Dr. Elaine Phillip,
Old Testament History, Lit., and Theology, Lecture 5
© 2011, by Dr. Elaine Phillips and Ted Hildebrandt
A. Preliminary Matters
Well good
morning to you. If you’re wondering why on earth I’m sort of looking at you and
smiling it’s because I’m giving myself a test to see how many names I know. I’m
still getting about a probably 60% which is a D in my book. So if you think I
don’t know your name please make sure I do by the time we get to the end of
this week or next week. A couple of announcements up here as you can see.
Kerry’s review, Matt’s review--take advantage of them. Matt’s will start for
the first time tonight and Kerry, you’ve already had one right? Okay good. Let
me also apologize because I’m supposed to be over in the chapel by 10 o’clock
this morning so for me to get there and get packed up and so forth we’ll stop at
about 10 minutes of 10. So that gives you an extra 40 minutes to just go have a
nice cup of coffee and you should be wide awake for chapel. I hope you’ll be
praying for me. My voice still isn’t in great shape but, Lord willing, we’ll make
it through that. And then the third thing up here - as with the last open forum
so also with this one; they’re are entirely voluntary or optional, but if
you’ve got questions that we’re just not having time to deal with in class (and
I realize this is a survey so we go fast), I’ll be in the Martha Lewis room on
Wednesday evening 7:30 until 8:15--this is a come and go thing. So if you can’t
be there for the whole time, that’s fine. But just to have some forum within
which to deal with your questions. So I think with that I’m going to try an
experiment which is actually to teach you to sing this morning. But I’m going
to turn the microphone off and Ted you can just excise this part from the video
tape! Is that fair? Because I might sound horrible and you might not know the
right notes especially if the words don’t come up.
Now I promise you that’s going to sound at least from my side a
little better when I can sing, to say nothing of talking. Did you get it?
Thanks Kerry. That was wonderful back there. Did you get it? Do you want to try
singing it? Please drown me out as fast as you possibly can. Here we go:
[Singing]
And it goes faster than that and has drums and you know cymbals and
things when you really do it right. You can drum on your seat in front of you.
We’re going to do it once more. Of course the main point is not to forget the
meaning behind this but it is kind of fun to learn to sing in Hebrew, don’t you
think? Let’s try it once more and that will be just about it. [Singing]
And that is probably all I better do for a while. Let’s take some
time to pray together as we start and then we’ll get onto the business for the
day.
Gracious heavenly Father we are so thankful for your
loving-kindness, your covenant loyal love to us, for your faithfulness. We’re
thankful to be able to get up this morning to have health and so many things
that you shower so richly upon us. And so we offer you our thanks. We pray that
your Spirit would be working through us and in us. This day by your word teach
us we pray that we might better be servants in your kingdom. We ask these
things in Christ’s name with thanksgiving. Amen.
B. Review of Previous
Material
Well we’re going to do a little review
among other things. Questions from last time? Any questions? I know we did a
lot of things and I’m sure that there are lots of questions but anything that
you can think of that’s burning through the end of Genesis chapter 4 that we
didn’t address. Tim. [Student Question]. Good question. And of course, you know
related directly to that is what I usually hear and what I was expecting: Where
did Cain get his wife? So two things to say and maybe there’s a lot more to
deal with here but at least two things to say. The first thing you can think of
is Adam and Eve are having lots and lots of children. God has told them to be
fruitful and multiply. Maybe that’s what we’re talking about. I think, however,
that there’s another way to look at it, and again this is going to trample on
some thoughts and feelings and I don’t mean to do that, but my suggestion would
be that when you look at the fossil record, there is a long history of human-looking
creatures - you know, creatures that seem to be on two feet and perfectly
capable of engaging in some kind of hostility or other. It’s into one
particular line of those in Genesis 2 that God has breathed his Spirit and Adam
is the result of that. Adam is in the image of God but that doesn’t rule out
necessarily (and again I’m going to end up saying that I don’t know!) that
maybe some of these other creatures are going to be capable of taking him on. Again
I realize that probably raises more questions than it answers but those are the
two main ways of solving this. We do have a very clear indication at the end of
Genesis 4 that we have other things that are human on the scene. So thank you,
good question.
