In chapter 11 of the Bible we find a biblical legend that is dedicated to the construction of the Tower of Babel. The story of the tower consists of only 9 short verses and is not mentioned anywhere else. But, nevertheless, this is one of the most striking images in the Bible.
“...And they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building. And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do; Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other...”
(Excerpt from the Bible about the Tower of Babel)
There are only nine verses written in the Bible about the Tower of Babel. She is not mentioned anywhere else. In the image we see a painting by Lucas van Valckenborch, 1595. Photo: swatb.ru
Biblical legend about the Tower of Babel.
Tower of Babel.
Hendrik III van Cleve, 1563 After the Great Flood, only Noah and members of his family managed to escape. Accordingly, humanity in the years after the Flood was represented by one people speaking one language. Humanity spread across the earth, but they had a common language. When Noah and his family left the Ark, God commanded them:
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
However, Noah's descendants moved east and decided to build a city and a tower
"before being scattered over the face of the whole earth."
The descendants of Noah decided to build the city of Babylon (“the gate of the gods”) and a tower to heaven. These people wanted to elevate themselves with a tower to heaven, or, as the Bible says, “to make a name for themselves.” Surprisingly, the phrases “Tower of Babel” and “Panebble of Babel” are not mentioned in the Bible. In the Bible we only find “city and tower.” According to the Bible, the city of Babylon received the name “Babel” from the Hebrew word bala, that is, to mix and confuse.
The tower was supposed to elevate man, but not God, so the Lord was angry. God interrupted the construction of the Tower of Babel by creating different languages so that the builders could not communicate. People, having ceased to understand each other, left Babylon and scattered across the Earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel is a biblical version of the emergence of different languages.
Interesting fact: chapter 10 of Genesis tells about the descendants of Noah, about 70 of them are mentioned. Interestingly, there are also about 70 separate language groups on Earth.
During excavations in Babylon, R. Koldewey managed to discover the foundation and ruins of a tower
The tower mentioned in the Bible was probably destroyed before the time of Hammurabi. To replace it, another was built, which was erected in memory of the first. The following words of Nabopolassar have been preserved:
“By this time, Marduk ordered me to erect the Tower of Babel, which before me had been weakened and brought to the point of fall, with its foundation installed on the chest of the underworld, and its top to go into the skies.”
And his son Nebuchadnezzar added:
“I had a hand in completing the construction of the top of Etemen-anka so that it could compete with the sky.”
According to Koldewey, it had a square base, each side of which was 90 meters. The height of the tower was also 90 meters, the first tier had a height of 33 meters, the second - 18, the third and fifth - 6 meters each, the seventh - the sanctuary of the god Marduk - was 15 meters high meters.
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The tower stood on the plain of Sahn (the literal translation of this name is “frying pan”) on the left bank of the Euphrates. It was surrounded by the houses of priests, temple buildings and houses for pilgrims who flocked here from all over Babylonia. The topmost tier of the tower was lined with blue tiles and covered with gold.
The color of the glazed tiles contrasted wonderfully with the dull yellow waters of the Euphrates, over which a stone bridge was thrown at the southern walls. This bridge was also one of the most amazing structures of Ancient Babylon. It was based on five pillars that tapered against the current. They were hewn from huge blocks, held together with “iron and lead.”
The bridge (as wide as the Marduk road) was paved with red bricks covered with asphalt. The bridge began in the shadow of a palm grove on the right bank of the Euphrates and led to the main gate in the Babylonian wall. These gates themselves were a kind of tunnel, 30 to 40 meters long, with high watchtowers at the beginning and end.
The description of the Tower of Babel was left by Herodotus, who thoroughly examined it and, perhaps, even visited its top. This is the only documentary description of an eyewitness from Europe
“In the middle of every part of the city a building has been erected. In one part
- the royal palace, surrounded by a huge and strong wall, in another
- the sanctuary of Zeus-Bel with copper gates that have survived to this day.
The temple sacred area is quadrangular, each side two stages long. In the middle of this temple sacred site was erected a huge tower, one stade long and wide.
On this tower stands a second one, and on it another tower; in general, eight towers - one on top of the other. An external staircase leads up around all these towers.
In the middle of the stairs there are benches - probably for rest. A large temple was erected on the last tower. In this temple there is a large, luxuriously decorated bed and next to it a golden table. However, there is no image of a deity there. And not a single person spends the night here, with the exception of one woman, whom, according to the Chaldeans, the priests of this god, God chooses from all the local women.
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These priests claim (I, however, do not believe this) that God himself sometimes visits the temple and spends the night on this bed.
There is another sanctuary in the sacred temple site in Babylon below, where there is a huge golden statue of Zeus. Nearby there is a large golden table, a footstool and a throne - also golden.
