Tower Of Babel

[volgadon]

That is one sweet quote, Jeremy!

If it is the part in Doctrines of Salvation that goes on to say that by adopting an uber-literal view of the Bible one would have to conclude that pharisees were really whitewashed tombes devouring widows's houses, then it is among the soundest of JFS' views. I used the argument on my mision rather effectively.

[Stone holm]

If it is the part in Doctrines of Salvation that goes on to say that by adopting an uber-literal view of the Bible one would have to conclude that pharisees were really whitewashed tombes devouring widows's houses, then it is among the soundest of JFS' views. I used the argument on my mision rather effectively.

Yeah that falls into the category of a literal understanding being absurd like Christ having a metallic sword for a tongue.

[ERayR]

Yeah that falls into the category of a literal understanding being absurd like Christ having a metallic sword for a tongue.

On the other hand we can metaphoricalize away the fall and with it the atonement.

[blackstrap]

Ok, then why all the chitchat about times and order and such . Why did God not tell Moses ( or whoever ) that He created everything on the earth in His own time and in His own way and the how is not understandable in human terms so don't ask ? Maybe we need a BLUE letter edition of the scriptures wherein everything that should be taken literally(historically accurately) is written in Blue and all the rest can be interpreted as symbol and metaphor willy-nilly as decided by the religious powers of the day. As for me, I must really have a thick vale over my memory as I don't recall being in a garden and choosing a fruit and being cast out. If Adam is all metaphor and represents all of us then are we speaking of the pre-mortal life as the garden and choosing to come to earth was the tree and then we were cast from heaven ?... something doesn't add up.

[Stone holm]

Ok, then why all the chitchat about times and order and such . Why did God not tell Moses ( or whoever ) that He created everything on the earth in His own time and in His own way and the how is not understandable in human terms so don't ask ? Maybe we need a BLUE letter edition of the scriptures wherein everything that should be taken literally(historically accurately) is written in Blue and all the rest can be interpreted as symbol and metaphor willy-nilly as decided by the religious powers of the day. As for me, I must really have a thick vale over my memory as I don't recall being in a garden and choosing a fruit and being cast out. If Adam is all metaphor and represents all of us then are we speaking of the pre-mortal life as the garden and choosing to come to earth was the tree and then we were cast from heaven ?... something doesn't add up.

I think I agree. Adam is only a collective reference in the Temple, that he is a collective reference in parts of the endowment was to me clearer before the character deletion. But that may just be my resentment for my favorite character being deleted showing through.

[CASteinman]

Ok, then why all the chitchat about times and order and such . Why did God not tell Moses ( or whoever ) that He created everything on the earth in His own time and in His own way and the how is not understandable in human terms so don't ask ? Maybe we need a BLUE letter edition of the scriptures wherein everything that should be taken literally(historically accurately) is written in Blue and all the rest can be interpreted as symbol and metaphor willy-nilly as decided by the religious powers of the day. As for me, I must really have a thick vale over my memory as I don't recall being in a garden and choosing a fruit and being cast out. If Adam is all metaphor and represents all of us then are we speaking of the pre-mortal life as the garden and choosing to come to earth was the tree and then we were cast from heaven ?... something doesn't add up.

Its not all collective "us". If you pay attention you can see when it is and when it isn't.

[Ron Beron]

Lol. In Afghanistan, the local craftsmen would make cutouts of the Last Supper to sell to the service men and women, and I would laugh at the little touches like that -- the plates heaped with food, etc.

John Walton expresses this issue nicely:

It is interesting that many people who discuss Genesis 1 express an interest in interpreting the chapter "literally." By this they generally mean that it is to be taken exactly for what it says rather than to understand Genesis 1 simply in metaphoric, allegorical or symbolic terms. Of course we recognize that writers intend to communicate by means of metaphor or allegory. When someone insists that Genesis 1 should be interpreted literally it is often an expression of their conviction that the interpreter rather than the author has initiated another level of meaning. (John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009], 39.)

I think reading something "literally" should be about understanding the purpose of the author, which often means understanding his or her language and culture first.