Anything else before we move on? I got a couple more review
questions for you. Here’s the first one: what’s an adumbration? You can wake up
in the middle of the night and you’re going to be able to say this. An adumbration
is… [tell me your name again? Lynn? Thanks. Student answer] Yes, foreshadowing,
something that looks ahead to an event that’s going to happen later on.
Sometimes later on in the First Testament; maybe all the way into the life
ministry of Jesus as well.
Another question for us. Which of the following does not appear in
the narrative of Genesis 3 as an expression of mercy on the part of God? Here’s
the first option: providing covering of skins for them which is both protective
and symbolic of God’s keeping them in the family. Second option: Promising
redemption by means of the serpent’s seed being struck or stricken. Third
option: banishing them from the garden so they couldn’t eat from the tree of
life and live as sinful creatures. Fourth option: All the above are evident in
the narrative of Genesis 3. What’s your answer? Nick, is that a hand up? [student
answer] You’ll say number three. Okay. Anybody else? [student answers] The
second one. Okay… we got a vote for two, we got a vote for three. Trevor.
[student answers] The fourth one. And the answer is… the fourth one. Right.
Because remember that God has specifically said in the curse pronounced against
the serpent that the seed of the woman is going to indeed crush the seed of the
serpent, so that’s going to be clearly within this whole thing of mercy. The
third one: Banished from the garden and not being able to live forever live as
sinful creatures is truly indicative of God’s mercy. Forever increasing sin on
the part of the increasingly decrepit human kind is not a nice prospect. So at
any rate, let’s suggest that all are evident there.
C. Notes on Genealogies
I promised that we would pick up with just a couple of notes and
comments with regard to Old Testament genealogies. You read them in chapter 5;
you also read them in chapter 11. And so here are just some suggestions on
purposes and then observations about genealogies as well. God’s people in the
past are not a nameless mass. Already, even in these early chapters of
humankind, God shows his concern for people. They are a named people; names are
awfully important. We’re going to see that through the entirety of the Old Testament
and already here -- names and relationships. There are going to be relationships
established among these descendants as well. Further, individuals are indeed
valuable in God’s eyes; that’s going to be an important thing to keep in mind,
too, so hang on to that. We have another forthcoming point. (Here’s why I
quizzed us on “adumbrations” a moment a go.) There is this marvelous promise
with regard to our place in God’s family. With regard to the fact that we still
are inheritors, remember that figure of the garments being placed on Adam and Eve,
indicative that they are his children in spite of their sin? Well, likewise
there is that wonderful figure of being written in to the Book of Life and so
the suggestion is that even as these genealogies are being written, and names
are being named, the importance of individuals in God’s eyes is being stressed.
We also have an adumbration of God’s people being written in the Book of Life
which is a wonderful promise. And then, of course, it’s going to set the stage
so that the people like Noah don’t just drop out of the sky and people like
Abraham have a heritage. Those are going to be important things. Keep in mind,
of course, that these are not intended to be comprehensive. For example, if
you read Matthew 1, there is a genealogy there but it is not comprehensive.
There are some names that are missing from that geneaology, too. So these
genealogies are not intended to give us a sequential, chronological added up
kind of idea.
