1. The Tower of Babel
We continue the series of lecture on Genesis. Genesis chapter 1 to 11 is called “Primeval history*1” which tells about the Creation of the world. It isn’t a simple mythological story but the record of the soul of Jewish people who underwent harsh incidents of times.
Attacked by Babylonian forces, the South kingdom of Judah perished in 587 BC and Jewish leaders were brought and confound to Babylonia as captives*2. Those experiences shocked them strongly as they had been proud of being chosen by God. They wondered why God abandoned them and were afraid of dying in the foreign country. They aspired to go back to Jerusalem. Under strong anxiety, they studied legends passed on by their ancestors in praying God for rescue. Then they wrote down meditations on the past and compiled the book of Genesis. Last Sunday, we read the passage of ‘the Deluge’ at the time of Noah, of which plot is reportedly taken from the similar legend in Gilgamesh*3. Jewish captives made comparison between the loss of the nation and the judgement of God in form of the flood. In that way, they saw the path to the rescue and salvation. The core of the story was the promise of God given to them after the flood. God declared, ; - “I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth,”(Genesis 8:21) The people saw the hope in future through the promise.
Today’s reading portion is in chapter 11 about the Tower of Babel, which give the conclusion to the Primeval history. The description is simple. ; - At this time the whole world spoke one language, and everyone used the same words. As people moved from the East, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They said to each other, “Let’s make bricks and bake them to make them hard.” So they used bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar. Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”(Genesis 11:1-4)
The episode is based on the city-construction with towers in Mesopotamian history. Mesopotamian civilisation was by Sumerians, which is characterized by huge square mountain-like buildings. Archeologists found in several ancient cities in Mesopotamia high buildings with a temple on the last floor. Those monuments with baked bricks and tar are called ‘Ziggurat *4.’ According to a record written on a slate found in Babylon, the foundations of a Ziggurat seems having about 90 meters of width and depth with about 90 meters of height. Today’s buildings of the similar height might have 20 floors ! The Tower of Babel*4 took a model from those Ziggurats. Jewish captives, forced to live in Mesopotamia, must be amazed by the view of such huge buildings. Babylonians called them also ‘Etemenanki*4 as ‘temple of the foundation of heaven and earth.’
They were very proud of those enormous constructions as the symbol of rulers of the world. And it is said that annoyance at that arrogance pushed Jewish people to write the destruction episode of the Tower of Babel.
*1Primeval history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis#Primeval_history
*2 Babylonian captivity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity
*3 Gilgamesh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh
*4 Ziggurat / Tower of Babel / Etemenanki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
2. God destroys haughty people
Big cities figured represented as the Tower of Babel (מגדל בבל - Migdal Bavel : gate of Babylon or gateway of gods) were centers of the ancient civilisation. The temples on high towers were the ostentation of political and religious power of empires like Assyria or Babylonia. And those empires didn’t tolerate political liberty of other countries. They invaded surrounding nations to put them directly into their ruling system. And, as Genesis tells, those powerful peoples should say among them, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous.” In that way, they intended to be the top of the world. And the expression, “Then we will not be scattered over all the earth,” suggests their pride in preventing near nations to preserve from independence. And the Jewish people of the time were also forced to be integrated into domination of those powerful empires after losing the country.
But those weak people wished that God won’t permit aggressive and violent policies for long time. They thought hopefully that God would put to an end such an inhuman system of reign. Genesis expresses their hope with an allusion from chapter 11 verse 5 ; - The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. The Lord said, “Now, these people are united, all speaking the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. They will be able to do anything they want. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not be able to understand each other.”(Genesis 11:5-7)
As a matter of fact, extremely despotic empires fell down after all. Assyria perished in 612 BC and Babylonia was defeated by Persia in 539 BC. The second Isaiah*1, the prophet raised under the Babylonian captivity, said, “God chooses cyrus to free Israel” (see Isaiah 45:1) He taught that the Lord God would use Persia as his tool to destroy arrogant Babylonia and emancipate Jewish people. The fall down of the Tower of Babel represented the destruction of Babylonia.
However what does the story teach us? Its message might be that we must put in doubt technological progresses of human civilisation. Humans achieved to build skyscrapers by using “bricks instead of stones, and tar instead of mortar.” Largely advanced technology allowed us those constructions. But what are humans’ ultimate purposes to utilize those knowledge and materials? According to Genesis, the technique to fabric bronze and iron was invented in the time of Tubal-Cain. ; - Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who made tools out of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.(Genesis 4:22)
Tubal-Cain was a son of Lamech.(see Genesis 4:19-22) And Lamech was one of offsprings of Cain who killing his own brother Abel then was casted into the East of Eden.
