OBJECTIONS TO GENESIS 11:6 (THE TOWER OF BABEL)

 

                                               Tower (2013, collage and oils)

Joseph Sommer, writing for the American Humanist Association, voices two objections to the Tower of Babel incident. He states that “it's inconsistent with science – and ludicrous – to believe that God confounded the language of humans because he was afraid they could build a tower high enough to reach heaven (Genesis 11:1-9).” That statement betrays two basic ways in which he misunderstands (accidentally or on purpose) what the text is actually saying. We will comment on both these issues separately.

Inconsistency with Science

The first thing to point out is Sommer's misplaced reliance on the omnipotence of science concerning the exact manner in which strictly verbal languages originally developed and evolved over the millennia before written records. There may be a lot of suppositions and theories based on much later developments, but little in the way of hard proof. And additional considerations are pointed out by Bible scholars below.

Bush: “This [confusion] was to cause a dispersion of the multitudes congregated at Babylon; an end which did not require for its accomplishment the instantaneous formation of new languages, but simply such a confusion in the utterance of the old, as should naturally lead to misapprehension, discord, and division. The dialectic discrepancies, however, thus originating, through perhaps not very great at first, would become gradually more and more marked, as men became more widely separated from each other, and by the influence of climate, laws, customs, religion, and various other causes till they finally issued in substantially different languages.” He thus speaks of the time factor involved, an issue which the biblical text does not specify.

Hamilton mentions another possibility for the meaning of “one language” at the beginning of the story, one first pointed out by Gordon: “When we read in Gen. XI 1 that all the Earth had one language (sapa 'ehat) after the Flood, the meaning is that while the component ethnic elements of the International Order had their speech for family and ethnic communication, there was an international lingua franca that made communication possible so that great projects like the Tower of Babel could be constructed. God broke up the arrogant Order in Babylon...by confounding the lingua franca.” In modern times, we might look on English as the lingua franca for a large portion of the globe.

A number of scholars note that the Bible is not the only ancient text to state the existence of one original language. For example, Burke says, “The understanding that the earliest humans shared a common language is found in the Sumerian Enmerkar Epic.”

Kline points out some other important caveats to take into account: “The confusion possibly resulted from a protracted natural process, but probably a supernatural intervention is intended, a strange miracle of confusion to be answered at Pentecost by another divine descent and a miracle of linguistic fusion. The text does not attribute all language differentiation to this event, nor even claim it as the first instance of such after the Flood, not deny linguistic variations before the Flood.”

If Kline is correct, then this whole account is concerned with a limited geographical area in the Middle East only and not the entire inhabited planet. Many others have proposed the same sort of interpretation for the Flood story as being the best way to look at this narrative in light of geological information.

Next we have the results coming from the science of linguistics to consider. Ellison, for example, states: “Studies of languages that were never reduced to writing have shown how quickly peoples with a common linguistic background have become unintelligible to one another.” Even in this day of multiple means of universal communication, Oscar Wilde's quip still applies to some extent: “Americans and the English are two peoples separated by a common language.” One could even say the same thing regarding the difficulty of the English, Welsh, Irish and Scots understanding one another. And as another example, we once had a marketing representative for our company who came from Belgium. She seriously told us how many languages she spoke, two of which were English and American.

Jacques Ellul always has a unique take on biblical passages. As to this issue, he says that a “separation into several languages is not mentioned but rather a 'confusion of their language.' It is not stated that man will speak several languages, but that he will no longer understand what others are speaking. The emphasis is not on speaking as such, but on understanding.”

Schaeffer, on the other hand, says: “In the flow of history language was one. There was a common language among the descendants of Noah. This isn't surprising considering the tenacity with which men hold onto language. In Switzerland, for example, there are four languages and there is a language group clinging firmly to each one. Within one of them, the Romansh, there are about 60,000 people speaking two dialects, and this situation could continue practically forever. Therefore, that men with a common origin are speaking one language is to be expected.”

Finally, Longman, writing in the Dictionary of Christianity and Science, discusses this issue from a slightly different perspective: He begins by noting what a number of other commentators have pointed out: “Genesis 10:1-11:9 is purposefully told out of chronological sequence. After all, Genesis 10 speaks of a diversity of languages before the story that narrates how humans moved from a single language shared by all people to many languages.”

