BibleProject - Day Of The Lord Part One: What's The Deal With "Babylon"?

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

The End Times. The Tribulation. Judgement. All of these buzz words can be sensitive subjects for Christians. But how do the Bible authors deal with the future of the world? They use a phrase called "The Day of the Lord." This is the first episode in our new series on that phrase. Tim and Jon talk about this phrase, its origins, and some of big questions attached to it. Where does the Bible think history is going? What is God going to do about evil? This series will accompany a new theme video on The Day of the Lord that will be released later this year. Music Credits Defender (Instrumental) by Rosasharn Music Thule by The Album Leaf Shot in the Back of the Head by Moby

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John from the Bible Project. Today, on the podcast, we're starting a new podcast series on a really big topic in the Bible. We asked our supporters to vote on the next biblical theme they'd like to see us make into a video and the winner was the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is a biblical theme that runs all through the story of the Bible.

Biblical authors use it to describe when and how God intervenes in human history to rescue people from oppression. The biblical authors, they have a deep conviction that one true God of Israel is the creator and he's the king of history, and that history has a purpose and a goal. And so there's coming a moment where if God's a good creator of all, he will defeat evil once and for all, and rescue the innocent and indicate the righteous and bring about a new creation. In this first episode, Tim and I are going to set the stage by talking about the Kingdom of Babylon. The origin story of the Kingdom of Babylon is an important part of the Biblical narrative, and it's something most of us miss. So what's the deal with Babylon and the Day of the Lord? We'll it's something most of us miss. So what's the deal with Babylon

and the day of the Lord? We'll discuss that today. Here we go. So we are doing a new theme video. That was voted on. Yes. Yes. First time we got to do a vote Mm-hmm and Everyone who was a supporter of the project voted and we got 2,500 votes Mm-hmm and The winning theme was Dave the Lord people are interested in End of the world apocalyptic scenarios. Yeah.

I suppose. Yeah. Super interesting. Yeah. And for many people, that's what the day of the Lord refers to. It's about that the final day of judgment. Yeah. We're all, every human stands before God and has a verdict rendered over their life and they are assigned to one of two eternal destinies.

Yeah. I think that's the... The category that we have. Yep. Yeah. And maybe all of the horrible things in history that lead up to that. Well, I think what's actually what's interesting

is when you use the phrase, day of the Lord, when people talk about that, they don't talk about, they don't use the phrase, day of the Lord, generally. Oh, that, they don't talk about, they don't use the phrase, day of the Lord, generally. Oh, that's true. They use the, you know, the rapture, intribulation, and times. Final. End judgment. Oh, oh, oh, got it.

Yeah. It's the main phrase, right? Cataclysm of history. Yeah. So the phrase, day of the Lord already kind of is helpful in that it doesn't have that baggage necessarily. But I think that's probably what people still tend to think about. Yes. But for me, I don't have this robust understanding of this phrase, the day in the Lord. So I don't really have a good category to put it in. So I'm hoping it's a little bit

fresh still. Yeah. That category could be molded. Yeah, that's good. By the way, the biblical authors actually use the term. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, it's interesting. It's a phrase. So yeah, we'll kind of work through where the term originated from. This is one of those things where studying a theme like the Day of the Lord, you can't

just study the phrase. The phrase occurs all over different sections of the Bible, mostly in the prophets, Old Testament prophets, but the origins of the idea and where it's rooted in the biblical storyline actually starts way, way, way in the beginning on in the first dozen or so pages of Genesis. And it stretches all the way to the last couple dozen or so pages of Genesis and it stretches all the way to the last couple pages of the book of Revelation and it's a phrase that appears all throughout the Bible and an idea that permeates the whole Bible which is why we chose it as a theme video. So the phrase is really just one way to talk about the idea.

Yeah, so just to put it all together in just one intro sentence, we're short paragraphs. So the day of the Lord is a phrase that refers to a bigger theme arch throughout the whole Bible about how God is at work in history to confront human evil that specifically on the collective human evil like the evil of Societies and empires and how they ruin and destroy whole societies and people in the world So that they have a Lord is about moments in history when God confronts collective human evil, and it's always associated with some act of liberation for the people who suffer

under that evil society or empire. The oppressed people. Yeah, and so when God acts in history to confront evil and redeem the innocent, that is how God brings His kingdom or asserts His rule over all of creation. So the day of the Lord is associated with all these different things, but basically about how God is king of history, that He won't allow human evil to last forever. He will defeat it, rescue the innocent, and become the gracious king over all of the world. But the way you're describing it is an ongoing type of event.

Yes, that's right. But it's called the day of the Lord. Yes. So here, we'll have to talk about the way the Old Testament prophets, specifically, who wrote the narratives of the Old Testament and then the prophetic books, the Old Testament. Like, they viewed history in a way that modern Westerners have, we have to make some adjustments to the way we think about things, to adopt their view of history. Because we, yeah, we think of the moment at the end of history,

when all human and every human stands before the great white throne. And they don't think about that? Well, the prophets assume that that moment's coming. But they take the language and imagery about that hope, and they use it to describe moments within history, specifically within Israel's history. And then Jesus and the Apostles use it to describe moments in their history. And it's always pointing towards the ultimate event.

