Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Stephen Knapp wrote:

[snip]
> 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.  

One thing I don't understand in this scenario: why would an author 
choose to use confusion of languages, so that the people couldn't 
finish building the tower, for such a purpose?  I would think that a 
story of God coming down and leveling the tower or some such 
would be more indicative of a post-Babylon setting for the origin of 
the story.  Confusion of tongues doesn't make sense to me in this 
context.  Also, v.8 says the people whose languages had just 
become muddled were scattered all over the earth and never 
finished building the city.  For one thing, we know the Babylonians 
ranged far and wide to establish and maintain their empire, so 
being scattered hardly seems like a serious threat (cf. v.4).  For 
another, your description of the city as one of the great wonders of 
the world and Gen's description of it as unfinished seem mutually 
exclusive.  Can you help me understand how the image of 
confused languages and being scattered and an unfinished 
city/tower fit your Babylonian scenario?

[more snip]

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.