The Tower of Babel: A Polemic against Marduk’s Temple Esagil

This essay is based on our comprehensive comparative study of Enuma Elish and Genesis 11:1–9, T. M. Oshima and A. Acker Gruseke, “L’homme propose, Dieu...disperse: Gen 11:1–9 in Comparative and Spatial Perspective,” forthcoming. The translations of cuneiform texts and the Hebrew Bible are my own unless otherwise noted. For additional literature on Genesis 11:1–9, see: e.g., Angelika Berlejung, “Living in the Land of Shinar: Reflections of Exile in Genesis 11:1–9?,” in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, ed P. Dubovský, D. Markl, and J.–P. Sonnet (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 89–111 (at 90–91); Andreas Schüle, Der Prolog der hebräischen Bibel: Der literar- und theologiegeschichtliche Diskurs der Urgeschichte (Genesis 1–11), Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 86 (Zürich: TVZ, 2006), 379; and Christoph Uehlinger, Weltreich und “eine Rede”: Eine neue Deutung der sogenannten Turmbauerzählung (Gen 11, 1–9), Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 101 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1990), 9–34.

Genesis 11:1–9 is not the first reference to Shinar as the place where humankind settled down after the Deluge. The Table of Nations (Gen 10; also non-P) recounts that Nimrod built the first human kingdom in Shinar, with Babylon as its first center:

^{בראשׁית י:ט} הוּא הָיָה גִבֹּר צַיִד לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה עַל כֵּן יֵאָמַר כְּנִמְרֹד גִּבּוֹר צַיִד לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה. ^י:י וַתְּהִי רֵאשִׁית מַמְלַכְתּוֹ בָּבֶל וְאֶרֶךְ וְאַכַּד וְכַלְנֵה בְּאֶרֶץ שִׁנְעָר.

^{Gen 10:9} He was a mighty hunter by the grace of YHWH; hence the saying, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter by the grace of YHWH.” ^10:10 The mainstays of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkade, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.

His capital city is later moved to Erech (Uruk/modern Warka), Akkade (founded by Sargon of Akkad in the third millinnium B.C.E., precise location unknown), and Calneh (location unknown) in Shinar and later to Assyria (Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen; v.11). Contra E. A. Speiser, “Word Plays on the Creation Epic’s Version of the Founding of Babylon,” Orientalia Nova Series 25 (1956): 317–323, who offers the emendation wekullanâ instead of weKalneh, I take Calneh as a toponym yet to be identified. See Yigal Levin, “Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad,” Vetus Testamentum 52.3 (2002): 350–366 [at 353]; Yigal Levin, “Nimrod, Mighty Hunter and King – Who Was He?,” TheTorah (2020); and Ran Zadok, “The Origin of the Name Shinar,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 74 (1984): 240–244 [at 240]. Noteworthy is the fact that, according to the Table of Nations, Nimrod is not a descendant of Shem, to which the Israelites belong, but that of Ham, alongside Egyptians and Canaanites (v. 8). That is to say that the Table of Nations also sees Shinar not as the land allocated to the Israelites.

Yet it is frequently also translated as “valley.” See BDB: “בקעה,” 132; and translating as “valley,” JPS; Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, vol. 1: The Five Books of Moses: Torah (New York: Norton, 2019), 38; and Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11, trans. J. J. Scullion, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1994), 544, “a plain in a valley.”

D. T. Potts, Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 6–42. In biblical writing, “Shinar” designates the whole land of Babylonia. Zadok, “Origin of the Name Shinar,” 240–244, proposes that the Hebrew term Šinʿār derived from the Akkadian term Šanḫara. Originally a reference to a Kassite tribe, during the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E., it came to be used as a reference to Babylonia by people living west of the Euphrates. In the Bible, Shinar is frequently associated with negative divine judgment (e.g., Isa 11:11; Dan 1:2; Zech 5:11).