And it's almost like they've viewed the day of the Lord as almost like well we don't use overhead projectors anymore. Right. So I don't know if anybody a product of the 90s. Yeah of the late 80s and 90s about transparencies. Yeah. But think about a transparent sheet of plastic with has images on it you know. Okay. You get overlay images on top of each other. Right. And so there's something about the base images of that God's the creator, he's good. He won't allow evil to last forever.

There's coming a day when he'll confront it. Yeah, forever never amen. And then the prophets and times, the end times, times, the end of time as we experience it in the beginning of the beginning of the new age and the new creation. So the transition from the world as we know it into the world as God intended it in the new creation, what's that transition like? It's going to have to involve some sort of justice on all of the horrible evil that's been done in human history. So the biblical authors all just assume that. But they will also use the language and ideas,

images, metaphors of that final act of justice and use it to describe things happening like the downfall of Babylon in 539 BC or that the day of the Lord. They will also call that the day of the Lord. Yeah. Like I think of it as like an end times kind of event. Like yeah. Like this age is ending kind of thing. It's interesting. I think it's uh, David actually think he was a sheep. When he said the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leads me. Yeah, probably not. So I think the prophets could fully distinguish between the fact that Babylon falling to the Persians in 539 BC. Babylon falling to the Persians in 539 BC. But wasn't the end of the world, but in another sense, it was the end of the world as they

knew it. Yeah. And the world order changed. The world order changed. And as they experienced it, it was a huge empire over much of the ancient Near East. Yeah. And that's hard to imagine. I've, you know, I've never lived through something like that.

But if that happened here, if all the sudden, yeah, it would feel like America fell. And whoever took over, and it would feel like a completely new reality. Yeah, apologies for our American- Yeah. Centric worldview to people listening outside the US, but yeah, anytime a great empire falls to the people who are under the thumb of that empire

or who lived in it, that the world's ending. What we're invited into, it's the ancient, Israelite, Jewish, Christian, biblical view of history. That's very different from Eastern worldviews that have like a cyclical view of history. You know, Eastern worldviews that have like a karma pattern or cycle built into the universe. So biblical history that is Jewish and Christian is linear. It has a beginning point. It's finite. It's moving in a certain purpose direction and there are moments that change everything and move it all in a new direction. And so the biblical authors all accept that history is going somewhere and that God as the creator of time and all things is going to move things towards a positive end. So there's an ultimate moment when God will confront evil. But there are also moments within human history where evil powers fall

and the world changes as a result. And these are the kind of moments that are described with this phrase the day of the Lord. You can use a... I didn't make this up, but I forget where I first learned it, of little D days of the Lord, and then the capital D day of the Lord. And the prophets, this is a capital D being like the final judgment. But then the biblical authors will use the language about capital D day to describe little D days in their own life experience. The day of the Lord is a final day when the created order turns over to be what God intended it to be. But in order for that to happen there has to be this reckoning of evil. Yeah. Yeah. The biblical view of history is all is not as it

should be. The world is we experience it is not all is not as it should be. The world we experience is not the way it's supposed to be. And that's the big D day of the Lord. And so there's coming a moment where if God's a good creator of all, He will transition things into a renewed state of creation where life and love and justice and beauty range the day. So if someone comes to you and says, let's talk about end times, final judgment.

Yes. They're talking about the big D day of the Lord. Right, I think, yeah, in a common Western theological language, right, popular level. Yeah, people think, into the world, day of the Lord, end times. Yeah, and they think of that. Like my mother-in-law knew we were doing this theme as she came to me and she said,

oh, you're doing David the Lord, so you're going to talk about end times. Like that's kind of what her word was at, like end times. Which in the West is shaped specifically by a couple hundred-year-old tradition rooted in a theological movement called dispensationalism. So yeah, that's all gets wrapped up into this idea of rapture and the anti-Christ and one more government and microchrist. Yeah, kind of regardless of how that's going to happen. Yeah, right. But that's what comes to people's minds. That's what comes to people's minds. Yeah. Yeah. But there will be a day or there will be a moment in human history. human history when this age ends and there's a new

age. This is a core tenet of Jewish and Christian hope that no matter what subgroupy belong to everybody agrees on this. And that's the big D-Day Lord. The big D-Day of the Lord is the moment when God confronts evil, removes it from his world, and he restores and heals it into a new creation. What the biblical authors do is they take language associated with that day and use it to describe moments within our experience of history where evil doesn't get the final word and we're good and justice

does happen. A good metaphor that again I didn't make up, it has a long history in biblical studies is of a mountain range. So if you live in Portland, you can look east and you see one of the towers of the Cascade volcanic mountain range. You see Mount Hood. If you go up to the West Hills of Bob Portland, you see Portland in front of you and then Mount Hood like in the backdrop. It's a majestic Google it. It's really amazing. Google Earth it. Google Earth it. Yeah. You can fly around. Leading up to Mount Hood is this chain of foothills that go out through a town called

Damascus and then Sandy and then... Roda Dendron. Roda Dendron and zigzag. So when you're Portland looking out towards Mount Hood all those foothills kind of merged together and they become this kind of indistinguishable greenish terrain leading up to the mountain. But it's ascending up to the mountain. With its own summit. Yeah, and so it all looks kind of hazy and what dominates the perspective is Mt. Hood. But if you were to take a quick helicopter ride like South to like Silverton, you would be right in the middle and South and you would be looking at it from exactly the side direction. And then you would see, oh there's Portland in the valley and then oh it does slowly rise

up to Sandy. Oh and that's a really distinct range of hills. And then, oh, there's a long, actually, really, it's like 20 miles between Sandy and Rhododendron. And so you see the space between these. So it's the best metaphor I've ever heard of the way the question you're in the middle of history. It's like you're looking at the mountain range

from one perspective. The prophets, it's like you're standing overlooking Portland and all of history with the mountain dominating your perspective. That's what it feels like to read the books of the profits. Got it. And so you can see like, oh yeah, there's foothills, the fall of Babylon. But what dominates your viewpoint is that this is one small hill leading up to Mount Hood. But then... Because to talk about anything and not include Mount Hood when you're looking at that perspective is weird.

