The Tower of Babel - Genesis 11:1-9

11:1-2 - It’s hard to speculate the extent to which people spread out over the earth’s surface when the generations are listed but then we have statements like verse 1 which says, “and the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” As far as I know, languages change over time resulting in accents and eventually into something completely unrecognizable to the original. That everyone spoke the same language indicates to me that there weren’t that many people and that they all lived relatively close to each other. It’s also noted “as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.” I don’t know if this is referencing all the people alive on the earth at that time or just a small population that this story is tracking. Interestingly, the fact that the people dwelled in a “plain” or valley type place is significant. The article from this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes “the Jewish historian Josephus” as noting that the descendants of Shem, Japhet, and Ham all lived in the mountains “and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples.” I know that logically it sounds like a very big deal to have had the entire world population minus 8 destroyed by a flood, but I hadn’t considered just how much that one single thing might have affected the subsequent generations to the point that they wouldn’t even live somewhere that they could obtain food easier. The article also proposes that the “plan in the land of Shinar was the Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.” 11:3-4 - Now that the people are living in a valley instead of a mountain, they are able to come up with a new “technology” which is making bricks “and burn them thoroughly.” I don’t know if this is something they could do in the lower elevation, or if they had more time to create stuff, or if the clay used to make the bricks was better quality in the valley vs. the mountains, or if maybe none of those factors played into the development of the new building materials. Either way, this new method of constructing materials was a game changer for these people. The article notes, “ordinary mud brick, baked in the sun, could only be used to build so high, and then it crumbled under the stress. But the ‘brick… burned thoroughly (i.e. in an oven) could be stacked quite high; the ziggurats at Babylon are three hundred feet high.” Maybe it was the people looking at the types of construction they could make with the new materials, or maybe it was just hubris, but the people decided to “build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.” I was always taught that the people built this tower so that they could reach heaven and get in without keeping the commandments. This never made sense to me because surely at some point the people building the tower would have seen, “I’m really high up and I can’t see heaven,” and not be able to continue simply because of resources or practicality. I never understood why God would be mad about that, yeah the people saying that are being jerks, but look at how many tall buildings we have, and God isn’t mad about those. It just didn’t make sense. The article gives some more reasonable suggestions, quoting Josephus again, who says that the tower was the idea of Nimrod, “for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach.” Again, another reaction of the people because of the generational trauma of the flood. It’s speculated that Nimrod wanted the tower built to guard against another flood, but this was a manipulation tactic used to make it seem like he was protecting the people when in fact he was establishing a tyrannical government over them. Nimrod also vowed to “avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!” This begs the question, did Nimrod or anyone else for that matter, know these “forefathers” that they are so desperate to avenge? My guess is that if they had known them, they would have been victims of their violence and depraved ways and the people might not have been so eager to “avenge” their destruction. It was more a way for Nimrod to unite the people behind a single cause for which he can play the hero. 11:5-9 - It makes it seem like God is blindsided by this building of the tower, which we know that of course he is not, but he’s not pleased with the people’s rebellion against him, so the Lord decides to “go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” I always thought that this was something that happened in a single day and imagined that the people were actively building the tower of Babel and then all of a sudden they couldn’t understand each other and were running around screaming and all that. The IM notes, “In addition to providing an explanation for the numerous languages now found on the earth, this account of the tower of Babel shows how quickly man forgot the lessons of the Flood and turned again from the Lord. The Book of Mormon shows that the actual confounding of the languages may not have been an instantaneous thing but may have happened over an unknown length of time. Hared asked his brother to call upon the Lord and request that their language not be confounded. This request was granted. Then Jared asked his brother to plead that the language of their friends stay the same as theirs. This request, too, was granted. These events imply that the confounding of the languages did not happen in an instant.” The article also notes that the name Babel has different and significant meanings in various important languages. The article says “The Akkadian or Babylonian word babel means ‘gate of God.’ The word translates from Hebrew into English as ‘confusion’ or ‘confound’- hence Moses text, ‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did confound the language of all the earth.’”