Tower of Power

According to Virgil, Aeneas was a prince of Troy who escaped the sacking of the city and eventually founded the city of Lavinium; it would be the parent city of Rome. A different tradition recounted the story of Romulus, who after killing his twin brother Remus, founded the city of Rome. Because the Trojan War is dated to hundreds of years before the traditional founding of Rome in 753 BCE, a line of fictional kings were manufactured to close the gap between Aeneas and Romulus and reconcile the two founding myths.

We have two founding myths for Babylon in Gen 10 and 11. Gen 10:8-12 gave us the story of Nimrod and how he founded his kingdom in Babel in the land of Shinar. Gen 11:1-9 recounts the story of a group of people who, travelling eastwards, stop in a plain in the land of Shinar and decide to construct a city and tower. After YHWH intervenes, the people are dispersed, their language confused, and the city became known as Babel because that word is similar to the Hebrew word balal, “confuse.” (Actually, the name of the city comes from the Akkadian babilam, the gate of the gods.)

There are three motifs that run through the story: 1) construction of a city with a tower that can reach to the heavens, 2) one language that gets confused into a multiplicity of languages, and 3) dispersion of the human race across the earth. These motifs are found in many stories around the world, but never together except in Genesis. For example, there are many myths about the attempt to construct a tower that can reach heaven, but these tales end with the destruction of the tower (and sometimes the builders), not with a confusion of languages or a dispersion of peoples across the earth. Those motifs are more likely to be the conclusion of a flood story.

A traditional portrayal of "The Tower of Babel" (1563), by Pieter Brueghel

Although all three motifs appear in Gen 11:1-9, the threads don’t intertwine seamlessly. For example, YHWH spots the people constructing the city and decides to confuse their language (v. 7), but then ends up scattering the people across the earth (v. 8). Despite having been physically scattered across the face of the earth and no longer in the land of Shinar, the author feels it necessary to explain that the builders abandon construction of the city. This explanation would make more sense if only their language had been confused yet they had remained in the same place.

Because of the disjunctions in the narrative, biblical scholars speculate that we are dealing with two independent stories that were combined at a really early period. In each story, the people want to construct a tower that can reach heaven and thus make a name for themselves. This challenges the bounds the creator has placed on the people, so in one story, the deity disperses the people across the face of the earth. In another story, the deity confuses their language so they can no longer work together and they abandon the building project.

The story probably does not originate in Mesopotamia, but the author is aware of their building techniques. In Israel, buildings are constructed of stone and mortar. Therefore the author has to explain to his audience that in the land of Shinar, fired bricks are used for stone and asphalt for mortar. The mention of Shinar also continues the process begun in Gen 10 of shifting the setting of the stories from some distant primeval time to historical time. This story occurs in a real place, although at some far-off time when all of humanity spoke the same language.

The Etemenanki ziggurat in the temple area in Babylon may have inspired the tale of the Tower of Babel. This impressive model of the ziggurat was constructed entirely of Legos by Michal Herbolt.

Hearing this story as a kid, it seemed fantastical to me that people were foolish enough to think they could construct a tower that would reach heaven. There was obviously no way that was going to work. An adult reader could be tempted to say that builders’ intent for a tower “with its summit touching the heavens” is just metaphorical language for a magnificent structure, but in the story YHWH is concerned enough that he felt it necessary to take steps to prevent the builders from completing their project. If you recall the cosmology of the ANE with a vaulted dome over the earth, it may have seemed feasible millennia ago that if mountains could scrape the clouds, maybe a tower could be built tall enough to allow humans to ascend to heaven.

In summary, what we have here is another etiological tale to explain how a situation in the author’s present-day – namely, the multiplicity of languages – came about. Just like we saw in Gen 3 with the explanations of why snakes crawl on the ground, women have pain in childbirth and men have to toil and sweat to work the ground, the many human languages are a result of YHWH’s punishment for human misdeeds. In this case YHWH is making a pre-emptive strike to keep humanity in its place. At the end of the Eden story (3:22-24), concerned with what his humans would try next, YHWH stationed an angel at the entrance of Eden to prevent humans from eating of the tree of life. In this tale of the tower of Babel, YHWH has to disperse the human race and confuse their languages because humans are capable of anything once they put their minds to it.

And, with that, we have our moral for the story. Humans in the Genesis stories have this annoying habit of not knowing their place, whether it is thirsting after knowledge (Gen 3), cavorting with divine beings (Gen 6), or building a tower that can reach heaven. YHWH has to continually intervene to restrict them within the boundaries set for them. The author recognizes that human beings are capable of both great and terrible accomplishments and this has resonance for our own time because we realize that humanity has the power to either save the world or destroy it. It is anyone’s guess which path we will choose.

