Babel

So, while at a movie the other day, I saw a preview and a poster for the movie coming out soon called "Babel." It's about a guy and his wife being in the middle east or something, and the woman gets shot. In trying to survive/get around, the language barrier looks like it'll be a large element pushing the plot.

But during the preview, the narrator read a passage that sounded like it was something straight from the bible. But it irked me. Genesis 11: 1-9 says:

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, ^[a] they found a plain in Shinar^[b] and settled there.

3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel ^[c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

But that's not exactly what the movie voice guy said. He essentially said the same thing, except noted that God feared what was happening. That man had essentially grown too powerful.

I thought "God wouldn't fear his creation!" but then it hit me. Despite it not being biblical, God probably did fear. He feared for us.

The tower can represent achievement. But look how perverted achievement has become. In splitting the atom, man has gained such immense power. I've heard it referred to as "The power of one thousand suns," and "The power behind a whisper of God." What good could be done with this! But what happens? Most of the energy during the Cold War, and alot of effort now, goes into developing weapons. Trying to use this "tower of Babel" to do evil against man. How could God not fear for his creation? How could he not stop the tower from being built?

In trying to build a tower to the heavens, the people of earth were trying to rival God. If they could build their tower, and belive that they were equals with God, what would happen? What would happen when people think they're above the rest of creation. Well, then you get Racism, and Sexism, you get contempt and hatred.

Imagine all that happening in Genesis. What kind of hell-hole world would be living in today?

Sorry for the two-post day, but that sort of just hit me, and I felt like writing it down.