According to the Chaldeans, 800 talents of gold went into making [all these things]. A golden altar was erected in front of this temple.
There is another huge altar there - adult animals are sacrificed on it; On the golden altar, only sucklings can be sacrificed.
On a large altar, the Chaldeans burn 1,000 talents of incense each year at a festival in honor of this god. There was also in the sacred area at the time in question a golden statue of the god, entirely made of gold, 12 cubits in height.
I myself did not have a chance to see her, but I am only reporting what the Chaldeans told. Darius, the son of Hystapes, passionately desired this statue, but did not dare to capture it.”
According to Herodotus, the Tower of Babel had eight tiers, the width of the lowest was 180 meters. According to the descriptions of the Tower of Babel by Koldewey, the tower was one tier lower, and the lower tier was 90 meters wide, that is, half as much.
It is difficult not to believe Koldewey, a learned and conscientious man, but perhaps in the time of Herodotus the tower stood on some terrace, albeit a low one, which over the millennia was razed to the ground, and during excavations Koldewey did not find any trace of it.
Each large Babylonian city had its own ziggurat, but none of them could compare with the Tower of Babel, which towered over the entire area like a colossal pyramid.
Its construction took 85 million bricks, and entire generations of rulers built the Tower of Babel: what the grandfather started, the grandchildren continued.
The Babylonian ziggurat was destroyed several times, but each time it was restored and decorated anew. This is understandable: the rulers who built the ziggurats did not build them for themselves, but for everyone. The ziggurat was a shrine that belonged to the entire people, it was a place where thousands of people flocked to worship the supreme deity Marduk.
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First, people left the Lower Temple, where a sacrifice was made in front of the statue of Marduk, then they climbed the giant stone steps of the Tower of Babel stairs to the second floor.
The priests, meanwhile, hurried along the internal stairs to the third floor, and from there they penetrated through secret passages into the sanctuary of Marduk. The people did not have access to this sanctuary - Marduk himself appeared here, and an ordinary mortal could not see him with impunity. Only one chosen woman, ready to share Marduk's bed, spent night after night here.
Tukulti-Ninurta, Sargon, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal took Babylon by storm and destroyed the Tower of Babel - the sanctuary of Marduk. Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt it. Cyrus, who took control of Babylon after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, was the first conqueror to leave the city undestroyed.
He was struck by the scale of Etemen-anka, and he not only forbade the destruction of anything, but ordered the construction of a monument on his grave in the form of a miniature ziggurat, a small Tower of Babel.
And yet the tower was destroyed again. The Persian king Xerxes left only ruins of it, which Alexander the Great saw on his way to India
He, too, was struck by the gigantic ruins - he, too, stood in front of them as if spellbound. Alexander the Great intended to build it again.
“But,” as Strabo writes, “this work required a lot of time and effort, because ten thousand people would have had to clear the ruins for two months, and he did not realize his plan, since he soon fell ill and died.”
The story of the Tower of Babel in biblical and apocryphal texts.
The story of the Tower of Babel appears in several texts:
Genesis. Beginning of Chapter 11:
1 Throughout the whole earth there was one language and one dialect.
2 Traveling from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, “Let us make bricks and burn them with fire.” And they used bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime.
4 And they said, “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth.”
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do;
7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other.
8 And the Lord scattered them from there throughout all the earth; and they stopped building the city [and the tower].
9 Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth.
Book of Jubilees. Chapter 10.
The Book of Jubilees gives the most detailed description of the construction of the tower.
“Behold, the sons of men became evil through a vile plan that they would build themselves a city and a tower in the land of Sinaar, for they moved from Ararat east to Sinaar.” For in his days they built a city and a tower, saying, “We will ascend by it to heaven.” And they began to build in the fourth week, and baked (bricks) with fire, and the bricks served them instead of stone, and the cement with which they strengthened the gaps was asphalt from the sea and from the water sources in the land of Sinaar. And they built it for forty-three years. And the Lord our God said to us: “Behold, this is one people, and they began to do this! And now I will not leave them! Behold, we will come down and confuse their languages, so that they will not understand each other and will be scattered among countries and nations, and may their plan never be realized until the day of judgment!” And the Lord came down, and we came down with Him, to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building; and He destroyed every word of their tongue, and no one understood the word of another. And so they refused to build the city and the tower. For this reason, the entire country of Sinaar was named Babel (Babylon). For thus God destroyed all the tongues of the sons of men; and from there they were scattered to their cities according to their languages and nations. And God sent a strong wind against their tower and threw it to the ground. And so she stood between the country of Asshur and Babylon in the land of Sinaar; and they called it the name of the ruin.
Greek apocalypse of Baruch. Chapter 3.
And I asked the Angel: “Please, sir, tell me who these people are?”
