Genesis 1-11 ends with the famous story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9—which surprisingly takes up only nine verses), and then yet one more genealogy, this time of Shem’s offspring up to Abram (Genesis 11:10-32). Most people are familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel, but again we need to ask, “What’s the point?” Let’s note some of the details first, and then we’ll try to answer that question.
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)
The first thing to note is that the people settled in Shinar. Shinar is another name for Babylon. This location actually helps us understand two things for the context of Genesis 11. First, the setting of ancient Babylon helps us have an idea as to the Tower of Babel—it probably was understood to be an ancient Ziggurat. The purpose of the ancient Ziggurats was to act as sort of a connection point between heaven and earth. Therefore, the reason for the building of both the city and the tower was a way for the people to “harness” the power and authority of the divine realm in order to rule and “make a name” for themselves.
This leads us to notice a second thing. If that phrase sounds familiar, it should. Back in Genesis 6:1-4, right before the flood account, we are told of the Nephilim, who were “men for a name.” Right there, we should realize we are to connect the Nephilim story in Genesis 6:1-4 with the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:1-9. Both stories highlight human pride and the attempt to use the power of God to dominate the rest of humanity.
If one realizes the parallel between the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:1-19 and the Nephilim story in Genesis 6:1-4, one should be able to ascertain the larger literary structure to Genesis 1-11 as a whole:
- A1 Initially, there are the waters of Chaos (Gen. 1:1-2)
- B1 Then God creates the cosmos (Gen. 1)
- C1 Then God creates a garden for Adam/Eve (Gen. 2)
- D1 After that, Adam and Eve sin and their nakedness is exposed (Gen. 3)
- E1 Then there is Cain and Abel and the corresponding genealogies of the offspring (Gen. 4-5)
- F1 The culmination is found in the corruption of the Nephilim story (Gen. 6:1-4)
…AND REPEAT!
- A2 Noah’s Flood represents judgment of that corrupt world, and it takes everything back to the original waters of Chaos (Gen. 6-7)
- B2 Then God sets about bringing forth dry land and re-creating things (Gen. 8)
- C2 God re-blesses Noah (Adam 2.0) and establishes His covenant with all creation (Gen. 9:1-17)
- D2 “Trouble in Noah’s vineyard:” Ham sins and Noah’s nakedness is exposed (Gen. 9:18-28)
- E2 Then there are the genealogies of Ham, Shem, and Japheth—the offspring (Gen. 10)
- F2 The culmination of is found in the corruption at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9)
And thus, the pressing question at the end of the Tower of Babel story is this: “If God has already promised never to destroy creation with a flood again, how is he going to deal with the corruption and evil at the end of the Tower of Babel story. The answer given comes in the form of that final genealogy of Shem (Gen. 11:10-32) that eventually links up to Abraham. And with that, from that point on, God’s answer to the problem and sin and evil is going to come through the family line of Abraham.
The Setting and Occasion of the Writing of Genesis 1-11
We now should consider the setting and occasion of the writing of Genesis 1-11. Now, Genesis 1-11 is part of the book of Genesis, and Genesis is part of the Torah, which is known as the Book of Moses. Therefore, it is generally assumed by many that Genesis 1-11, as well as the rest of the Torah, does go back in some form or another to Moses himself. In other words, even though it is widely accepted that the first five books of the Bible underwent editing and revising over the course of the history of Israel, many assume that Moses did in some capacity write the bulk of the Torah, back during the time of the Exodus.
That may be true, but it is also generally acknowledged that the bulk of the Old Testament that we have today, both the Torah and the books that recount ancient Israel’s history, was compiled and put together during the time of the Babylonian Exile. Given the fact that there are many elements in Genesis 1-11 (such as the Noah story) that have distinct connections with Babylonian stories like Gilgamesh, and give the fact that Genesis 11 is about the Tower of Babel, it is also speculated that Genesis 1-11 was written down in its present form during the time of the Babylonian Exile, and then placed at the beginning of Genesis to act as sort of a preface to the Old Testament as a whole.
