hm. I'll have to go back and re-read it. For some reason I'm under the impression that when Noah and the group hopped off the Ark, God made it pretty plain that they were to scatter and fill up the earth. And that Babel was somehow connected with that, because the generations following Noah refused to do what God asked and thought it better to huddle together and communicate together and whatnot. But I'm not quite sure why I am making that connection, so I guess a Genesis reading is in order.

You posted twice in one month. I'm impressed.
Looking forward to hanging out with you and the lovely wife this weekend!!
Oh yeah, crazy x-box and movie and fellowship time!

These are fun conversations. :) I'm glad we got to talk about it last night.

I don't think the story is primarily about the tower. Instead of "The Tower of Babel" they should rename it "Disobedient People Who Wanted To Be Mighty". Or something like that. Verse 4: "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us MAKE FOR OURSELVES A NAME, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." (emphasis added) Building the city and tower was a means of accomplishing their task - glory for themselves.

But God intervened and said, "No way, you all are foolish and I will not allow you to attain the glory you so choose." Okay, what He actually said was, "And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come let Us [ahh, the Trinity] go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." By confusing their languages, God stopped them from building the city, and He forced them to scatter throughout the whole earth.

So anyway... people wanted glory. they started to build a city with a fancy tower. God said no and intervened.

Application is a little harder because I don't think we still have the command to scatter for the sake of repopulating the earth. But if one of the mains issues is that they were wrongly seeking glory for themselves, we can easily apply that: DON'T DO IT. Maybe we will seek glory by building a city, or more likely, bv building a church. Or perhaps we will seek it in all other ways. People like attention, they like to be praised. And we will try to get it at any cost. But ya better watch out, cause if you go to far you just might start speaking in tongues! (Not like that'd be a bad thing, since it IS a spiritual gift....)

I think the point of the story depends somewhat on when and where it was written, something we can't know with certainty. However, some portions of Genesis—including the first creation narrative/poem—were apparently written during the Babylonian exile, or so I've been told. "Babel" is apparently a reference to Babylon in a roundabout way, and the story may be intended as an insight into the past of the Hebrews' captors. Nimrod was widely held to be the instigator of this building project, so applied by various Hebrew legends. Babylonian idolatry was supposed to have been begun by Nimrod around this point, further cementing their place as enemies of God. The etymology of the word "babel" is interesting: "The word is derived from the Babylonian bab-ilu, meaning 'gate of God'. Gen., xi, 9, suggests a different meaning based on the derivation of the name from the Hebrew word batál, to confound" (source). Wasn't this a line from I Love Lucy? Babaloo!

Anyway, I'm uncertain how much applicability this story has for us today, except as a general warning against pride. None of the early Church Fathers that I know of talked about it at length, and no moral is drawn for us either by the writer(s) of Genesis or by any New Testament writers. I would guess that the Hebrews of the time had a much longer version of the story, and a summary version is what was placed in Scripture, likely with many of the legendary accretions edited out.

On the other hand, maybe there is something relevant about Babel and Nimrod.

Umm, the end of that sentence is a link.

Sorry to hog the comment box. It occurs to me that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is a kind of reversal of the curse of Babel. "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear them, each of us in our own language?" (Acts 2:7-8). The divisions within humanity that were a result of pride are miraculously healed by the Spirit working through men of humility. "For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest" (Luke 9:48). I'm not sure what lesson we can draw from the fact that the gift of tongues has ceased, at least so far as widespread use goes. Some Catholics might want to trumpet Latin as the universal language around which all Christians can unite, but I think that the language of love is the true universal language that can be understood by men in all times and places (sorry to get all Dr. Phil on you). Humility and love draw men together; pride and a conquering spirit divide. The eons-long curse inflicted at Babel is being slowly reversed by Christ through our works of holiness and love.

are you going to be in st. louis from dec. 27 to jan. 1? i'm coming to st. louis to pimp out regent and would love to see you while i'm there. give me a call, sometime. 757.663.2458. by the way, this is danny.