And he said: “These are the ones who gave advice to build the tower.
They themselves, whom you see, drove out many men and women to make bricks.
The woman alone, who was making bricks, when the time came for her to give birth, they did not allow her to leave, but while making bricks, she gave birth and carried her child in a towel, and made bricks.
And Yahweh appeared to them and changed their tongues when the tower reached a height of three hundred and sixty-three cubits.
And taking a drill, they began to try to drill into the sky, saying: “Let's see if the sky is clay, copper or iron.”
Seeing this, God did not allow them, but struck them with blindness and multilingualism and left them as you see them.”
The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel from the point of view of Christian morality.
The story of the Tower of Babel highlights the stark contrast between man's view of his own accomplishments and God's view of those accomplishments. The Tower of Babel was supposed to be humanity's first great construction project, but it wasn't.
According to the Bible, people used brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar for construction—they used “man-made” rather than natural “God-given” materials. The people did not trust the Lord in their construction, and therefore they failed. The Tower of Babel was created by people to draw attention to their abilities and achievements, not to give glory to God.
However, the history of the construction of the Tower of Babel also teaches us that in unity is our strength. However, this power is not always for the benefit of a person. The book of Genesis says:
… And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do.
By this, God indicates that when people are united in their goals, they can accomplish impossible feats, noble and ignoble.
The Bible teaches that there is strength in unity, but we must be careful: unity of purpose in worldly affairs can ultimately be destructive. Division and one's own point of view in worldly affairs are sometimes preferable to great universal feats for the glory of idolatry and apostasy. For this reason, God sometimes intervenes in human affairs to prevent further human arrogance. God thwarts people's plans so that they do not transgress God's limits.
The story of the Tower of Babel is also interesting in the sense that here for the first time the Lord speaks of himself in the plural person, referring to the Trinity:
... let us go down and confuse their language there ...
The story of the Tower of Babel continues the theme of competition between man and God, begun in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Josephus explains the construction of the tower as an arrogant act of defiance against the God of the arrogant tyrant Nimrod. The Bible does not directly indicate that Nimrod ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel, but many other sources link its construction to Nimrod.
Some researchers, historians and biblical scholars have an alternative point of view on the meaning of the episode of the construction of the Tower of Babel. They see the Lord's punishment not as punishment for pride, but as God's understanding of the need for cultural differences. These scholars present Babylon as the cradle of all civilizations.
Part seven. Tower of Babel
“Idolatry is the greatest crime of the world, the only cause of the Last Judgment,” wrote Tertullian. We know that after the fall of the Tower, most nations plunged into the abyss of paganism. What is the reason for this terrible crime of humanity? A detailed analysis of the spiritual reasons for this event is given by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans. Let us cite these words and try to understand the roots of this rebellion, especially since now the world is committing the same crime as Nimrod’s contemporaries: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1 :18).
The peoples scattered across the face of the earth began to deviate further and further from the true faith in God the Creator. Although traces of the original Revelation are still preserved among almost all nations, many superstitions, errors and absurdities are mingled with it. The reasons for this terrible spiritual catastrophe are described by St. Paul (Rom. 1, 18-32). People, having knowledge about God both from tradition and from observing the harmonious order of creation, did not want to give Him due glorification and refused to thank Him. All their thoughts were about the Earth, and they remembered God on occasion. Then vanity takes over their thoughts, there is no time to look at the sky, everyone thinks only about earthly needs. “Well, we have to feed our family, we don’t have time to go to church,” say modern pagans. Then a person’s mind begins to look for justifications for his actions and poisons the person’s heart, so that it forgets to listen to conscience, and listens to its own lusts. And, as a consequence of darkness, a person falls into madness. In order to somehow appease the voice of God in the heart, people began to invent their own fakes. First they bowed to the elements of the world - the sun, moon, stars, winds, stones, seas. Then they began to attribute magical powers to animals and plants and, finally, they reached the limit of evil: they began to bow to idols (or graven images) depicting deified people, animals and monsters, and believe that they are God. In addition, mass veneration of evil spirits began, who led this process of moral decline, from here magic, sorcery, astrology and other black arts developed again after the Flood. Demons inhabited idols and performed imaginary miracles in order to lead people as far as possible from the Creator. They established rituals that led to an increase in sin in people, and the more they lured them under their power.
Thus, most people became pagans or idolaters, whose religion consists of worshiping the creature instead of the Creator. And to this day, billions of people on our Earth adhere to this false belief - these are Hindus, shamanists, Buddhists, and many others.