And then the other thing we want to make a note of and you probably notice this as you were reading these sections. The ages in Genesis 5 are approximately… how many years, how many hundreds of years, do most of these guys live? As mentioned in Genesis 5. Chelsea. [student answers] Yes, somewhere in the 900s. Now who’s the exception? It’s a fascinating exception. His name starts with e. Enoch. Right. Enoch who only lives, interestingly enough, a symbolic 365 years. Enoch who walked with God and was not, which raises all sorts of interesting questions as far as what that means and why God took him so early. At any rate, all the rest of them, by and large, are living into their 900s in Genesis 5. That’s not going to be the case by the time we get to Genesis 11. They’re having children earlier and also they don’t live nearly as long. So keep that in mind. There are a number of suggested reasons as to why that might be, by the way. And I’ll just pose one for you; I’m sure that there are others that are equally valid. But the suggestion possibly is that over the millennia (and we don’t know how many are incorporated in these genealogies), there are the cumulative effects of sin on the physical body; mutations, and so forth and so on, disease being more and more able to access and affect the human body and that may be one of the reasons why the age decreases a little bit or significantly by the time we get to the end of Genesis 11.
D. Circumstances
Prompting the Flood (Genesis 6)
Okay, we’re going to move along onto the thing that most of you
probably have the most questions on because I heard some already last time;
that is this fascinating scene at the beginning of Genesis 6. Let me read it
for you and then let’s talk about it a little bit. “When
men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful.” Now I’m going to
change just a little bit because the NIV says that “they married any of them.” A
more literal rendition is that “they took as women” or “they took as wives” -
the same Hebrew word can be translated “women” or “wives.” So the point is
that the sons of God are taking them. Got that? Any that they chose. “Then the
LORD God said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with Adam forever (he’s mortal); his
days will be a hundred and twenty years.’” Verse four: “The Nephilim were on
the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God went to the
daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of
renown.”
What are your questions? What’s going on? Who are the sons of God? That’s
generally the one that surfaces right away. And of course, I think if you’ve
downloaded the lecture you might have some ideas. There are three main ways
for thinking about the identity of these “sons of God” who go take daughters of
men. The first suggestion is that they may be the godly line of Seth. In
Genesis 5, we read about the descendants of Seth and there are some important
connections that are being made in terms of those names. If you look at those
names, there are some interesting comparisons between those names and the line
of Cain in Genesis 4. Some people suggest that this line of descendants from Seth,
chapter 5, are the “sons of god.” At the beginning of chapter 5, it says he’s
made in the image of God, but now they’re going and taking daughters of Cain in
that whole line and this bring these two lines together. That’s one way of looking
at it.
The second way of looking at it is this (and you’ll see very
clearly where I come down by the time we’re done with this): as you read in other
places in Scripture and notably Job 38:7, which uses the term “sons of God” in
parallel with morning stars singing together, the “sons of God” are clearly
representative of angelic creatures. And by the way, to even take it a little
bit further, in Job 1 we learn that the sons of God are coming right into the
presence of God and Satan’s with them and, of course, God and Satan have this
exchange about the character Job. “Sons of God” is used in that context as
well. So you’ve got those two things. You’ve also got 2 Peter 2:4 which talks
about sons of God being held in judgment. So basically the idea here is that something
absolutely unthinkable is occurring; fallen angelic creatures (whenever they
may have fallen and we don’t know when but angelic creatures who have stood up
on their hind legs and defied God) are now involved in an attempt to invade
God’s creation and thwart God’s plan for redemption by doing something as
odious and as heinous as this. And interestingly enough when you read a fair
number of Jewish literature pieces from the time between the close of the First
Testament and the beginning of the New Testament (notably related to Enoch, but
there are other texts as well), they very clearly read it this way. And it may
be that the New Testament is kind of picking up on that, especially with
reference to what 2 Peter has to say. So you’ve got in this case something that
is just unthinkable as I have said - introducing heinous evil and we’ll talk
about the nature of that evil in a moment.
The third way of interpreting this has kind of come up in the last 20-30
years or so with a little more force. There’s a sociological emphasis in terms
of peoples’ reading of Scripture. And so those who are doing this are saying
this is a myth or a legend if you will. They are not taking it as having
historical value. It’s a myth or a legend. And basically this is referring to
the fact that there are boundaries, sociological boundaries, being crossed - royal
lines being intermarrying with commoners. And we say “great, no problem.” Back
then, that was something that you just didn’t do
So those are three possible ways of reading it. I think it helps us
a little bit as we try to plumb this, to explore the expression “Nephilim.” Now
I’m not sure what translation you’re reading. The NIV kind of leaves it as “Nephilim”--it
simply transliterates the Hebrew word. This is the Hebrew word. Some
translations use the expression or the word “giants.” The Hebrew word “Nephilim”
probably is related to the verb “naphal” which simply means “to fall.”
