The Tower Of Babel
Could the patriarch Abraham have known of the construction and the whole story of the celebrated Tower? (Bereshith 11:1-9).This is the Scriptural account of the occurrence. At this time, we are informed, throughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, 'come let us make bricks and bake them in the fire'. For stone they used bricks and for mortar they used bitumen.8 'Come,' they said, 'let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the whole earth.' The sequel is known: to prevent men reaching heaven, YAHWEH decided to confuse their language. Since they no longer understood each other the builders were obliged to call a halt to their work. This city in which a beginning had been made on building the tower in the Scriptures is called Babel. 9
Historians are inclined to think that this Hebrew tradition
is probably a reflection of impressions received by the nomad shepherds who,
leading their flocks over the steppes at some distance from the cities could, on
occasion, make out on the horizon the heavy, darkening mass of the ziggurats,
often more or less in ruins, and certainly in a dilapidated condition as a
consequence of the military invasions of the Elamite and other barbarians. The
Hebrew shepherds explained the enormous buildings by the pride and folly of the
men of the cities who had planned to climb up to heaven to dislodge YAHWEH from
it. In fact, heaven was the name that the Babylonians gave to the cella
of the god established at the highest and last platform of the monument. From
that we can see the misunderstanding on the part of the nomads. They could only
be deeply impressed when faced with this lofty architecture which seemed to them
to be a defiance of the deity.
Reconstruction of the 'Tower of Babel' (Busink)
8 This was a typically Sumerian way of building, and very different from the architectural ideas of the Hebrews. They were to live in tents until after their return from Egypt and the conquest of the land of Canaan under the guidance of Yahshua Ben Nun (about 1220 B.C.)
9 This was the ziggurat of Babylon. In Akkadian Bab-llu means the gate of YAHWEH. It seems that the Scriptural scribe wanted to make a pun on the root ell which signifies 'confuse'. The joke does not work. It is Bab-llu the Gate of YAHWEH which gave its name to Babylon.
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