2 More Images in Genesis With Connections To Other Origin Stories Pt. 2

In my last post we looked at some significant images in Genesis and compared their connections to other origin stories in the ancient world. We looked at the Watery Deep, the Serpent, and the Tree of Life. We saw how that in the mind of ancient Israelites, these images were loaded with significance, meaning, and sometimes power. Today, we are going to look at two more images in Genesis that have an extremely powerful meanings. These images also give us a peek into seeing a common historical source that serves as the foundation of so many accounts related to them, including Genesis. So in this post, we will be looking at the Flood and the Tower of Babel. I hope your ready to round in 2019 with some new mind-expanding material.

Flood (40-150 days)

The flood story in Genesis is what I call one of those Big stories. According to the account, mankind’s wickedness had grown so bad since Adam that God wanted to purge the earth and start over. He selected one righteous man, Noah, who would build an ark to save his family and enough of each representative species to ensure life could continue after the deluge.

Yet reading the flood story with any attention to detail puts us into a series of contradictory facts. In some parts of the account, the rain that flooded the world lasted 40 days. In other parts of the same account, it is said to have rained for a total of 150 days. Both the 40 day and the 150 day parts show varying details. One part has Noah putting in 2 of every creature. Another part has him putting in 2 of every unclean creature, but 7 of the clean creatures. Suffice it to say, we don’t get the delineation of “clean” and “unclean” animals until the writing of Deuteronomy. That is a clear giveaway that someone “updated” the account after people knew the difference between “clean” and “unclean” animals. So was the flood 40 days or 150 days? We don’t know, and probably never will. What we do know is that there are global flood accounts all over the world, not just in the Middle East. Scholars have surmised that the author of the Flood account stitched together two accounts, each with different emphases.

There are global flood accounts all over the world, not just in the Middle East.


It is interesting to note that in the Mesopotamian account(s), the flood lasted 7-days. Take a note, because we talked about the importance of the number seven in encompassing completion. Many scholars now tend to believe there was some sort of regional flood(s) that serve as the basis for all these accounts. However, theories are still abounding about how deep marine fossils have been found on top of mountain ranges, like in this 1987 NYT article. I can’t explain how geology works, but this does indicate that parts of the land we see now (even mountains) were at one time submerged. As the article states, the mountains were raised in a relatively short amount of time.

It is quite probable that the flood accounts in some 200 different narratives contain a trace of humanity’s memory of major movements. And the fact that sea beds were thrust together with such force that they rose a mile above the surface into mountains tells me something very violent and dramatic happened, like waters parting ways and giving space to dry land. Whether the fossils would be the result of God’s ordering the watery deep back or a massive flood is hard to determine. What remains is that cultures around the world record a devastating flood and fossils are on top of mountain ranges. The exact details of the Genesis flood may not be historical, but given what we see, I believe a major flood happened and left a permanent impression on the minds of the ancient peoples to be codified time and again.

Tower of Babel

The final image of our set is the Tower of Babel. My first several readings of the Tower of Babel had been just as literal as seven 24 hour periods accounting for all of creation. A lot happened in the Babel account. It was after the flood, so mankind had repopulated again. Humanity shared a common language and was intent on “building a name for themselves” by building a tower to reach heaven. The proper Akkadian name for the town was “Babilim” or “Gate of God.” Humanity had great aspirations. So God came down and decided to thwart mankind’s efforts rise to the heavens. He did so by “confusing the languages.” From there, humanity had to stop construction of the tower and separate according to their language groups. And that, folks, is how we got so many language.

Again, there is so much more going on here when we scratch the surface of historical, linguistic, and literary contexts. This is what I have learned from my research.

Historically

It is important to note that the Genesis author(s) made special note of the building material for the tower: clay bricks and bitumen. This is very significant because those are the building materials of Babylonia. It is believed by some (Bill Arnold) that the tower in mind was the temple to Marduk called Esagil, which is made of the same material in Enuma Elish (this would put the writing of the Babel narrative after 669 BC). Then there is the parallel in other Sumerian accounts of humanity sharing one language.

It is believed by some that the Tower of Babel was the temple to Marduk called Esagil, which is made of the same material in Enuma Elish


Linguistically

If we were to read Genesis in the Hebrew form, one thing that would quickly come to the forefront is the author(s) heavy use of puns. We can see this in the Garden with the terms “naked” and “wise” which in Hebrew sound very similar. We see it again with the Tower of Babel with two words sounding similar: 1. Gate of God (Babilim), Akkadian name for Babylon 2. Confusion (Balal). To use these terms in an English sentence, it would read something like this: The people of Babilim built a tower that resulted in Balal.

The linguistic consideration tells us that Babylon had to be significant enough in the mind of the Genesis author(s) to warrant a story making fun of their aspirations. The author(s) used this account to make a rhetorical point against Babylon’s claim to supremacy and against its kings’ claims of being part god.

