Holy Moly: Babble

The start of Genesis 11 is a story which doesn't get brought up much by the "literal" Bible folks because it's just such a just-so story that it's hard to read it as anything but. But it's worth talking about for two reasons.

The first is that God comes off as quite a dick.

You've probably heard a version of the story that runs something like this:

Humans decided that they were going to build a tower to Heaven because they could.  It was pride, pure pride, and they thought they could rival God by building a tower so high that it would put them higher than Him.  God saw that and, because He wasn't in the commandment-giving mood, decided to change the languages all the people were speaking so they wouldn't be able to understand each other.  Thus, the people weren't able to work together any more and they failed in their pridefulness.

And that's how humans all came to speak different languages, kids.

You've probably heard that it all relates to Babylon too.  The writers of the story certainly thought it related to Babylon, because they set the story there.  I have a feeling the Babylonians might have taken issue with this reasoning behind the name of their city, but if they wanted to complain, they should have written their own Bible.

The thing is, that's all bogus.  Let's read the real story from the Bible... or rather one translation of it (The Contemporary English Version; while I frequently use the Common English Bible, this translation read a bit more like the story to me in this instance), because I don't read Hebrew and I'm willing to be that most of you don't either.  If you do, feel free to correct the translation.  I've looked at plenty of translations and they all seem reasonably consistent on the details.

At first everyone spoke the same language, but after some of them moved from the east and settled in Babylonia, they said:

"Let’s build a city with a tower that reaches to the sky! We’ll use hard bricks and tar instead of stone and mortar. We’ll become famous, and we won’t be scattered all over the world."

But when the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower, he said:

"These people are working together because they all speak the same language. This is just the beginning. Soon they will be able to do anything they want. Come on! Let’s go down and confuse them by making them speak different languages—then they won’t be able to understand each other."

So the people had to stop building the city, because the Lord confused their language and scattered them all over the earth. That’s how the city of Babel got its name.

Let's unpack that a bit.  First of all, a footnote tells us that "from the east" might also be "to the east" which tells you the problems of translation.  Second, some translations use "Shinar" instead of "Babylonia" which is probably more accurate but means essentially the same thing to the ancient Jew.  Thirdly, some translations give more explicit explanations of what Babel really means to your average ancient Jew, but the crux of it is that it's a play on words based on the Hebrew for "to mix up" or something similar.  Essentially, the city was called Babel because God mixed the people up there.

There's a very interesting translation (The Amplified Bible, which is entirely too Christian for my taste but which does provide some parenthetical context not present in the text itself) which spells out exactly what's going on.

They said, “Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the Lord instructed].” Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one [unified] people, and they all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do [in rebellion against Me], and now no evil thing they imagine they can do will be impossible for them.

So now we see what the ancient Jew would have understood: that the problem wasn't pride, but rather that God had said previously that the descendants of Noah were supposed to go forth across the Earth and be fruitful and multiply and so forth, and these folks were gathering together and not spreading out.  Sure, there's a certain pridefulness there, but basically, God said to move on and these people weren't doing it.

Well fuck you, people who yearn for stability and cohabitation.  No communication for you.

So God fucks their shit up and they get back to wandering around the Earth being unable to communicate with one another.  Like the Lord intended.  Seems a bit dickish to me.  But it's a just-so story.  Why are there different languages and cultures?  Babylon.  Now go fetch Grandpa another bourbon.

The second reason this story is worth talking about is the questions it raises about "literal" readers of the Bible.  Firstly, while there's all sorts of furor about evolution, you don't hear too many Christians protesting the teaching of linguistics in schools.  Probably because it's too complicated for them to satisfactorily protest, but that's neither here nor there.  If there was a Noah and an ark and Genesis is literal truth and not myth, then there should be no evidence that languages evolved either, because clearly that's not true: languages all came into being at some point several thousand years ago.

Similarly, sociology should be a problem too.  Culture as we know it didn't evolve, it came into being at some point several thousand years ago when God cast our ancestors to the four winds.  I'm not even talking about the problems of a 6000 year timeline for this; there should be no evidence that culture evolved.  It simply came into being.

