BibleProject - The Biggest, Baddest City in the Bible – The City E4

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

You may have heard that Babylon was the biggest, baddest city in the Bible, but where did that reputation come from? Who founded the city, and what made it so detestable to God? In this episode, join Tim and Jon as they explore the story of the half-human, half-god Nimrod and the city he founded.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-16:08)Part two (16:08-30:37)Part three (30:37-41:00)Part four (41:00-59:28)Referenced ResourcesThe Context of Scripture, William W. HalloInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Canary Forest” by Aso, Aviino, & Middle School“Winterrain” by tusken“Beaver Creek” by Aso, Aviino, & Middle School“Catching the Tube” by Sam StewartShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

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.

In the story of the Bible, cities have their origin and human fear and violence. It's Cain who built the first city as a means of preserving his own life, instead of trusting God who promised to protect him. One of Cain's descendants, Nimrod, is the man who builds the second city in the Bible, famously known as Babylon. Nimrod is depicted as a guy who might be part human, part spiritual being, a bad guy of cosmic proportions. Sometimes the bad guys in Marvel movies are just like somebody who got hurt and they're good Parts spears will be a bad guy of cosmic proportions. Sometimes the bad guys in Marvel movies are just like somebody who got hurt and they're good with electronics.

And then sometimes the bad guys are these cosmic, demigods, Gilgamesh is like that. And Nimrod's like that. And the fact that Nimrod and the city of Babylon are full of language, all linking back to the Nephilim, and Lemek, and Cain, providing and presuming to take God's name and protection and make it for themselves. It's all of that stuff, with the volume turned up to 11.

Babylon becomes one city that represents the height of both human and spiritual rebellion. The people of Babylon are unified, but they're unified around making their own name great. Humans who define good and bad by their own wisdom is parallel here to Babylon, accomplishing that unity been in a way that centers all humanity around one language, one culture, that claims for itself, that what Babylon does is what God wants for the world. God wants unity for the people of the world, but not unity that resembles homogeneity, and not unity that comes at the expense of other people. Not everything that Babylon inspired to was bad, it was just the way that they would go about it,

was going to be for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. And God says, and shutting that project down. Today Tim Mackey and I discuss the origins of the great city, Babylon. I'm John Collins and you're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey John. Hi. Hi. We got really kind of philosophical in our last episode talking about the city.

The nature of human society. Yeah. And how we're just going to end ourselves. And so wouldn't it be just better just to end it? Oh. It's just not that natural kind of way to think about human life. It's very dark kind of existentialism of just like, this is worthless.

Yeah, let's just end it. And what you're describing is we spent all of last episode thinking about the narrative sequence in Genesis, chapters four to eight, where the story of Cain and Abel, Cain's murder, and Cain's violence scales up with his descendant Lemek and Kane builds a city and then Lemek, whose name is King Backwards, starts scaling that violence, but also good thing scale in his city and in his day, like animal husbandry. And art and creative arts and music and metallurgy and so on, but also

violence scales. And then with the story of the sons of God and the origins of the Nephilim and the violent warriors, it's just like, God's like game over. Yeah. You see the potential, as we were saying, the potential is there of like how wonderful it is for us to scale in a beautiful way. But instead of the potential realizing it's the evil takes over. It seems like the tendency of humans toward violence and self-ruin overpowers anything good. Yeah, we tend to do. And the portrait of the city and the spiraling of violence through the line of Cain leading to the flood. It's a key part of that. Can I put it this way? We're talking about the predictability of the city. Or I don't know if it's a better word, but the the inevitability of the city.

Yeah. It's what it feels like. When God says, man, I just know that human, everything in the human heart is evil from youth. At the conclusion of the flood story, God's reflection is, man, humans are gonna, this is just what they do. We're jumping around, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Like, things get so bad. God says, humanity's gonna destroy itself. I'm gonna take this down. Like, let's just shut it down. Yeah. Well, or, you know, it's so great. I feel like I'm being you right now. Yeah, okay.

Like you started with this line of thought and I'm trying to think of the audience and try to explain it and bring them along. Oh, good. So the story of the flood begins with God saying, the end of all humans has come up before me. They're going to destroy themselves, so all accelerated.

But he chooses one. Yeah. Which means God's not done with humans. He's just going to let this generation cycle itself out and start a new one, just like the generation in the wilderness, yeah, later in the Torah. Then when Noah surrenders everything, God looks and he says, well, you know, humans are going to keep doing this. This is just what humans do. The inevitability of human civilization. Yes. If humans scaling the efforts multiplying and subduing the earth, yep, it's going to result in horrific

settings and situations. The city's gonna be bad. Yeah, but if there is one among the human family, a righteous intercessor who, like Noah, will surrender what's most valuable and precious, then God says, I'll work with all of humanity because of the one. And then that's where we go. Somehow I'll carve out and I'll find the good. The good will overcome.

Somehow. Somehow. And the story doesn't say how you just have to keep reading and things are going to continue to get a lot more depressing before we ever see the bright ray of sunrise. If this is the first time you've listened to any of these conversations, you might be jumping in and really confused. We're like what the fourth conversation in a theme of the city. The city. And so we just tried to summarize in a theme of the city. The city. And so we just tried to summarize in a very half hazard way.