Cheers.

My concern, as well as yours, I presume, is that the story, at least in the mind of the redactor, didn't need to historical to be real. Reality in the ancient world was a ambiguous thing. BTW, I just got the above book and am now more certain in my determination to read it.

[Questing Beast]

On the other hand we can metaphoricalize away the fall and with it the atonement.

Which I do, not seeing the necessity of a "fall" in the first place. "Atonement" is a personal thing, one on one with only God involved. There doesn't have to be a sacrifice as it is portrayed in the scriptures, but it is one powerful story of God's depth of love for creation. If it required God to be in perpetual agony in order to support the continuing existence of creation (us), God would do it willingly, because to have it (us) vanish away is inconceivable, we are too precious to God. The "atonement story" gets at the heart of that motivation for self-sacrifice very effectively. I forget the authoress and the name of the novel now, but years ago I read how a demon, perhaps the ultimate demon, the king of demons as it were, saw how the world was fading, and rather than have it die, this demon allowed himself to be pierced with the sun's rays in order to transfer his power into the world and energize it sufficient to keep it alive: the experience was agonizing as death, but demons cannot die. This was a purely selfish motive, because without human souls to "feed" upon the demon would lose its favorite reason for existing. The story was a blatant ripoff of Christianity, in order to rework it into a different mythical setting that could have been the reverse source for the Jesus Story, that was the conceit of the authoress, I thought. The point is that the plot device of atonement worked in absolute reverse from its scriptural setting. So it is with God's love: it is more infinite than any story of a single sacrifice by God for the benefit of our limited comprehension. In other words, I think the reality is infinitely greater than the "Jesus Story" as we have it. We have it in mortal, physical terms, given to our present state of mind, fearful of suffering and death, and impressed when one of us is willing to give up health, well-being, even life, to save someone else. So why not God too, for all creation? And the cycle of self-perpetuating self-sacrifice is created, whereby God is the best example of how it is done, in Jesus Christ....

Edited April 26, 2013 by Questing Beast

[J Green]

Ok, then why all the chitchat about times and order and such . Why did God not tell Moses ( or whoever ) that He created everything on the earth in His own time and in His own way and the how is not understandable in human terms so don't ask ? Maybe we need a BLUE letter edition of the scriptures wherein everything that should be taken literally(historically accurately) is written in Blue and all the rest can be interpreted as symbol and metaphor willy-nilly as decided by the religious powers of the day. As for me, I must really have a thick vale over my memory as I don't recall being in a garden and choosing a fruit and being cast out. If Adam is all metaphor and represents all of us then are we speaking of the pre-mortal life as the garden and choosing to come to earth was the tree and then we were cast from heaven ?... something doesn't add up.

I for one don't believe that the Eden story is all metaphor and that an individual Adam didn't exist. But I think this is hard stuff and supposed to be hard stuff. When Adam is told that he will live by the sweat of his brow and will experience thorns and thistles, I think this works on several levels, including spiritually, intellectually, etc. We only have a large portion of the D&C because Joseph kept a record of the instances a prophet of God says in prayer, "I don't understand this scripture in X; what exactly did you mean?" The entire JST was essentially an exercise in this same question: "Why would scripture say that God hardened his own heart?" While on the earth the Savior endowed his apostles with power and they served with him for years not understanding his true role within the context of how they as a nation had interpreted the Messiah's role. He didn't always immediately correct their misunderstandings, and when he did offer corrections, they were often oblique.

By this I don't mean to say that the Gospel isn't simple or that it isn't simple to feel the Spirit or often to recognize truth. But we have enough trouble understanding the intent of communication events here on this message board between individuals of the same language, culture, time, and place. That should be enough to warn us that it won't be easy trying to understand communication events from thousands of years away in various different languages steeped in the assumptions of several different cultures successively redacted by different groups from different cultures in different languages over long periods of time.