So therefore, we’re going to try to figure out what are we talking about when
we’re talking about fallen ones. Are they, as I put up here, morally fallen? In
other words, does this fit our interpretation that says angelic creatures who have
gone totally astray and now are intent on leading humankind away from God’s redemptive
plan? Are they morally fallen? Are they fallen from heaven - kind of even
picking up on that more? Or remember what it says as we read on in this text.
There is lots and lots of violence here. Verse 11: “the earth was corrupt in
God’s sight and full of violence” and so some people read these Nephilim as
being large creatures who are oppressively violent. Now how do we know they’re
giants? It doesn’t say so here, does it? No. “Heroes of old, men of renown.”
How do we know they’re giants? A few translations actually go that route. Now
there’s a fascinating reference in Numbers 13. You can look at it later. We’ll
look at it in about 3, well 4, weeks. In Numbers 13, where the spies have been
sent by Moses to explore the land and they go and they see a wonderful land,
but what do they see? They see the descendants of the Anakim who are related to
the Nephilim. And all these spies feel like grasshoppers in their presence. In
other words, they’re huge! They’re frighteningly huge. So we know that we’re
talking about some great kinds of creatures here.
Well, as I suggest, whatever this is (and I think you probably
gather that I tend towards the second of the explanations) - whatever this is,
whatever means Satan is using, it’s clearly an attempt to again derail or
sidetrack God’s redemptive plan. You’ve got a godly line of Seth but now things
are going to happen that are completely awry and we have a terrible situation
on the earth. Notice that it says, verse 5, “the Lord saw how great human wickedness
was on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of his heart [Adam’s heart,
human kind’s heart] was only evil all the time.” Horrible evil.
Let me make one other comment in that regard. When you look at
verse 11 and following, “the earth was corrupt full of violence. God saw how
corrupt the earth had become.” Hebrew word there, take my word for it and then
take Hebrew and then you can test me out and make sure this is right, the
Hebrew word there is exactly the same as the Hebrew word in verse 17 when God
says “I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to” –your NIV says “to
destroy” but it’s exactly the same Hebrew word. In other words, it’s measure
for measure justice. Humankind has corrupted the earth and therefore God is
going to corrupt the whole situation. Measure for measure. Measure for measure.
The same word is indicating that. Well what do we have?
E. Noah’s Preparations
Noah’s told to build
an ark; I’m not going to say a whole lot about this. We’ll talk about the Gilgamesh
epic in a minute but the thing I’d like you to just note is another Hebrew
word. Isn’t it great? You get to learn a little bit of Hebrew here. This Hebrew
word is tevah that’s the word that’s translated “ark.” This craft, this
boat--I want you to hang onto that word. Put it somewhere where you’re going to
be able to drag it back out again because we’re going to need it again and make
a very interesting comparison and I’m going to leave you in the dark now in
terms of what the comparison is going to be. But just hang on to it. In about 3
weeks we’ll get there, 4 weeks. Okay?
Noah makes a tevah and in it he puts two of every kind of
animal and seven of those who are clean. I don’t know how many species he got
on the ark. You can just guess as you wish. The thing that we want to keep in
mind is that this is a preservative measure. He’s preserving the major animal
classes. Why the seven? Two of everything but now seven of clean? Notice that
he knows something about clean and unclean animals. God seems to have
instructed him on this. Or you can say later editors are reading it back in. But
already even Cain and Abel know something about sacrifices. So I’m willing to
say that God instructed him. Why seven? Lucky. [student answers] Possibly
something symbolic about God. True. Anything else? If it’s clean animals? Becca.
