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"LET US GO DOWN" (Part 1 of 3)BABYLONIA1. In the ages before God called Abram out of the city of Ur in the Chaldees, and after the great flood forever immortalized Noah and the ark, a great city of people emerged in the Plain of Shinar. 2. Now Shinar is a place name referring to Babylonia, otherwise known as the land of Sumer and Akkad. The Plain of Shinar was located to the west of the Euphrates River in present day Iraq. CLASH OF WILLS3. The great city of Shinar came to be known as Babel. Babel was both a city and a tower. [cf. Gen 11:4] As the tower rose in height and splendor, so did the reputation of the Shinar-ites for ingenuity and audacity. 4. Situated in the central Plain of Shinar, the tower was the center of attention and it became the epicenter of a clash between divine and human wills. You may recall the outcome. CAUTIONARY LESSON5. At Babel, God mixed up the language of the world and thereby drove the prideful and arrogant inhabitants into diaspora, that is to say, the exile of a people of common origin and beliefs. 6. The story of the Tower of Babel is found in our Bibles, the Book of Genesis, chapter 11. The word genesis means the origin of all things. So the story of the city of Babel and its tower contains a cautionary lesson for us today. From the history of this towering city, we learn about human nature and society. Most important, we learn about human society as it relates to God. WORLD RECORDS7. We live in an age glorifying world records. We push design and construction to its maximum size, height, extent, bulk or any form of physical magnitude. Everything must be bigger and better. Perhaps it began with the Temple of Marduk in Babylon, the tower of which was over 300 feet tall. Its patrons named it “The Foundation of Heaven and Earth”. 8. The great Egyptian pyramid of Giza reached 480 feet and was the largest structure in the world for almost 4,000 years. The tallest buildings in our time are not called sky-scrapers for nothing—the tallest at present, 1,670 feet, is located in Taipei, Taiwan. LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS9. We judge a bridge by its span. The Japanese boast the longest suspension bridge in the world. The six lane Akashi Kai-kyo bridge spans four miles, connecting the island of Awaji and the city of Kobe on the mainland. One may wonder, Can raw materials, design, human ingenuity, and the laws of physics max out? 10. This is a legitimate question. To simply assume these components possess infinite capacity is a mistake. Then, too, can humanity in the present millenium repeat the Babel experience? Can modern man’s titanic imagination and colossal ego provoke God to intervene decisively in our own affairs? HUMAN NATURE11. The words “Let us go down” are God’s words. God speaks these words because the people of Shinar provoked him by their construction of a colossal city with a great tower at its center. 12. The vocabulary in the story refers to authentic techniques of ancient Mesopotamian construction. Nevertheless, the story of the Tower of Babel is not really about bricks and mortar, but rather about the nature of human beings living in community. ICON OF EVIL13. The city and tower of Babel became an icon of a society embracing evil, in this case, a human community setting out to construct a tower and, in the process, deconstruct their right relationship with God and thereby with his cosmic order. 14. As you read this text from the Book of Genesis, keep in mind the Shinar-ites attempted to overturn their right relationship to God. Here, then, is the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel:
CLOSER LOOK15. Noah’s numerous descendents settled in the Plain of Shinar. They built a city and a tower. God got upset. He gave them a one-way ticket out of Babel. End of story? Not quite. We need to take a closer look, because this story deals with hot-button issues. For example, how does man bear the image and likeness of God? [cf. Gen 1:26] Can man parlay this for his own benefit? If so, to what extent? 16. Does God intend for human beings to exercise power over each other? Is man the master of himself? Just how personal is God? How real is sin? How do these issues relate to us today and our city or town? Many other—perhaps better—questions come to mind, but these examples suffice to make a start. POPULATION GROWTH?17. Of the many interpretations of the Babel story over the years, three stand out. The first critique argues the people refused to populate the earth. The second asserts the people moved apart from God. The third focuses on the people’s attempt to become like gods. Let’s look at each in more detail. 18. Let’s look at the first critique, the most simple of the three interpretations. Is the Babel story essentially about population growth? Traditional Jewish thought examines this view of the Babel story in light of Genesis 1:26-28. This scripture passage refers to God’s creation of human beings in his image and likeness. REFUSING TO OBEY19. God gave human beings dominion over the world in which they lived. Note well, however, when God created Adam and Eve, he said nothing about one dominating the other, and by extension, the humanity issuing from them. Verse 28 of Genesis chapter 1 reads:
20. With this passage in mind, Jewish thinkers viewed the people of Shinar as refusing to obey God’s command to fill the earth. [cf Gen 1:28] BUILDING UPWARD21. In other words, the “families of the sons of Noah” balked at filling the earth. Instead of following the Lord’s command, they migrated west into the Plain of Shinar and began to multiply in a complex urban setting.There, they built upward with the intent of reaching the threshhold of heaven. 22. Ultimately, from these families, “the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood”. [Gen 10:32] But is the lesson of the Babel narrative merely one of simple disobedience? I told you to do thus and so. You didn’t. You got punished? Well, Sacred Scripture is abundantly clear: The Shinar-ites feared “(being) scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth”. [Gen 11:4] But they had an excuse for this. Their excuse would lead them upward and to a challenge with God himself. FUTURE WITHOUT GOD23. Let’s take a look now at the second critique of the Bible’s Babel story. It’s a contemporary take on the ancient narrative. While possessing some merit, it also presents problems. As some contemporary theologians suggest, the Tower of Babel story highlights man’s effort to secure his future apart from God. 24. In trying to develop a future apart from God, Babel attempted to secure a name for itself. [cf. Gen 11:4] Undoubtedly, they were renown for their architectural genius and engineering skills. And certainly, their magnificent tower made possible the accomplishment of their great ambition. STORY'S SHAPE25. Nevertheless, the view claiming Babel sinned by moving away from God is problematic. The people of Shinar, in point of fact, did not move away from God. They moved precisely in his direction. Their’s was a tower going up. 26. Up to where? To the point at which they believed heaven and earth came together. And here, we drop the bricks and mortar of the story for the purpose of perceiving the story's spiritual shape. POINT OF COVERGENCE27. These people of Mesopotamia, that is to say, the region of the Tigres and Euphrates rivers, equated power with heighth. What they assumed as possible we know to be impossible. They thought the peaks of their stepped towers touched the point where heaven and earth converged. 28. That such a meeting-place existed between God’s heaven and man’s earth was an important concept in the ancient mind. You recall this idea from Genesis, chapter 28, in the story of Jacob’s ladder:
IMPRESSIVE SIGHT29. The Tower of Babel almost certainly was a stair-step tower. Such towers came to be called ziggurats; they were massive and made an impressive sight from many miles away. Recall the Temple of Marduk in Babylon reached 300 feet or more. 30. We never belittle our own skyscrapers and bridges, our serpentine interstate freeways or monumental cities. Yet we laugh at the silly Mesopotamian notion of heaven hanging a mere few hundred feet above one’s head. WHICH ASSUMPTION?31. What were the Shinar-ites thinking? Well, they wanted to stand in the peak of their tower to survey all the earth. More importantly, they wanted to mark their territory with it. They desired to be proprietors of heaven and earth. 32. Did these ambitious city-dwellers build their tower on the assumption heaven was empty? Or that God was impotent and unable to protect his own name? Or that their own gods of wood, metal and stone gave permission? EXOTIC PETS33. The point to be made is this. The people of Shinar had no intention of trying to secure its future apart from knowable gods. They needed their dieties even if their gods were rather like exotic pets. Their priests needed them to conserve their power. 34. So the ziggurat was a kind of a “tower of power”. They typically were a form of worship center, built approximately in the shape of a pyramid. Situated on the level of the first step or ground floor was an elaborate temple complex. The summit of the tower was flat and contained a shrine or temple believed to be the dwelling place of the gods. NATURE AND COMMERCE35. The ziggurat was a very much like a bird house; it was literally a god-house. Hence, human beings enticed the gods to roost in their city. Priests attended to them in some sense as a homeowner takes care of songbirds. 36. What are we saying? Well, the arrangement smacked of both nature and commerce. In one sense, the shrine at the top of the temple was a birdhouse. Perceived as a quid quo pro (fair exchange), the city acted as landlord to the gods who were tenants. BEING STROKED37. In return for being stroked, the gods blessed the city from the tower in which they resided. Observe how very much these sorts of gods tend to mirror the personalities of human beings. 