Beyond that, if gathering together to build great cities with great towers is evidence that humanity is violating God's will, why don't we see people standing in front of skyscrapers with placards reading, "God Hates Cities?"  I know that the fundamentalist types are worried about one world government and language and so forth, but it seems to me that Genesis 11 trumps anything later than it in the Bible, and all the homosexuality stuff didn't inspire God to create the division of languages and cultures, so all of that seems like small potatoes.  If you're a Biblical "literalist" then you should abandon civilization and move to Antarctica or something to make sure you're not in violation of one of the original instructions given by God to mankind.

Of course, we don't see any of that happening because it's much easier to tell the kiddies that the story of Babel is about people trying to build a tower to Heaven and God punishing their pride.

In the end, it's a just-so story about why we don't all talk and act the same way.  I think I prefer space aliens.

Holy Moly: Why We Hate Them

I'll take the opportunity to skim Genesis 10 because it's entirely genealogical.  Not that it's not important, but there's no plot.  Before I skip over him, I'd like to point out a passage:

Cush fathered Nimrod, the first great warrior on earth. The Lord saw him as a great hunter, and so it is said, “Like Nimrod, whom the Lord saw as a great hunter.”

Yeah, like I always say, "Like Nimrod, whom the Lord saw as a great hunter."  And at a certain point, possibly Calvin and Hobbes, "Nimrod" became a pejorative.  One can only imagine the stories of Nimrod which got left out of the Bible to make room for more genealogy.  Once again, the Bible was clearly not written by people looking to pitch movies to Hollywood.

But enough of poor Nimrod.

Myths are awesome.  They tell us how people thought about the world when the myth was created, or written down, or whatever.  And much of the early parts of Genesis are myth.  We learn why the rainbow got its... rainbow?  We learn why man is the master of the earth.  We learn why we don't live forever in paradise.  And we learn why it's okay to hate certain people.

Remember Ham and his unfortunate son Canaan?  Well, let's see if we recognize any of Ham's other children.  "Ham’s sons: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan."  Egypt is a gimme.  Cush refers to a region of Africa to the south of Egypt.  Put is probably the legendary Punt, an ever farther portion of Africa that even the Egyptians were pretty vague about.  And Canaan is a region of the Middle East.  Together, we've got all the unpleasant (to the Israelites) peoples of the world to the south.  Cush fathers Nimrod, who goes on to found Babylon (Babel, about which more later) and Nineveh.  From Cush is also descended Sheba (the Queen of Sheba, anyone?).  Egypt even fathers children "from which the Philistines came."  And we really hate the Philistines.

So sure, if you've got a degree in ancient history, you probably recognize the names of some of Noah's other descendants.  You can probably even talk about how it's terribly anachronistic to have them all happen at the same time, when their civilizations weren't contemporaneous.  The Bible is older than dirt.  I get that.  Hopefully you get that.

But notice that Ham, who saw his father's robe serpent, is the father of all the bad guys in what will be our story from here on in.  And we haven't gotten there yet (that will take a bit more genealogy) but Shem is the progenitor of Abram, who grows up to be the first Jew.  And remember what Noah said?

“Bless the Lord,
the God of Shem;
Canaan will be his servant.
May God give space to Japheth;
he will live in Shem’s tents,
and Canaan will be his servant."

 So in other words, this, kids, is why it's okay for us to hate Egyptians, Africans, and Babylonians, and why it's okay for us to subjugate pretty much everyone who isn't us.  Just so.

Now the Israelites have plenty to dislike about Egypt and Babylon.  We'll get there, believe me.  But when you start telling stories about how there's a primal reason, beyond simple grievances, that it's okay for you to hate someone because they're different from you, that's why myths stop being awesome.

Don't tell your kids that it's okay to hate people because it just is.  Because their great great great great great granddaddy saw his father in the alltogether.  Because their great and so on granddaddy stole your great and so on granddaddy's plot of land in a place that doesn't even exist any more because it's older than dirt.  Because of anything that's "just so."