Chances one through eight of human civilization, undoing itself, and God rebooting it with Noah. And at the center of that is the setting of the city, which is introduced as the symptom of a problem, which is humans can't trust God and each other, and we've got to try to protect ourselves. Yep. So cities in the Bible are defined by an enclosure of dwellings surrounded by a wall, protective wall.

Yeah. Protect you from animals and humans that want to kill you and take your stuff. Okay. So, we've followed that cycle through of the story. What's going to happen is now just like Adam and Eve, had three sons and Cain had three sons that led to the whole thing we just went through. Now, the new human, Noah and his wife, who were never told her name, they have three sons as well.

And the story of those three sons is also going to lead to the building of another city that it's all going to replay all over again. So what we're following now is from the story from Noah to Babylon, the biggest baddest city, like ever. So far, in the story of the Bible. And it becomes the like the narrative beginning of the biggest baddest city in the story of the Bible. Totally. That last all the way to the final pages of the Christian Bible in the Revelation. So Noah and his wife have three sons, Shem, Cham, and Yafat. That's how you say them in Hebrew. And then when they're introduced,

this is Genesis 9, verse 18. Ham is singled out and you're just told, oh yeah, ham is the dad of a guy named Canaan. Just tuck that away, reader. Okay, because you'll need that. Because we'll know a lot about Canaan later. Yep. And from these three sons of Noah,

all the land was scattered. Mm. That's where this story's going. Yeah, it's already like pointing forward to the scattering of Babylon. Yeah. So Noah began to be a man of the ground, and he planted a vineyard. And you're like, oh, like an atom. Mm.

A gardener. Now, remember, the word ground is the word, ah, dhama, so it rhymes with atom. And then also he's planting a little garden, which is what God did in Genesis chapter 2. And he drank of the vine. So he consumed the fruit of his garden. No, that's great. Yeah, actually God said, enjoy all the food. Every tree, every... Yeah, totally. And a vine is a tree. Yes, that's right.

It dates. It dates. So, he drank of the wine of a vine and he became drunk and he uncovered himself in the middle of his tent. So he consumes the fruit of his garden and it leads to nakedness. So instead of consuming the fruit of the garden leading to life, which was the point of Eden, somehow this led to something else. Yeah, and this is all very cryptic and riddle-like,

and it's assuming that you're going to compare these two, this is four lines in the story that is recounting in parallelism the whole, what took a whole chapter in Genesis 3. Genesis 2 and 3, but the planting of a garden, the enjoyment of the food, but something foolish related to that food that leads to nakedness. There's a very condensed version of that narrative pattern of Adam and Eve's story. Yep. So then we're told that ham, and then all of a sudden, again, remember, he's the dad of Canaan, super, super important. Just keep that in mind. He looked upon the nakedness of his father.

That's the phrase. Yep, that's the phrase. The nakedness, looking upon the nakedness of his father. That's the phrase. The nakedness, looking on the nakedness of his father. I think we'll just say we have a whole episode where we really dive deep into this scene. What this landed for me was when there's the law in one of the books of the Torah. The Viticus, chapters 18 and 20. This was a very specific phrase to talk about.

Sexual intercourse. With your father's wife. The nakedness of a father is a Hebrew idiom for a man's wife. Okay. And specifically why a son should not have sex with the nakedness of his father, that is with his father's wife. And that is what the phrase means here. Okay. of his father, that is with his father's wife. And that is what the phrase means here.

Oh, and in Leviticus 18, doing that is called the custom of the land of Canaan. Oh, well, and here's Ham. And there's Ham, the father of Canaan. Yes. And what you're saying, if it just jumped at the case, there's this rivalry happening, not between brothers but between son and dad, who gets to be in charge here?

Ham is the youngest son, and Ham takes advantage of his father's vulnerability by pulling an alpha male move, a move to become the family patriarch. Yeah. If you want to go into that more, we talk about that in the first born series. So that's going to be relevant for a future conversation we have about the Sodom and Gamora story. Okay. But this illicit crossing of proper boundary lines is a motif related to

the city as it goes forward. So what happens is Noah wakes up and he announces blessings and curses on different sons. The one thing we didn't address is the the naikness of the father is a metaphor. Yeah. But then as the narrative continues like it's literally he's naked and they're covering him. Yeah. Is it continued metaphor? Yeah.

I think that it's most likely an intended double meaning. Okay. So I see because they cover. He's drunk. So like there's something shameful about being passed out drunk in your tent. But then there's also something shameful about him wanting to take advantage of his father in that state. Yeah.

Okay. So the two brothers, Shem and Japheth. they get a blanket and they cover their dad, your zoomly mom who's there and don't look. You know, so funny is we ended the last episode of like, man, but we just have one blameless guy. Oh, yeah. You can reboot humanity. Yeah, yeah. And the first story is like he's drunk in his tent and his kids are taking advantage of the situation.

Yeah, I mean, really, ham's the bad guy here. Ham's the bad guy. But no, it's just the fool. He mean, really, ham's the bad guy here. Ham's the bad guy. But no is just the fool. He's the fool, okay. No, it makes a, and that's kind of like Adam and Eve. They're more depicted as foolish, making a poor decision. Ham's the snake here. He's the snakey guy, yeah.

