A Skeptic Reads the Bible 7: An Insecure God Trashes the Tower of Babel

Up next will be a more interesting article on the story of the Tower of Babel, but in the meantime we've got another genealogy to plow through. Most of my comments about these ungainly critters in a previous commentary apply equally here. My Bible's subheadings identify this genealogy as the "Table of Nations," because it identifies and groups the various descendants of Noah. One, Nimrod, is said to have founded no less than four great historical cities, Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen, as well as ruled over Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh (obviously, this is an historical impossibility).

Another man mentioned is Peleg, for whom the genealogy contains the cryptic statement that "in his time the earth was divided." I have no idea what this originally was meant to mean. Certain creationists today argue that this is a reference to the time that the continents were divided by God. Frankly, I'm not sure how you could seriously argue that. If it happened suddenly (and all our archaeological and geological evidence indicates that it did not), it would have to have been seriously disruptive. Disruptive enough to merit more than a single passing reference in the genealogy. But I digress.

Finally, we arrive at the story of the Tower of Babel. Incidentally, Peleg's name crops up on both sides of this story, so it's possible that the "dividing" of the world the Bible mentions in the genealogy actually refers to God's latest temper tantrum (which I'll be discussing in a moment) rather than any sort of geological division. It is also possible that the Tower's construction was supposed to have been financed by the mysterious figure Nimrod, since it's built in Babylon and Nimrod is credited with ruling Babylon.

According to Genesis, at the time of Peleg all people still spoke the same language, and either most or all of them had settled on "a plain in Shinar." They were also increasingly skilled engineers, and decided to build "a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens." The sin, presumably, could be read as one of pride: they believe that they will "make a name for ourselves." If that's all that incites the coming divine wrath, however, it seems to be pretty minor. We've built some pretty impressive structures ourselves in the last millennium, and we've even flown to "the heavens." So far, God doesn't seem nearly as angry with us.

In contrast, God is very upset with the men in Shinar. This is one of the last moments in the Biblical story when God seems to think and act like a human being: talking to himself, coming "down to see the city" for himself, and suffering from very human emotional states like insecurity and rage. Recall that he did much the same thing in the Garden of Eden, when, I believe (and wrote about recently), he kicked out Adam and Eve less because they ate the forbidden fruit than because by doing so they became too powerful.

On this occasion, God's jealous reaction is very similar. After making a tour of the city, he reasons, "if as one people... they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them... let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." God therefore goes down -- with the unnamed others he has spoken to on previous occasions, presumably angels or other gods -- and "scatters them... all over the earth," in the process "confusing" their speech and in the process inventing all of the different languages.

In many ways God's surprising touchiness at Babel is even harder to explain than the Flood or the Fall. In both of those cases, humans certainly did do evil (even if it doesn't seem particularly extreme from our vantage point). In this case, it's really not clear what they're doing wrong. God himself doesn't seem interested in pronouncing judgement based on some sort of "sin" or "evil" that has been committed (the way he did prior to the Flood).

Instead, as in the Garden, his reasoning is far more cynical and insecure. He cannot afford to let humans remain united, God reasons, because if they stay that way, they will be powerful enough to do anything. So instead he steps in and "scatters" them, in the process forcing them to speak different languages in order to make it even harder for humans to cooperate ever again.

The Tower of Babel is the third of the great destructive events in Genesis, and there is a pattern developing. In the first of them, the fall from the Garden of Eden, God felt threatened by the growing power of the humans, so he kicked them out of the garden, giving them dominion over all of the plants of the earth for food. In the second, the Great Flood, he was outraged by human evil, and nearly wiped them out, but in the end gave the few survivors dominion over the animals as well.

In this third event, however, God is insecure again. He indirectly ends up giving humans power over all the earth (by scattering them everywhere from their home in Shinar), but does so only because he fears how powerful they could become if they continue to live and work together. The effect is that humanity is now allowed to rule the entire earth, but the price of this rule is that we will never be able to cooperate again. It's a touching and powerful myth.

But a myth only, I believe. The purpose here is to educate us about the nature of humanity, always riven by conflict. There is no reason to believe that the story of the Tower of Babel is in any way a truly historical event. If that were true (indeed, if the overall history of Genesis were true), we would have to believe that the history of civilization actually flows in reverse: that the most ancient peoples all practiced agriculture, and all of the hunter-gatherer societies which spread out from there somehow lost the knowledge.

The "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" series is written by David Vogt and published on AssociatedContent.com. Feel free to comment on this page. For further reading in this series:

"God Destroys the World, Part 1" (Genesis 5-9)

"Genealogies Galore" (Genesis 5)

"God Exiles Cain" (Genesis 4)

Check out the index to all "Skeptic Reads the Bible" columns.