Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Knapp <sknapp AT megsinet.net>]

Jonathan D. Safren wrote:
> 
> The story has nothing to do with Babylonian history, but with the author's 
> view of
> Man's hubris and God's response to it. The Tower is only a symbol of Man's 
> overweening
> pride which leadeth him to a fall, and God's supreme power.

To say that it has NOTHING to do with the demise of Babylon is a bit
strong.  That of course is the traditional reading, but is that all
there is to it?  Again, why pick on Babylon?  Why not Assyria as we find
in the book of Jonah?  When we read the story and pay attention to the
choice of example, then something more is apparent.

Note that in tablet VI of Enuma Elish the Anunaki build Babylon as a
tribute to Marduk for the freedom from toil he has brought to them.  The
text introduces this project by saying that they desire to present him
with a symbol of their gratitude.  At the heart of the symbol they
create is the tower Esagila, which is to be the abode of Marduk. 
Regarding this tower there is one parallel line which Heidel translates
as, "They raised the head of Esagila on high, level with the Apsu, After
they had built the lofty stagetower of the Apsu."  Heidel interprets
this as meaning that the base of the tower was at the level of the Apsu,
the primeval fresh water ocean.  Speiser later renders the line as,
"They raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu.  Having built a
stage-tower as high as Apsu,..."  Speiser adds the comment that the text
apparently means that the height of the tower was as high as the Apsu
was deep.  Since the text specifically refers to raising a high tower,
focusing on its height and not its base, I tend to side with Speiser.

Now the point of all this is that the neo-Babylonian recension of EE
presents us with a fanciful image of the way the late Babylonians
regarded their city and its central temple.  (The Assyrians had
substituted Asshur for Babylon in their recensions of traditions like
this.) Part of that was a kind of nationalistic pride over the
pre-eminence of their land and culture.  In its heyday the city and its
tower were understood as the unassailable center of the world.  The
strength, unity, and influential power of the empire was wrapped up in
the ritual and imagery of the tower to deity.  The tower made Babylon
one, city and empire, and the citizens of Babylon would not have failed
to remind the surrounding nations, and especially the peoples they
conquered, that all this was so.  Among the defeated nations there were
those who were forceably resettled, for many of whom the tower would
have become a symbol of the detestable pride of Babylon.  And how would
these people gloat when Babylon has fallen?  I think the story in
Genesis 11 gives us some sense of that.  For storytellers such as this,
Babylon itself has become a symbol of foolish pride.  But that
assessment is anchored in their negative experience with Babylon.  While
the story teaches a moral lesson, the very lesson you have observed, it
also intends to shame an old enemy which must be forever vilified for
the havoc it wrought to the forbears.  


> Agreed. But I was talking about the Priestly narrative of Gen. 1 and not 
> the final
> redactor of Genesis, whoever he may have been.

Try P as a redaction of J and not as an independent source (cf.
Rendtorff, The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the
Pentateuch).

> 
> > Both COULD have been influences
> > during the period of monarchy, inasmuch as the literature existed, but
> > we don't have as sure a basis for saying they were cultural influences
> > then as we do for the time after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah
> > has occurred.  The problem revolves around the basis and extent of
> > cultural contact, not the question of the existence of the literature.
> 
> What do you call the 14th-century B.C.E. fragment of Gilgamesh from 
> Megiddo, if not
> "cultural influences"? Both the J and P versions of the Flood story, which 
> presume
> knowledge of a Babylonian flood story, whether Gilgamesh or Atrahasis, were 
> written by
> people well-educated in the classical literature of Mesopotamia, and such 
> education
> had existed long prior to the Israelite settlement of Canaan.


Why assume that Mesopotamian cultural influences amounted to much during
the period of Egyptian hegemony?  Based on what?  Intermittant trade?  I
do hope you are not going to try to build too much of a case from an
isolated fragment.  According to Maureen Kovacs (The Epic of Gilgamesh)
only two fragments of the Gilgamesh Epic have so far been found in all
of Syria-Palestine.  One in Emar, Syria, and the other at Megiddo.  She
finds it "puzzling" that there are so few references to this
Mesopotamian story in the first millenium Syro-Phoenician regions, in
view of its apparently widespread circulation in the previous millenium.

But then, the Akkadian literature was never translated, so we would not
expect to find it in places where Akkadian was not needed or widely
used.  Since it was a language of international diplomacy and trade, it
is not too surprising to find a fragment at Megiddo.  Megiddo stood at
the trade route crossroads linking three major culture groups.  But does
that allow us to say much about the depth of cultural influence Babylon
had on Palestine in the first millenium?  I think not.  
I would contend that prior to the occupation by Babylon, specifically
Babylonian influences upon Judah were always mediated by West Semitic
culture (north of Israel).  For the first half of the first millenium I
would expect that Assyrian culture was the primary Mesopotamian
influence upon Palestine, and that too was indirect judging by the
dissimilarity of the material cultural remains for that period.  Of
course that changed by the eighth century.  BTW is the Megiddo fragment
of Gilgamesh from a Babylonian or an Assyrian recension?  And do you
know what stratum it was found in?  Is it the fragment that dates to the
14th century or the findspot?


> Anyone who had attended
> a decent scribal or temple school would have been expected to know his 
> World Classics
> and at least one foreign language. The 2 Kings narrative of Hezekiah's 
> officials
> requesting Rabshakeh to speak in Aramaic and not Judahite has at least this 
> historical
> basis. And the Deuteronomists knew their Vassal Treaty material.

If I am not mistaken, Plain of Shinar refers specifically to Babylon,
not Assyria.

Hezekiah's troubles were with Assyria.  From the standpoint of religion
there were some distinctions.  Saggs points out (The Might that was
Assyria) that the akitu festival, so well known to us from Babylon, had
a different significance in the Assyrian calendar.  Saggs suggests it
may not have been celebrated as a New Year festival until late in
Assyria's history when it too was influenced by Neo-Babylonian
practice.  It is therefore reasonable to expect that the circulation of
the Enuma Elish may not have been all that widespread during the period
of Assyrian domination.  This might explain why the portions of Genesis
which relate to EE are associated with the Priestly writer, whereas the
J material has closer affinities to Atrahasis and Assyrian creation
stories such as that preserved in an eighth century tablet from Ashur.

-- 
Stephen A. Knapp, sknapp AT megsinet.net
PhD candidate, Old Testament Biblical Studies
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Part time faculty: Department of Theology
Valparaiso University (Indiana)