Okay. And notice that it's about him seeing, which is the woman saw that the tree was good, and then she ate, she gave to her husband. But that was a foolish seeing and a foolish taking. And then they saw they were naked. Now here's a guy who's like this, and that all happened in Eden because of the deception of a snake. Now here's a guy who's acting snake-like, and he's the one who sees the nakedness. So again, we're taking the vocabulary of the Eden story, but we're always a twist. So Noah wakes up, and he's the one who sees the nakedness. So again, we're taking the vocabulary of the Eden story, but we're always a twist.

Yeah. So Noah wakes up and he pronounces a series of blessings and curses. And what he says is, it's cursed be canine. And you're like, well, ham's the one who did the thing. Yeah. Well, remember.

But this is all written from a perspective. Much later perspective. Where we know that one of the biggest conflicts is going to be between Israel and these people group called the Canaanites. Yeah. Also, we were told multiple times, Ham was the father of Canaan. So yeah, to cursed be Canaan is both in Israel's historical experience. The Canaanites were kind of their arch-rivals. Right, but this wasn't even written during that time. This was written then, well, beyond that, reflecting on that, and then the Canaan is no longer...

There's no longer like the Canaanites that Israel's a deal with. Israel's in exile from a Babylon. Right. So that's the thing to deal with. Yeah, so just wait for it. Okay. Yeah, just wait for it. So what all we're told is that the lineage through ham,

this guy named Canaan, who I think likely is the implied offspring of this union between Hanuman, his dad's wife. It doesn't say that, but I think the narrative design implies it. That lineage will become a servant to his brothers. Blessed be Yahweh, the Elohim of Shem, which will be a lineage through Shem, and Yahweh is going to be associated with that,

that's where Abraham comes from, and let Canaan be his servant. May Elohim enlarge Yahfet and let him dwell in the tense of Shem, and let Canaan be a servant. So three sons, Shem and Yahfetat are associated, things could go great for them, if they learn how to dwell in one tent and unity. And they will rule Canaan. Canaan will be underneath both of them. And Canaan is this literary character that represents the seed of the snake.

So just let's move forward. And what we're going to find in the story is another genealogy with a couple narratives. Genesis chapter 10, sometimes called the Table of Nations. And it begins by saying, these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, ham, Japheth, who were born, and there were born to them sons after the flood. And then it's a list of all these different descendants from these three sons. So we get a list of the sons of Japheth. There's 14 listed in two sets of seven. It's interesting.

Then at the end are the sons of Shem. And in the middle are the sons of Ham. And it's out of birth order. Okay. But when you get to Ham, I wanna just, here's how the list for ham goes Okay, which is right in the middle right in the middle. These are the sense of ham ham had four sons kush and

Mitsuraya and put and Kanan or Canaan so four sons, okay? Okay, the genealogy is gonna go follow three of those sons kush and then Mitsuraya and Then Canaan put who knows? He dist. He invented golf. He had a discolent. So you get the list of sons from Kush, there's eight of them. And then in verse, Genesis 10 verses 8 through 12 is a little narrative

crammed in to the genealogy. It sticks out. Because in verse 13 it's just a list of sons from Mitzreim and then verse 15 a list of sons from Kent. So this narrative is interesting. And it's about how Kush had one more son. Kush became the father of Nimrod. Nimrod. Is this all like the next generation of sons or is this like son after son after son? So Kush, Worsiba, and Havala, and Saptah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These like all Kush's like, they're the brothers, or is this like- Sons. So the sons of Kush were were and then it was five sons. And their brothers. They're all brothers. Yep. And then it singles out one brother,

Rahama, and then it talks about his two sons. Okay. And then all of a sudden, you're given one more son of Kush. So you were told five, but now here's number six. Okay. And we don't know. The narrow just really wants to focus

on certain things. So the father of Nimrod. So Nimrod and Hebrew means we will rebel. It's also the Semitic name of a city, Nimrud, that was way out in the Mesopotamian plains. Let's keep reading. He began to become a mighty warrior in the land. Oh. And, well, you're saying, oh.

This is the same word used to describe the Nephilim. Okay, they were described as mighty warriors. Yep. Nephilim were mighty warriors. Men of the name, that's how they're described in Genesis 6. And they were created from this, you know, the offspring of the sons of Elohim. Or they're associated, just in the land,

at that same time when that stuff went down, isn't it just interesting, at the same time, that the sons of Elohim, they think. But here clearly this is a son of Kush, who is a son of, Yeah, son of Kush. As a son of Kush who is a son of yeah son of Kush as a son of Yeah, sorry ham, which is son of Noah. Mm-hmm. These aren't sons of Elohim. I'm just wait for it I think what so he was a mighty warrior before Yahweh

Like and I think before Yahweh doesn't mean like he had a really happy hour way like Yahweh saw him yeah, youweh saw him or before can actually mean quite a lot of things. It can even mean if you were to compare or in the presence of Yahweh, this guy is a big deal. Okay. Now, he's a mighty warrior. You could contrast him, Yahweh, in a sense. Yeah, what? Yahweh is powerful. Yeah. He's actually called a Gibor in the poem that's always. Yahweh is? the poem that's always called a mighty warrior in the poem about his overthrow of Pharaoh. Okay.

So you know, you're always a mighty warrior and Nimrod, he's a mighty warrior too. And he's a hunter and animal slayer. Hmm. Therefore, people say like Nimrod, a mighty warrior hunter before Yahweh. People love, he's a man of the name. People love to celebrate his name. Like, you know, maybe if you're like an archer and you win the contest in your city and people say like, you're like Nimrod.