How does this apply to anything? I value discussion that looks at these things from different perspectives and meanings and I taste each of them spiritually and intellectually ('by study and by faith') to see how it feels and if it quickens my mind and understanding. And above all if it adds deeper meaning to the covenants I make in the temple. My points earlier only intended to highlight that understanding something "literally" or even at all from something like Genesis are sometimes a little harder than merely reading the text in English without making an effort to understand it's culture and context. Thorns and thistles. Sweat of the brow.

Cheers

[J Green]

My concern, as well as yours, I presume, is that the story, at least in the mind of the redactor, didn't need to historical to be real. Reality in the ancient world was a ambiguous thing.

True. And one of the points that Walton makes is that God rarely contradicts their cultural assumptions and paradigms about science, cosmology, etc. He appears to work within their language, cultural assumptions and idioms. That is their reality.

So let's look at this in the context of the Ether tower event narrative. But let me preface it with this question: If Enoch and other early prophets kept records (I believe they did) and these were passed down at all, why do the early narratives in Genesis -- like the tower and flood stories, for example -- demonstrate heavy influence from the Babylonian and Sumerian sources? Did the original writers of Genesis use the Babylonian sources because they didn't have access to the original texts? Or did this all happen through various stages of redaction by editors in Babylon during the exile? Or is there another answer? And what do we as Latter-day Saints believe about the textual purity of the Brass Plates? Were these records produced from texts that already contained redactions from Babylonian and Sumerian sources? I.e., would these plates reflect the earlier prophetic original texts or would they reflect the same kind of narratives we read in Genesis today?

With this in mind, let's look at Ether's account of the Brother of Jared (through multiple redactions and translations). Most people anciently appeared to believe that every event in their natural world proceeded from God. If you planted a seed and it grew, this was a consequence of God causing it to grow. Etc. This was likely the reality of the worldview and culture of the brother of Jared. Many of us today would still likely attribute this to God but perhaps less directly. That is the reality of our culture. Nibley paints the tower event into the context of changing socio-political demographics in this time and place, with ethnic boundaries collapsing. The tower failure would particularly signal a collapsing political structure that would accelerate this process. Different ethnic groups and cultures are thrown into the same spaces. Different languages make it hard to understand each other, and with Nibley's context in mind we read that Ether tells us that the brother of Jared asks God not to confound the language of his people. But the important thing to note is that regardless of whether or not the language change is a process that our culture would regard as a more natural cause-effect relationship (that God may still indirectly stand behind) of different ethnic groups pouring into each other or whether it is an instantaneous event that our culture would understand in a more direct and miraculous setting, the "reality" of the culture of the brother of Jared wouldn't likely distinguish between the two. It was all a direct action by God.

Then we have Ether, who writes this narrative over a thousand years removed from the original event. And after that we have Mosiah who creates a translation of Ether's narrative. Mosiah's reality was shaped by the same events as narrated by the texts on the Brass Plates, which shaped his learning and upbringing. Was there any difference in the two narratives based on sources and redactions that may have been built into the Brass Plates? If so, did this "reality" shape the lens through which Mosiah read and translated Ether's record? And what about Moroni's abridgment of Mosiah's translation? Did Moroni have a different cultural reality? If so, did it influence the narrative? And lastly, what about Joseph Smith's reality? We all know that the BoM shows an influence from the KJV of the Bible, to include Genesis. But what that means has been the subject of much debate. Does Joseph's translation of Moroni's abridgment of Mosiah's translation of Ether's record a thousand years removed from the brother of Jared's record show any influence from the English language of the KJV of the Genesis story of the tower?

I don't mean to imply that we can't know anything. Usually the most important doctrines like the atonement, the resurrection, etc. are clearly stated over and over through time and culture and language so often that we have a hard time mistaking their meaning, purpose and impact. But some of these historical events that appear frustratingly cryptic are only mentioned briefly and obliquely. What to do with these passages? Well, for starters we can discuss them without getting too dogmatic that our reading is the only correct one. Because when we do, we're likely seconds away from getting punctured by a thistle or thorn.

Cheers.

