Steve Chalke - "The Tower of Babel" (in the Beginning series)

This is the end of these big stories that are difficult to understand, you know, as we say each week, you know, Adam and Eve in a talking snake and, you know, the world created in six, 24-hour periods and all of those things that seem to dog so many people because we don't look more deeply at the words and their context and their meaning. But next week, what we're going to do is we're going to give over some of the morning to just asking questions because I know that loads of questions have been thrown up. I hope lots of insight has been shared but loads of questions have been thrown up. So we're going to talk about Abraham a little bit who's the first piece of history in the Bible. That's the important thing. Chapters 1 to 11 are what are often called prehistory stories. Their stories, their legends. But at chapter 12, history kicks in. Abraham, we know from all sorts of external sources as well as the way the text is written, the way that text is written, this is history, this happened. Abraham lived about 2000 years before Jesus in the middle Bronze Age and the history of Israel is tracked on through. So the Bible moves from prehistory, primeval stories, great legends and myths with deep meanings into actual historical stuff. And what we've done over the last few weeks, just as, well, as a bit of an introduction, is we've looked at loads of these. I mean, we've not actually seen these things. These are in the British museum. But we've looked at a legend, which is called enuma Ellis, the Babylonian creation myth, which is a much older creation story than the creation story that we have in Genesis. The creation story we have in Genesis was written down about 500, actually written down about 500 years before Jesus was born. Of course, it dates way, way back because people didn't write stuff down. They were passed on by storytellers. They were passed on in a generation to generation to generation. So the story is about 1000 years older than that, at least we know. And it exists in lots of different forms we know. But it hits Genesis one in a particular form. But it itself, as we discovered, is a response to a much more ancient creation story, which is called enuma Ellis simply because they're the words it begins with. It was written in Cuniform, a Cadean is the language. And enuma Ellis st. First words, it means "when on high." And it's a story very much like the Genesis story. But the Genesis writer is ripping it off as we've discovered. You know, what they're doing is they're taking this well-known story that all the people of that era and that region would have known because Babylon was the superior, you know, they were the superpowers, you know, the Babylonians, they're great cities and the city of Babylon at the center of the obvious. They were the mega power of the day and their stories got told and their stories were known. But what happens is the guy that writes Genesis takes this story and he subverts it. He writes enough of it so you know it's the same story and then he subverts it. So to understand Genesis one really, you've got to understand this story first because it's only when you know that story that you can go, "Ha ha, that's the purpose of Genesis one." They're subverting the story to get across some greater ethics and deeper morals are bigger meaning, a more generous story, a more open story. That's what it's about. And those tablets, by the way, in case you weren't there, you didn't listen to all this as Dan said, but they're in the British Museum with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of others. And then last week we looked at this bit also in the British Museum and this is from what's called tablet 11 of the epic of Gilgamesh. The epic of Gilgamesh is a much older flood story than the flood story of Noah that's in the Bible. So Gilgamesh is the hero of a different flood story and we learn that there are loads of flood stories, about 25, 26 flood stories in the world from different civilizations and they're all kind of similar but they're all very in little details and of course the names of the heroes change all the time. And again we looked at the epic of Gilgamesh, all the bit of it that's about flood because it's a big long old thing. And then we said so this is what it's saying. So what's the point of this genesis writer writing down a story everyone already knew and changing it? And you get these foundational statements on which all the history of the Bible is based if that makes any sense. Well today this story that's been read to us is an interesting one. For a start it's only nine verses long. The flood story is three chapters long it goes on forever. This is nine verses long and it's a story about something we've all heard of the Tower of Babel, this tower that was built out of bricks and then God comes down on earth and he's really upset about this tower being built and he confuses everybody and he scatters everybody and he gives them different languages. Buh-buh, Abraham, Kadabra, all of a sudden they're all talking different