“For the invention of idols is the beginning of fornication, and the invention of them is the corruption of life. They were not in the beginning, and they will not be forever. They entered the world out of human vanity, and therefore their end is imminent. The father, tormented by bitter grief over his early deceased son, made an image of him as an already dead man, then began to honor him as a god, and passed on the secrets and sacrifices to those in power. Then, established by time, this wicked custom was observed as a law, and according to the orders of the rulers, the statue was revered as a deity. Whomever people could not honor in person due to the remoteness of their residence, they depicted a distant face: they made a visible image of the revered king, in order to flatter the absent one with this zeal, as if he were present. The diligence of the artist encouraged increased veneration from those who did not know, for he, perhaps wanting to please the ruler, tried to make the likeness more beautiful with art; and the people, captivated by the beauty of the decoration, who had recently been revered as a person, now recognized him as a deity. And this was a temptation for people, because they, submitting either to misfortune or to tyranny, attached the incommunicable Name to stones and trees. Then it was not enough for them to be mistaken in their knowledge of God, but they, living in the great struggle of ignorance, call such great evil the world. Performing either infanticidal sacrifices, or secret secrets, or frantic feasts borrowed from other people's customs, they do not protect either life or pure marriages, but each one either kills the other by deceit, or offends the other by adultery. All without distinction are blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, treachery, rebellion, perjury, theft of property, forgetfulness of gratitude, desecration of souls, transmutation of sexes, disorderly marriages, adultery and debauchery. Serving idols, unworthy of the name, is the beginning and the cause and the end of all evil, for they either go on a rampage while having fun, or prophesy lies, or live lawlessly, or quickly break an oath. Relying on soulless idols, they do not think of being punished for swearing unjustly. But for both of these, condemnation will come upon them, both for the fact that they thought wickedly about God, turning to idols, and for the fact that they swore falsely, insidiously despising the holy. For it is not the power of those by whom they swear, but the judgment of those who sin always follows the crime of the unrighteous” (Wisdom 14:12-31).
These words are useful to remember for many modern religious scholars who insist on the unity and equivalence of all religious traditions. We see that the Creator Himself is angry with those who adhere to a different faith. He claims that there are no honest pagans. Their religion is the result of the suppression of the truth that they know by untruth, and therefore it is ungodliness and untruth. “And it is not right for us to bring upon ourselves the curse of God for calling evil good” (Is. 5:20).
“For what can be known about God is obvious to them, because God has made it known to them. For His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been visible from the foundation of the world by looking at what is made, so that they are without explanation” (Rom. 1:19-20). With these words, the Apostle accuses the pagans of not only not having found the Creator, but of deliberately rejecting the God Whom they knew. According to St. Theophan the Recluse, “when something is before the eyes, it is irresistibly seen as long as the eye is open. Thus God is irresistibly seen by the soul. The physical eye can be closed, but the mental eye cannot be closed: it constantly looks. This is the knowledge of the soul that there is God, that He created everything and contains everything, and that it must fulfill His will, is spoken in conscience... The tongues knew about God and about divine things not only from what was imprinted in their souls, but also from what God later specifically revealed and what, according to legend, passed from generation to generation. Over time, the source of the legend is forgotten; and this knowledge merged with natural knowledge... But that’s not all. What the soul says about God could not be heard due to the noise of human troubles and worries. What came along the path of tradition on behalf of God Himself could somehow be stopped, or covered with doubt. Therefore, so that the understanding of God would not become implicit among the tongues, God opened before them the book of nature, which one cannot help but read, for it is always before one’s eyes, and in which He wrote Himself and revealed Himself to the gaze of all.”
Indeed, we see that almost all the peoples of the Earth have preserved the memory of Heavenly God, Who is the Creator, the Source of moral laws, and the incorruptible Rewarder. But at the same time, according to the famous religious scholar Mircea Eliade, “almost all heavenly gods are characterized by the absence of a cult and, above all, the absence of any calendar of seasonal rituals.” This fact clearly testifies against those fools who claim that belief in One God is the result of the late influence of the monarchy on the religious life of mankind.
Moreover, the words of the apostle are confirmed by the fact that many people came to the knowledge of God through contemplation of the wise structure of the Universe. An example of this is the life of St. Vmch. Barbarians, who recognized God, contemplating the beautiful starry sky from the top of the tower where her father imprisoned her. Indeed, according to the true word of St. Theophan, “the general consciousness and feeling directly confesses the ever-present Divine, that He is from Himself and cannot not be; and the rational mind, seeking the basis for everything, only calms down when it comes to the conviction of the eternal essence of God. The healthy part of humanity has always rested and will rest on this conviction and belief. Only those who are mentally ill lose it, and in its place they weave propositions whose incongruity and incommensurability with the matter they are weaving to explain cannot be surprised. But such deviations from the general norm of belief and religious consciousness cannot in any way shake the truth that is expressed by this norm.”