That's right. Because that's the main feature. So we'll look at this. There's a famous poem in Isaiah chapter 13 where he talks about the stars falling from heaven and the mountains shake and there's fire. I mean, it's like what's the end of the world. And then in the poem, he says it clear as day. He's describing the fall of the city of Babylon to the Persians in 539 BC.

He says it in the poem itself. But he's using the language about poetic imagery about the quote end of the world to describe that event. And so it's that that's the kind of thing that the prophets do. This is what Jesus does when he predicts the fall of Jerusalem in the Gospels. He uses, he actually quotes from that chapter of Isaiah that described the fall of Babylon. He uses Isaiah's poetry to describe the fall of Jerusalem. But he does so in this cataclysmic language. So this is just the way the biblical authors speak. Our experience of living in history is within the chain of foothills.

And what we see are the event, the hills ahead of us and the rest. Yeah, we like to really distinguish between all the foothills. Yes. Like, we want to like, a lot more clarity. Like, are you talking about Fall Babylon? Are you talking about the final judgment? Correct. Yeah.

And they're kind of like, eh, we're just kind of, it's all kind of melding together in some way. Yeah, well, and yeah, because the biblical authors just think so differently, then modern Westerners do. So they think in terms of these big plotlines of how God is at work in history. It's a figural interpretation of history. In other words, they've used certain key events as being these key images or figures where you have clarity about that was an act

of God. And then that moment in history becomes fixed and you use the language of that event to describe future events that are like that. And they do that with the Exodus. They do that with the Exodus and they do that with the Exodus, and they do that with the rise and fall of Babylon. And actually, the rise and fall of Egypt, the rise and fall of Babylon, are the most important biblical stories to understand, to understand the day of the Lord.

And why Jesus talks the way he does about Jerusalem and its fall and why John in the book of Revelation talks about the rise and fall of Rome. But he never says Rome anywhere in the book of Revelation. He only uses the word Babylon. But he's referring to Rome. But he's referring to Rome and more than Rome at the same time. So yeah, this seems really important to understand. And you said it's different than the way we think. So I just want to take a moment and try to make sure I'm thinking this way. Yeah, okay. Okay, what I heard you say was, what's the word you use?

Figurals? Figurals. Figurals. Figurals. I kind of like the word archetype because I think it's a little bit more familiar to English speakers. If something is an archetype, it means it's like the prime example of which there are many other types of examples, but they all fall under the umbrella of the the perfect example and so in the biblical authors Way of viewing history the rise and fall of Egypt and the rise and fall of Babylon become archetypes of how God is working in all of human history because in Egypt God

Takes down an evil oppressive. Yep empire frees his people, frees to live under his kingdom and rule. Okay. And in Babylon, it's thought of as this large oppressive evil empire that has exalted its place itself to the place of God. And so that also needs to be taken down. And when it is people who were oppressed are freed. Yeah. And so that becomes an archetypical way is that the right way, is that where? Yeah, yeah.

Or archetypal. Or archetypal. Or archetypal. Typical archetypal. Somebody email us. Answer to that one. That becomes a way to describe what God's going to do to the whole world order and how he's going to rescue all people who are oppressed.

Yes. And that's the day of the Lord. Yes. Yeah. So thus, the end of the world in the revelation, book of Revelation is described as the fall of Babylon and why the prophets often use language of the Ten Plagues of Exodus. Oh, what? Let's just go for the last book of the Bible again. The Revelation describes all of these waves of divine judgment in all of the sevens in the book of Revelation. They're just the Ten Plagues. Put in a blender and get recycled.

So it's, God will, when God confronts evil, ultimately, he will do it. It will be the fulfillment of what he's been up to for thousands of years now. He's already been doing this. He's already been doing this. And if we wanna think about what it's gonna be like ultimately, let's use the language

of the stories when he already did it in a micro way. Yeah, yeah, I know we can think of a good analogy. We all have these in our histories where maybe a formative moment from your childhood. I was trying to think about that. Think of like a childhood bully. That's something. Yeah. And you stood up to the bully or you did it and then your life,

you think about the new bullies that you have to stand up to. Totally. The boss or the neighbor or whatever. Yeah. But the childhood bully becomes the archetype. My dad would, um, my whole growing up would always once or twice a year bring up the story of Freddy Fitzgibbon Freddy Fitzgibbon's his bully and like whatever forced you know Put pummel him and beat him up and for the rest of his adult life my dad

Was on a mission to overcome yeah all the Freddy Fitzgibbons. Exactly. Yeah, so maybe that's a cut. No, actually, that's not a silly example. It was very serious to my dad. Sure. Freddy. Was it shapes?