languages and they can't communicate with each other anymore. And we all go what a silly story that is. And if it's true then God's really mean and all of our all of our international global problems where because the Americans speak a different language to the Russians and the nuances lost and we don't understand the culture of the Saudi Arabians look at what has happened to our world because of this confusion and there it all was caused by God by some magic trick because he got upset by the building of a tower. So we need to look more deeply. Now this is going to be relevant to the story. It's a fantastic story actually. This is going to be relevant to the story. This is strange map that I found is really good. It's the clearest one I could found but it's got Saudi Arabia. This is this is a map of the ancient Near East but someone got really confused and said how do you Arabia on it? You know as well which at slight that slight that Saudi Arabia didn't come into existence until pretty recently but here is the ancient Near East and the important bit is the green bit and the yellow bit. The yellow bit is hot. It's dry. It's dusty. That's there's not much water and the green bit the fertile region of early agriculture it says there. That's low lands. Can you see the river Euphrates that runs all the way through it and the Tigris which runs through it and that's where Babylon and Mesopotamia and Summar and etc etc and that's where Babylon is right on the river Euphrates. Can you see it? Right on the river Euphrates. Remember last week I said we said that we all know now there was never a worldwide flood. There were local floods but if you believe the earth is flat because everybody did because they couldn't know it was round because they couldn't send satellites up etc etc. If you know the earth is flat and everything you can see one way or the other is flooded. You assume everything's flooded don't you but we know if you were here last week that because of archaeological digs and digging through the soil that there was never a big flood in Palestine and that area. It's hot. It's dry. It's dusty but we know that Mesopotamia had frequent floods because it's two between two great rivers. In fact that's what the name Mesopotamia means to say again between land between two rivers. It's a low-lying plain. It often floods. It's very fertile. That's why it's considered the birthplace of human civilization and floods happen often and we know that this story, the Gilgamesh story, comes from Mesopotamia. It's an ancient story but it's taken by the writers of Genesis and they do these extraordinary things with it. So that is where Mesopotamia, Stoke Babylon, Stoke Sumer was. These are different cultures that ran the that part of the world. Superpowers at different times. Assyria, Tukovar, there's their capital city Nineveh up the top where all of these documents were found. All the clay tablets that just that showed you were found in Nineveh. This is what it looks like today. So this is where Babylon and Assyria were. That whole area is now Iraq. It's bits of Syria and though you can't see it, the country above is Turkey. So it's a bit of Turkey. It's Syria. It's Iraq. It's a bit of Iran and that's where Babylon was. That's where Assyria was. The same area called different names, depending on who was the superpower at the time. So here's the interesting thing about the story a Bible. Somebody said to me, "You keep saying all these stories are just myth and legend." We said last week that myth and legend is an important story. It's not that it's a stupid story. It's a great story with a deep meaning. Like animal farm, we said last week. Animal farm is a fantastic story with deep meaning for our culture. But it doesn't mean some animals actually took over a farm. But we can learn great truth from it. But here's the funny thing that some of you aren't expecting me to say. The story of the Tower of Babel isn't a legend. It actually happens. But not quite as we have it written down. It's partly fact and partly political commentary. But it's not a legend. It actually happened. There actually was a Tower of Babel. It was actually built high to the sky for those days. Not quite as high as the Shard. But it was built high. It did employ the greatest technology of the day. There was a Tower of Babel. The story we've just read, the little sardine verses, is actually a piece of political and religious satire. It's a joke. And everybody who first heard this story, because they would have heard it before it was written down. Everybody who first heard this story would have laughed. I'll explain to you why they would laugh. You probably still won't laugh because we're being very serious. But it's fun. It's a fun story with a, and it packs a huge political punch. So it's picking up on something historical. It packs a political punch. And it sets the opportunity to move from pre-historical stuff, myths and legends with deep meanings, to the next story, Genesis 12, which is the story of a bloke called Abraham. Abraham, by the way, if we go back, I hope this is on here. He was