“But how, having come to know God, they did not glorify Him as God and did not give thanks, but became futile in their speculations, and their foolish hearts were darkened; calling themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed creatures, and creeping things - then God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, so that they defiled their very bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever, amen. Therefore, God gave them over to shameful passions: their women replaced natural use with unnatural; Likewise, men, abandoning the natural use of the female sex, were inflamed with lust for one another, men committing shame on men and receiving in themselves due retribution for their error. And even though they did not care to have God in their minds, God gave them over to a depraved mind - to do lewd things, so that they are filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil spirits, slanderers, slanderers, haters of God, offenders, self-praisers, proud, resourceful for evil, disobedient to parents, reckless, treacherous, unloving, irreconcilable, unmerciful. They know the righteous judgment of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death; however, not only do they do them, but they also approve of those who do them” (Rom. 1:21-31).
This is how the Apostle Paul describes the spiritual roots of the origin and spread of paganism. This description provides a most accurate analysis of the human heart falling away from God. And we should turn to consider the development of this infection, especially since now, along with the revival of the ancient lie - the worship of the creature instead of the Creator - an amazing indifference to this monstrous infection is emerging among Christians.
Many say that a pagan who worships other gods or idols, if he follows the example of his ancestors, can be saved if he acts according to the law of conscience. At the same time, they do not think that idolatry itself is a fundamental perversion of the heart, dooming a person to eternal torment along with the demons he worships. After all, whoever serves whom is his slave. Anyone who honors the creation instead of the Creator is truly in darkness, and, as the demon said in the “Acts of St. Bartholomew,” “when people worship idols, we immediately gain power over them and after death we take them to our place in Gehenna.” Spiritual practice shows that, although idols themselves are nothing, real spirits are hidden behind them, giving miraculous powers to the statues and enslaving their fans. So, for example, in the life of Gregory the Wonderworker, a case is mentioned when, during a theatrical performance, the pagans shouted: “Zeus, come!” Zeus, come!” And St. Gregory said bitterly: “What are you doing? After all, he will come! And so it happened. Three days later, a plague began in the city of Neokesarea, and before the disease began in one of the houses, people saw a black ghost entering the door. As we see, a killer demon was hiding under the name of Zeus. It is not for nothing that the Lord calls the Pergamon altar of Zeus the throne of Satan (Apoc. 2:13). It is interesting that under the same name the demon also appeared in distant Russia. In the life of St. Avraamiya of Rostov tells about the terrible idol of Veles, standing at the Chudsky end of Rostov, which instilled panic in everyone passing by if they did not make sacrifices to him. St. appeared to the monk. ap. John the Theologian, he gave him a reed and led him to overthrow the image. St. Abraham listened to the apostle, and after being hit with a reed, the idol turned into dust, and the demon, forced by the power of God, admitted that his name was “Diy,” i.e. Zeus. This is precisely the reason for the persistence of such an absurd belief that soulless idols are gods.
But let us return to the words of the Apostle Paul, describing the process of apostasy. People, having come to know God, as St. rightly writes. Feofan, “what did they mean? Not only that there is God, but also that He is, that He is the Creator, contains everything and provides for everything, that we must worship Him and please Him in everything, with the consciousness of responsibility before Him, and finally, that after death there will be judgment and reward to everyone for all their deeds, good and evil. These truths are imprinted on the heart, and there is no people who have not confessed them.” Indeed, almost all peoples have an idea about the Source of the Universe (as we saw above) and about the existence of retribution; this idea can be either very developed, as among the Egyptians and Chinese, or barely outlined, as among animist peoples (like the savages of the Papuans) . But everywhere there is recognition of the difference in posthumous fate for people depending on their righteousness or sinfulness.
Contrary to the widespread prejudice that “to know is to do,” the pagans did not glorify Him as God and did not thank Him. “The first degree of descent from this state is oblivion of God, when the bright and wondrous face of the Divine falls from consciousness; God is forgotten, and the thought of Him sometimes comes to mind. At the same time, religious feelings towards God cool and the fear of God evaporates. God turns into something mental and ceases to direct all the internal movements of a person. The heart no longer glorifies and thanks God, although the tongue reads praises and thanksgivings. Pleasing God ceases to be the main goal of life; other goals take the place of this and occupy the whole person. God still exists, but he is no longer glorified and thanked as God is,” writes St. Feofan. This is what happens now. For example, it is this conviction that is the main heart force of the majority of Russians, who claim that “God is in my soul, and I live for myself (or for the children, or for the Motherland, or for work - options are possible), and there is no need to pester me with their temples." In examining the religious life of mankind, we usually encounter this stage of falling away. Thus, African tribes, usually remembering the Creator, do not worship Him. For example, the main god of the Bantus Herero tribe from South-West Africa is named Ndyami. Having retired to heaven, he left humanity in the care of the lower deities. That's why they don't respect him. “Why should we offer sacrifices to Him? - said one native. “We do not need to be afraid of him, for he does not harm us, not like the spirits of our dead.” Sometimes, however, the Hereros offer prayers to Him, but only in case of unexpected luck. Such ideas are characteristic of many primitive tribes. “God is too good. He won't do anything bad to us. So let’s stop honoring Him!” - this logic is characteristic of almost the majority of uncultured peoples of the planet. But let's think about its spiritual meaning. It turns out that religion for such people is only a form of fear and an attempt to appease some hostile force. There is clearly no place for love, respect, or gratitude. One naked selfish egoism in religious garb! Indeed, this is where the retreat began. Man is tired of living with God. And as the Fang tribe (equatorial Africa) sings: “God is above, man is below. God is God, man is man. Everyone is at home, everyone is in their own home.” This is how a terrible emptiness arises, generated by pride, which immediately requires filling.
