This series “The Tower of Babel” is part of the Section “God and Man Learning to Work Together – The Journey Begins” and consists of fourteen posts. The series proposes new explanations for why God destroyed the Tower of Babel.

Review of the previous post

The previous post, Number 11 of 14, provided a theocentric explanation for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

Preview of this post

This post, Number 12 of 14, discusses the question of why God destroyed the Tower of Babel yet allowed Patriarchs, such as Jacob, to erect towers.

1. Why was the Tower of Babel destroyed and the towers built by the Patriarchs allowed to remain?

Abraham, Jacob clearly built towers, yet their towers were not destroyed yet the Tower of Babel was destroyed. The difference seems to be the intent of the tower. The towers built by the patriarchs were to celebrate God; whereas, the Tower of Babel was to celebrate and aggrandize the builders. The towers built by the patriarchs were intended to get closer to God; whereas, the Tower of Babel was meant to assault heaven. The difference thus is clearly the intent of the tower. The structures erected by the Patriarchs were not intended to be idols; whereas, the Tower of Babel could be viewed as an idol. This is clearly shown by the story of Jacob’s ladder. The ladder in that story went to heaven (“…a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down it….” (Gen 28:12)) and God approved of the structure. In that case, God was the one who built the structure, not men and the structure was intended to teach a lesson from God.

Still further, the covenant at Sinai prohibited the building of idols, which would include towers. How did the patriarchs get away with building towers? One possible explanation seems to be that the towers of the Patriarchs were built before the covenant at Sinai so there was no prohibition against such structures when the patriarchs erected them.

Preview of the next post

The next post, Number 13 of 14, is the first of two posts discussing the destruction of the Tower of Babel in relation to God interfering with man’s free will.