12/30/2023 0 Comments Tower of babel scripture![]() To learn more click a button below to go to the Olive Tree website.But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.īut the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building.Īnd the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. Learn more about the Tower of Babel and other Bible events.ĭid you enjoy this article? Then you may be interested in the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible! We have three versions: NIV, NKJV, and NRSV. But He did so because their desire to retain continuity was causing them to launch flawed strategies. And He did so not because it was wrong for them to be together. It only relates to filling - far different issues. Though some have considered this desire not to scatter as disobedience to the blessing in 1:28, it must be recognized that the blessing does not relate to scattering. Descendants who move away (as Abraham does in chapter 12) cut the ties of continuity between the past and the present. Remembrance takes place in the vicinity of the burial ground. ![]() The fear of scattering is directly related (both syntactically and conceptually) to the previously stated desire to make a name. While there is nothing inherently evil or sinful in the desire to be remembered (e.g., God promises to “make your name great” for Abraham in Genesis 12:2 and David in 2 Samuel 7:9), this desire may become obsessive or motivate evil or sinful behavior. The more people who remember one’s name, the more secure is one’s existence in the afterlife. The important point here is that the desire to make a name in the ancient world is common to all. The building of monuments could also contribute to the desirable end result, as could achievements and adventures of various sorts. There is continued life and vitality as long as one is remembered. But more important for this passage, they provided opportunity for the name of the deceased to be spoken. The details often involved memorial meals and various regular mortuary rites. In some cultures a person’s continued comfort in the afterlife was dependent on care from descendants in the land of the living. The ancient world placed immense value on the sense of continuity from one generation to another. Thus, it can bring about its own destruction. It is about exceeding those boundaries to the effect that a city can overreach itself to rival sacred structures. The wording of these omens, understood in the context of the omen series, is essentially about exceeding natural boundaries. ![]() Yet Mesopotamian cities were regularly built on high ground, with the temple on the highest ground. “If a city lifts its head to the midst of heaven, that city will be abandoned” (1.15), and “If a city rises like a mountain peak to the midst of heaven, that city will be turned to a ruin” (1.16). In keeping with the negative results of the project here, the reader of Genesis will find a few of the omens in the Shumma Alu series remarkable. This would have been transparent to the ancient reader. It is this language, along with the indication that God “came down” ( verse 5), that gives textual confirmation that the tower is a ziggurat. Throughout Mesopotamian literature, almost every occurrence of the expression describing a building “with its head in the heavens” refers to a temple with a ziggurat. Consequently, the city was, in effect, a temple complex. Instead, it housed the public buildings, such as administrative buildings, and granaries, which were mostly connected with the temple. In other words, people did not live in the city. In the earliest stage of urbanization, the city was not designed for the private sector. One single architectural feature dominated the landscape of early Mesopotamian cities: towers known as ziggurats. A city, with a tower: the Tower of Babel. ![]() Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”ĭrawn from the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Genesis 11:4 and the story of the Tower of Babel come to life as we take time to understand the deeper cultural contexts.
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