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Is the Tower of Babel wobbling?

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by

mwkruse
in

Christian Century: Is the Tower of Babel wobbling?

The unfinished Tower of Babel has stood for centuries in art, literature and biblical commentaries as an outrageous, heaven-reaching challenge to the God of Genesis, who responded by scrambling the common language of the citizens and dispersing them around the world. The brief account has nearly always been lumped together with the punishment stories involving Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the great flood—stories about how Yahweh deals with arrogant, sinful humanity.

The Babel settlers, who all spoke the same language, had decided to "build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and . . . make a name for ourselves" as a way to stay together and preserve their common tongue.

The Lord, Yahweh, descending to take a closer look, noted that this was "only the beginning" of what the people would be able to achieve. So the Lord "confused" their language and "scattered" them over the face of the earth, leaving the city's buildings uncompleted, according to the NRSV Bible.

But a recently published study aims to tear down this view of Babel. It contends that the Genesis story was told merely to account for the origin of different languages from a city in old Mesopotamia, which was, from the biblical perspective, the patriarchal cradle of the civilized world.

Upon analysis, "there is no support in the story for viewing God's actions as punishment, judgment or curse upon the human race, nor as a catastrophe which doomed humanity to confusion and chaos," writes Old Testament professor Theodore Hiebert of McCormick Theological Seminary in the spring issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature. "The world's cultural diversity is represented as God's design for the world, not the result of [God's] punishment of it."…

I was so intrigued by this article that I went to the nearest seminary and read a copy. Based on what I read in this review, I was skeptical of the article. After reading the article, I think Hiebert makes some valid points, but I'm not persuaded.

First, I agree with him that the central focus of the story is not the tower:

"Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves …” (Gen. 11:4)

Hiebert points out that "reaches to the heavens" is merely a euphemism for building something impressive that is "sky high." There is no hint that these folks believed they could build up to heaven and bring God down. Hiebert argues that there is nothing inherently negative about the desire to make a name for themselves. The actions in these three clauses of the sentence are explained by the end of the sentence:

“…and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen 11:4)

Again, I fully agree that avoiding dispersion is the heart of the matter. The question is whether or not this avoidance was motivated out of pride and defiance, or ignorance. Hiebert points to twelfth-century scholar Abraham ibn Ezra as one who held similar views, but no other historical figures are offered in support.

It would take pages and pages of writing to address what he raises in this thirty-page article, but I will simply say that I'm not persuaded. The flow of the narrative in the first eleven chapters, the explicit mention that God will make a name for Abraham in the next chapter, the use of the word "Babel" and the parallel of the plural God saying to himself that he must take action to prevent greater evil from happening in 3:22 and 11:6. The weight of the evidence suggests to me that the story is about intentional defiance of fulfilling God's mandate to fill the earth.

Comments

6 responses to “Is the Tower of Babel wobbling?”

  1. kerryn Avatar
    kerryn

    Michael,
    can it be that the ‘tower of Babel’ account emphasises not only these people’s direct rebellion against God’s command to multiply and fill the earth, but also that they were ‘corporately’ doing so? ie – the story depicts sin on a kind of ‘corporate’ scale… Emphasising that not just individuals were rebelling against God but (at least symbolically) ‘all’ of humanity? And all this only a “chapter” or so after the flood had given humanity a fresh start…?
    K

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  2. Viola Larson Avatar
    Viola Larson

    Michael,
    The PW Horizons did an article around a year ago that had this idea about Babel in it. The issue was all on pluralism and also had the article by W. Eugene March that I mentioned to you at the time. By the way did you know I directed readers to all your posts on economics in my last review of Horizons? That’s at http://www.vow.org/pcusa/pw/horizons_magazine/07july20-vlarson-horizon-review.html.

