Tower of Babel - Introduction
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, 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” (Gen 11:4).
But the Lord did not approve of this act, and said “Look, they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do now will be impossible for them” (Gen 11:6). The Lord himself scattered man all over the earth, and confused their language so that they may not understand each other. Therefore, the tower was called Babel, named after the settlement it was built in. Babel (Babylon) is derived from balal, which is Hebrew for “confusion.” This story is significant in having an understanding on where language came from, and how our cultures and social norms have formed around this concept.
However, the Tower of Babel is not just a story about language, it is a story about human tendencies. A human tendency of attempting to cross the boundary between human and divine but then are permanently thrown back into the human world. It is also a story about power; a power that God expresses he has over man, and a power that man wish to possess. But what does this say about the power of man and how man acquires it? Why does God choose to reduce the capabilities of man?
As the portrayals of the Tower of Babel become more modern, God’s wrath is more prevalent. It starts out as the image of God being peacefully present or the weather is calm in the background. Then as time goes on, the clouds within the paintings get much darker, and even some lightening is evident which signifies how the people of that time viewed God as being angry with the actions of man.
Another change throughout time would be the construction and destruction of the Tower. The earlier images portray the construction of the Tower of Babel and the later, more modern images, show how the Tower is being destroyed or threatened by God. This shows that people in the more modern era are perceiving this text more harshly; that God is more wrathful to the people of Babel. People in the past were more concerned with the first half of the text, which focused on how the Tower of Babel was constructed rather than God’s disapproval of the people’s actions.
Something we also noticed was that the earlier portrayals were works of illustrative art. However, our four most recent representations are all different types of written texts. We believe this has to do with the improvement in education. Very few people within the 11th century to the 19th century were skilled in reading in writing, therefore, paintings and images were effective ways to communicate their interpretations of that time. As most of us in the more modern era became scholarly and skilled in the art of writing, that is how most of us present our own interpretations today. We will explore more of these concepts and see what the artists and authors also thought about The Tower of Babel across the years.