Yeah, Freddy Fitzgibbons was an archetype. That's an amazing name. I know. Should I believe him? I know. It actually sounds made up. Yeah. Oh, man.

But then as you go on through your life experience, everything gets filtered through the that formative bullying experience as a kid. So you're, you know, lame boss or your mean manager at work becomes a Freddy Fitzgibbon. Something like that is what's going on in the Bible. View of Babylon and Egypt and that day of the Lord. But you could take it even further because in the Bible you're saying that God actually was at work in the fall of Egypt or in our sorry at the fall of Pharaoh and that moment of time Egypt didn't actually fall. But anyways and that in the same way God will also be at work. The spirit of or Freddie himself is not at work. That's gonna do boss. Yeah, that's true. That's right, yeah, that's just in my brain

that's making a correlation. Yeah, so this is why in the Old Testament, what we call the history books are in Jewish tradition called the Books of the Profits. Joshua judges Samuel King's. And why Moses is described as a prophet, because it's retelling the story of Israel, but from the prophet's point of view,

so it's the prophets who make these connections. That when Babylon fell, there was a moment there that wasn't just significant in terms of geopolitics, but something about God's work in the world, and then through the story of Israel. And that's about, you know, I can't claim to have that vantage point to interpret history. Myself and current events, there's some Christians who do feel like- Would be an example of that.

I think the, like a Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell type who would see an earthquake or a you know a certain downfall of a country and then You know claim that they could see God's hand behind it and Right reasons for why God would do that. Okay, so the prophets would say this happened for this reason. And it's a picture of what's to come. Correct. Yeah, the prophets, the prophets, look at Babylon, falling to the Persians and they say,

yeah, you had a coming. You claimed that you, the kings of Babylon claimed that they were God. Yeah. So of course God's going to take them out. Everyone's life can be thought of as a story that has these kind of archetypal archetypal moments of

A call to an adventure and then you you cross the threshold to a new world and there's these new realities. You have to battle milestone moments Where you gain new skills or new understanding Mentors that come to help you and then you got to fight that thing that you dread and then you die and are born again into kind of a new season of life and born again into kind of a new season of life. And that's what our best stories are about. And there's something mythic about that. That when it happens in our lives,

we think in these big categories of fighting our dragons and being called to this adventure, and it helps make sense of it. In the Israelite Jewish tradition, the liberation from Egypt, the defeat of Egypt, is memorialized as that kind of event every year at Passover. as that kind of event every year at Passover. The Jewish people for millennia have been reliving the archetypal deliverance and defeat of evil. And that's in that meal. They have this ritual meal that retails the story Passover. Of course, that was the meal that Jesus chose

to reshape the symbols to communicate the meaning of his death. So that's Jesus tying in his own story to this archetypal event. And then also the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians was memorialized with the day of fasting on what's called the ninth of Ahor Tisha Bhaav. on what's called the 9th of Aha of Tishabh Av. And then this is actually a great example. So 5.87 BC was when the Boulonians invaded Jerusalem destroyed the temple. We don't know when, but not long after there was a fasting, a period of fasting that the Israelites did to mourn

and grieve the loss of the temple. But then, in later Jewish history, in 70 AD, so what is that separated by 600 years of history, the Romans, as Jesus predicted, came and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. And then in later Jewish history from there, those two temple destructions got merged together in this morning, ritual morning, every year, called the ninth or tishaba of. So on this one day, you're more if you're Jewish person observant, you mourn the loss of the temple to the Babylonians and to Rome. Even though they were at different times of the year, they wouldn't happen on this day, but you put them together as a moment, an archetypal moment where God allowed the nations to overcome his own people. So it's like we create these milestones, we celebrate moments and we think about prop up moments.

Or moments of loss, like it. Yeah, loss or good things to help make sense to bring of life. And so whether that's defeating a bully when you're a child, my family for a while, we had a very tragic event when I was in high school. And so every year we would just kind of memorialize that day. And so that would be the same kind of thing as fasting because of the temple being destroyed. Although we would eat an meal, we would fast. Yeah. Yeah. But it helps. Yeah. Kind of makes sense sense and they become these moments that then you anchor things around. Yes. Yeah.

Yep. So connect that then to this idea of the Lord. Yeah. So the biblical authors, the prophets, who both wrote the history books of the Old Testament and the prophetic books, they have a deep conviction that one true God of Israel is the creator, and he's the king of history, and that history has a purpose and a goal, and that if you look, if you have eyes to see, you'll see key events in history that are strung together by these connections, and they all fit into this pattern and these archetypes.