Right. We do like to celebrate our athletic heroes. Hmm. Ah, so our athletic heroes in the modern West are modernized versions of what in medieval Europe and in Rome were the gladiators. Yeah. Just minus the death. Yeah.

Or like if you like the jousting like. Yeah, yeah, that's right. The contest. Yeah. These are just like who can who can take who out? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, but in this era in the cultures of the arena, right? Your battle prowess on the battlefield or in the arena is how you've gained a great name for yourself. Yeah, and that's this guy. He's a mighty warrior hunter so it's all very elusive, but we're describing somebody who's a pretty violent dude. And people love to celebrate his name. Then we're told just a short few details, the beginning of his kingdom, you know, kingdom. Yeah, this has gotten quite large. This is the first kingdom. Oh, this

is the first kingdom. Okay, this is the first kingdom. Okay. Yes. And what we're going to start hearing about is all the cities plural that make up his kingdom. But the beginning, the chief of his kingdom was Babylon. Yeah. And Eric and Akad and Kalna, all these in the land of Shin-Aur. And Shin-Aur and Babylon are actual, they're Hebrew words, but they're based on Semitic roots that go back to the Semitic language on the way other side of the Eastern Desert,

which is called Akkadian. Yeah. Bob Il means the gate of the gods. Oh, really? Portal between the humans of the gods. Oh, really? Portal between the humans and the gods, Babylon. Yeah, just like Eden. So he built one kingdom, Babylon, Eric, Akad, Kalna, so there's one network. And then from that land, he went forth into Assyria.

And he built Nineveh and Reholfot Irr and Kala, and also Rezin between Nineveh and Kala. That is the great city. Rezin is the great city. It's either Rezin or Nineveh. Or it could be that all of this together is a network of cities that's just called the great city. Isn't Nineveh called the Great City in the book of Jonah? Yeah, the phrase, this is the Great City, is used twice in the Hebrew Bible. Oh yeah. Right here. And then go call out against Nineveh.

The Great City. That Great City. Yeah. That's what God says to Jonah. So in what sense did one guy start all of these city states and Emplires you totally so here's what's great is that Nimrod is a version of a name of an actual region out in ancient

Mesopotamia, okay, and pinning down to what Mesopotamian king And pinning down to what Mesopotamian king this actually was. Yeah, I mean, this is like, this is one of the holy grail hunts of Hebrew Bible studies. There's gonna be a Indiana Jones movie on this. Yeah, totally. So there was Israeli scholar, Yigal Levine, who wrote an important kind of research essay on this.

And his conclusion, I think is pretty persuasive. He says, the biblical Nimrod is not a total counterpart of any one historical character. He is a composite Hebrew equivalent of the kings of the Sargon dynasty, that is in Mesopotamia was the late 2000s. The first mighty king to rule after the flood. So there's a common shared cultural narrative between the biblical story and Babylonian ways of telling their history. Have a great flood. Yeah, and the pre-flood and great flood and post-flood are cataclysmic flood in the region is a key marker. That's why there's all these Babylonian versions of the flood,

autohossus and the tale of Utnapishtim and wonderful. You know, it makes sense in Mesopotamia to have a great flood near this. Yes, yes. Because they live in a flood zone. Correct. They live in like a, like where it's great, like it's fertile valley. We could build a city here. The big problem is It can flood and so it kind of makes sense that in there like in their history They've experienced it and the way that they they process Decreation and like these cataclysmic events that could happen is a flood. Yeah, that's right

So that's one piece. Also, the origin of the great kingdoms and networks of kingdoms that made up the Mesopotamian plans, who built them and how they were built. This was the stuff of Babylonian historical legend and so on. This is like Gilgamesh and... Yes, actually Gilgamesh is one of them. Yeah.

Okay, so we'll get there. But so the point is what you got all the saying is, if you take all those cities that were just named there and Genesis 10, like they didn't, they weren't all built at one time and by one person. Right. It's as if Nimrod is like Adam and Eve, right? Representative characters.

Remember their names mean human lives, right? And Nimrod's name is... Mighty warrior. No, we will rebel. We will rebel. And here's this character who's the origin of all these Eastern kingdoms and empires that are gonna become the biggest bad guys

in the biblical story. And so it's not fiction because these are actual places. Right. But it is a stylized history that's wrapping all of the origin of these kingdoms into one time and place with a representative royal figure, who's like Kane, or like Lemek. And remember Lemek's name is King Backwards, and this guy builds the first kingdom. He's the first king of a kingdom. So that's interesting. What can I say too, is what's clear though, is in the same way that Lemek was like representative of the seat of the like, Snaky line of Cain. Nimrod is this ultimate king from the Snaky line of ham. Yes, exactly right. So again, the historical legends about these first kings after the flood in the ancient east that

built the cities that are named here. One of them in particular is a key figure, Gilgamesh, he brought him up. He was a Sumerian king. And both in the narratives and in the art depicting Gilgamesh, he's depicted as a giant. So I'm showing you a picture right now of a early sculpture of Goga Mesh, and he's holding a lion like the way you hold a house cat. Right. Yeah. So he's a mighty warrior hunter, and he's a giant. He's a gibor. Yeah. One of the giant warrior kings. So the point is that Nimrod is within himself the parallel to Kane, and to Lemek, and to the sons of God, and the Nephilim.

