from thought. Wanting and having. Labor from satisfaction. And he has already separated good from bad. He has created the classifications of blessedness and sanctification against which must stand forces in opposition to them. Gods know good and evil. Good and evil are the primal separation.

If we turn to the creation of Adam we find a human like Yahweh who seems to kneel in the dust out of which he separates the man. We remember how in chapter 1 Yahweh created the man in his own image. Another image of Yahweh as man is the one that has him planting the garden. There is no “Let there be a garden”, Yahweh plants a garden. Does he dig the holes, drop in the plants, fertilize and water well?

It is a powerful picture of a being deeply involved in the process of taming the wildness of nature to satisfy his ends. He has separated out order from chaos. Just as he did in 1:2 only on a smaller scale. But not an unimportant scale because here we find the first inkling of civilization. The first thought that a man can adapt the world to his own needs.

So now we not only have man separated from the dust of the earth but separated from nature as well. We watch the very birth of the Babel story here. We discover that Yahweh himself is the father of Babel. It is Yahweh as man who sets his own creation on the path to its’ destruction. And that may be the most telling separation. The separate powers of creation and destruction.

We must not pass over the separation of Eve from Adam. This separation is momentous for in chapter 3 the woman raises the man out of the dust and makes him human, indeed she makes him a god. She and the man pay dearly for their actions but only because the creator is dishonest and envious. And frightened. We will see why at Babel.

The punishment Yahweh enacts is expulsion from the garden so the woman and the man can not eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. Yahweh reserves immortality for himself but he knows now that the woman and the man will never cease their search for it. And there is another separation here to keep in mind. The separation of life from the living. After the woman and the man eat the fruit we find the man/god Yahweh walking in the garden in the cool of the day. He is still attached to his creation. He enjoys the cool peace of the garden. Perhaps he has taken time again to reflect on his work.

The story is too well known to need repeating here. What needs repeating is Yahweh’s reaction at finding the two naked. He killed. He made them aprons of skins. The first deaths in the Bible were at the hands of Yahweh. Maybe they were only animals but they were nevertheless living things.

What we have here the first blood sacrifice as payment for sin. The separation of life from the living. Death in payment for living. And this was only a vision of what was to come. Yahweh, with blood on his hands, with the taste of it on his tongue begins an orgy of death by drowning. Noah and the righteous separated from the waters of judgment by an ark of gopher wood.

And we look back and can see the evolution of Yahweh from the man/god gardener who visits his creation in the cool of the day to the severe judge of sin who would destroy his creation because it suits him. But where is Yahweh in the story of the flood? He no longer walks through his creation. We do not see him. He does not present himself to Noah, he only tells him what is to be done.

And Noah never speaks. Yahweh has removed himself so far from the world of men that now they can not talk to him. They can only obey. And Noah built the ark as Yahweh commanded and brought the animals by sevens of the clean and two by two of the unclean. Separated out by some process not revealed, by some law not told to us some animals are now clean and some are now unclean.

And the redactor has laid out all he needs for the end of his revelation concerning Yahweh, and he ends at Babel. In 11:5 we read

“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man builded.”

The man/god of Eden is now the sky God who must descend to act within his creation. He is a God with no blood on his hands. He is the High God who must not be seen walking.

11:6 “And the Lord said, behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they imagine to do.”

And what is it the people imagine to do that so worry’s Yahweh? They imagine immortality. That is what civilization is. That is what culture is. It is why we build cities. Why we have children. All these things are attempts to regain what was denied humanity in the garden. And that is the one thing Yahweh fears most. He knows it will be found. The Tree of Life is out there and he knows we will find it.

This is the message the redactor has left us. We can now see that Yahweh is not the same today and tomorrow and always. Yahweh changed, he left the creation he fashioned on it’s own and then grew weary of it. Perhaps if he had walked more often in the garden things would have been different. Perhaps there would have been no flood. Maybe there would have been no Babel.

Perhaps if Yahweh had remained close to his work, as close as the dust, as close as the blood on his hands, perhaps then he could not have killed. Not again, not so wantonly, not so callously. The redactor wants us to know that Yahweh can’t be trusted. He will not be today what he was yesterday. He will not be the same tomorrow as he is today.

And lastly the redactor wants us to know that Yahweh fears us more than we could ever imagine. Why? Because we will not be denied. We will gain what was taken from us in Eden.

And Yahweh knows that someday we will have our immortality. And then we will come after him. And this is the deepest separation. A God separated from his creation by fear. Not our fear of God, but Gods’ fear of us.

”And this they begin to do and now nothing will be restrained from them which they imagine to do.”

Baal

Jehanne

Off to BC&H.

alpha centauri

Wow. Interesting interpretation.