born. Ah, there he. Abraham was born in the Persian Gulf. Can you see the city of Er? Abraham actually came from Er. So he, and he headed out towards the promised land, towards what would become Israel. And so he traveled across Mesopotamia. He was from Mesopotamia. He was from the fertile lands. And remember last week, those of you who were here, I said, how did they get the story of Noah and the Ark, for instance, or the story that formed Genesis 1, the poem, or the story, different story of Adam and Eve and the fruit? And these are all stories that came from these ancient tablets in Mesopotamia. But that's where Abraham came from. And he traveled all the scholars think with these stories that he'd learn. We discover that next week. Though most of it would be for questions, as I say, he traveled with these stories and he retold the stories, but he and others scholars believe adapted and changed them to teach a deeper truth. So here's this guy. I'm sure you recognize him from his photo. He's called Herodotus. Herodotus, he didn't live through any of this, he's Roman. And he lived in the fifth century, you know, after Jesus. Herodotus, famous historian actually, and there's a little bit of his writing. And Herodotus, he went to Babylon and he saw and writes about the things he writes about the Tower of Babel. So he went there, checked it out, looked around, measured it, wrote it down. So that's how we know that this all happened. Here's a funny word. Ziggurat. Ziggurat were really important in Babylonian society. They were like cathedrals. And Ziggurat looked like this. In fact, that's an artist impression based on the writings of Herodotus of the Ziggurat in Babylon. Babylon was the capital city of this giant superpower. There it is. It's a man-made mountain. And I give you some of the facts. I wrote them down on a piece of paper because I knew I wouldn't be able to remember them all. And of course I've lost the piece of paper. So I will do it from memory. Herodotus tells us this. No, it's fine, down up. I think I know. That this Ziggurat, Ziggurat will build all around Babylon. They were, as I say, kind of cathedrals. And Herodotus tells us that Ziggurat in Babylon, the city at the center of the great empire, had seven stories. Count them on there. And at the bottom there was a temple, a sanctuary. And at the top there was another sanctuary. And all the layers in between. Can you see all the stairs going up and down? The stairs going up and down are really important because this is a man-made mountain. Now, they're all built. We've discovered 25 of them, like I say, or the remains or the set out of them around Mesopotamia. And they were all built in the valley. Remember, it's low, it's wet. And they are man-made mountains because people used to believe if you went up a mountain, you'd get closer to the gods. But the problem we live in in Mesopotamia was there were no mountains. She had to build one. Because if you could get up the mountain, you'd get closer to gods. So you'd build a sanctuary at the bottom to prepare yourself. Then you went up all the stairs and you met the gods at the top. Nice. Do you see? That's the way it was. As I say, there were Ziggurats all across the area. But we know from Herodotus that there was a huge Ziggurat in Babylon. And it went with one of these. And this, how would you say that? You're right. There. So it's a temple. So here is, this isn't a photograph, of course. Okay. Can you see the Ziggurat up there? And there's the temple. This is Babylon. You see? And this is the River Euphrates. And this is the center of Babylon. And because of all the archaeological digs, we know this is what it looked like. There's the temple as higher tower as you can get. Seven stories. I'll tell you why it was only seven stories in a moment. There's the Ziggurat. There's the temple. And down here is the Royal Palace. Now, back to Enuma Ellis. I promise this gets much more practical in a minute. But you've got to understand this stuff. Don't understand the story. As you know, in Enuma Ellis, the Babylonian creation myth, the gods make the universe. You have to listen to week one if you don't know it. And the gods make the universe. I mean, it had a huge fight with them one another because they don't like one another. And Mada slaughters his mother. And he rips her apart in this mythological story. And he splays out our innards. And that's what forms the universe. They gap between the waters above and the waters beneath are actually the innards of his murdered mother. And he because he's murdered his evil mother is proclaimed by all the other gods, the King gods. Mada, the King of Babylon. He is the King of Babylon. And Enuma Ellis says, and the gods made a man in the image of Marduk, the God of Babylon. And he is the King of Babylon. So the Bible says in Genesis 1, we're all made in God's image. There's no, there's everything's democratized. There's no hierarchy. There's no one who's more important than anyone else. We're returned to that. We're all the same. God made, male and female. Every single one of us in God's image. The