“But they became futile in their speculations.”
“This is the second degree of descent, formed together with the first, sometimes as a consequence, sometimes as its cause. They are mutually productive and mutually supportive. Subjugation by thoughts must be understood as it is presented by Solomon in Ecclesiastes - as surrendering oneself to concerns about earthly goods, which, however, do not give well-being, but only beckon to them, always deceiving all hopes. Having turned away from God, they turn to creatures, and in them they want to find what the one God can give, they want to establish their well-being without God, on their own and with their own means at their disposal. All the concern is about this, all the thoughts, all the plans and all the goals of life are here - i.e. how to create earthly happiness by enjoying sensual benefits. The attitude towards God is observed only externally, deeds of piety are performed according to custom, without the participation of not only the heart, but also the mind. Everything became earth, earth, earth. And that doesn’t make it clear that deception is constantly being experienced. The fussiness continues tirelessly in the vain hope that perhaps we will still get what we are looking for. How can we excuse such a course of action?!” And indeed, the more civilized a people is, the more proud it is of the fruits of its hands, the more stupid its religion, the further away from happiness it is, the more monstrous the crimes occurring in it. And the point is not at all in material things, but in a person’s attitude towards them. Great Christian countries also reached cultural heights, but this did not distance them from God, for people did not worship the work of their own hands.
Interestingly, such apostasy is well reflected in the Vedic texts. First, the main characters of the Indian pantheon are Varuna and Indra. The first is called the Creator of heaven and earth, the ruler of the elements, omniscient, omnipotent, righteous, incorruptible, sending torment of conscience on sinners and only forgiving when they repent. And the god Indra is a shameless strongman, lascivious, angry, who condescends only when a person bribes him. And so, “in the later parts of the Vedas, the number of hymns and prayers to Indra significantly exceeds the number of hymns to Varuna... The hymns to Indra become more colorful and enthusiastic, and the image of Varuna fades. Finally, in the Atharva Veda (XX, 106) Varuna is depicted as worshiping Indra.” The reason for this was that Indra, the “convenient god” who patronized the conquerors, was needed to “maintain the morale of the army,” and Varuna, the god of truth, turned out to be alien to unrighteousness.
“And their foolish heart was darkened.”
“The third degree of descent is the fruit of the first two - the darkening of the inner man. The heart is the inner man, or spirit, where self-awareness, conscience, the idea of God with a feeling of all-round dependence on Him, all spiritual life is eternally valuable. Along with the spiritualization of thoughts comes the darkening of the whole person. Rules of life are established that do not agree with conscience, and conscience is drowned out, the fear of God goes away and thoughts of God are not occupied; At the same time, healthy thoughts about God are forgotten and darkened, and true concepts about man himself, about his meaning and his goals are also hidden. There is complete darkness inside. Yes, a disgraced person does not look there, and there is no time, and it is unpleasant. He's all outside."
We really see that next man establishes lawless laws. There are a lot of such examples among pagans: starting from ritual prostitution and compulsory fornication right up to cannibalism. And all this begins to be justified by religion! How often do our ignorant contemporaries say: “all religions speak of good things.” But this is not true at all. After all, only Christianity reunited holiness and sinlessness. And the pagans could find (and did find) justification for any of their vices in the actions of their gods, for which they were rightly denounced by apologists and martyrs.
“Calling themselves wise, they became fools.”
“The fourth degree of descent is bringing all this perverse order of life under the beginning of reason, and establishing it as the only proper standard of life characteristic of man. This is the height of madness; but, in their opinion, this is the height of wisdom. This is how these people recognize themselves, this is the title they use to designate their practices and the views based on them. Conceit and self-reliance are a distinctive feature of this wisdom: it hopes everything from itself, from its own methods and from its ability.”