Bronze and iron tools were conceived to kill animals and enemies. It means that the first invention of humans was fabrication of weapons. The writers of Genesis saw the theme of human sin in that fact. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and engineer had found the composition of dynamite which was to be used in engineering works and developing mines. Thanks to dynamite, human civilization made progresses and productivity increased a lot.
But it was also used in weapons for mass destruction and killing. Nobel left the last will to found the Nobel Foundation with his enormous fortune. And the most important of the prizes must be the Nobel Peace Prize. It is said that the motivation for the Foundation came from his feeling of responsibility for inventing such a dangerous material.
Apart from dynamite, humans discovered the use of materials which is useful to treat certain sickness or generate electricity. That materials are atomic particles. Humans invented Radiography, radiation therapies or nuclear powered generators by utilizing them. But the same nuclear technology can be also used for military purposes, eventually nuclear bombs. Incredible devastations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were possible only with such weapons. And recent accidents in Fukushima plants put to us the question if humans can manipulate and control safely atomic energy and its residua.
The cooling system was failed because of tsunami and melt-downs of core took place. As a result, dangerous radioactive iodine leaked and spread in the environment. Furthermore, we canon’t yet neutralize it completely nuclear waste whereas Japanese generators is reportedly producing it by about 1000 tons a year. Humans knowledge and technology don’t have methods for treating that dangerous material ultimately so far. Some says that the accidents in Fukushima are ‘the Tower of Babel’ in the modern world, which is about to crash arrogance of today’s humans. And present circumstances seem showing that they are right.
* Authorship of the book of Isaiah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Isaiah#Composition
3.Tesult of the collapse of the Tower
God destroyed the Tower of Babel and, ; - scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. The place is called Babel* since that is where the Lord confused the language of the whole world. So the Lord caused them to spread out from there over the whole world.(Genesis 11:8-9)
Thought the verses above should be understood as a punishment of God, the judgement is still the starting point to the blessings in the Bible. Today’s invocation verses are Genesis 12:1-3. ; - The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you, and I will place a curse on those who harm you. And all the people on earth will be blessed through you.”
God demolished the Tower and consequently peoples were scattered over the world. They couldn’t communicate each other any longer because of different languages. Nonetheless God chose a man called Abram from the land of Babylonia, as he had chosen Noah at the time of the Deluge. God intended to save humans through Abram who was about to be renamed Abraham by God . The history of the Jewish people started in Babylonia thus. The story of ABraham himself begins from the chapter 12, however the Book tells at first about his father. ; - His father, Terah, was still alive, Haran died in Ur in Babylonia, where he was born.(Genesis 11:28)
The road to the salvation for scattered people opened. As God said to Abraham “All the people on earth will be blessed through you,” the judgement must lead to blessings, not to perdition. And Jesus was born as one of Abraham’s offsprings. When Jesus ascended to heaven after the earthy life, God sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus. The Spirit empowered them to spread the Good news courageously. Their teachings had moved numerous persons who were received baptism to convert to Christianity. God had formed a man from dust of the earth. Then God breathed the breath of life into him to make him a living person.(see Genesis 2:7) Now, God breathed the spirit into the disciples to make them gifted preachers. Their words spread over all peoples. We celebrate Pentecost next Sunday. On that very day, disturbed human communication was restored. The Church was established on that day, too. When humans turned their heart out from God, they became egoistic and took others as competitors, or even enemies. Consequently, the real communication between neighbors was disturbed in that way. But when our egoism is broke down by the Cross of Jesus, real relationship with neighbors restart.
Though God scattered arrogant people by demolishing the Tower of Babel, he called out Abraham to save and bless humans again through him. And now, we are under those blessings. Therefore we get together at church to praise God for his miraculous acts. And he keeps still acting today. Formerly I said that the incidents of Fukushima nuclear plants were an allusion to the story of Babel which was the punishment to the arrogant people. And the Germans and Swiss decided to give up nuclear power after the incidents. The two governments stated officially that they abandoned new construction plans and would close existing ones at the end of service life. Japanese government intends also to aim at independence from nuclear power by making efforts to advance technology to generate electricity with clean and recyclable methods. The tragedy of nuclear plants triggered new strategies concerning energy making. It looks like the story of the collapsed tower of Babel which ended happily. Blessings of God must be given to those who were ‘scattered.’
* This name sounds like the Hebrew word for “confused.”
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2011:1-9&version=NCV
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