He's like all of them, wrapped into one dude. Yeah. Wow. Not only did. Mm-hmm. That's the point. Got it. So, you know how in Marvel movies, with these like cosmic, sometimes the bad guys in Marvel movies are just like, you know, somebody who got hurt by their parents when they're growing up and they're good with

electronics. And so they can like, Dr. RxPoose, you're like, make a mechanical suit or something. And then sometimes like the bad guys are these cosmic demigods, you know, coming down out from another reality. Like, Gilgamesh is like that. And Nimrod's like that. And so that's the kind of. Cosmic bad. Cosmic bad, yeah. Now if you're Babylonian or a Samarian, you're celebrating these guys.

Oh yeah. These aren't cosmic bad. These are your heroes. This is the version of the origin of Babylon told by the people group like out smash by Babylon. Yeah, yeah. First, and that's just significant. Totally.

Yeah, significant. What you're saying is let's keep in mind all of these stories, the final, a craftsmanship of these stories were by the people who were taken out of their land by Babylon. Correct. Yeah. And oppressed by Babylon.

Yep. So there are two versions of the building of Babylon in the Hebrew Bible. by Babylon. Correct. In the press, by Babylon. Yep. So there are two versions of the building of Babylon in the Hebrew Bible. We just read one of them. Kind of like there's two narratives about creation. Right. At the beginning of Genesis, there's two narratives about the city of anti-creation. So we just read the first one.

Yeah. Nimrod did it. Nimrod did it. You get another version of it in Genesis 11 and how the two go together. It's a whole rabbit hole, we go down in the classroom class. From Noah to Abraham. Yep, but here's the other version. This is the more well-known story in Genesis chapter 11. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 Now, all the land was one language and unified words, and it came about as they journeyed east, they found a plane in the land of Xinar. Like, oh yeah.

Yep. And Nimmer, I made it. Yeah, that's where. Mm-hmm. Like, oh yeah. Yep. That's a... And Nimrod made it. Yeah, that's where I had to go. And they settled there. So Nimrod's nowhere to be found. Yeah. It's just all the land had one language.

You're like, oh, well, I guess that's how it would have been getting off the boat with the flood. Right. At one point, I remember what we were jamming on, but at one point we were looking at this, and you pointed out that this kind of met like one way of thinking too. Oh, yes. Unified words. Yeah. Exactly.

So one language, it's literally the word one lip. Mm-hmm. It could be a metaphor for language, but unified words sounds as strange and Hebrew as it does in English. Mm-hmm. Because it could mean the same, or it could mean unified in the sense of, well, actually, that's why I chose this translation, unified. In other words, a shared cultural language.

Everyone's talking and thinking the same. Thinking the same, exactly right. So they want to, well, they go to a plane of Shinar. So a plane is a low place. Yeah. So they go to a low place, but they want to turn it into a high place. And so they said, each to his neighbor, come, let us brick bricks and burn them as burnt. Okay. And for them, brick was like stone, and tar was for them like mortar. What is that?

What's relevance of that? Oh, well, first of all, they're going to bake bricks. Yep. They're going to brick bricks. They're going to brick bricks by baking them. And they're going to make structures instead of stacking stones. Uh-huh. Because you can build something by stacking stones.

Okay, so that's more primitive technology. It's stone and mortar. Yep. Brick and tar, now is like a little more precise, structurally sound. Yeah, man. You can do a lot more with that. You can mass produce them by baking them and you can stack them. Yeah.

It's efficient. Interesting. Unified thoughts and language, unified structures. Structures that build. Yeah, totally. And it's paying attention to the development of technology. Yeah. Just like back in our previous conversation about.

The streams. Outside of Cain City, CAME, this development of technology and metal in art. So here, we have a development of technology that's going to lead to a city. So they use TAR to join the bricks together So here we have a development of technology that's going to lead to a city. So they use tar to join the bricks together and you can make structures that are bigger. You can make more of them and you can make them faster.

And they said, come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose head is in the skies and let us make for ourselves a name so that we are not scattered upon the face of all the land. Why are they worried about being scattered? Well, they want to be unified. They are unified and they want to remain their way of life. And they want a name. Yes, like Nimrod, a man of the name. People say his name like the warriors, the men of a name. Yes, like Nimrod. A man of the name. People say his name.

Like the warriors. The man of the name. This is mean of reputation. This means honor. Yep, that's right. And their name is going to be connected to their unified way of thinking and speaking. And it's all centralized or embodied in this city with a tower, the top of which is in the heavens, which is surely significant. They go to a low place, a plane, but they want to build something

for their name that ascends up into the heavens. That's the idea here. So you might see that and think, oh, humans are getting creative and they can build stuff taller. So just like Nimrod, there's a whole backstory going on here, culturally, about the origins of this city, Babylon, and what Babylon claimed for itself. So it's kind of similar. This is another trash talk story. But we've talked about some in the past. By that, you mean Babylon's a known quantity in the context of these stories. Yes. And to say, Hey, here's the origin of the story of Babylon, but it was made from these

people wanting to be great and watch what's going to happen. Like you're saying that's like a trash talk. Yeah. So this whole region where there are the planes of Xinar, it's the floodplains of the Euphrates River before it meets with the Tigris, right around the place. And Babylon in the Semitic language

that it came from, Acadian, Bob Il is Gate of the Gods. So the earthly gate of the Heavenly Gods. I see. So if you're looking for a place where heaven and earth unite, they're saying we're it. Yeah. Babylon's it. Not Eden.