And that's what the biblical story is training your mind to do, is to see history this way. And to see it all leading up towards the great day and hope when God will liberate his creation and world from human evil and corruption, defeat evil once and for all, and rescue the innocent and vindicate the righteous and bring about a new creation. And so these archetypal moments, ritual moments, feast days in Israel's calendar, and then the Christian calendar that flows out of it because Jesus of Passover

and then Pentecost, right? These become these ways of bringing order to our story. Our story. And so that's on a corporate level. And then like what you're saying is we also find ways of doing that as individuals too. And it's just I think it's creating patterns of time. This is January 2nd, 2017. We're recording this. I was just thinking about this and I was trying to explain this to my five-year-old son. Why this day matters? Why do we call that day December 31st in this day January 1st? It's not inherent to the universe. There's no like January 1 molecule It's arbitrary. This is a structure humans have imposed on time. So there's something inherent about

That cycle yeah But that the year should begin and end with that cycle. Right. What part of the cycle? Yeah, why shouldn't January 1st be June 1st? Sure. Or why shouldn't? You know, yeah. And so it's a human construct placed upon, and that doesn't mean it's arbitrary, it's anchored in reality. It's like like the revolution of the revolution of the earth around the Sun. And so in the same way, the prophets are claiming that this framework of viewing history in the might of the biblical worldview that tunes you into a divine intent, a divine purpose that God's guiding history and that key events in history

will give you clues about the history of meaning. And therefore, the meaning of your life. How our lives fit into the bigger story. So this is a good conversation. I didn't actually anticipate. We talk about quite this, but this is really foundational for how the biblical authors think about history.

So I'm imagining I'm one of the prophets and I'm looking at my history of my people. And there's always stories. I get a perspective, a divine perspective of the importance of these stories. And one of the stories is God rescuing us from being slaves in Egypt, bringing justice to the suppressive people, and then bringing us into freedom. And I realize, oh wait, not only did God do that for us hundreds of years ago, but that's what God's going to do

for the whole world eventually. And so God kind of gives me that perspective of those things are very similar. And so now when I go to write about what it's going to be like, when God comes to do that for the whole world, I'm using the language of the Exodus story and the defeat of Egypt and the ten plagues and the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies in the waters. Because I want you the reader to understand that it's the same kind of activity. Yeah, whenever a similar kind of evil rears its head, nations and empires and rulers who don't acknowledge that they are under God's authority.

And I want you to make that connection so much. I'll call it the Day of the Lord. Yes, that's right. Yes. And even though it's not going to be the ultimate day of the Lord, it was a day of the Lord. Correct. So yeah, where does this idea begin? We kind of have to start before the phrase gets used, the day, or the day of the Lord. We have to start before the phrase gets used the day or the day of the Lord we have to start with What the day of the Lord is about God confronting evil?

Well, where did evil come from and why just got off to confront evil? so You have to at least try and summarize what's going on in pages three to 11 of Genesis When's the first time it's used? You usually have that trivia question. Oh, that's true. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. If you're reading through the Bible, both in traditional Christian order or in Jewish order, the first time you come across it is in the book of Isaiah.

Hmm. It's pretty late in the game. Yeah. The first time you come across the phrase, day of the Lord, The first time you come across the phrase, day of the Lord, historically, if you were to rearrange the prophets in the chronological order, it would be Amos, Amos, chapter five, I think. And, but the idea, the idea, the way old, the idea of the day,

or a particular day or time when God confronted evil as being this archetypal moment, that is rooted in the Exodus story itself. So Exodus first time. And not with Babylon, Babylon's hard battle. Well, yes, but in a very sophisticated literary way. Well, yes, but in a very sophisticated literary way. Okay. So it's important to the theme, but this idea of a day, this idea of it, a day when collective human evil gets confronted by God. Okay.

That's right in the first pages of the Bible. And that's where the day of the Lord theme begins. Okay. And that's just 11 tower battle. Yeah. So the way, typically the Christian tradition, when we talk about the fall, we think of Genesis 3. We think of Genesis 3 in the garden, in the fruit, in the expulsion from the garden, and

so on. Right. And so that's true. All the word fall is never used in that story. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. Where's that word come from? Oh, it's a long history. I think I don't know off the top of my head. Right. Okay. But it's a fall from the good that was possible, but that was forfeited. Yeah. So I prefer the term rebellion. Okay.

The rebellion, which it characterized miraculously term rebellion. Okay, the rebellion. The rebellion. It characterized miraculously what's going on in the story. The humans were given a call to trust. And they went rogue. One, they went rogue. That's a good rebellion though. Yes, you could think of the kingdom of God as a rebellion against Babylon. Yeah, that's true.

And so in a way, the kingdom is the rebellion. It's the counter rebellion.. And so in a way, the King of Israel is the rebellion. But in Genesis 3, the human's rebellion against God's kingdom. So remember the image of God, whole theme of the image of God. Humanity is the royal image of God. God wants to rule the world through his image-bearing creatures, humans, who will take creation somewhere on God's behalf. So humanity has to depend on God as they try and define good and evil,

as they go about ruling the world and humans decide they want to seize that knowledge for themselves. So what's important is that Genesis 3, just in its literary design, is closely tied to the story in Genesis 4, which is all connected. It's cascade of horrible stories. Yeah. From Genesis 3 to 11. All the way to Genesis 11. This is a whole section. Yeah, you can't separate any one story from what comes before or after, or else you dismantle the whole thing. We've got the fall and the banishment and the pain and able and the flood.