[student answers] Yes, very possibly this is in order to keep on some sort of a
sacrificial process going. Noah is a righteous person; we learn that earlier on
in the chapter so perhaps this is what’s happening here. They’re going to be
used as sacrificial animals. Clearly, or I should say pretty clearly, they were
not used for eating. How do we know that? Is it Rebecca again? Kate? Go ahead.
[student answers] Yes. It’s in chapter nine that the Lord says “and I give you
animals,” basically living creatures, “to eat” and therefore the fear and the
dread of Adam falls on those creatures. So you’re absolutely right. It appears
that they are not eating them prior to that time. So we probably do need to be
thinking in the terms of sacrifices which could go right along with the
symbolic import of what Lucky was saying as well.
F. The Extent of the
Flood
Just a couple points that I want to make in this regard: this is
always a bit of a challenging one. We can get pretty fairly clear understanding
in terms of the time. We know that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and of
course if you’ve been reading your Scriptures carefully you’re well aware that
the use of 40 is symbolic. It’s going to show up over and over and over again.
But it rains for that extent. Therefore, utter destruction. And then, of course,
the flood waters are there for 150 days and then it’s after about a year that
they recede. So the time extent is not a challenge so much. Again we can map
that out from the Scriptures pretty well.
In terms of geographic extent or geographical range, we run into
little more problem. First of all we don’t know when this happened - how far
back it was. It does say it covered all the mountains. It does say it covered
all the earth. Now, please don’t say I’m a heretic as I say my next sentence.
As you read the rest of the Scriptures, “all” sometimes means all in a
particular location, not everything everywhere. And there are other references
to that if you’re interested. The end of Genesis does this with the Joseph
narrative in regard to the famine [it says “all” the earth]. You see it in
Samuel as well. So maybe we’re talking here about all the habitable land in the
Mediterranean basin. Maybe. Part of the problem is (and again I can only
speculate at this point; I don’t know all the answers to all the questions)
that as you look at your geological time frame as it’s stacked up in sediment,
we don’t have evidence for a flood that is universal, comprehensive at the same
time throughout the whole of the earth. You simply have evidence of lots of
things happening and you have narratives from various cultures that talk about
disastrous floods. But geologically, at least yet, we haven’t found that. So
maybe (and again I’m only “maybeing” here and please don’t think of me as somebody
going way far away from Scripture); maybe as it uses the term “all,” it is simply
referring to some place that is the habitable land. Another thing to throw in
here is how long ago this happened and issues such as continental drift which
is a very real issue as well. Maybe this is way, way, way back; we just don’t
know the time frame.
G. Question about
Nephilim
Yes, Caitlyn. [student question] That’s another great question that
I don’t have an answer to. The question, in case you didn’t’ hear it over
there, is how do you have descendants of the Nephilim, Numbers chapter 13 living
there in Canaan and Nephilim, and Nephilim as a known concept, if everything
gets destroyed? I don’t know and can only make a suggestion - two
suggestions. One is that they have a corporate memory of Nephilim even though
the Nephilim aren’t there; the Anakim are--that’s one possibility. Perhaps when
people encountered these gigantic creatures that were in Canaan (they are called
the Anakim or the Anakites and were related to the Nephilim), maybe when these folks,
these spies, went there and saw these Anakim, somewhere behind that is an epic
memory of Nephilim - of huge gigantic fallen creatures. That’s a possibility. The
second possibility (and again take or leave these and chew on it yourself and
go look up commentaries): depending on the nature of the Nephilim, maybe
somehow they managed to avoid the flood. “Heroes of old, men of renown,” who
knows what kind of capacities that might have meant. Or if you don’t like that,
I don’t like this third one but I have to put it out there. It’s myth. And
remember our definition of myth – a story that’s not factually accurate but has
some truth component built into it. I’m not going the third direction but I
honestly don’t know the answer to the question.