I see the Bible as a collection of myths, rules (some good, some evil and some just plain baffling), history (some accurate, some inaccurate). It was written by men and full of contradictions, but it is important for the skeptic to study, because it has influenced our world for generations, and has continued to cast its shadow across us.

Christians who don't take it literally often don't read it or even really try to understand it. As the Bible itself says, they "hold to a form of holiness but deny its power. They're not hot or cold, they lukewarm."

Christians who insist on taking the Bible literally would chart a dangerous course for our world, a path leading to conflict and Armegeddon.

The Skeptics Annotated Bible offers some interesting insight. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

I'll add my thoughts on Babel later.

alpha centauri

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/11.html

Summarizing the first nine verses of Genesis 11, God feared that humanity could accomplish anything we set our minds to.

People decided to build a tower to heaven, although like many other rock & roll fans, I prefer a Stairway to Heaven, myself (hurray for Led Zeppelin!).

Why did God fear this tower? Didn't he know that once people reached a certain point high in the atmosphere, they would lack sufficient oxygen to continue working on their project? Not to mention a pesky lack of gravity once the tower was built high enough. Wouldn't the tools and building blocks begin to float away if man was able to get past its need for oxygen and keep on building?

So in his concern for man's ability, the Biblical God confounded the languages of the world.

But wouldn't that be counterproductive to spreading the gospel message? I mean, sure, the Old Testament was originally embraced mostly by Jews. But an all-knowing God had to realize his future command to go to all nations and preach would work better if people could understand the language.

Sure, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic were spoken in many places, but what about those in Asia or other parts of Europe who were more isolated. Or the Americas? Or the Pacific Islanders? Or the Aborigines in Australia?

Oh wait. They'd have to wait a few centuries while their ancestors perished until God could round up a few more people to learn their languages.

But to stop the tower, all God had to do was NOTHING — he could just let people continue building until the task became physically impossible. But he didn't — and he expressed worry over man's ability!???

He suddenly doesn't sound quite so all-powerful, all-knowing and omnipresent, does he?

And why mess with the languages? Couldn't he just send a strong wind to knock the tower down, or push it over with his mighty finger?

Well, there is one explanation. The story is merely mythology written by people who had no understanding of gravity, or atmospheric conditions at great heights.

This is one of the many examples of the Bible appearing ridiculous to people who have scientific knowledge.

But wait — didn't this Biblical God say he'd use foolishness to confound the wise? I wonder why he'd do something like that? Maybe because he (or the myth writers who created him) prefers followers who are idiots, and unquestionly follow his/their will.

arnoldo

This ancient sumerian text seems to have a story similar to the biblical tower of babel

Source cite: Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta

Baalazel

I find this interesting as a Pagan devoted to the Goddess Inanna. It's also interesting that you would choose a passage which presents a story that is the exact opposite of the Biblical story of Babel. That is, one where the gods decree that there be only one language in order to facilitate communication between people and their deities. Why do you think that is?

And how do you feel about the evidence that some Biblical stories are fashioned from the older stories of other cultures?

Baal

JayW

There are several stories of man having one tongue at one time. There are also stories outside the Bible that tell of building a tower,not to reach Heven,but to become a city that would be the envy of other cities. The Bible also hint at the same thing. That they should be a tower that reaches into the heavens so that they can become known among the nations. A lot of the first few chapters of the Bible were taken from Sumerian texts, but then the early Bible characters came from Sumeria. Most Bible scholors accept the fact that the Bible, at least to the time of Noah, came from a much more ancient oral source. Actually it only raises the possibility of some of the Bible stories being based on some actual event.

Baalazel

Hi JayW, does the possibility that some Biblical accounts were based on actual events, no matter how far removed, work for or against the validity of the Bible? What do you think?

Baal

Baalazel

While reading the account of the story of Babel I came across a note in the margin I had made in school. While the text says the tower was meant to reach heaven my note says the tower was built to represent heaven or to observe heaven. Does anyone have a take on what the original words may have meant?

I wonder if at the time I made the note I thought about its relation to errancy.

Baal

storytime

It's fun to speculate.

The story says all the people (of Noah?) were of one language.

"And this they begin to do." So, they thought to create a name and a city for themselves, to segregate and build the city of "Babel". The tower was probably a lookout post that prevented outsiders from entering into their city of Babel.

Maybe war caused their dispersion of flight into other cities where their language was there confounded - unknown, unrecognizable, foreign.

Their situation was attributed to the gods, or a god, who was without a name. If this god had intention to serve all people everywhere, would he want a name that identified him with only one people? So, this god said "Let us go down there and confound their language(speech)." This sounds more like several generals with armies aimed to conquer the city of Babel and disperse it's inhabitants by carrying them off captive into other cities.

Nimrod was said to be a mighty hunter before the Lord. Maybe he hunted men to be slaves?

The story then takes on another time and place. Eventually the patriarch Abram is focused upon and the Israelite legend begins.