38. Note, too, the gods were, in effect, kept. They were largely passive and remote, bound to the seasons and crops, fed and watered lavishly, and rather easily aroused to jealousy and vengeful actions. SUPREMACY39. The true agents were the city-dwellers themselves. They had set for themselves an ambitious and over-arching plan to master the essentials of heaven and earth. To this end, they directed a tightly-controlled and obedient society which intensified the supremacy of the city state. 40. Babel represents the tendency of fallen man to worship power and dominion. Such compulsion to mastery and self-congratulation provoked the Lord to “(come) down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built”. [Gen 11:5] IDOLATROUS TOWER41. Thus the Book of Genesis presents us with a startling truth. The Lord’s words— “Come, let us go down” [Gen 11:7]—are a crushing indictment of Babel’s pretensions. The fact God must come down means the ziggurat of Babel never reached the threshhold of heaven in the first place! 42. The Shinar-ites were an anxious people. They had a compulsive desire to reach the intersection of heaven and earth. But God had his own concerns. God revealed his displeasure with another sort of intersection—the point where pride and arrogance converged in the depths of the human heart and becomes an idolatrous tower. DARKLING URGE43. If populating the earth or abandoning God are not the main concerns of the Babel narrative, what is the main concern? Perhaps the story may be examined in light of an enduring flaw in man’s fallen nature, namely his malignant and darkling urge to become like the gods, or rather, the one true God. 44. Good reason exists for this perspective. This theme is found in Genesis long before chapter 11. Recall the words of the serpent to Eve. Tempting her with the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent said, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [Gen 3:5] ESCALATION AFTER EDEN45. Here you find the antecedant of Babel. The desolate experience of Adam and Eve repeated itself. But there was an escalation. On the one hand, the first human beings provoked God as individuals. 46. On the other hand, the first great city provoked God as a human society. Note how personal all this was. Sacred Scripture named the first human beings as Adam and Eve. It likewise named the first great city as Babel. DEVASTATING THREAT47. Whatever one may say in the abstract about the sin of Adam and Eve, their transgression against God was so personal, the Word of God does not fail to name them. They were fully responsible for the consequences of their affront to God and his goodness toward them. 48. The same thing is true regarding the great city and its tower. The Word of God names it Babel. When all was said and done, the sin of Babel was real, its evil was palpable, its defiance of God was tangible. Moreover, their flirtation with evil presented a devastating threat to their shared humanity and succeeding generations. ENDURING MYSTERY49. You may ask, Isn't this making a mountain out of a little story about bricks and mortar? What’s wrong with making bricks with asphalt for mortar? How is building a city and tower considered a crime? Or enjoying a well-known name? Obviously the story is short on details and a full explanation eludes many well-meaning questions. An enduring sense of mystery permeates this ancient narrative. 50. Nevertheless, for the record, the Genesis story clearly reveals the inhabitants did commit a crime. Not by bricks and mortar, however, but rather Babel deviated from the right order of divine-human relationships. Lest there be any mistake about this, God’s own words “tell the tale”. OFFENSE AGAINST SOVEREIGNTY51. As with Adam and Eve, God examined the heart of this prideful and ambitious people and found it wanting. [cf. Dan 5] He brought charges against the Shinar-ites, saying:
52. The people of Babel therefore committed a two-fold sin. In the first place, they offended the divine personhood of God by their hubris—the classic Greek term referring to an overweening self-love and arrogance. In the second place, echoing Adam and Eve’s transgression against truth, Babel’s hubris led it to transgress against God’s personal sovereignty. FROM HIS OWN CITY53. God intervened decisively in the personal affairs of Adam and Eve. In response to their sin—characterized by incredible stupidity and startling audacity—God drove them from his own city, the prototype of Jerusalem the heavenly city: the Garden of Eden:
54. In much the same way, God dealt with Babel.
GOD'S CONCERN55. The One True God brushed aside man's trivial concerns such as seasons and crops, or the level of water in the river, or the rival city over the next hill. The concern of the one true God was nothing less than the integrity of the human heart and respect for God’s own sovereignty. What were these human beings like? What were they thinking? How did they construe their relationship to God? This will be the starting point for Part 2 of “Let Us Go Down”.
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