H. Aftermath of the
Flood
The next thing we need to say in regard to this narrative, once
it’s over and done with (the end of chapter eight), is that Noah built an altar
to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings on it. And the Lord says in response
to it “Never again will I curse the ground because of adam [humans].” And
interestingly enough it is in this context that the term berit which is
the Hebrew word for “covenant” is first used. Now we’ve already had a very
clear declaration in chapter three of God’s promise that the woman’s seed is
going to crush the serpent’s seed. That’s a promise. But it’s here in this
post-flood narrative that we first have the use of the term berit or “covenant.”
I. Gilgamesh Epic
I’m hoping that you’ve read the eleventh tablet, which is the flood
narrative in this larger narrative of the Gilgamesh epic. Fascinating
stuff. Explore it a little bit. When I ask you a question on your exam about
who’s the hero of the flood thing, don’t say Gilgamesh. It’s Utnapishtim.
He’s the counterpart to Noah here. Just a couple things that I want to say in
regard to this. Yes, there are interesting parallels. This is one of the epics
that indicates to us that there are cultures that do indeed have significant
flood narratives, but having said that, did you notice anything different
between the Gilgamesh account, in other words Utnapishtim’s
story, and Noah’s story? There are at least two distinctive differences; there
are others as well. Sarah. [student answers]. Yes. You know there are some
communication behind the walls there in terms of how this all happens, but there’s
some manipulation going on as well. Good, what else? Do you notice the shape of
the ark that Utnapishtim builds? What is it? It’s a cube, isn’t it?
Start and think about a cube being out in rough waters. It’s rolling around
like crazy. It’s not working out at all. It’s not a sea-worthy vessel so you
can just see in its design it’s not very good whereas Noah’s ark at least has
some capacity to float and actually preserve its people. Third thing, I said
two, let’s go for three. Do you notice that God commands Noah to save
creatures? He’s saving creatures. What is Utnapishtim very careful to
take with him on the ark? Yes, valuable things like silver and gold etc., etc.
I mean this is a very self-serving kind of preservation on the part of Utnapishtim.
Quite different from the things that Noah will do. Again, there are other
things that we want to think of in terms of comparison and contrasts but we
need to be moving along.
J. Noah’s Sons
Since we’re going to be stopping in about seven minutes or so, at
the end of chapter nine, we do have reference to the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. And of course, then we’re going to have later on, particularly in the
table of nations, where these characters live. Territorial affinities are going
to show up here as well. But we also have the incident with Ham. I want to just
read this and make a couple of comments on this. If you’ve been reading this,
you are thinking this is one of those challenging issues. Verse 20 of chapter
9, “Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some
its wine he became drunk and he lay uncovered inside his tent.” Verse 22. “Ham,
the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness.” Now what does that mean?
Well let’s go on. “He told his two brothers outside. Shem and Japheth took…”
Interestingly enough, the Hebrew says “the garment,” not just “a garment” - something
specific about it. “…and laid it across their shoulders. They walked in
backwards and covered their father’s nakedness.” Their faces were turned the
other way so they wouldn’t see him. “When Noah awoke up from his wine and saw
what his youngest son had done he said, ‘curse be Ham.’” What does it say? Is
he cursing Ham? No, he’s cursing Canaan, isn’t he? One of the sons of Ham. But
then in contrast, he blesses both Shem and Japheth. So what’s going on here?
When is the last time you had a sermon on this passage? Probably not too
recently, right? This is one of those texts that folks don’t on preach on too
often.
Let me make a couple of comments and then maybe a couple of
interpretive suggestions, again for you to think about further. Interestingly
enough, the expression “see the nakedness of” is used ten times and a lot of
those show up in Leviticus--“uncovering the nakedness of” and it has to do with
something unseemly. Now, how we interpret that is our next step. At least
knowing what the text is saying, it has something to do with something that’s
unseemly. Not all of these instances, by the way, refer to something that is
sexually wrong. The same idea, “seeing the nakedness,” shows up in Genesis
when Joseph accuses his brothers who are coming down to Egypt. He accuses them
of being spies and says “you want to see the nakedness of the land.” Spies are
doing that kind of thing. Two possibilities that I’ll pose for you: the first
one is probably the least ugly and that is, it simply refers to seeing the
nakedness of his father which is, in that culture of honor and shame, a very
shameful thing. It’s just very shameful. It’s one possibility. And again it
does recognize that we’re dealing with a culture that has a much greater stress
on honor as opposed to shame. His two sons are doing the honorable thing. The
question is what has Ham done?