Holy Moly: Poor Canaan

So the first thing Noah does upon being told that the Earth is his is to plant a vineyard so he can get blotto.  I suppose that would be a priority for a lot of people: survive horrible flood, find dry land, get shitfaced.  I guess when you've been alive for 600 years, you can wait the months it takes to make wine from your newly-planted grape vines.

But Noah is a crazy drunk, so he gets stinking and gets naked.  He does it in his tent, so who's complaining really?  Haven't we all hit that point in the drinking day where clothes seem not only superfluous but downright restrictive?

Ham, one of Noah's three sons, sees his dad's junk.  Which turns out to be a HUGE mistake.  I guess it was a thing back then.  Anyway, Ham sees Noah naked and goes to tell his brothers.  We're not told what he told them, so I asked Ham, who said, "Yeah, I told them Dad was drunk, again, and naked, again, and that if they didn't want to see that, they'd better avert their eyes."  Seems reasonable.  If my father was wandering around the house stark, I would probably warn people.

Shem and Japheth, Noah's other sons, pull off an elaborate plan involving walking backward in order to throw a robe over their drunken father.  Why they couldn't just cover their eyes, I don't know.  But anyway, Noah is now sleeping off his drunk, covered in a robe.  Seems like crisis averted, huh?

Noah, upon waking up and wondering just whose robe he's wearing and what the hell was in those grapes, learns of his son Ham's iniquity.  Specifically, that he saw Noah's John Thomas.  Again, I guess it was a thing back then (seeing your father naked, not Noah's tallywacker, although that I'm sure was a thing too, given that he had at least three kids).  And Noah gets butt-hurt and curses... Canaan?

Canaan is Ham's firstborn son.  Canaan did absolutely nothing in this story.  But Noah lays into the kid (although maybe he's 300, since Noah's 600 at this point) like Canaan had stolen Noah's stereo or something.

“Cursed be Canaan:
the lowest servant
he will be for his brothers.”

He also said,
“Bless the Lord,
the God of Shem;
Canaan will be his servant.

May God give space to Japheth;
he will live in Shem’s tents,
and Canaan will be his servant.”

Seems a bit harsh, right?

---

Now I'd like to take a moment to talk about incest before we continue.  Because if you thought Adam and Eve were the problem, they aren't.  We hear from the Bible that the Nephalim were also there, and the sons of Adam and the Nephilim interbred, so it's possible to hand-wave away any concerns that all the humans who are and have ever been might be the product of siblings getting down.  Also, it's never explicitly said that Adam and Eve are the only people God made.  Maybe God made a bunch more.  You can read the Bible "literally" and skirt the incest there.

But not with Noah.  Because Noah and family are the only people left.  No more Nephilim.  No more rest of society.  Noah and family are it.  God wiped out everyone else.  Which means that everyone who is and has ever been, if you read the Bible "literally" is a product of Noah's kids boning.  And since we never hear about Noah's daughters, that's even more problematic.

I don't personally hold this to be true.  For one thing, I don't believe it ever happened "literally."  And for another, I'm pretty sure that we're all the product of siblings boning anyway.  There's a lot of incest in human history and prehistory.  It happened.  It's not really worth worrying about.

Why am I bringing this up right now?  Because it's important to remember that Noah and family are it, and the logical problems that come therewith.

---

Now, back to Canaan.  Why is it important that Noah and family are it?  Because Canaan becomes a very important name later on in the Bible.  And this extremely unjust curse of Noah is a just-so story about how the Canaanites are fit to be subjugated by the Israelites.

So when Israelite kids asked their parents, "Why are we always bashing the Canaanites?" their parents could respond with this story.  Because Canaan's dad saw his dad's junk.

Bullshit.  I'm calling bullshit on Noah.  Canaan did absolutely nothing to deserve this.  And I'm pretty sure the Canaanites did nothing to deserve being subjugated by the Israelites.  The Bible isn't always pleasant.  And if you read it "literally" it'll probably make you unpleasant too.