Bible Versus Babel

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Genesis chapter 12 begins enigmatically: “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your land, and from your kin group, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” Abraham was a native of Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), the most advanced civilization of its time. Mesopotamia was known for its knowledge in the arts and sciences—mathematics, astronomy, architecture, irrigation and animal husbandry—and, above all, for its cities. Babylon, for example, comprised 2,500 acres. That was even larger than the 1,850 acres of Nineveh, a city that took three days to traverse (Jonah 3:3). Babylon’s population is estimated to have been 100,000, and the alluvial plain in which Babylon was situated (at the head of the Persian Gulf) may have contained as many as a million people.

Why then did Abraham leave, especially for the backwater region of Canaan? More precisely, why did God want him to leave? The answer must reside in the previous chapter. It is an anti-Babylonian polemic.

Note the mocking irony of the text: “Brick served them as stone, and bitumen served them as mortar” (Genesis 11:3). They used inferior materials! Instead of stone and mortar (plentiful in Canaan), they used brick and bitumen. They schemed to build a city and a tower “with its top in the sky” (Genesis 11:4)—a clear reference to Esagila, the famed ziggurat of Babylon, whose name means “the structure with the upraised head.” Yet it did not reach the sky. To inspect the tower, “the Lord came down” (Genesis 11:5); and his divine agents were likewise instructed: “Let us go down” (Genesis 11:7).

The irony in the text is emphasized by key passages. The Babylonians wanted to build a city “else we shall be scattered over the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). The Lord, however, “scattered them over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:8–9). Even the structure of this passage discloses its anti-Babylonian stance: Verses 1–4 declare the Babylonians’ intention; verses 5–9 describe the intervention of the Lord. The second half completely reverses the first half. In other words, “man proposes and God disposes.”

In the biblical view, humans were directed to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1). Instead, the Babylonians schemed: “Let us build us a city and a tower.” To be sure, biblical criticism assigns Genesis 1 and 11 to different sources. But the redactor deliberately arranged these chapters in their present order. God countered their defiance; he “scattered them over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:8, 9). This episode betrays the anti-urban bias of the Bible. Babylonian cities were characterized by increasing congestion. But instead of building out, the Babylonians built up—a skyscraper (the tower). Urban blight and poverty set in, spawning lawlessness and street violence.

Mesopotamian religion was of no help. As a result of its polytheism, chronic indecision in heaven meant chronic instability on earth. The city, with its endemic problems of congestion, pollution and moral decay, was hardly the environment for fostering the ethical life. Who founded the city, according to the Bible? Cain, the first murderer (Genesis 4:8). Moreover, it is no accident that the patriarchs of Genesis encamped near cities, presumably for commercial purposes, but never settled in them. Jacob is a striking example. He buys property outside Shechem (Genesis 33:19), and even after Simeon and Levi sack the city and despoil it (Genesis 34:27–29), Jacob and his family do not occupy it.

Mesopotamian mythology confirms that solutions other than the biblical one were devised to reduce overpopulation. The creation myth of Atrahasis informs us that the gods attempted to curtail human population by a series of natural disasters. When these failed, the gods decided to eliminate the human race by a world wide flood. Atrahasis, the Mesopotamian Noah, was saved through the intervention of his protector god. Finally, a compromise was reached that appeased the enraged gods. Henceforth, human population would be controlled not only by natural disasters but also by internal birth control: natural barrenness, high infant mortality and three orders of celibate priestesses.

It is thus no accident that Genesis 11 comes after the biblical flood story (Genesis 6–9). The Bible is saying: You Babylonians claim that the gods have solved the problem of overpopulation by instituting natural disasters and birth control. There is a better way: Break up your cities. They only spawn poverty and crime. “Fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1). Build out, not up.

We can now understand why God told Abraham to leave Mesopotamia: It is no place to raise a family. In a sense Abraham was a postdiluvian Noah. Abraham was to be saved from the moral corruption of Mesopotamia. He was destined to be the founding father of a people who would “follow the way of the Lord to act in righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19), setting an example for humanity to emulate. And thus through Abraham “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

Abraham was given a solution. But what will be ours—to move to the moon? I am sure that many readers share my experience of flying cross-country in the early evening hours and noticing that between brightly lit cities there are vast areas of total darkness. Is there still room to “fill the earth”?

Genesis chapter 12 begins enigmatically: “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your land, and from your kin group, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” Abraham was a native of Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), the most advanced civilization of its time. Mesopotamia was known for its knowledge in the arts and sciences—mathematics, astronomy, architecture, irrigation and animal husbandry—and, above all, for its cities. Babylon, for example, comprised 2,500 acres. That was even larger than the 1,850 acres of Nineveh, a city that took three days to traverse (Jonah 3:3). Babylon’s population […]