[ERayR]

Which I do, not seeing the necessity of a "fall" in the first place. "Atonement" is a personal thing, one on one with only God involved. There doesn't have to be a sacrifice as it is portrayed in the scriptures, but it is one powerful story of God's depth of love for creation. If it required God to be in perpetual agony in order to support the continuing existence of creation (us), God would do it willingly, because to have it (us) vanish away is inconceivable, we are too precious to God. The "atonement story" gets at the heart of that motivation for self-sacrifice very effectively. I forget the authoress and the name of the novel now, but years ago I read how a demon, perhaps the ultimate demon, the king of demons as it were, saw how the world was fading, and rather than have it die, this demon allowed himself to be pierced with the sun's rays in order to transfer his power into the world and energize it sufficient to keep it alive: the experience was agonizing as death, but demons cannot die. This was a purely selfish motive, because without human souls to "feed" upon the demon would lose its favorite reason for existing. The story was a blatant ripoff of Christianity, in order to rework it into a different mythical setting that could have been the reverse source for the Jesus Story, that was the conceit of the authoress, I thought. The point is that the plot device of atonement worked in absolute reverse from its scriptural setting. So it is with God's love: it is more infinite than any story of a single sacrifice by God for the benefit of our limited comprehension. In other words, I think the reality is infinitely greater than the "Jesus Story" as we have it. We have it in mortal, physical terms, given to our present state of mind, fearful of suffering and death, and impressed when one of us is willing to give up health, well-being, even life, to save someone else. So why not God too, for all creation? And the cycle of self-perpetuating self-sacrifice is created, whereby God is the best example of how it is done, in Jesus Christ....

With your view of things I can certainly see why you think that way. My study leads me to a different conclusion.

[Stone holm]

Which I do, not seeing the necessity of a "fall" in the first place. "Atonement" is a personal thing, one on one with only God involved. There doesn't have to be a sacrifice as it is portrayed in the scriptures, but it is one powerful story of God's depth of love for creation. If it required God to be in perpetual agony in order to support the continuing existence of creation (us), God would do it willingly, because to have it (us) vanish away is inconceivable, we are too precious to God. The "atonement story" gets at the heart of that motivation for self-sacrifice very effectively. I forget the authoress and the name of the novel now, but years ago I read how a demon, perhaps the ultimate demon, the king of demons as it were, saw how the world was fading, and rather than have it die, this demon allowed himself to be pierced with the sun's rays in order to transfer his power into the world and energize it sufficient to keep it alive: the experience was agonizing as death, but demons cannot die. This was a purely selfish motive, because without human souls to "feed" upon the demon would lose its favorite reason for existing. The story was a blatant ripoff of Christianity, in order to rework it into a different mythical setting that could have been the reverse source for the Jesus Story, that was the conceit of the authoress, I thought. The point is that the plot device of atonement worked in absolute reverse from its scriptural setting. So it is with God's love: it is more infinite than any story of a single sacrifice by God for the benefit of our limited comprehension. In other words, I think the reality is infinitely greater than the "Jesus Story" as we have it. We have it in mortal, physical terms, given to our present state of mind, fearful of suffering and death, and impressed when one of us is willing to give up health, well-being, even life, to save someone else. So why not God too, for all creation? And the cycle of self-perpetuating self-sacrifice is created, whereby God is the best example of how it is done, in Jesus Christ....

I have always understood the Atonement as the method by which Christ empowered us with the capacity to be exalted. That He did it to prove His love for us was so deep that He would not have a fullness of joy without us in the eternities on a more or less equal status. Since He was entitled to a fullness of joy, and the authority of God and God's power is dependent upon the respect for Him given by the intelligences of the universe. They were willing to give us that respect as well since it was necessary in order to provide Christ with a fullness of joy. So the whole thing had to do with love and Christ demonstrating His love for us not to His Father, but to the intelligences of the Universe. That is why we call it by His Grace we are saved. The rest of the Gospel is just about us proving that we can be trusted with the powers that are granted by reason of exaltation and training in preparation for wielding the same.