Then Longman turns to the issue at hand: “But what are we to make of this account of the origins of multiple languages? Should it be taken at face value and provide the foundation of the modern discipline of linguistics? Some scholars today treat the Tower of Babel story and the genealogy of Genesis 10 as an etiology [an explanAtion of origins] of the presence of diverse languages. Not all scholars who believe that Genesis 10:1-11:9 is an etiology would agree that it is historically true. Indeed, many linguists today would argue that human languages did not derive from a single original language, though any treatment of the beginning of human languages is quite speculative. Most scholars, however, understand that Genesis 10 is a primitive linguistic map in the form of a genealogy and reflects not the immediate postflood period, but rather the perception of the known world at the time of Moses (or after) in the second half of the second millennium BC...Though there is a historical reference behind the Table of Nations of Genesis 10..., its primary purpose is theologically cataloging the further fragmentation of humanity as the result of sin.”

Longman is right to stress the main purpose of all biblical writings, and that is to reveal theological information, not primarily to convey scientific facts that mankind is fully capable of (eventually) discovering on its own.

God's Fear

“Sommer makes another colossal mistake in construing God's comment in Genesis 11:6 to mean that He was shaking in His boots as He saw the growing tower slowly approaching His throne. At this point, He was worried that human beings would conquer heaven and set themselves up as gods instead of him. According to this interpretation the people of Babel didn't do anything particularly wrong, but their concerted actions caused God to detect a future threat to His own power if allowed to continue. Those who hold to this view often cite the similarity to Genesis 3:22 where God expresses alarm that Adam and Eve might eat of the Tree of Life and have eternal life as He does. For example, Carr interprets God's words in v. 6 as His “fearing the human power that might result from ethnic and linguistic unity.” But one would have to possess an exceedingly low view of God to believe that He was concerned in any way whatsoever with the possibility of any human beings raising themselves up to threaten His sovereignty.

In the case of the Tower of Babel episode this is made abundantly clear in Genesis 11:4-5 where the inhabitants of Babel attempt to build a tower with its top in the heavens. But in order to view this grand tower, God needs to “come down” to even see it. It is that insignificant. There is also ironic humor elsewhere in this episode. Turner points to the mockery of their words “Come, let's make bricks (nilbonah)...” (11:3) in God's statement of 11:7 – “Come, let us mix up (nabelah) their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.”

Michael Heiser, in most of his writings, stresses again and again that the nations' sin was so great that they needed not only to be punished by dispersal, but in addition were totally abandoned by God, who even purposely put angels in charge of each nation who would lead them all into idolatry.

A much more favored and nuanced view is that God's fear was indeed that mankind had overstepped its bounds. However, the potential danger wasn't to His own status but to the danger they might do to themselves and the creation when they attempted to increase the time of their existence (Genesis 3) or limit the space that God wished them to occupy (Genesis 11).

As Ringgren puts it, “This action of God is both punishment and a preventative measure; it prevents men from going too far in their pride.”

We also see this sort of balanced perspective in scholars such as Kline, who writes that “the dispersion of Gn. 10 appears as a curse, a centrifugal force separating men and retarding the subjugation of the earth (cf. v. 6b). Yet in sin's context this curse proved a blessing for it also retarded the ripening iniquity that accompanied civilization's progress (v. 6) and so it forestalled such judgment as would have interfered with the unfolding of redemption.”

Ross adds, “The potential for calamity is dangerous for the race, and God will prevent it. They will nullify the purposes of God in favor of their own purposes, which are within reach. They will be at liberty for every extravagance if they can think only of their own confederation.”

“A humanity capable of communicating has in its possession the most terrible weapon of its own death: it is capable of creating a unique truth, believed by all, independent of God's.” This is what God saves humanity from.

Osborne: “Traditionally the sin that God punished in the Babel story has been seen as an act of hubris in which humans attempted to build a tower that would, in their view, enable them to assault heaven itself...God's dispersion of the builders throughout the earth may, however, be seen as a means of realizing the original blessing given at creation: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 1:28)...The language of Genesis 11:6 clearly indicates God's concern about the actions of the builders in terms that suggest an act of hubris: an attempt to challenge divine prerogatives...Divine intervention was designed to limit the devastating impact of human hubris on the ordered world and on humanity itself. The divine action was both an act of judgment and an act of grace..”

Buller: says that “the juxtaposition of sem ('name') in Genesis 11:1-9 and 11:10-11 offers an ironic contrast between the builders of the tower of Babel and God's chosen line. When the builders seek to make a 'name' (sem; Gen 11:4) for themselves, God intervenes to thwart their plans (Gen 11:8-9) and then promises to make a 'name' for Abraham...”