quality is on the first page of the first story in the first book of the Bible. Equality, inclusion for everyone. No one gets left out. That's why we do inclusion because it's on the first page of the Bible. It's an important story. But that's not what this is about. This is about exclusion. There's all the people living around. Then you get this huge compound and you get the mounting to go up to God and meet with God, God the God Mada, the God of Babylon, who's physically and physically. The physical representation on Earth lives in that big house next door, the palace, and all the priests hang out in the temple. That's how it worked. Got it? So this is Babylon. Now, here's a funny thing. Babel is Babylon, but it's written by a Jew this story. And if you spell Babylon in a cadyan and rearrange two of the letters, you lose Babylon and you get to Babel. It doesn't work in English because they would speak their languages, cuneiform, lots of. But if you do a wordplay and you rearrange the letters of Babylon, you get to Babel. And Babel, as you know, means Babel. We still got it in our language. What does Babel mean? Babel means unintelligible, wittering. Doesn't it? Someone who babbles is someone who just goes on and on and on and on and their language has no meaning. So, the writer of this is talking about Babylon. And they're talking about this famous tower. Everyone knows there's a tower in Babylon. Everyone knows it's the tower you go up to get to the God Marduk. Everyone knows that there's this enclosure where the king lives. And only the king is made in the image of the God Marduk. Everyone knows that everyone who lives around, they're just rubbish. They don't count. They're not representatives of God, they're slaves, they're hierarchy at the heart of the superpower of the age. The guy who lives in the big. I was going to say the big white house is God. The guy who lives in the big white house is God. And he's got a tower, two Marduk, the God. Everyone else, no one else matters. That is the historical bit of all of this. But it's the word Babylon means gate of the God. Now, it's on the river Euphrates and there's a gate into the city there. And actually, if you can see a wider span of this, there's lots of gates into the city from the river. So there's lots of gates to get into Babylon. But the Zigarac is the gate of the God. Babylon is the gate of the God. It was actually called in Babylonian literature, the navel of the earth. It was a gateway, a portal. It was a bridge to God. Babylon existed so everyone said as a gateway to God, to know the gods, the God Marduk. But the gateway to the God was in the king's garden. Because only the king had a gateway to God. So that makes sense. Here's an interesting thing about the language. And then I'll tell you what all this means. You know this story, which is in Genesis chapter 11, tells us that all the languages were confused when God came down and he looked at all of this, the God of heaven and earth. Well in chapter 10, the chapter before chapter 11, let me just read you three verses about the sons of Noah. It says about his first son, you can read if it's called the Table of Nations, read it later. Three times it tells us this about Noah's three sons. It says that they spread out into their territories by their clans with their nations, each with their own language. In chapter 10. And it tells you that about each of the sons. So here is the words written about ham. These are the sons of ham by their clans and languages in their territories and their nations. So in chapter 10, they've already got loads of languages and they've spread out and they've got territories and they've already scattered to the nations. And then in chapter 10 again it says this, these are the sons of shem by their clans and their languages in their territories, in their nations. So chapter 10 tells us there are loads of languages and people have spread out everywhere and they've inhabited lots of nations. And then this story happens in chapter 11, which says, which begins by saying, Now the whole world had one language and one common speech. But the last chapter has just told you there were lots of languages all around the world, which is back to what another principle we learned. Do you remember we said that these first five books of the Bible, sometimes known as the Pentechuk by Jews known as the Torah, are actually edited together, edited together stories. They were all verbally passed on, they were all different, they clashed with one another. Yeah, there are contradictions in them. Some people still argue there are no contradictions in the Bible. We'll try this one for size, the contradiction between Genesis chapter 10 and chapter 11. Chapter 10, which tells you there are loads of languages and loads of nations and loads of cultures. And chapter 11, that having told you that, goes on to say, now the whole world spoke one language. There is a story that had been passed on verbally and the editor that put all of this together, you have to listen to one of the other recordings to find out about how this happened. They