28 March 2023
Don't be a sucker for the false dichotomy.
The original narrative of Babylon in the first few verses of Genesis 11 reads as a tale of human ambition. The people mentioned in the story seek to unify and preserve their identity against the direct command from God to disperse. Most people make this all about Nimrod and his personal vanity, but the only connection between him and the first Babylon is the location in the Mesopotamian Valley. It's not a mistake to make that connection, but it could miss the point, if you don't grasp the wider moral issues. Nimrod's moral flaw is that he was a hunter like Esau, versus a shepherd like Jacob. In the Old Testament, the premier model of a godly man is the image of the nomadic shepherd. Esau served his own animal lusts. And while Jacob was not a nice guy by any means, his one virtue is that he allowed God to reshape him. He took his place in God's plans. There's nothing wrong with hunting game; there's something wrong with allowing the predatory nature to shape your character.
I've read studies that attempt to paint Jacob as a civilized man, versus his barbaric brother. That's wrong. Jacob lived in a tent most of his life and never built a city. He avoided cities because he preferred the moral purity of being dependent on God. Every time he got close to a city, he got into trouble. The same contrast runs through the story of Abraham and Lot. Staying away from human cities was the best way to avoid being defiled by the sin inherent in how cities were organized and why -- the density of the market and the economic efficiency of specialization in production. Who is ready to understand that the basic values encouraged by the academic discipline of economics are anti-faith?
Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the Bible, the symbol of Babylon was the commerce of capitalizing on human lusts. Anything and everything could be bought in Babylon; everything about human existence was for sale. The merchants weep because the fall of Babylon means their business opportunities are crushed (Revelation 18). Thus, whatever it was the original Babylon was doing in Genesis by building an astrological observatory (ziggurat), it was tainted by greed. They sought to read their fortunes for materialistic motives, not to know anything about divine will. The primary goal of astrology is sating fleshly desires. You can discern that by reading any horoscope.
The Ancient Near East never escaped this fundamental moral flaw. Despite any mythology or cultural rhetoric, the Babylonian Empire was motivated by efforts to sate human lusts. They had a massive collection of literature preserved from past millennia, one of their greatest treasures, as previous empires there had valued such a library, as well. That literature included the lore of the ancient Code of Noah, from which Balaam demonstrated a firm ritual knowledge. And that religion did not stand alone in promoting the idea of cosmic moral justice; Egyptian mythology rests in part on that same idea. That was the lesson behind Nebuchadnezzar's madness.
Yet for all that, the fundamental moral flaw of Babylonian civilization was the preoccupation with sating human lusts, from one angle or another. The Persian Empire was no better; their embrace of astrology included embracing the primary motive of fleshly desires. For all their mystical rhetoric, they never failed to escape the emphasis on human fleshly comfort. The prosperity and comfort of the imperial household was the primary motive behind the Edict of Cyrus, and it keeps popping up in the biblical narrative of Esther.
Again: Those ancient cultures had adequate warning from their own scholars and religious mythology that divine justice was the ultimate proper motive for any human endeavor, but the rulers somehow failed to reign consistently on that basis. This is the basic flaw of the whole of Ancient Near Eastern history. Thus, we are hardly surprised that it became the basic flaw of Judaism. Judaism represents the failure of Israel to cling to the mystical Covenant of Moses. The Wilderness Temptations of Jesus were aimed at persuading Him to embrace what the Jews were longing for: Lust of the Flesh (unlimited food and wealth), Lust of the Eyes (spectacular miracles), and the Boastful Pride of Human Existence (ruling over man and nature).
God's answer for human existence after the Fall has not changed since the earliest revelation outside of Eden: disperse, decentralize and keep it simple. Whether it's the sins Esau or of Jacob's early adulthood, the moral failure is the same. Both were simply different brands of predation. The first step on the path back to Eden is to renounce the desires of the fleshly nature. That means rejecting the whole package of civilization and it's inherent materialism. It's a false dichotomy to insist that the only options are civilization versus the savagery of men like Esau or Nimrod. The truth of God is always contrary to such lies.
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