And here is the second suggestion. It doesn’t knit everything
together as carefully as we might like it, but the suggestion here is that maybe
what Ham has done is to engage in some kind of aberrant sexual activity against
his father. “Seeing the nakedness” is uncovering the nakedness which is the
expression that is used also in Leviticus [ch 18] when God repeatedly says “don’t
uncover the nakedness of … of…” listing all these patterns that they’re not
supposed to engage in in terms of aberrant sexual behavior. If that’s true,
that might explain why the curse comes on Canaan here. Canaan’s going to be the
group of people that the Israelites will encounter once they go into take the
land. What God says about the Canaanites is they have polluted the land.
They’ve polluted the land and he says it in the context of Leviticus where we
have those various aberrant behaviors described. I’m going to say more about
that when we get into the time of the conquest and some of those unseemly
things. That’s one suggestion. And there are a lot more. Believe me, there is a
lot more that I should probably be saying about that. But guess what; we need
to keep moving.
K. Dispersion of People
and Tower of Babel
Chapter 10, the descendants inhabit the earth - this spreading out -
and then we need to move on to what we have in chapter 11 with our famous tower
at Babel. “The whole world,” verse 1, had one “lip” (technically) “and several
words.” That’s a literal translation. They had one way of common speaking. But
of course what they decide to do is build this tower. How many of you know
about ziggurats from your ancient Near Eastern History classes? Okay, Katie tells
us something about ziggurats. [student answers]Yes. These were multi-leveled,
stepped structures that almost had a pyramid shape, sometimes upwards of 7 to
10 levels, sometimes 100 feet for each level with ramps going up them. Presumably
the priests met with the gods at the top. Now this is an artistic
representation. The next thing we have here is a ziggurat that has been
excavated and reconstructed to a degree which is dated approximately 2100 B.C.
which I’ll suggest is at least somewhere in the ballpark with Abraham, with our
father Abraham. And you’ll notice the extensive ramp getting up there. Now
clearly the problems here are, as I indicated to you earlier, a sense of pride
and self-sufficiency on the part of the people mingled with, interestingly
enough, fear. Both motives are going on there when you read this text: “Let
us make ourselves a city with a tower that reaches the heavens, so that we may make
a name for ourselves.” That’s the pride thing. “And not be scattered over the
face of the whole earth.” That’s fear. Let’s hang together and stick around
here and have our gods be met up at the top. And so God will indeed address
this by scattering them--kind of a measure for measure response. They don’t want
to be scattered and he scatters them. At the same time he will confuse their
languages as well. I’m going to say more about that later on too, not today.
One last thing we’re going to do today and that is talk about setting
the stage for Abraham himself. When we get to the genealogy in chapter 11,
verses 26 and 27 say “after Terah had lived 70 years,” he’s the father of not
just one person. Now there are three and three very important people: Abram,
Nahor, and Haran. And of course, Abram is going to be our focus. Notice that we
got the line of Shem noted twice in this whole system of genealogies. That’s
going to say something about its importance. Okay, and on that happy note,
we’re going to stop for today. We’ll pick up our whole business with geography,
I think that was the last thing I need to say. We’ll start geography next time,
Wednesday, Lord willing. I’m going to have move a little bit more quickly since
usually I allow an hour and a half for that, we’ll have one hour. But we’ll see
what we can do. Have a great day.
Transcribed by Jessica
Rengulbai
Rough edited by Ted Hildebrandt
Final edit by Dr. Elaine Phillips