Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Knapp <sknapp AT megsinet.net>]

Dave Washburn wrote:
> 
> Can you help me understand how the image of
> confused languages and being scattered and an unfinished
> city/tower fit your Babylonian scenario?

If Babylon is still going strong from and after the time that the Babel
tradition was crafted, then I agree it is difficult to see the
representation behind the imagery.  However, if Babylon has fallen, then
the images of scattering, and unfinished tower become almost
transparent.  They are emblematic of the destruction of the power and
influence of a defeated nation which was formerly proud but now
humiliated.  The imagery also conveys the hope/expectation of the writer
that Babylon will never again achieve the pre-eminence it had once had. 
The tower image takes the central temple of Babylon as its starting
point, but uses the image as an emblem of the prestige of the nation,
most likely in much the same that the Babylonians themselves would have
done.  In that sense the tower was not a finished product, nor could it
ever be.  But the demise of the state struck a finishing blow to the
Babylonian dreams of greatness, I think, and that is what the imagery of
the story reflects.  But the story is not sympathetic to that tragedy. 
Rather, it is told from the point of view of an antagonist who is glad
to see the demise of the old order, and now ridicules its former
greatness.  It reflects the mood of those who had suffered as a result
of that greatness, and were liberated politically and culturally by its
demise.  People like the Yahwistic priests of the former Judah exiled to
Babylon.

The confusion of languages is the logical outcome of the demise of the
last great Mesopotamian state.  Akkadian would not necessarily be the
lingua franca for international relations, now that the Persians were
pre-eminent.  The uniform tongue was on the verge of being supplanted,
and even petty states could regain a voice.  Historically events did not
turn out this way, but the story voices a nationalistic hope of those
who circulated and preserved such a story.  It also points at the
totality of the demise of the Mesopotamian old order.  An unexpected and
unpredictable new day was dawning, and the story ends on that note of
anticipation mingled with trepidation.  Who knows what will happen
next?  But the Yahwists, looking at the historical moment much as they
did in early exile, will assure the reader that their God is in the
midst of this and in control, shaping events even through catastrophe to
the far flung reaches of the earth (perhaps a nod to the diaspora?). 
Thus ends the Primeval History.

I freely admit that all these interpretations of the imagery are
conjectural, but they are also reasonable for the kind of context I am
attempting to reconstruct for the historical setting of this story,
which I see as early post-exilic.  

-- 
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)