[Bikeemikey]

Ok, then why all the chitchat about times and order and such . Why did God not tell Moses ( or whoever ) that He created everything on the earth in His own time and in His own way and the how is not understandable in human terms so don't ask ? Maybe we need a BLUE letter edition of the scriptures wherein everything that should be taken literally(historically accurately) is written in Blue and all the rest can be interpreted as symbol and metaphor willy-nilly as decided by the religious powers of the day. As for me, I must really have a thick vale over my memory as I don't recall being in a garden and choosing a fruit and being cast out. If Adam is all metaphor and represents all of us then are we speaking of the pre-mortal life as the garden and choosing to come to earth was the tree and then we were cast from heaven ?... something doesn't add up.

My understanding was that god didn't explain anything to him. He saw it in a vision and was led to figure out what he saw.

Why would it be hard to accept that ones written account of a vision of something as complicated as the creation of a planet and all living life there on could be subject to certain allegorical limitations?

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

On a completely unrelated note: Volgadon, is there any way to get an email to you? Your profile says you're not receiving PMs, and I can't find any contact info to get aholda ya. PM me, if so!

*back to regularly scheduled thread*

[Robert F. Smith]

I have to agree with CASteinman on this the Tower and the confusion of tongues is too closely tied to the Jaredite story to be myth. Which is something once again that causes Von Daniken type thinking to swirl through my brain because I have always wondered about those darn stones as well and thought there was more to that story as well...sigh...should never have read so much Von Daniken in my gentile youth.

Unless of course the story told and passed on among the Jaredites was a myth (fictional and symbolic of something).

What is undeniable is that there were plenty of temple towers in Mesopotamia, the most likely locus for the beginning of Ether. For, the “great tower” story in Ether 1:33-37 (cf. Gen 11:1-9) is associated with the confusion of tongues^[1] episode, recalling the Sumerian “Golden Age” passage in which “the whole universe, the people in unison, to Enlil in one tongue (eme-aš-àm) gave praise,” to be followed shortly by the struggle between Enlil and Enki, lord of Eridu, who “changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it, into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.”^[2] This tradition was already current in some form thousands of years before the Bible came forth in Hebrew.

^[1] Sumerian EME.BI.GILIM = Akkadian lišānšunu e-eg-ru (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, “E,” 42, citing UET, 1, 146, ili, 7, iv, 7 [Hammurabi]); S. N. Kramer, “The ‘Babel of Tongues’: A Sumerian Version,” in W. W. Hallo, ed., Essays in Memory of E. A. Speiser, AOS 53 (New Haven, 1968), 108-111 = JAOS, 88 (1968).

^[2] S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, rev. ed. (Harper & Row, 1961/reprint Univ. of Penn. Press, 1972), xiv,107 n. 2.

Edited April 27, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't Hugh Nibley under the assumption that the great tower mentioned in Ether was not actually the tower of Babel but instead it was the tower of Nimrod?

Whatever the case, Babel is not mentioned in the Book of Mormon, while Babylon is mentioned only in relation to the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews in Lehi's day.

The Great Tower (ziggurat) of the book of Ether is a much earlier tower than the famous one in Babylon. The Bible has "Babel" as a gloss in Genesis 11:9.

[Stone holm]

Unless of course the story told and passed on among the Jaredites was a myth (fictional and symbolic of something).

What is undeniable is that there were plenty of temple towers in Mesopotamia, the most likely locus for the beginning of Ether. For, the “great tower” story in Ether 1:33-37 (cf. Gen 11:1-9) is associated with the confusion of tongues^[1] episode, recalling the Sumerian “Golden Age” passage in which “the whole universe, the people in unison, to Enlil in one tongue (eme-aš-àm) gave praise,” to be followed shortly by the struggle between Enlil and Enki, lord of Eridu, who “changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it, into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.”^[2] This tradition was already current in some form thousands of years before the Bible came forth in Hebrew.