The author(s) of Genesis used the Tower of Babel account to make a rhetorical point against Babylon’s claim to supremacy and against its kings’ claims of being part god.


Literary

It’s difficult to separate out literary and linguistic contexts. What is probably most important to note with the account of the Tower of Babel is where it fits in the flow of the Book of Genesis itself. The tower account serves as a bridge or transition point, much like the flood did. The Tower of Babel represents a division of peoples into separate groups. The reason being is the increased arrogance of humanity and their attempt to build a tower to heaven. So we have a transition into different language groups. The period that is purportedly referenced in the Tower of Babel is the Bronze Age (2nd Millennium BC), where archeology has shown that people groups began to organize with laws, architecture, art, and literature.

Who lived in the Bronze Age? Abraham. And that is why the Tower of Babel serves as a transition point. Before Babel, Genesis deals mostly with what we call Primeval History, a time when some records exist, but not much. After Babel, that begins to change.

Babel fits into the Genesis narrative as a natural juxtaposition between peoples. On the one hand we have the people of Babylon/Babel wanting to do the opposite of what God had commanded humanity. The command was to spread out and populate the earth. They wanted to stay together, build a tower, and “make a name for themselves” (key phrase). So God works in a way to cause them to dispel, by confusing their languages.

On the other hand we get a lone person living in the region, fully enculturated by Babylon/Babel, fully aware of their motives and efforts. His name is Abram. At the prompting of God, Abram does the opposite of what his fellow people were doing. They were consolidating to make a name for themselves. But when God calls out Abram, He declares that He will make Abram a great nation and will “make his name great.” We get a contrast. Abram’s ancestral people are striving in their own ability to make their names “great,” by disobeying God’s command. God promises to Abram to “make his name great,” if he obeys his command.

So here, we see the author(s) of Genesis brilliantly pitting the result of self-interested disobedience against the result of God-honoring obedience. And this moves our narrative into the Patriarchal period of Genesis and History.

The author(s) of Genesis brilliantly pitting the result of self-interested disobedience against the result of God-honoring obedience. And this moves our narrative into the Patriarchal period of Genesis and History.


 

So these are the images in Genesis that are connected with other Ancient creation stories. From the watery deep to the Tower of Babel, the evidence from all the written records in the “Cradle of Civilization” sheds an amazing amount of light on how we can read and understand Genesis much better. At the end of the day, for those of the Christian faith, we can look at all these bodies of literature and reasonably conclude that they point to historical realities that actually happened. The details in Genesis may not be completely literal or accurate like a modern history book, but that doesn’t mean they are not true. It simply means there must be a more accurate way of reading Genesis than what we are accustomed to. Our faith shouldn’t be shaken by the discovery that Genesis isn’t the only work that includes these images and accounts. Rather, it should be strengthened. Why? Because when we read Genesis the way the Hebrews read Genesis, we can see the deep power these images had in their minds and spirits. A power that both communicates transcendent truth and a loving God. Time and again, you’ll see me write “God is in the business of meeting us where we are at.” When we read Genesis, we need to keep in mind the original hearers and readers of the book looked at the world differently and understood meanings differently. For God to meet a people where they were in 1400 BC, He is going to know the number seven was of significance to them. He is going to know the number 40 represented an extreme amount of time. He was going to know levirate marriages protected vulnerable, childless widows. He was going to know the temptation to worship the sun and moon as gods by their names (Shamash and Sin). God knew the role of serpents in foreign religions and how enticing those religions would be for Israel. He knew the reverence people all over the Middle East had for trees and how they were viewed as sources for life. He knew whether by building a temple or ascending a throne, humanity’s tendency is to make themselves the objects of reverence and worship, either claiming deity or claiming to be in with deities. God knew Israel. He knew her temptations, he knew her strengths and values, he knew her potential. So he used what was familiar to Israelites to communicate his truths and bring them into something new. At the same time, he took many of the images that held weight in their minds and re-infused them with greater transcendent truths and realities that only the God of the universe could do. And he did it by being in the business of meeting people where they are.

God used what was familiar to Israelites to communicate his truths and bring them into something new. At the same time, he took many of the images that held weight in their minds and re-infused them with greater transcendent truths and realities that only the God of the universe could do.


 

Thank you for reading my newest post. Whether you agreed with the point in here or not, I hope this has helped you to

 

Expand Your Mind Through the Power of Words

One thought on “2 More Images in Genesis With Connections To Other Origin Stories Pt. 2

  1. […] it is unlikely that 40 days would be enough time to unleash that much water. We have mentioned in a previous post, that the number 40 doesn’t always refer to the literal number 40. The Ancient Near Eastern mind […]

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