This is a feature of all modern and ancient anthropocentric philosophies. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras. “No one will give us deliverance, neither God, nor the king, nor the hero, we will achieve liberation with our own hand,” the communists sing. This ideology of humanism begins with the praise of man and necessarily ends with his destruction - both physical and spiritual. All false religions at their roots turn out to be precisely man-theism and, as a consequence, murder. The reason for this is that a person becomes himself only in God and with God, and without His Almighty Hand he returns to the original non-existence, in which, however, God’s faithfulness does not allow him to completely dissolve.
“And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things.”
This is the sad result of lying - idolatry. “Instead of the living, true God, they began to worship idols of men and other creatures as gods. – This was actually their delusion. In other respects they were no less wise, as the remains from the cities of Nineveh, Thebes and others show; but in the religious sphere they turned out to be complete fools (madmen - S.D.). And wisdom in the first respect not only does not cover or weaken the foolishness in the second, but, on the contrary, burdens it with unrequited guilt in perverting the truth. Their exaltation of their own wisdom was beyond measure, but here the case against it is extremely absurd and incongruous with anything, unreasonable to the extreme.” And really, what madness, what militant stupidity, terrible clouding of reason and insanity to believe that God is an idol you made?! And not just a beautiful image, but a monstrous deformity, a statue of a fly, snake or crocodile that can neither think, nor speak, nor walk?! But that’s exactly what the pagans thought! According to the Soviet historian V. Belyavsky, “for the pagans, including the Babylonians, God was not represented as an incorporeal irrational spirit, but in the form of a real object - an idol, an image made of wood, stone or metal. The idol was endowed with all the qualities that, according to the pagans, a god created in the image and likeness of the people who revered him should have. He had to be fed, watered, clothed, entertained. He needed housing, women and boys. He could be angered and appeased, deceived and robbed. You can bargain with him. The pagan god demanded sacrifices of the fruits of the earth, livestock, things, jewelry, and in hoary antiquity, people... The pagan god was local in nature. He was closely associated with a certain group and was honored only in this group. He could have died along with his team, but he could have also been captured... The Babylonian god Bel-Marduk spent 21 years in Assyrian captivity.”
How could this happen? As we have already said, the devil is at the origin of this delusion. “Without the participation of this figure, wise in evil, it is impossible to explain the origin of idolatry. The preparation, the way people, having fallen from God into selfishness and sensuality, began to live in oblivion of God, as if there was no God, can also be explained by the development of incoming sinfulness, which was only inflated and directed by the father of sin; but how soulless things and idols began to be idolized cannot be explained by anything other than the fact that the Devil stumbled upon it. It’s like this: they began to forget about God, they became fussy, their hearts were darkened, healthy concepts about God and the things of God were eclipsed, all attention and concerns were turned to earthly and everyday things. But they could not knock out of consciousness that there is God and that should honor Him. This thought returned, but there was no attention to it. It itself, along with the coarsening and reification of feelings and dispositions, coarsened and reified. In such a mood, the question comes: what is God? It will amaze you with its inadvertence, but it will require a solution. He came and decided: these are your gods! Now the sun, now the stars, now animals, now man. How did they not return to what the legend gave? The enemy closed that side and ran into this. Having agreed to accept for the sake of the fact that this way seems to be the most convenient way to fulfill what was required by the consciousness of an obligatory relationship with God: the idol stands, burn incense, and you are right, everything is done. For God, to whom tradition testified, this could not be enough.”
Historically, the falling away happened like this. At first, the veneration of the Heavenly God was replaced by the veneration of the physical heavens and the luminaries inhabiting them. This was especially facilitated by the cosmic catastrophes that took place before the eyes of astonished humanity. And those terrible pictures that demons showed before people, similar to modern UFOs, inclined them to demon worship. Almost simultaneously, veneration of the earth appeared, represented in the image of the great mother goddess. The earth was perceived as a huge idol, a kind of living body that must be propitiated to obtain fertility. Statues of this goddess fill the entire planet. They are distinguished by exaggerated images of the breasts and abdomen. Initially, these idols represented the daughter of the antediluvian descendant of Cain Lamech, Noema, the inventor of prostitution. It was the connection between fornication and fertility that led to her identification with Mother Earth.
Scripture speaks about those who revere the elements like this: “All people are truly vain by nature, who had no knowledge of God, who from visible perfections could not know the Existing One, and, looking at deeds, did not recognize the Author, but revered them as gods who rule the world, or fire, or wind, or moving air, or a circle of stars, or stormy water, or heavenly bodies. If, captivated by their beauty, they revered them as gods, then they should have known how much better the Lord is than them, for He, the Author of beauty, created them. And if they were surprised at their strength and effect, then they should have learned from them how much more powerful is He who created them; for from the greatness of the beauty of creatures the Author of their existence is comparatively known. However, they deserve less blame, for they are mistaken, perhaps, seeking God and wanting to find Him: because, turning to His works, they examine and are convinced by sight that everything visible is beautiful. But they are also inexcusable: if they could understand so much that they were able to explore the temporary world, then why didn’t they immediately find its Lord? (Wis. 14, 1–10).