Right. Not Eden. Babylon. So there were many rulers who invested in the architecture of Babylon for thousands of years, many centuries before Abraham or any of that. So in particular, the huge structure that Babylon was known for was called a Temmononki, which in Sumerian means the Tower of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth. A little presumptuous.

This was a tower in Babylon. Yes. Yeah. It was a huge, what's called, ziggurat. That was a type of tower ziggurat. Which is, was a stair-step structure. But instead of the stairs only being on one side, every side, it's actually the four runners of the pyramids.

And it's the Mesopotamian parallel to what the Egyptians were doing down in Egypt. Correct. But stair-step pyramids. And it's the Mesopotamian parallel to what the Egyptians were doing down in Egypt. But the Steresteppe pyramids. So I think Etem and Nanki, yeah, its origins around the 14th century. And there's Babylonian legend and mythology all surrounding it. Wait, 14th century BC? 1300s. Yep, that's right. This would have been... 13th century BC. 1300s. Yep, that's right.

This would have been... Yeah, around, actually, by now we're around the time of the Israelites in Egypt. Yeah. That's right. But in terms of... But the way that this narrative is telling is before the Israelites existed.

Mm-hmm. That's right. So the city existed long before that. Okay. You're saying there's one particular tower. But there's one particular tower was like the most famous tower Babylon was known for, which comes from that later period. So in one of the most famous Babylonian creation stories called Enuma Elish, there's a whole part of the tale of the founding of this

temple structure. And it's really remarkable. You can- You just call it a temple. It's not merely a tower. Well, the temple is a tower. The thing is, it's a high place. Yeah, okay. Because it's the foundation of heaven and earth. That's where heaven and earth meet. Okay, so it's in the temple. So if you read the account of the founding of the structure

in Anuma, Elish, it's really remarkable. Because literally the language of Genesis 11 just leaps out at you. So I'm just sampling here. This is from the English translation provided in a volume called the context of scripture. There's a multi volume resource of ancient and Eastern texts in English translation edited by William Hallow and K. Lawson Younger. So you can read the account and the builders talk about making a shrine that will make the name of Babylon famous. It's talked about how they made it with bricks innovative and brick construction. It's a high ziggurat. They build it as a dwelling for their gods so that the gods can dwell on earth with asphalt and bitumen and mud bricks with the summit like the heavens.

It's raised its top as high as a mountain. So the point is this is all, this is in the air, this is like the pop music. Sure, right. This is what the kids are all into. And so the biblical author comes and he's what he's trying to say is yeah, you know Babylon is inspired by the principalities and powers Mm-hmm the stuff that went down with Cain and Lemek and the sons of God and Nephilim

It's like that, but even grander scale and so much so that it's founder is One of these mutant humans, right? Nephilim. Nephilim. But instead of celebrating him, we call him Rebel, the Rebel, which is a complement in our culture, I guess, but it wasn't that. Maverick.

And then retelling the founding story is instead of celebrating it, it's actually like part of the problem. So this is the second city built in the story of the Bible. And in the classroom class, we go through, you can show and the account in Genesis 11 here, and the story of Nimrod building Babylon is all hyperlinks through repeated words, specifically wanting to create a name. Yeah, the name. Yes, remember Cain built his city, and then there's a focus on he calls it by the name of his son. Uh-huh.

And the fact that Nimrod and the city of Babylon are full of language, all linking back to the Nephilim, and the Lemic, and Cain, the humans, providing and presuming to take God's name and protection and make it for themselves. It's all of that stuff, but just with the volume turned up to 11. So Yahweh came down. That's for sure a dig. They're not quite high enough. Yahweh is still up above. That's great. It's like, you know, let's make its head up in the skies. At which point you would think it would be like Jack

and the beanstalk, like the beanstalk pops up in the clouds. And you're always like, what? Hey, what's that? What are you guys doing here? But it's like, no, y'all, I had to go down to see the city and the town. Came down from the pay house. That the sons of Adam had built.

And y'all always said, ah, look at this. One people. And one language for all of them. And this is what they have begun to do. Now, nothing will be inaccessible for them. Anything that they devise to do. This little sentence right here is, I think I have a chart. Yeah. This little sentence, look,

they are one people and now nothing, they purpose will be impossible. So come, let us go down and let us make a babble of their language there so that each one will not hear the language of his neighbor. So you said Babel means gate of the gods and this is how I always understood the word Babel, meaning confusion of languages. Yeah, so the Hebrew verb here is Balaul, which is the play on the... It's a play on the word. Hebrew word Bavel, which means Babelon, but what's so great is that the word play works in English, too.

Yeah. And I may be that it's the word play based on this story. It must be. Babel, and Babylon comes from. Yeah. Babbling babies. Yeah. So, okay, I don't understand what's going on here. Really. So what God sees is these humans are about to get cosmic. These humans are about to do something with cosmic implications and they could pull this

off. By pull this off meaning what? If this is what they have begun to do, this is just the beginning of the human project. Man, they could do some really cosmic stuff. That's what God is saying. Like they could send people to the moon? I don't know, it doesn't say. Leave it to your imagination. And this isn't just about technology. This is about humans joining heaven and earth, but on colonial terms.

