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 6 of 14, was the third of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

Preview of this post

This post, Number 7 of 14, is the fourth of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

III. Explanations for the story

1. D. Destruction of idols

Yet another explanation for the Tower of Babel story might be found in the destruction of the Tower representing God’s destruction of idols. The Bible regarded all towers as a symbol of human arrogance (see comment to Genesis 11:4 in The JPS Torah Commentary on Genesis). The story could have been devised upon discovery of the ruins to show that God had destroyed the people who erected the tower. If the tower was erected by pagans, the story could show God’s power over even non-believers. On the other hand, if the tower was erected by Jews (the descendants of Noah), then the story could show that idols and idol worship on this magnitude would not, and was not, tolerated even prior to the covenant.

Modern archeology has affirmed the writings of Herodotus that there was a sacred enclosure of Babylon and that it contained a ziggurat, Etemenanki, that was closely related to the Esagila, which was a complex of buildings forming the temple of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon. The tower was thus probably religious in nature. Could God have been destroying the temple of Marduk to show His power over the pagan god?  Destroying this temple and thwarting the objective of the people to become powerful and central at the very outset of their enterprise would be an efficient way of establishing God’s dominion over the pagans or would-be pagans of Babylon.

This tower may have been erected in strict compliance with pagan rules and rites as interpreted by the pagan priests to comply with the wishes of the pagan gods (the pagan gods would have been considered as being intimately involved in the erection of such an edifice). The ruins would provide an opportunity for the Hebrew writers to devise a story in which such a structure was erected only to be destroyed by the Hebrew God thereby proving His power over the pagan gods.

The Tower would become a symbol and a destination for pilgrimages and hence could be an idol. As such, it would be destroyed under the prohibition against the building of idols.

If such a tower were built by men without the instruction from God, could it be considered presumptuous and forcing God to conform to what man envisioned? Some people (see the section of this essay regarding legends) have interpreted the statement “With its top in the sky” as implying that the people built the tower with an intention of storming heaven. However, there does not seem to be any support in the story for this interpretation. It is more likely that the term “With its top in the sky” was merely a poetic way of saying that the tower was extremely tall.

Some people have interpreted the phrase “then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach” as God’s disapproval of the prospect of unrestrained human powers which might lead to unrestrained hubris or even a wish to be like the gods. Yet another way to look at this is that God did not believe that humans were ready to rule themselves from a central government. Rule from a central government may encourage despotism, conquest and enslavement. In such a case, “might would make right,” and God just finished correcting that problem with a flood^[1] and a restart of human civilization^[2]. In fact, the plain of Shinar was founded by Nimrod^[3], who was a mighty hunter and would be expected to try to subjugate others, by force if necessary. God sought to avert that eventuality.

Preview of the next post

This post, Number 8 of 14, is the fifth of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

^[1] See the essay “Who Were the Nephilim” and the essay “The Real First Sin”.

^[2] It turns out that the memory of the flood was very fresh because the passage immediately preceding the Tower story specifically refers to the flood.

^[3] See Genesis 10:8-10.