This is how the falling away from the Creator and turning to the worship of the elements of the world took place. Until now, one of the most widespread forms of paganism in the mass consciousness is astrology, which subordinates a person to the whirlwind of the world’s elements. Closely connected with it is the belief in the conditioning of a person’s life by the name given to him or by social circumstances: each person has his own stone, tree, animal, family curse. All this is necessary so that a person forgets about his great gift of freedom and about the Almighty and Righteous Judge who is vigilant over the Universe.
What do scientists say about the Tower of Babel?
One possible approach to the story of the Babylonian Pandemonium is a literal approach. If one accepts that the Tower of Babel is a historical fact, then one would expect that some remains or ruins of the Tower of Babel exist and will be found. However, the remains of the Tower have not been found by archaeologists.
However, perhaps the story still has a historical background. Many scientists, including biblical scholars, compare the Tower of Babel with the ancient buildings of Mesopotamia - ziggurats. Ziggurats also served for religious ceremonies. The Jews who fell into Babylonian captivity were undoubtedly aware of these buildings.
A candidate for the title of the Tower of Babel is the ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon. It was a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, the supreme deity of the Babylonian pantheon. It is known that this highest ziggurat was located in Babylon. The tower was probably higher than 90 meters. The time of construction is unknown, but it is known for certain that in the 18th century BC. the tower already existed. The tower (ziggurat) was destroyed, or rather dismantled, by Alexander the Great for the purpose of its reconstruction. However, the plans were not destined to come true due to the death of Alexander. The ruins of the ziggurat were discovered by the German scientist R. Koldewey in 1897-1898.
Ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon.
Astronomical version.
There is another explanation (pseudo-scientific?) of the Babylonian pandemonium, this time from the point of view of astronomical phenomena. It is known that at the time of the supposed construction of the Tower of Babel, disturbances in the atmosphere of Jupiter affected the movement of Mercury, pushing it closer to the Sun. In its new orbit, Mercury came into close contact with Earth. Their magnetospheres touched each other, causing a surge of electromagnetic energy towards the Earth. Perhaps this phenomenon influenced the thinking of people on Earth. This version takes place, since it has been proven that with electric shock a person can lose speech and memory. If a similar electromagnetic surge was observed in Babylon, then this could be the reason for the confusion of languages and the Babylonian Pandemonium.
Who is the author of the story about the construction of the Tower of Babel?
The tradition is to attribute the authorship of Genesis, and indeed the entire Pentateuch, to Moses; documentary hypothesis was put forward about the existence of four primary sources, called sources J, E, P and D. According to this version, the story of the Tower of Babel came to us from source J (Yahwist).
In our time, the remains of the Tower of Babel have not been found
Nowadays, of course, many are interested in the question, what does the Tower of Babel look like now? If the Tower of Babel is a historical fact, then there should be some remains or some ruins.
But, unfortunately, the remains of the tower were not found by archaeologists. A photo of the Tower of Babel, how it looked, can only be seen on the pages of illustrations from the Bible.
Many scientists are trying to compare the Tower of Babel with ancient buildings in Mesopotamia.
What the Tower of Babel looked like can be seen in many paintings. The first painting was created after Bruegel’s visit to Rome and was a kind of miniature painting on ivory. Unfortunately, this picture has not reached our times.
The other two paintings survive and were painted in 1563. These paintings are called “Tower of Babel” and “Small Tower of Babel”. As we understand, many depicted the Tower of Babel in their own way, but for everyone it was the same. It showed that people showed pride and wanted to reach the very heavens. This is reflected in almost all the paintings of famous artists.
In this image we see a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder entitled “The Small Tower of Babel” 1563 (Rotterdam). Photo: bibliya-online.ru
Painting entitled "Tower of Babel". Author - Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 (Vienna). Photo: bibliya-online.ru
It is also worth saying that the plot of the Tower of Babel is also common in Christian iconography. Many icons showing the tower can be seen in museums.
In the iconography you can also find the plot of the Tower of Babel. Photo: bibliya-online.ru
Phraseologism Pandemonium of Babel.
Pandemonium of Babel meaning 1.
The word pandemonium means the construction of a pillar (the Church Slavonic name for a tower).
The expression Babylonian pandemonium means turmoil, disorderly, fussy, disordered activity that is unable to lead to positive results.
Pandemonium of Babel meaning 2.
Phraseologism Babylonian pandemonium - means polyphonic noise, turmoil, din, chaotic gathering of people.