Yeah. So what God says is come, let us go down so that they can't understand each other. So partially, it's cryptic and riddle-like because you're supposed to know the hyperlink. Okay. When Adam and Eve take a neat from the tree, here's what God says.

Behold, the human has become like one of us knowing good and bad. And now, so that he doesn't stretch out his hand and take from the tree of life and eat and live forever, and God sent him out to the garden. Yeah. Okay. And that's always been confusing too, but I've tried to make sense of that in Genesis 3 of like this severe mercy of saying they could access eternal life, like this abundant life, but in the state they're in, if they do that, it's just going to be an eternal misery and it's going to create too many problems.

So I got an exxonum away. And so he doesn't want them to have access to the tree of life. And that's on parallel you're saying here, through all this hyperlinking of language. Let us confuse their language as if they, because look at what they can do. We don't want them to, it's not outtrieve life, it's a great city that... A tower that is rejoining heaven on earth, but on like, just really distorted terms. And joining heaven on earth is the idea of eternal life. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think what we're back to is this scaling of good and bad.

The human city is where both good and bad are scaled. I see. But if its foundation is in twisted human desire to redefine good and bad and to rule over the universe, but with our redefined knowledge of good and bad, if they're not good and bad and to rule over the universe, but with our redefined knowledge of good and bad. If this is the beginning of what they begin to do, oh man, they could do anything and that would not be good in the state.

In other words, the fact that these two speeches are parallel to each other, designed as parallel is saying what God is doing and one is related to what God's doing in the other. And what God's doing the one is saying, you don't have access to the tree of life so that you can't live forever. He prevents them from living forever in a state of defining good and bad by limited, distorted, human wisdom. Because it'll scale bad.

It'll scale bad and spiral out of control. Yeah. It'll break bad, as they say. Yeah. And so then in the story of the Tower of Babel, it's that instead of Tree of Life, it's a unified language. Yeah.

So in parallel to the idea of being connected to a source of all life, is this parallel idea of being unified in such a way where you can accomplish and multiply rapidly. Yeah. Yeah, which is not in and of itself bad. Right. Just like it's not of itself bad that humans live forever. Actually, that's a good thing. It's good that humans live forever. And it's good to grow and multiply and subdue the earth rapidly. And be unified and innovate. Yeah.

In technology, these are good. But it won't, but it's going to break bad. Yeah. And so God wants to disrupt it. Humans who define good and bad by their own wisdom is parallel here to Babylon, accomplishing that unity, been in a way that centers all humanity around one language, one culture, that claims for itself, that it is the place where God and

humans are one, and that what Babylon does is what God wants for the world. Okay, so you just reminded me where the conversation of the one language came Humans are one and That what Babylon does is what God wants for the world Okay, so you just reminded me where the conversation of the one language came from and that was the family of God family of God video Yeah, it was the idea of one people group saying we have yeah the perspective and answer and Everyone is gonna become subordinate to us. This city and the way it's arranged is the will of God for every other city, and we will establish that link. And it will- Could you imagine of a politician really thought that?

Just imagine. This is a remarkable meditation that the birth of an empire and its divine aspirations to make everyone subordinate to the way they think. Make every other city in its own image is likened to the failure of humans to the fall at how many. Yeah. It's so remarkable. And as you meditate on the parallel to fall of Adam and Eve,

God puts them out of the garden. They don't have access to the tree of life. What's interesting about Babylon and scattering is like, now you're just gonna have more groups of people can unify around their thoughts and just create cities. Many Babylon's. Yeah, so God didn't say like, I'm gonna take away your ability to create cities. Like he could have gone that far,

but instead it's just like, it almost seems like he's slowing it down. Yeah, it's a slow down. And Eden, he kind of shut it down. Get out of here. Yeah, I see. You can't get back in. Yeah, interesting.

Though he did continue to supply them with life and the gift of be fruitful and multiply. It still happens. So Eden is just slowed down, he's what you're saying? I'm just saying what happened, the failure in the garden, there it took away the opportunity for eternal life, but the possibility of ongoing life was a gift of Eden that continued. So here, the desire to unify is not taken away. It's just what you say, fractalized, divided out, scattered. Yeah, scattered. That's the word.

Yeah, but I'm just, it's scale. I'm enjoying this theme throughout the conversations of scaling of good and bad. Right. And even this portrait here is of a good aspiration to unify, to innovate, to find solutions. Great. Let's do brick instead of stone. Yeah. Sweet. Right. Man, things work so much better. But then, oh, let's use that technology. Think of all the shelters we could build,

think of all the things we could do. Yeah. But instead, whoa, we could be the gods. We can make, yes, we can make this heaven on earth. This is the city of God. The Bobbill gate of the gods is what the name of the city means. Which, and we should say, I guess I would want to say is that this impulse to want to create a city of God. Yeah, that's not bad. Heaven and Earth together is one.

Yeah. United with all of the cosmic life out there. That is a good impulse. This is exact. Yeah, thank you. That's right. That's right. And so why is it bad here?

Because they want to make their name great, or just because they don't know Yahweh, the true Elhim of Elhim. And maybe this is... Let me say this way, if they were to say, let's build a tower for Yahweh. Yeah. Well, I think in terms of the biblical authors, they would say, now we're talking. Okay. Because that's what Jerusalem will be. Oh, okay. At least for a little while. Until it turns into Babylon in the next generation

under Solomon. So what you're saying is let's create Christian Babylon? No, the Yahweh Babylon. But here's the thing is the portraits, the cycles are going to be every time humans take it upon themselves to do this, it ends up in Babylon. Okay. What if they call on the name of Yahweh and do and build the city? Yeah, like David does, and it works great until, for a moment. He sees Bashiba and Desirzer and takes her for himself. So we just need to, that greater than David. It's exactly right. Okay.