Damned Ham

Okay, let’s say you and your family just survived a global cataclysm. What’s the first thing you do? Well, according to the Bible, it’s to get stinking drunk.

The first story the Bible recounts after the flood (Gen 9:20-27) is how Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk on wine, and lay naked in his tent:

Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard.
He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
he said, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
And he said, “Blessed be YHWH, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.
May God make space for Japheth, and let him live in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.”

There are some odd aspects of this passage. How does it relate to what’s happened previously?

Back in Gen 5:29, it was said that Lamech named his son Noah because “Out of the ground that YHWH has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.” Thus Noah’s name is related to his role as the first winemaker (“wine to gladden the heart”, Ps 104:15) and not as the hero of the flood. Because of the mention of the name YHWH and the callback to the cursing of the ground in 3:17-19, this verse has been considered the one verse from the Yahwist (J) in all of Gen 5. Verse 29 seems to have been originally connected to 9:20-27 (another J passage) but got separated when the flood narrative was inserted. The description of Noah as the founder of viticulture is consistent with J’s list of the founders of cities, nomads, musicians, and metalworkers in 4:17-25.

Many commentators have wondered as to the nature of Ham’s crime that earned him such condemnation from Noah. Some have speculated if “saw the nakedness of his father” was a euphemism for something much worse. But the words can be taken literally and make perfect sense. While a husband and wife can be naked and not feel shame – as was the case of Adam and Eve – public nudity in the OT was seen as shameful. If a son was to see his father lying helplessly drunk and naked, the appropriate action was for the child to cover the genitals of the parent. Instead, Ham left Noah uncovered and told his brothers, thus publicizing Noah’s shame. We can speculate that Ham felt disgust or contempt for his father lying in that state, but that is reading more into the story than is there. Shem and Japheth, for their part, did what was expected of a good son.

"The Drunkenness of Noah" by Andre Sacchi (1599-1661). Seeing the look on Ham's face, I could see why Noah would curse him.

What’s odd is that Ham is introduced as “the father of Canaan” and, when Noah finally sobers up, he curses Canaan, not Ham. Ham is also referred to as Noah’s “youngest” son. This has led some biblical scholars to wonder if originally the story named Shem, Japheth and Canaan as Noah’s son. According to this theory, Canaan was changed to Ham in order to make the story consistent with the tradition that Noah’s sons were named Shem, Ham and Japheth. It is also equally possible that the story always concerned the sin of Ham and it was well-known that Ham was the father of Canaan (10:6). Just as Noah was dishonored by his son, he curses Ham’s son. It was only a later redactor who identified Ham as “the father of Canaan” for readers who were not clear on the genealogical connection.

The whole point of the story is the cursing of Ham/Canaan. The last two verses (which I placed in italics) is a secondary addition. Perhaps the redactor felt that if Canaan was cursed, Shem and Japheth needed to be blessed. But in v. 26 it is not Shem but YHWH who is blessed. YHWH is referred to as “the God of Shem” and since YHWH is only the God of Israel, Shem is identified with Israel. Biblical scholars declare that this is an etiological story of how Canaan came to be slaves to Israel. The problem with that theory is that in the rest of the OT, God tells Israel to either drive out or exterminate the Canaanites, never to make them their slaves.

The last verse is a play on the name Japheth (japt = “may he make large”). But who is Japheth? And why would he be dwelling in Seth’s tents? According to Gen 10:2-5, Japheth’s descendants were people to the north of Israel, but that comes from the Priestly writer. J may have had the Philistines in mind, for all we know. And perhaps the subject of v. 27a (“may God make space for Japheth”) is also the same subject of 27b (“and let him live in the tents of Shem”), in which case it would be a continuation of the blessing of YHWH in v. 26.

My final comment concerns the triple affirmation that Canaan is to be the lowest slave to Seth. In his primeval history, J continues to describe broken relationships and their consequences. In Gen 2-3, we had the broken relationship between the first couple and God and how it led to an inequality between husband and wife. In Gen 4, we have the broken relationship between brothers and how it led to Cain being outcast. Finally, here in Gen 9, we have a broken relationship between father and son and how it led to the son becoming slave to his brothers. Slavery was a reality in the ancient world but the author understands that it is not part of God’s original plan. Therefore, slavery must be punishment for some primordial sin. J is not challenging the institution. It exists in his world and he tries to explain how it came about.