    Reply
  3. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    Kerryn, I agree. I think it is a corporate act. I think the article would agree. The question he raises is whether or not it is rebellion or simply following an innocent impulse in a direction that God saw would be harmful. I think it is rebellion and I’m not persuaded otherwise.
    Viola, my impression is that there is an attempt to read multiculturalism back into the passage instead of understanding the passage within its own context. For example, Hiebert notes that the passages about filling the earth with Gen 1:28 and Gen 9:1 are from the Priestly source and the Babel story was not. Therefore, he concludes the Priestly source can not be used to interpret this other source (I think he says Yahwehist.) I find this line of reasoning silly. The community preserved these texts together to tell a story and the narrative they communicated by linking these stories is quite evident to me.
    Thanks for the link in your article and the kind words! It is much appreciated. I am preparing to do some posts focused on economic issue soon.

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  4. ScottB Avatar
    ScottB

    J Richard Middleton in his book The Liberating Image presents an argument that I find quite compelling. He suggests that, since chapter 10 actually mentions different language groups as part of the natural development and dispersal of cultures, that chapter 11 represents the subjugation of these people by a hostile empire that imposed a trade language in order to unite the subject people for the massive building project. That the empire is to be compared with Babylon is suggested by the name Babel and its location. The confusion of the languages is part of the judgment of God on the empire, and is also a return to the diversity of chapter 10. So there’s a sense in which I can identify with where he ends up concerning cultural diversity, but it seems like he gets there for all the wrong reasons.

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  5. ScottB Avatar
    ScottB

    I should add that “diversity” in this sense isn’t multiculturalism so much as it is the fulfillment of the divine command to fill the earth, which was frustrated by the building project.

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  6. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    Thanks Scott. If you look at my current reading list you will see liberating image is coming on my list. I have only read a few pages but hope to really get on it soon. 🙂
    I haven’t read about the “Empire” perspective extensively and I have many questions at this point. Hiebert spends considerable space critiquing the Empire idea. Some objections he raises are that:
    * The story itself makes plain that it is about the entire human race. For example “The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals (adam = humanty) had built.” (v. 5) There is not hint that this is on group dominating another.
    * The story mentions no King or imperial intentions. Plural nouns and verbs are use throughout. It seems to a product of a disposition of the entire race.
    * The aim is not to extend empire but just the opposite; to stay in one place.
    I would add to this that while the story follows the account of the dispersion in Genesis 10, I don’t think it is warranted to see the Babel story as sequentially later, any more than seeing Genesis 2 would be sequentially later than Genesis 1. I think it is two tellings of the same event with an eye to teaching different aspects of that reality. I look forward to reading Middleton to see what he has to say.
    My read is that God’s mission was to create the earth and fill it with his eikons. Humanity rebelled and we find Cain starting as family (society) and building a city instead of filling the earth. That leads to destruction of all but Noah and kin. God decides not to do this again. He gives Noah the same command to fill the earth. Once again humanity unites in a city to avoid scattering. This time God intervenes by scattering them instead of killing them. Then in Chapter 12 he introduces the first hints of his plan to unite all nations in himself.
    Hiebert writes:
    “We may not take the people’s wish to stay together in the Yahwist’s story as a transgression of God’s command to “fill the earth” in the Priestly tradition (Gen 1;28, 9:1, 7) as many interpreters have done. The story makes no reference to this command, even when God appears to diversify humanity and populate the earth. This reflects the fact that the Yahwist’s traditions arose separately from Preistly ones, with which the now stand in some tension, and Priestly perspectives may not be employed to understand the origins of values of Yahwistic traditions.” (56)
    This is only reason given for rejecting the “fill the earth” rebellion as an interpretive tool. First, as is the case, there is no need explicitly name something as wrong when it is self-evident to the reader that something is wrong. Second, in Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus takes from both the Priestly and Yahwist traditions of Genesis 1 and 2, interrelates them, and makes his case for marriage. How the two traditions interrelate is an interesting academic question but the stories were integrated into one narrative. I submit that the do interpret each other and were intended to do so.
    Also, I agree that it is anachronistic to read multiculturalism into the passage. I’m merely suggesting that what has driven some of the new perspective on Babel in our day is the value of multiculturalism in our day.

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