And then Cain building a city, full of violence and murder, then the sons of God and the flood story, then the building of Babylon. And they're all connected. So in Genesis 3, humans distrust God. They rebel and don't do what God asked them to do. And so the tragic result is that the two humans, all of a sudden the first casualty when the humans take from the tree, has nothing to do with God, has to do with each of them. They hide from each other. They can't trust each other, so they put on clothes to protect their naked bodies from each other. So now of a sudden, that these two humans define good and evil on their own terms, I don't, maybe you and I don't define good and evil the same way, and then that full vulnerability of naked and in no shame is fractured. And so, the clothing of hiding their bodies from each other is this very powerful image of the two

humans that were meant to be one flesh, are now disconnected from each other. And then also then immediately their intimacy with God is disconnected. And the bad guy in that story is the serpent who deceived them. So the next story is about two brothers of that, and one brother's jealous against another. And God says to Cain, hey listen, sin is crouching at your door. It's desire is for you, but you can overcome it. So it's a very similar story of God approaches and says, hey now you've got a choice. What are you going to do? And it's not a serpent crouching at your door. It's sin. So in this parallel fall story, the serpent gets swapped out for this more abstract concept of sin. Which is like

crouching. Yeah, but it's depicted as an animal. It wants to eat you up. to eat you up, wants to devour you. Like a crouching tiger. Yeah, hidden dragons. Sorry. Sorry. It just came out. Yeah, I'm sorry. You're the one who said it.

Sorry, I had to complete the movie title. Yeah. Yeah. I could just picture the tiger just like really low through the high grass coming up on the zebra. Yeah, and so Genesis 3, and Genesis, they're mutually interpreting. You have to read each story in light of each other. So what is that serpent?

Well, it doesn't say in the story, except that it's a creature in rebellion against God, but then in Genesis 4, we learn more. It's sin. Come to life, so to speak. It's the principle of Failure and missing out on something's purpose or mark a deviation from what God intends That's what's crouching So then here's what Cain does after he murders his brother He's banished like his parents were and then he goes and builds a city, and that city is where metal, working,

and music, all kinds of technologies developing in his city, which is awesome. We're going, yes, humanity is subduing and flourishing, but then Cain's violence is repeated by a descendant of his name, Lamek, who sings this poem to his multiple wives about how someone insulted his honor by slapping him until he murdered him on the spot. So, and he says, if you thought, Cain should have been avenged seven times, then me, 77 times. So it's the story of... Because Cain was protected by God.

Correct. And so Leimeck is saying, hey if Cain got away with it... That's right. Cain got away with murder and and the God said, if anyone murders Cain, avenge seven times, then... Yeah. Me 77 times. Yeah. So it's... Taking God's grace and like... and like using it as license. Yes, yeah. And he's celebrating murder. Whereas Kane murdered and then you know, felt horrible and brother's blood crying from the ground and he's instantly convicted.

But Lehmick is celebrating his own violence. And that characterizes this whole city that King has built. Then the next main story is in Genesis 6, the Suns of God, which is not just a rabbi, it's a black hole speculation. Totally. But whether it's rebellious angels who have sex with women or royal descendants, kings, lines of kings, because the phrase, son of God, I'm referring to the Bible, can refer to kings who are acting just like laymak of collecting women for themselves. Whichever interpretation is right, I have an opinion, but whatever, it doesn't matter right now. The point is, but whatever doesn't matter right now.

The point is in the story, it leads to more violence. The prelude to the Flood story says, God looked at the world, it was corrupt and full of violence. So violence, from Cain to Leimack, to the city of Cain, and now to the result of the sons of God is violence. It's spiraling out of control. Yes, the death of the innocent. A spiraling out of control. So you get the flood story, again, rabbit hole or black hole, it depends. But the whole spiral culminates in the story of Babel, the building of the city of Babel, in Genesis 11.

So we just skipped a bunch. So Genesis 6 is the son of God. The flood takes place in Genesis 6 through 8. 6 through 8. In the beginning of 9 is Noah's Recommission. And then Enoch's in there somewhere. Yeah, Enoch's earlier in chapter 5. Yeah.

And what happens in 9 and 10 then? Well 9 is no gets off the boat and gets drunk. And then what that mysterious thing happens in the tent with ham, then no others, a poetic blessing and curse on his three sons, which then plays out, his three sons, Shemham and Yafat, or Japheth, and then those three sons become this umbrella over the table of nations in Genesis 10. Which is essentially giving you,

it's kind of like, you know how books, like fantasy books will always begin with a map of whatever. Yeah, it's the map of the known world. Yeah, so Genesis 10 is the map of the biblical world. Yeah, so Genesis 10 is the map of the biblical world. Yeah, so to speak, of geography. Not just geography, of people groups, and where those people group stand in relationship to God,

and the people of God. And then in Genesis 11, all of them come together. Well, no, no, in Genesis 10, they're actually out of chronological order, because Genesis 10 already presumes all these people group of languages and so on. But in Genesis 11, it's before they've scattered. Yeah, Genesis 11 depicts its vision of collective humanity coming together to build a city and a tower so that they don't get scattered all over the land. Okay, so this is the important story that begins the theme for us.

All of that discussion of just three through eleven is to help see how the tower of Babel is connected to the series of stories that are all describing the fall of humanity. It keeps, and in each story, the circle of influence and the casualties keep the circle widening. Widening and widening, it's like the ripple effect. More and more humans are getting caught up in the violence. So this is the climax of it.

And so this becomes the climax and nobody actually dies. It's the least violent story in Genesis 3 through 11. But that's because it's making a different point. Yeah, wait. And the flood is a much bigger circle than... Oh, sheesh. Is that... Yeah.