pushed them together and they don't always, well they know their stories put together. So it's not, they're not trying to unify them. There is a big clash as we found out between the order of creation in Genesis chapter 1 and the order of creation in Genesis chapter 2 and 3 is different. But it's not that it was a mistake made or some contradiction that proves it's not true. The truth is that these were stories that were known. Everyone knew these stories and they know that the writers are just putting them in there and they're subverting them all to make their point. So everyone knows that there's this huge tower in Babylon. Everyone knows that it's the super power of the day. Everyone knows that the myth is that only the king is in God's image and the God is called Mar-Depth and he protects Babylon and he despises everyone else. Everyone knows all that stuff. And so there's this story that gets put in, this prehistory story. And it says simply this. It says, it says, now they said to each other, "Come let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." And they use brick instead of stone and bitumen for mortar. Why did they say that? Because in Palestine which is hot and hilly and high, they always built with stone. And mortar, you wouldn't built with a brick. So the story is saying they wanted to build this great temple to their God a fantastic tower and all they had was bricks. And everyone went a gun. How daft is that? In Palestine we got stones and we built high and nothing falls down. There by a river it's humid, it's low-line and they've only got bricks. And everybody knew that bricks didn't last long because bricks were actually sun-dried baked in the mud. They were of mud and clay. They were sun-dried because they didn't have kilns. And everyone knew that Babylonian buildings kept falling down because of the humidity. And when your house is made of dried sun-baked muds and it rains a lot, you're in trouble. You say everybody knows this. But the latest technology that we know that the Babylonians had just come up with was bitumen. And they learned how to create ovens and they baked their bricks harder. Because if you bake a brick in the oven, the mud in the oven gets harder and stronger. But it still was pervious and it would still get smashed by the river and the rain. Instead of using cement like the Palestinians did, like the people of Israel did, they use bitumen because that was a way of trying to make them as slightly stronger and slightly more waterproof. None of this exists anymore. It doesn't exist. You can see the outline of it if you go to the river you've raised this bit. It doesn't exist anymore. By Jesus' day it was a bit of a ruin. When Herodius went to see it, it was a ruin. Why doesn't it exist? Because it was built of bricks. And the writer, the Israelite writer, he goes, "heh, heh, they're the superpower of the day and they built it." It's a brick. And Benjamin, that's what he said, "it's a joke." They built it with bricks and after they built it with these rotten bricks that fall apart, ha! In Palestine we would have done it with stone. When they built their flimsy tower to their silly god, Mardach, inside the king's palace with their bricks, they called it the Tower of Babel. Playin' Word! Babylon, Babylon, Babylon meaning meaningless, Babylon. It's a tower built to meaningless, Babylon, because they turn up with their hierarchy and they turn up with their kings and they turn up with their robes and they build seven stories high and they think that they can get up some brickmate mounting to God because they don't understand that God's always with us and that's why it says in the story and God came and he walked among them. It purposely says God came and walked amongst them. He didn't come down the steps. That's what he's saying. These Babylonians in their culture and meaningless Babylon have built this huge tower with lots of steps available for the God-marved-up to come down. Uh-hu, he's never shown up, he doesn't exist. But the God of heaven and earth who is lovin' on our side comes down and he doesn't use the steps because he's with us all the time. He's on our side. He's always there. They built sky high but it didn't work. One last thing, then I finished. This is the name for Adam in Genesis 1. You probably know that Adam isn't a name at all. I mean it is now if you're called Adam, what a wonderful name. You know, but Adam just meant human. It meant man as opposed to Eve. Haradam meant the human. So when we say that in the in the Genesis 2 story Adam and Eve it's just same first man first woman and not names. It's just first man first woman in that story. Haradam. And Adam, a dam, means from dust, man from dust because in the story God takes the clay and makes the man. And in this story when it's talking about man it purposely uses the term Adam again. And what it say in is your whole thing is about dust. You build your temple out of mud and dust and it all comes collapsing down. And your whole civilization is built out of dust. It's nothing. It's out of dust. And the story is saying this when