^[1] Sumerian EME.BI.GILIM = Akkadian lišānšunu e-eg-ru (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, “E,” 42, citing UET, 1, 146, ili, 7, iv, 7 [Hammurabi]); S. N. Kramer, “The ‘Babel of Tongues’: A Sumerian Version,” in W. W. Hallo, ed., Essays in Memory of E. A. Speiser, AOS 53 (New Haven, 1968), 108-111 = JAOS, 88 (1968).

^[2] S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, rev. ed. (Harper & Row, 1961/reprint Univ. of Penn. Press, 1972), xiv,107 n. 2.

So we conclude that two literal accounts still result in it being a myth and we cite Sumerian mythology in support assuming that Nimrod was Sumerian?

[volgadon]

So we conclude that two literal accounts still result in it being a myth and we cite Sumerian mythology in support assuming that Nimrod was Sumerian?

I hate to be blunt, but you seem to use technical terms in a sloppy manner. A myth, to simplify things, is a sacred narrative which provides the framework for the faith.The Mesopotamian setting of the tower narrative is explicit, so why shouldn't we seek to contextualise it with the available sources? What Bob quoted from, BTW,is the same myth that I alluded to, where the term one language is used to designate the near-divine condition of the land.

[EllenMaksoud]

I tend towards literalism when it comes to the Old Testament, and so I believe there was a tower and that tower was about to or had the potential to give mankind something that it was not supposed to have at least not at that time. Further it must have been something significant because the consequences were very severe. So what was really going on back then?

I also take the OT literally most of the time. I doubt that the people of the day had the sophistication to write using metaphorical language or for a matter of fact any language that was not very direct.

[EllenMaksoud]

As someone tending towards "literalism when it comes to the Old Testament," please let me know when you've come up with a satisfactory explanation for why we should privilege Von Danikenish explanations over those drawn both from the text itself and from comparison with the Mesopotamian context.

There are many things that we do not know because they have not been revealed to us. 1 Cor 13:12 "For now we see through a glass , darkly ..." One device that I intend to use in a story soon is the idea of "Temporal Bubbles" where figures like Jesus Christ and angels can move in and out of our sight with ease. It is an idea that I just recently coined so I doubt that any theoretical mathematics expert would support it. So, in theory, Jesus Christ could be right next to me and I would not see him until he moved out of his space/time bubble.

[volgadon]

I also take the OT literally most of the time. I doubt that the people of the day had the sophistication to write using metaphorical language or for a matter of fact any language that was not very direct.

Are you serious? Even the oldest strata of the Hebrew Bible- poetry, as it happens- has very sophisticated and evocative imagery. Semitic poets are masters of broad, bold, impressionist strokes of language.

[EllenMaksoud]

Are you serious? Even the oldest strata of the Hebrew Bible- poetry, as it happens- has very sophisticated and evocative imagery. Semitic poets are masters of broad, bold, impressionist strokes of language.

So you are saying that there was no serpent, garden of Eden, whale, flood or parting of the red sea? I am quite fond of the idea that Ezekiel saw something similar to a V-22 Osprey.

[Robert F. Smith]

the Tower story cannot be written off as fable because of its being so intertwined with the Book of Ether.

Aren't you privileging the Tower story in Ether, and not in Genesis. Isn't that a double standard in that it may have the same status in the book of Ether that it does in Genesis?

[Robert F. Smith]

So we conclude that two literal accounts still result in it being a myth and we cite Sumerian mythology in support assuming that Nimrod was Sumerian?

What we may reasonably assume from this Sumerian episode is that the tale is very archaic (something most people don't know). The tale in Ether also mentions the Valley of Nimrod, named for the great hunter, and is also a proper name of a person. Biblical Nimrod is also both a geographical name and personal name. Nibley found the locus of Nimrod names in north Mesopotamia, thus making the Jaredites likely to be part of the broader Sumero-Akkadian civilization.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[volgadon]

So you are saying that there was no serpent, garden of Eden, whale, flood or parting of the red sea?

No, but neither am I saying that the ancients were rubes incapable of formulating even elementary literary devices.

I am quite fond of the idea that Ezekiel saw something similar to a V-22 Osprey.

I'm not. Not only is it unecessarity, it does violence to the intended message and imagery.