It's the Earth. Yeah, totally. We should just do a podcast discussion on the flood. I have a stack of books I need to read. Not about the debates and fossilized words. Worldwide or regional words. Yeah, no, more about its theological meaning in the storyline of Genesis.

But anyway, so yeah, the circle keeps widening. And so Genesis 11 is the capstone, what you think would be about this murderous, it's all been about violence and murder. And Genesis 11 is about building temples, ancient temples and cities. And so it becomes this backward glance at all the stories about what is it the humans are doing as they exalt themselves and define good and evil for themselves and it leads to violence.

And so it's the building of the city of Babel. The Hebrew word of the name of the city is Bavel. Bavel. Bavel. Yeah. Yeah, I was just reading that chapter. Yes, yeah, Bavel. It's a VFO's and...

Well, it's spelled with a Hebrew letter B or Bate, but in certain pronunciation forms, you say it like a VV, instead of B. Okay, Bavell. Bavell. Oh, which is related, which is similar to a Hebrew word that. For confusion. For confusion, which is.

Yeah. So they speak one language, what try, ballal, ballal. They speak one language. That's what it was. And in that unified effort, they build a city and tower and God says, nope, you're not going to do that. And he ballals, ballvel. Yeah, it's a word play. Yeah, it's a word play. He ballals the veil. Yep. So here's what's in it. But the whole city is called the veil. Correct, yes. But there's one particular tower. Yep, they're building.

Whole city and one tower. Well, there's a few key things about this. First of all, it's humans unifying in these efforts and the technology that they are developing is described in detail in the story. Instead of just stacking stones and using mortar. Yeah, that's so old-school. Yeah, they mass produce uniform size bricks and then use tar.

This is ancient Mesopotamian architecture. And you can build things way taller and way faster. The brick revolution. The brick revolution. So there's a technological development, which isn't inherently bad. But last time humans were developing technology in Cain's city, it led to a city of murder and all that with the layman. What music led to murder?

Well, no, but it's tied. It's like, here's the city, all these great developments, and then lame- Ah, killed a man. So it didn't lead to it? No, it's a good point. But technology in the hands of people who define good, evil, apart from God, leads to the city of Kane and murder. In this case, it's human technology tied into a certain kind of pride.

Because what the humans do is they build a city and then a tower that goes up to the heavens. And so where this is going to go, you get the image. We're here on the land. I want to be up there in the heavens. Build a tower to get there. In modern English, that just sounds like we want to be closer to the sky. I want to see further. Mesopotamia is really flat. But in the Asia world, these kinds of towers had a whole different. Being high in the sky. That's a great place to be. Like your vantage point is much better.

There's a power and authority that can be. Yeah, you feel something. You've had this experience recently. Yeah, I was telling you about being in New York and being on the 44th story of the New York Times building. And it just, you look down and there's just like these tiny little cars and tiny, your little people just crawling around on the street and you just feel above it all.

And it just makes you feel kind of powerful. Yeah. Even though you're not, you're the same person, you're just higher up. Yes. And I just started to imagine, and if I had an office this high, I would make totally different decisions today today. Would it be good for your soul? No, I don't think it would.

I don't think it would. I would like- You'd think too highly of yourself. Yeah, but I think in New York, if you're gonna have a powerful hedge fund or something, you kind of have to, you've got to have to do that. You've got to have to feel invincible.

But yeah, there's something about that. And then also military reasons, having the high ground. I mean, there's just like, and then there's the whole thing about where does God live, God lives in the sky. There's that ancient, the word heavens, and the word sky is the same Hebrew word. And so there's this kind of, where is God's domain? ancient, the word heavens and the word sky is the same Hebrew word. And so there's this kind of, where is God's domain?

It must be something like the sky. Yeah, when the biblical authors and other ancient authors in the same cultural environment depicted God as the supreme God and ruler of all, that's when they would depict God as being in the sky. He can look down. Yeah, you're looking down everything. Yeah, he's the... Yeah, in the high-rise. Yeah, it's one of the most well-known things about ancient Near Eastern, Mesopotamian, Babylonian architecture

is these buildings that are being referred to here with the word tower But the only built is very flat. It's the Delta region of the Euphrates River So royal palaces could get pretty tall and then temples Those would be the tall buildings. Yeah, which would be the four four runners of the pyramids the tall buildings. Yeah, which would be the four runners of the pyramids, the step structures that have four corners all at a diagonal leading up to with a long ramp or stairway. And then on the top is some kind of platform. And up there is a temple facility where sacrifices are offered. And only the priests and royal officials can go up there. So it's a sacred space.

So did they think of this one, this tower as a temple, or did they think of it as something else? Because they weren't trying to, they weren't building it for a god. Yeah, they were building it for themselves. And so I think the story assumes that you know this. Yes, you know what these structures are. Yeah. So where the narrator leaves it is, what the people say is, we want to make a name for ourselves.

So come, let's build a city and a tower that reaches up to the skies. Whatever it means, it's about humans elevating their honor, their name, their power, up to the place of the gods. And that's what the story says. So we can infer more and wonder what kind of Ziggurat was it, to which God... Ziggurat being the name of this ancient temple. The structure you're talking about. being the name of this ancient temple. The biblical author knows about these structures. Ancient Israelites know all about them. The point is, is this tower is

humans exalting themselves to the place of the gods. And that's the culmination of all of these. It's a culminating event of the Genesis 3 through 11 rebellion. Which all these stories have a bit of pride tied into them. Yeah, that's right. So that is self-esignificant. The name of the city in our English translations is translated as Babel.