in your vanity you try to build a strong tower. And when you come with your pump and when you come with your ceremony and when you come with your ropes and when you come with your titles and when you come with your dinners and when you come with your receptions and when you come with those invitations that only the rich and popular can get in at. And when you come with your banks and when you come with your giant buildings that are supposed to exhaust your technology the God of all heaven and earth this spises it all. And he comes down and he walks with the ordinary people. And he takes all of this pump and ceremony and hierarchy and arrangement and exclusion and he throws confusion into the whole thing. It will always fail. It will always confuse. That is what this story is about. It's designed to make the reader or the person heard it laugh that the superpower is just a pile of mean and less babble and it's built out of dirt and however high it tries to build itself it's not the main deal. And it teaches again one last time before history starts that God is on the side of ordinary people. You may not get recognised you might not get an MBE and OBE and Night Hood you might not get invited to number 10 down in street you might not hang around with the powerful people. We might never get on question time we might never be asked our opinion. We might never we might not be those they close the streets for a put in smart cars. We may not have the right clothing the right suits the right salaries we may not be in the corridors of power but this story is saying all of that in the end is crap it's dust it's mud it falls apart the tower was built and it fell down and the story never tells you does it that Babylon became the superpower the mighty superpower nor does it tell you that the tower is the famous temple worldwide fame temple to the God marred up by the time that they the scholars think but the time that the visitor who writes this story actually visited this site it had already fallen apart which is why he says and God came down and confused them and they stopped building what it's saying is it all just fell apart and what the story is saying to me and to you is build your life on something meaningful deep worthwhile give your life to something more than craving metals give your life to something more than seeking to be in the right rooms with the right people you know those kind of people I'm sure you've been with people like that even if you're at party they're talking to you but they're always looking over your shoulder because they're waiting to see if something what somebody more popular or important walks into the room and then they're away what this story is teaching is the principle of life is that God's on the side of the ordinary the poor the despised the past over those who nobody cares about God's on the side of those people and if we are going to be representatives of him and we are all our representatives of him remember you've had wrote a rebel that you've had Genesis one we are all mating God's image we are all his representatives don't be like this stupid king it's saying get with the real agenda and give your life to something that matters a close by telling a short story I used to but present for a while I used to present for BBC one and I used to go places I talked about hierarchy and all that I used to say people used to say what do you do and in my spare time out you say they'd seen me on tell you I used to be this was in the last millennium it was before the turn of the century I used to be this BBC one percent when people used to say and who what which program do you present and how you used to say songs of praise he was kind of falling down that you know when you're I present for BBC what do you mean top gear no songs of praise you know not so much hip and trendy as hip and replacement really but there you go so you used to do this show anyway the funny thing about it is long time ago Harry Seacum you know Sir Harry Seacum you know famous Sir Harry he used to be a presenter too and and he told me this story I wasn't there at the time he told me the story that he went to present a song surprise and you have part of it you have to interview people and he was with this bishop I won't tell you the name of the bishop with this and he sits down they set up this the cameras and you sat there and Harry is by then Sir Harry Seacum and Harry Seacum says to the bishop what can I call you you know can I call you Robert David you know something like that what can I call you did should I call you by your first name should call you Bishop what shall I call you and Harry said and the bishop said to me you may call me your grace and Harry Seacum said to me and some others were there and I said to him and you can call me Sir this story is saying give up your pomp roll up your sleeves get involved get involved and give your life in serving others and it forms the last story as we begin to move into the history of Israel that's built on these fantastic principles that thousands of years later are still not honored in this city thank you