As I have tried to show thus far, Genesis 1-11 does, in fact, lay out the over-arching concepts and themes and worldview that dominates the entire Old Testament. And so, it is possible that Genesis 1-11 was actually written during the time the Old Testament was being assembled during the Babylonian Exile. At the same time, it still is entirely possible that these stories in some form or another had existed throughout the history of Israel, and even went back to the time of the Exodus. We cannot know for certain, and in the big scheme of things, it isn’t vitally important to pin down, but it does help us speculate regarding how the original audience (if in the Babylonian Exile) would have understood this story.
Think about how the entire unit of Genesis 1-11 has played out: God created the world, and then established a special land in which He and humanity could enjoy a state of open communion. Adam and Eve were to be His royal, priestly custodians of creation, yet they sinned, and were cast out east of Eden, and eventually their descendants, because of their continual sinning, end up in Babylon. If you were a Jew in the Babylonian Exile, you would read Genesis 1-11 and think, “Wow, that is my story. That is the story of my people. We were chosen by YHWH to be His royal priesthood and to look after His land, and we sinned, and we’ve ended up in Babylon.”
In any case, I lean toward the notion that Genesis 1-11 was written during the Babylonian Exile and then placed at the beginning of the Torah.
The Genealogy of Shem and the Linking up to History (Genesis 11:10-32)
After the story of the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11 ends with the genealogy of Shem. And thus, we find the genealogy of the woman’s offspring that started back in Genesis 3:15 finds its initial culmination in the birth of Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans. With Abram, we step into a new section of Genesis—where we see YHWH step onto the stage of actual history to enter into a covenant with the patriarch of the Hebrew people.
Genesis 1-11 sets out the over-arching themes that will continue throughout, not only the Old Testament, but the New Testament as well. Again, Genesis 1-11 is extremely important for basically two reasons. First, although it uses the genre and imagery of ancient Near Eastern mythology, Genesis 1-11 radically subverts the ancient Near Eastern worldview out of which such mythology and imagery came. In other words, Genesis 1-11 initially takes the common mythological genre that the Israelites would have been familiar with and then upends it and uses it to tell a radically different story about who God is, what humanity is, and what the purpose of the created order is. It uses the language and genre the ancient world used to teach its pagan worldview regarding the gods, humanity, and creation, and it not only destroys that worldview, but it teaches a radically different worldview centered on this revolutionary idea of monotheism.
Secondly, by doing all that, Genesis 1-11 unfolds in such a way that it takes the reader from that ancient, mythological, primordial past, to the doorstep of actual history. In the ancient world, the mythology about the gods was always in a separate realm, never really intersecting with history. In fact, in the ancient world, there wasn’t even any real concept of “history,” for the ancients simply viewed what went on among human beings as being just part of a never-ending cycle that repeated the events in that mythological realm. Human existence had no real beginning, no real end, and hence no real purpose—it was just that repetitive, cyclical imitation of the mythological realm of the gods.
Yet in the Old Testament, that cycle is broken when the writer weaves Genesis 1-11 into the history of Abram, the Patriarchs, and eventually the life of ancient Israel, as seen in the rest of the Old Testament. The use of the ancient literary genre of myth in Genesis 1-11 serves to set up the over-arching themes of creation and salvation throughout the Bible, but then those themes are “plugged in” to the real lives of real historical people, beginning with Abraham.
Now, to be sure, it is impossible to draw a clear, distinct line in Shem’s genealogy in Genesis 11:10-32 and definitively say, “Everything before this point is non-historical and mythological, and everything after this point is historical.” There simply is going to be a certain ambiguity on this point, and I think we need to be okay with it. In any case, beginning with Genesis 12 and Abraham, the people mentioned are fixed in real geographical places and times.
As the story of Abraham and his family begins to unfold, we realize that what we are reading about and bearing witness to is God’s answer to the problem set out in Genesis 1-11 being slowly revealed throughout the course of human history. For God’s calling of Abram in Genesis 12 is really the beginning of the answer to the problem that isn’t quite resolved by the end of Genesis 11. The crushing of the serpent head and the defeat of his offspring by the woman’s offspring (Genesis 3:15) still has yet to be realized. And although that finds its fulfillment in Christ, the “ultimate offspring,” if you will, the woman’s offspring in the rest of the Old Testament is that of the people of Israel—God works through them to defeat sin and death, and to bring about the fulfillment of His purposes.
A good post yet again.