What's interesting is that Hebrew word in the hundreds of times that it appears throughout the rest of the Old Testament is never translated as Babel, except in that's one occurrence in Genesis 11. Everywhere else, it's translated as Babylon, and Hebrew that's Baville. Baville, in any period. That's what they call it, Babylon. Yeah, and when Babylon much later is going to come take out the Israelites. It's called Bavael. Bavael. Yeah, and Hebrew is the same word. Okay. How did that end up becoming Babylon? Bavael. Oh, and then why didn't we just use like a transliteration and just or whatever and call it the vote? Yeah, like yeah, because of for other like Bethel or Israelite neighbors like Moab or Ammon or we don't change. Yeah, we don't change it. Um, that has to do with the history of the English word. Yeah. I don't know.

Okay. We'd have to look it up in the Tindale translation to see that would be the first English rendering of the Hebrew word. That would be the Tindale translation. The Tindale was the first English translation that was made public. Anyhow.

So anyway, the word bevel translated in Genesis 11 is babel. Is babel? So what that does is that hides from most English readers the fact that this is babelon. This is the founding of the system of babelon.

What do you think it would be more helpful for it to be babelon? I do. Yeah. And then put in a footnote, the word rhymes with the word confusion. Yeah. Because babble has that always been a word to describe confused language or did it become that way because of it? Ah, that's a good question.

And I also don't know the answer to that. I do know this is that if it is, then it's another example. There are many of English words or phrases that have entered English through the early English, Tindale and King James translations that wouldn't be in English except for the example. If Genesis 11 had been translated Babylon, we wouldn't be having this conversation trying to help people understand. Yeah, it's the same. Yeah, the reason this is significant, a couple things. First of all, ancient Babylon existed long before it ever came to destroy Jerusalem. Yeah, to be this big world. Yeah, it was

a powerful nation way back even before Abraham. There's a famous king of Babylon called Hammurabi and he wrote a famous law code that he said he received from the gods of Babylon and so on. So Babylon had been around but it was not a powerful empire the way it was later in Israel's history. But the fact that the author of Genesis is chosen the founding of the city of Babylon to be the climax that the author of Genesis is chosen, the founding of the city of Babylon, to be the climax, the archetypal climax of humanity's rebellion against God. It's very significant.

You're supposed to think of this city as a pretty bad news. Yes. So violence has been raining from Genesis 3 up to it, and now we get the diagnosis of what's the problem of the human psyche Individually and collectively that's leading to this horrible rebellion and it's Genesis 11 this self-exaltation Turning human structures into gods. Yeah. In modern reformed Christianity, the fall is all about that individual decision

to eat of the fruit. Yeah. But just as much, the fall is also the story of in Genesis 11. This very corporate move towards becoming with God as an empire. Yeah, taking our way of life, our economy, or whatever our collective interests and accomplishments

and then elevating them to the place of the gods, to a place of divine status, of worship. And that's what the tower is, it's the center of worship. So, yeah, the biblical diagnosis of the human condition in Genesis 3 to 11 is really sophisticated. It's personal, the way it affects individuals, then marriages, families, cities, communities, regions, and whole nations. Every one of those gets a analysis. Yeah, it gets its own story. I mean, it makes sense. Like a damaged marriage or a damaged relationship between two neighbors. That is bad But it only affects a handful of people

But when a whole society Elevates its own values and definitions of good and evil to Divine status then people start dying That things and not bad entire people groups become oppressed. Correct. And there's a lot of bad stuff. Yeah. So, which we'll move on to the next step then with Egypt, but to kind of bring this to a loop then.

Genesis 11 also lays the foundation of Babylon as an archetype because it's the first depiction of collective human evil. But it's also Babylon is where Israel is going to end up at the end of this long narrative arc that stretches to the end of the book of Second Kings. So Abraham is going to get called out of the scattering of Babylon in the next chapter, Genesis 12, and then his family is eventually going to end up back in exile in Babylon, because Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and took its people captive. So Babylon is both at the beginning and ending

of the big biblical story of Israel in the Old Testament. And it both ends the story, it represents this. It represents the rebellion at a civilization level. Yeah. Yeah. That becomes arrogance. Yep. And corrupt. Yep. And it's not the last time that Babylon exalting itself to a divine status. That's going to be an important motif all throughout the Old Testament and the prophets and so on. It's gonna continue. So Genesis 3 to 11 is crucial for understanding the day of the Lord. Genesis 11, the phrase day of the Lord isn't used in this story, but as we're gonna see. But the day of the Lord is coming to confront this problem.

Yes, to confront this problem. This is the problem. Yes. Genesis 3 through 11 is describing the problem that the day of the Lord needs to confront. Correct. Yep. That's how this matters. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bile Project Podcast.

Next week we'll continue our discussion on the day of the Lord. We just released our video on the Holy Spirit. Check it out on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible Project. Let us know what you thought of it. We're on Facebook, Facebook.com slash join the Bible Project and on Twitter at Join Bible Project. You can see everything we're up to on our website, thebibelproject.com. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you you