the tower of babel: the first global village

it has taken me longer to work through these opening chapters of genesis than i had expected. finally, the day of the tower of babel has fully come. i am writing this chapter, appropriately, on one of the last days of the pentecost, which will fully come next sunday. the melody of the tower of babel, inverted, will be the melody of pentecost.

"and the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. and it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of shinar; and they dwelt there. and they said one to another, go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. and they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. and the lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. and the lord said, behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one anothers speech. so the lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
therefore is the name of it called babel; because the lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (genesis 11:1-9)

the story of babel is that of the global village, built with brick for stone and slime for morter, making a name for ourselves. it will reappear again and again with our currently modern technology, our currently modern name. again and again the towers will fall, whether they be in angor wat or in new york city.

again, as before the flood, "every imagination of the thoughts of [man's] heart was only evil continually."

as much as we might wish otherwise, the bible will recognize no quick fix for our evil. but salvation will come, not by men pretending to towering godliness but by god's assuming lowly humanity. the curtain is about to go up on the story of how that happens.

noah

can an overture have an anti-climax? if it can, then with the story of the begining chapters of genesis that i am suggesting form an overture to the whole christian bible reach the anticlimax.

the story is too long to repeat here. it begins with genesis 6:5 and continues through chapter 10. so much happens in the story that it itself could be its own opera, or the overture for all that follows. i will not try to pick out all the threads of the music so much as to suggest how one might listen to this story and how one might remember it as one reads later scripture. the noah story both recapitulates many of the themes of the earlier chapters, and introduces others which won't be developed until the new testament.

it is the story in which god is grieved by the evil that has come into his good creation, and it is the first time we hear of grace.

one easily remarkable feature of the noah story is its repetitons: like the creation story, noah's saga is told both from what i have suggested is the more theoretical viewpoint, using "el"--usually translated "god"--for the name of the holy one, and from the personal viewpoint, using "YHWH," the unpronouncable name--for which most translators substitute "lord." (it is the "lord" who has noah bring into the ark seven of each clean anima.)

the ark should cause one to look forward to other boxes the holy one will use in working out our salvation: the ark in which moses is sent onto the nile, and also the ark of the covenant; its wood suggests the wood moses will cast into the bitter waters of marah, and also to the cross. and the instructions for its building may remind us of the instructions for the construction of tabernacle and temple.

the flood is not just destruction. it is decreation. the waters that had been divided into those above the firmament and those below are rejoined. they prevail. then once again the ruach, the spirit, appears: "and god made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged."

the dove which will appear at jesus' baptism in the jordan makes her first entrance here.

there are differences, important ones, from the short but packed genesis legends that have come before and the salvation history that is to follow. the lord "will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake." the command to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth" is part of god's new blessing, part of what is sometimes called the noahic covenant, sealed with the rainbow.

but there is something most unusual in the role of the several sons in the noah story. chapter ten will be the usual explanation, "the generation of the sons," in this case of noah, linking them to future places, peoples, and events. but first will come one of the strangest episodes in genesis, which we often reduce to "the curse of ham." it is worth reading:

"and the sons of noah, that went forth of the ark, were shem, and ham, and japheth: and ham is the father of canaan. these are the three sons of noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
and noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. and ham, the father of canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. and shem and japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their fathers nakedness.
and noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. and he said, cursed be canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. and he said, blessed be the lord god of shem; and canaan shall be his servant. god shall enlarge japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of shem; and canaan shall be his servant." (9:18-27)

this is one of the most ironically powerful passages in all of scripture. it seems to support leon kass's claim in the beginning of wisdom that genesis is centrally about teaching men to be good fathers. here hung-over noah, in his anger, curses his son canaan (a.k.a. ham). the irony is that of course it is shem, whose descendants will soon occupy the rest of the oldestament, who will become slave to the egyptian hammites.

indeed i would suggest that the wine that makes noah drunk looks for ward to the cup of psalm 75:9-10(:
"in the hand of the lord there is a cup, and the wine is red:
it is full mixt, and he poureth out the same.
as for the dregs thereof,
all the ungodly of the earth shall drink them . . . ."),
the cup about which jesus prays in gethsemany.

but between us and the great work of salvation described in the rest of the bible is stil the towering climax of the overture: babe.