Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Manhunter analysis - part 34: The Tower of Babel

CATEGORY: MOVIES












Above: Tower of Babel, by Lucas van Valckenborch, 1594, Louvre Museum. [Image from the Wikipedia 'Tower of Babel' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]



In part 19 of the analysis, in which was discussed the topic of Saint Augustine on Babylon, we quoted from Book 16, chapter 4 of City of God ("Of the diversity of languages, and of the founding of Babylon"). In the part of the passage in which Augustine quotes from Genesis 11, it is said that Noah's descendants planned to build a certain tower. This tower is called the Tower of Babel, and in the below, we expound on the information given regarding it in part 19.

According to the book of Genesis, the Tower of Babel was an enormous structure built at the city of Babylon (Hebrew: Babel), a cosmopolitan city typified by a confusion of languages, also called the 'beginning' of Nimrod's kingdom. According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, participated in the building. The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have 'its top in the heavens.'

However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was instead dedicated to the glory of man, to 'make a name' for the builders: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:4). Some believe that a vengeful God, seeing what the people were doing, came down and confused their languages and scattered the people throughout the Earth.[a]


a. Wikipedia, 'Tower of Babel'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_babel.


      

Posted at 11:23 AM
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