It's exactly right. What we need is a city of God not built with human hands. Hmm. That's how Daniel will put it in one sense, and how the author to the Hebrews will put it. But doesn't God want to rule the world through humans? How does he create a city without humans building it? I don't know, I think God

have to figure out a way to become one with humans so that it can be built by his spirit. I don't know. We're gonna get there. Okay. All right. But the whole point is when humans do it of their own wisdom by their own definition of good and bad, it usually is a mixed.

And when it's scaled to the degree of Babylon, the good is really good. And the bad is really, really bad. And we haven't got a portrait of the good being good. No. This is just the bad becoming bad. The bad becoming bad. Yeah. Breaking Babylon.

And so let us remember, even though this is about the origins of Babylon, we are being told this narrative within the final shape of the Hebrew Bible that was passed down, meditated upon, shaped and created by the people who were stomped by Babylon. Yeah. Glyves ruined by Babylon. Yes. Many generations almost obliterated by Babylon, so that Babylon becomes in the Hebrew Bible. This origin story is setting you up to conceive of Babylon as the worst.

So this is going to, where this is going to launch us, as far as where we're going here, is on into the biblical story throughout the Torah and the prophets. And we don't have time to cover every single city that we come across. I want to cover one more cycle of the really bad city after the... Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah. It's another icon city, which is depicted as a newer localized version of Babylon, not universal but local. And so God brings a local flood. So to speak upon it, but not of water, but fire. So there's Sodom and Gomorrah. And then

counter to the city of Cain, Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah, I want to meditate on the origins of Jerusalem in the story of David, that's where it will go, and then it becomes Babylon. But that golden age where the Ark of the Covenant was there in Jerusalem, there was a small little window of time that fueled the Israelite imagination for what it could look like if the city of God took up residence here among a city of man. And that's where the poets of the Psalms and the prophets let their meditations go when they think about the heavenly city becoming one with earth. And that is the dream that fueled Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament.

But for the moment, that is the story of the origin of Babylon, it's a mix of good and bad, but at the scale of an empire, the bad is hyper-destructive and did prove to be destructive throughout history. And I think that's why this narrative is the way that it is. There are moments when God comes down and says, this can't continue, and he'll shut down an empire. The scattering of Babylon becomes the, what do you say, the kind of like the template for the fall of many cities to come in the story, the Bible,

but also forms the opposite of what a city of God could be, which is also a heaven on earth that brings all the languages together, like at the end of the story of the Bible, the New Jerusalem is like the reversal of Babylon. So not everything that Babylon inspired to was bad, it was just the way that they would go about it was going to be for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. And God says, and shutting that project down. Okay, wait. So this is Dan with the podcasting, and I'm here with some new friends of mine who I just met. Because when I end yourself, I'm just go around there. So I'm Julia from Toronto Canada. I'm Ben I'm Chastlin from Austin, Texas and Michelle from Houston, Texas. That's awesome

So tell me a little bit how you guys first heard about about a project You heard about the Bible project actually from a friend of ours at seminary Who recommended it as a supplement to our schooling. For me, this can be similar to my mom. I very, very dear friend and pastor introduced us to the re-tripsure app and it's been a consistent staple in my life since then. Well, what do you guys, some of your favorite things? What's really valuable to you? The podcast. I love the videos, but they're kind of like the cream on top of my cake. My chocolate cake are the podcasts.

The Bible project provides like a safe place for me. It's like a safe space where I can learn about this creator god and I can understand without the pressure. Like, it's just an open space for me to like think you know and I feel like I'm not pressured to be on board with one viewpoint or another. That's right, I'm real. I'll say the word studies I end up studying Hebrew in Seminary and some of those word studies were kind of like all, and then hearing those themes across all of the Old Testament and then into the New Testament

and whole Unified whole. I love the podcasts and I feel like, even though I know, I don't know, Tim and John, but I feel like over years and years and years of kind of these weekly conversations, it's kind of like having Bible nerd conversations with our friends back home and but with these disembodied voices on a podcast. But I appreciate when they

actually do bring people with different points of view in terms of evangelical scholarship. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, it's definitely the podcast. So I am teaching myself to animate right now, so the videos obviously are like do you Create an inspiration for me But I think the podcast The paradigm series in particular Very much save my face I'm crying Yeah, give me language that I needed really... how I'm crying. I'm kind of... It's taxes, what can I say? Yeah, we do that.

Yeah, it gave me language that I needed, really like a whole lot. And it really, really tough times. So, I go back to it, I send people back to it. It has given me a way to communicate with people that aren't familiar with Jesus or have been really, really hurt. I feel like I have a way to talk about it that feels like I'm talking about something beautiful. Let's all say something, I'm sure.

Okay, well here, let's do the last part of it. If you just want to say it, we believe the Bible is a unified story. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project, people like me. I'm free to study, I'm a scientist. Classes and more at BibleProject.com. Where you guys are moving them? I'm sure you'll just edit it. Get us a deal. Thank you. you