Babbling Babel in Babylon
Strange Scriptures: Genesis 11
What do you get when you put millions of humans together in the same location, with the same language, and a single cause or identity?
That questionโs no riddle. The obvious answer? A nation.
Modern progressives want you to think diversity is our strength. But that ignores the complexity of the human condition and also presumes all humans are inherently good, with righteous intentions.
Yes, civilizations with diverse populations have survived and even thrived. The Roman Empire and the United States are the two most prominent examples.
However, diversity was not the glue that held them together.
They both lasted long periods because they had a populace that could communicate clearly in a common language (Greek/English), communal respect for instrumental symbols (gods and Emperor/God and country), and a higher purpose (unite and civilize the ancient world/become a bastion of freedom for all men under God).
These features combined and strengthened them despite diversity and found greatest strength in locales with more homogeneity between peoples. Because humans have an inclination toward evil that they enact most viciously toward perceived opposition.
Historians dub the phenomenon tribalism. And its impact is lessened when clear, specified, and protected boundaries exist to keep humans from tearing each other apart over differences.
Many stories from history warn of the horrors bred by broken boundaries. Weโve already discussed three: the fall in the Garden of Eden, the first murder in human history, and the monstrous perversion of the Nephilim giants.
But no other story has presented the destruction of boundaries and its ramifications as starkly as the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.
Most readers focus on the division of languages by God, as a judgment, and think thatโs the focal point of the story.
It isnโt.
Today, weโre going to explore the real story of Babel, why itโs integral to the Old Testament, how it relates to Jesus and the kingdom of God, and how you can avoid the chaos suffered by those rebellious humans in your own life.
Heaven and Earth Collide
For any biblical story, geography and background are essential. And the Tower of Babel has a fascinating one.
In the Ancient Near East (all around the ancient globe, in fact), it was customary to build temples as sites of intersection between the heavens and the earth. Stairways for the gods.
Hence their construction as triangular monoliths with steps.
We call them pyramids today. Ziggurats were what the Sumerians and Babylonians called them. And itโs thought by archaeologists that one in particular fits the bill for the Tower of Babel: Entemenanki (โHouse of the Foundation of Heaven and Earthโ).
Dating puts the earliest ziggurats between 4300-3500 B.C., approximately. Entemenanki among them. Dedicated to the god Marduk, whom we noted in our last article is a figure matching the Canaanite Baal.
Both fought the ancient sea gods and became rulers of the gods. The dedication of Babylon to Marduk meant it was his palace in the moral realm. With the expectation that he would enter and dwell there with his royal subjects.
But a nearby stele (โThe Tower of Babel Steleโ c. 600 B.C.) names Entemenanki the โtemple tower of Babylonโ and shows an honorary procession with a king ascending the steps toward the heavens, staff in hand.
A human enters the heavens.
The Akkadians, nearest predecessors to the Babylonians, wouldโve called the temple babilu, โGate of God.โ Babel is a Hebrew wordplay stressing the Akkadian label, while also lamenting the confusion that transpired there.
Entemenanki has the name, story, and, most of all, location. Neatly centered smack dab in what the Bible calls the plain of Shinar...
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Way Off Par in Shinar
After Noah and his family left the ark, forgot about Godโs commands, and let more fallen sons of God mate with human women, breed more Nephilim, and lead humanity astray, Genesis tells us they converged at the plain of Shinar.
Nimrod, who may have been one of the first Sumerian kings, builds the city of Babylon there. Heโs called a โgreat heroโ like the Nephilim.
But his father was Cush, and appears in the lineage of Noah as one of his descendants (Genesis 10, โThe Table of Nationsโ). Nimrod was likely only a powerful ruler, perhaps with god-like ordination. In the eyes of the people.
Which could explain the purpose of the towerโs construction:
The humans who were not Nephilim wanted to become like Nephilim.
Mixed blood of gods and men
Revered by their peers and other humans
Genesis 11 states that they tried to storm the heavens in order to make a name for themselves. To become heroes.
They stormed the skyward castle of the gods. Where they could commune with and become part of the divine assembly. Invade the holy throne-room of God Most High. Steal godly status. Instead of going outward, multiplying and spreading across the face of the earth to rule over it (as God commanded).
A venture sure to kill them and destabilize the cosmosโฆagain.
They almost succeeded with their unified purpose, language, and intellect. God confused their tongues so they couldnโt understand each other anymore and dispersed them out into the earth by force.
He could have annihilated them, but per his promise to Noah (Genesis 9), he refrained from destroying the creation anew.
Rather, he gave humanity exactly what they wanted...
According to the Sons of God
Deuteronomy 32 shares a unique insight into Babel. Verses 7-9 state God gave the nations their inheritance.
And what was that inheritance? He divided them according to the number of the sons of God.
The earliest manuscripts of Deuteronomy in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) all say โsons of God.โ Later, in the Masoretic Hebrew Text (c. 1000 A.D.) the phrase is rendered โaccording to the number of the sons of Israel.โ
The evidence suggests the Masoretic version is an alteration.
Working from the oldest texts, Dr. Michael Heiser has argued that the division at Babel was an intentional division in which God split up the nation amongst specific sons of God tasked to lead them back to God, and these โgodsโ failed by taking worship from the nations unto themselves.
