Genesis 11: 1-9; Scattered!

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ 5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."

Introduction--the Patterns and Problems of the Story

The story of the Tower of Babel goes hand in hand with the reading from Acts 2 for today. In Genesis God confused the language of the gathered people; in Acts God clarified the language of the scattered people, who were gathered in Jerusalem for the day. The message of Babel is the reality of difference and resulting confusion; the promise of Pentecost is the possibility of unity and understanding. The story in Gen. 11, however, stands on its own and invites us to a patient perusal of its humorous and powerful language.

Gen. 11 also fits into a theological pattern that the author of the primeveal history Genesis shaped. That pattern, exposited by Gerhard von Rad and David Clines, among others, is that of punishment and redemption. The edenic Eden, a gift from God, was a short-lived experiment which led to punishment when people couldn't properly "handle" this gift. The divine decision to eliminate humanity through a flood occurred because of the evil in human hearts. Finally, in Gen. 11, God also decides to punish humans, though it isn't as clear what the offense of Gen. 11 is (the building itself? the arrogance of humans? the unwillingness to "fill the earth" according to the command in Gen. 1? the use of poor materials to build a monumental structure?).

Redemption is also a part of this primeval history, but here is where von Rad and Clines part company. The former sees three corresponding acts of redemption or preservation-- the sign of Cain/birth of Seth; the rainbow and the continued life of Noah and his family; and, in response to Gen. 11, the calling of Abram to be the instrument through whom all familes of the earth will be blessed (12:3). But Clines is more skeptical about whether the author of Genesis is really communicating a "preservation" or "redemption" for humanity after Gen. 11. After all, the primeval history "ends" with the "descendants of Shem" in Gen. 11, which functions as a literary "cherubim" or "flaming sword" to separate the earlier from later narratives. The patriarchal stories take on a more historical or rooted-to-earth character after that.

I think the debate between Clines and von Rad states the probelm well for us today. Is there really a hope for humanity after our "scattering" of Gen. 11 or will difference, both of culture and language, lead to our undoing? In think that question is still very much "in the air" in 2007.

But the story of Babel also has its problems. First, how does the story of ch. 11 fit in with the "table of nations" in ch. 10, which assumes that people are scattered all over the earth? One might respond that the chapters aren't intended, even by the author, to be chronological, but the alert reader then asks, "why didn't the author put this story directly after the Noah narrative?" Actually, I think there is a good reason for that. The literary structure of Gen. 1-11 is threefold: story, judgment, geneaology. So we have the creation story, the judgment of Adam and Eve, and the genealogy which results from them (ch. 5). We then have narrative of angels and humans, the flood and another genealogy in ch. 10. Finally, we have the story of human aspiration, divine judgment and a genealogy in ch. 11. So, this objection isn't a major one. Then, there is the "problem" of what stands "behind" the narrative. Most scholars see a reference to the ziggurat in Babylon, an ancient architectural model standing 297 feet high and made of colored, glazed tile. Is our narrative shaped by the Babylonian experience (the reference to "Babel" at the end seems to suggest it)? Then, as I will discuss below, we have the "problem" of what the human "sin" is that God is attempting to punish by scattering the people. Many scholars also, of the older generation, spend a lot of time trying to figure out the "layers" of the story and the places where such layers of the stories might have circulated before coming to be connected in one narrative. I have thought ever since graduate school, where I was trained in the methods of source and redaction criticism, that most of the work of these scholars were tissues of speculation pieced together by gossamer filaments of hope (or hype). We have the final form of the text before us, and it doesn't really do us much good to talk about various narratives that might have been stiched together to yield our present text.

II. The Story--From the Human Perspective (vv. 1-4)

Word play and humor leap out at the careful reader of the Hebrew text, and I think it might be helpful to bring some of the literary richness of the text to you. We are told that the earth was of one tongue and "few words." Rather than trying to point out differences between the phrases, why not see this as a kind of phrase like "without form and void" in Gen. 1? In fact, one might see this as a sort of reversal of that chaotic pre-creation activity. Here we have the potential of communication and unity. Maybe humanity has learned its lesson after the great flood. So far, then, we are given a "let's imagine" scenario, and we do the text the best service by playing along.

Whenever you have groups of people you have plans. We don't really know if the narrative tells us that people migrated to or from the East (the Hebrew allows both), but somehow they met in a plain and settled there. The Hebrew word for "there" (sham), will be "played with" through the rest of the narrative. For example, the people want to build a tower to the heavens (shamayim) in order to make a name (shem) for themselves. While they are doing this, God decides to go down "there" (sham) in v. 7 to take a look. I think the playful point the author is trying to make is to question where "there" is. Is "there" in the plain, the tower, the heavens? By asking the question of where "there" is, the author allows us to speculate on where the essential locus of power in the story (and the universe) resides. Whereas the story of the Garden and Eden had to do with knowledge, and the Flood had to do with evil, this story has to do with power. Whose name (shem) will resound most loud after the story is over? Will it be the humans, who want to make a name for themselves, or will it be the divine, whose name is in the first and last verses of the Bible?

The next essay finishes these thoughts.

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