However, Romans 1 provides the more likely explanation: Humanity was given over to their twisted desires to worship the creation instead of the Creator.
The fallen gods already spread across the lands. Other sons of God came down and mated with human women again after the Flood. Committed the same sin as the pre-Flood sons of God. Guaranteed their banishment from the heavens.
Even prior to Babel, they and their Nephilim offspring were revered. Everywhere. Humans, again, wanted to become gods themselves in the divine assembly. Coveted the throne of God.
So, the logical conclusion is God gave them over to their desires.
He confused them to divide them and trap them with the fallen sons of God.
โDivided them according to the sons of Godโ simply means they were separated from one another and given over to idol worship. To worship of the fallen sons, the demons who once ruined their world.
Humanity could worship the creation all they wanted. But it would be the twisted, vile, corrupted creation, not his holy heavenly host.
Post-Flood humans chose their mastersโฆ
Taking the Heavens By Force
Babelโs context explains Godโs forbidding the Israelites from having other gods before him.
Through Abraham and his descendants (drawn out from Babylon to Canaan, pre-Flood Nephilim HQ), God made Israel a nation for himself to be the vehicle through which the Messiah would rescue and reunite the nations within the kingdom of God.
Israel was holy. Set apart. Intended as a nation of priests.
Though they failed that mission, God still brought Jesus into history. Used them as a vessel for his own entry into history.
And itโs significant that when speaking with the crowds of people about John the Baptist, Jesus mentioned Babel.
In Matthew 11, after John the Baptist sends his disciples to confirm Jesus is the Messiah, and Jesus sends them back with affirmative evidence, Jesus then says something profound:
โTruly I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to comeโ (11:11-14)
Jesusโs reference isnโt explicit, and since he places it within the context of John the Baptist, Elijah, the prophets, and the law, thereโs a definite dual meaning.
But the key verse (Iโm sure you caught) is โFrom the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.โ
Prior to Israel, the kingdom of God/heaven was in the actual heavens. And when the Nephilim arose, the cosmos was plunged into violence and wickedness everywhere, judged by Flood, and then a new violent race of men (Noahโs lineage) tried to take the heavens by force at Babel.
When God chose Israel and began building his kingdom on earth through them, the nations went to war with them until they were exiled. Led by the fallen โgods.โ Elijah, a precursor to John the Baptist, faced off with Baal and his worshipers, as did other prophets.
Then, upon their return from Persia, endless conflicts overtook the Jews.
Jesus is telling the people in Matthew 11 that the culmination of the cosmic war theyโd always been part of was at the threshold. Stage set by John the Baptist. War waged by Jesus, the eternal Creator.
Mount Hermon, the gates of hell, in Galilee is where Jesus spent most of his time. Resisting Satan, healing, being transfigured, exorcising demons. In the land where the sons of God had originally rebelled and caused the Flood.
The kingdom of heaven, from the heavens, was about to enter the world through the actual Son of God in ways theyโd never before dreamed...
No Love Lost at Pentecost
Jesusโs death and resurrection beat sin and death, broke the stranglehold the sons of God had on the world, and opened the door for all nations to come back to God.
The only mission left was to spread the good news. Build the kingdom.
Pentecost is the beginning of that movement. Of the spread of the kingdom of God across the globe. Itโs also an immediate reversal of Babel.
Second Temple period Jerusalem was a tourist destination. The Temple, a wonder of the Near East. People from all over...Gaul (France), Italy, Greece, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Jordan, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, you name it...came to witness the magnificent sites.
What was the confusion at Babel? Language. When the disciples were touched by the tongues of fire, the Spirit moved, and they spoke, what happened? Everyone heard the Gospel of Christ in his own native language. His own tongue.
No confusion
No obstruction
Just the Truth made plain for all to hear, ponder, and embrace.
When everyone who heard returned to their home countries, they surely shared about the mysterious wonder encountered and what the twelve men preached.
Seeds were planted. The ground prepared for Paul and his ministry to the nations.
And, not coincidentally, he, his followers, and some of the other apostles went to every location listed in Genesis 10. To the lost nations of Babel. With Israel, the contested Canaan and former home of the sons of God, as the headquarters for the movement of salvation.
The Ever Eternal Kingdom
Christians allegiant to Jesus are now the body of Christ. The kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.
Holy
Set apart
Like Israel
Weโve inherited the mission. To bring the world back into the fold. Under the rule of the King.
That means the commandment to have no other gods before God Most High, Jesus Christ our Lord, is more important than ever.
The gods of this world, the fallen sons of God, are the enemy. Many people of the nations remain enslaved to them, and Jesus is their only path to freedom.
Those demons want us to keep violating Godโs boundaries. The real cause of division. Whereas the kingdom of God unites us in the good and holy.
If youโre allegiant to Jesus, then you too have an obligation to spread the Gospel, fight evil, and destroy falsehoods in the name of Christ. Protect boundaries. Live and bleed Christ everywhere you go.
Because, even though victory is assured, the powers and principalities of darkness cling to this world with their filthy claws and do everything they can to pull every soul imaginable down into eternal torment.
Godโs kingdomโฆin Christ our Lordโฆis the only blockade.