Genesis 11:1–9 actually speaks of the construction of a city and a tower (Gen 11: 3, 5), while the tower drops entirely from view in verses 8–9. Nonetheless, it is the tower that has made a lasting impression on all subsequent traditions and interpretations, and thus the modern scholarly soubriquet. It might better be called “Building Babel” (so Danna Nolan Fewell, “Building Babel,” in Postmodern Interpretations of the Bible—A Reader, ed. A.K.M. Adam [St. Louis, MO: Chalice, 2001], 1–15).

It is important to note here that although stone was more plentiful in the north, Assyria nevertheless used copious amounts of mudbrick in both its domestic and monumental architecture. On Mesopotamia as a “land of mud and mudbrick architecture,” even for monumental structures, see P. R. S. Moorey, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 301–362 (at 302). Indeed Nebuchadnezzar reports that his ziggurat’s four walls were made of bitumen and fired brick (George, “Stele of Nebuchadnezzar II,” 166, 167, line 54, and 168). Fired brick and bitumen were also used for the construction of his palace and its fortification. See, e.g., Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon as World Capital,” Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 3 (2008): 5–12, and more generally on monumental building practices, Moorey, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries, 302–306; 315–322; 332–335. On construction in Israel, see Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, Library of Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 21–35; and Peter Dubovksý, The Building of the First Temple: A Study in Redactional, Text-Critical and Historical Perspective, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), for a recent in-depth study on the First Temple in Jerusalem. Making the same observation regarding the explicitness of the material transposition, including the narrator’s “accurate and detailed knowledge of Mesopotamian construction techniques,” see Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), 82 and Speiser, “Word Plays on the Creation Epic’s Version of the Founding of Babylon,” 321.

Instead of Fremdwörter, whose “foreignness is part of its semantic flavor (e.g. ‘sommalier,’ ‘schlemiel’)” (Ronald Hendel, “Genesis 1–11 and Its Mesopotamian Problem,” in Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity, ed. E. S. Gruen, Oriens et Occidens 8 [Stuttgart: Steiner, 2005], 23–36 [at 25]), these are Fremdmaterialen.

The toponym Babylon, (Akk. Bābili) is frequently spelled logographically ká-dingir-ra (lit. the gate of the god) in cuneiform texts. However, Enuma Elish V 129 explains that the city is called Bābili because it is the houses of the great gods (bītāt ilī rabûti). Put differently, ancient Babylonians regarded Babylon as the earthly divine abode. Nonetheless, its early spelling, bar.^ki.bar, probably to be read babbar, indicates that Babylon’s logographic writing and the etiology given in Enuma Elish are a sort of a midrash, an interpretation of the toponym. For an explanation of the earlier name, including the soundshift r > l, see P.-A. Beaulieu, A History of Babylon 2200 bc–ad 75 (Souhthern Gate: Wiley Blackwell, 2018), 41.

E.g., Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, trans. J. H. Marks, rev. ed., Old Testament Library (London: SCM, 1972), 152.

For a brief overview of previous scholarly works on the pride-and-punishment reading, see, e.g., Harland, “Vertical or Horizontal”; and Fewell, “Building Babel.”

This interpretation connects P’s fruitfulness motif to the non-P Babel story, reading the two sources as if they share a similar perspective. Peter J. Harland, “Vertical or Horizontal: The Sin of Babel,” Vetus Testamentum 48.4 (1998): 515–533 (at 530), notes that this approach is found in Jewish commentators more so than Christian ones.

Some scholars argue that the Tower of Babel narrative belongs to the primeval era and the people in question are not the Babylonians but rather humankind in general. Thus, they observe that it is wrong to relate it to the ancient ziggurats. See, e.g., Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 719–721.

The English term ziggurat originates from the Akkadian word ziqqurratu, a derivertive of zaqāru, “to build high,” an apparent reference to the loftiness of the ancient Mesopotamian temple towers. The term is also used to indicate the height of a mountain, more specifically its summit. For construction of ziggurat, see, e.g., Wilfrid Allinger-Csollich, “Gedanken über das Aussehen und die Funktion einer Ziqqurrat,” in Tempel im Alten Orient: 7. Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 11–13 Oktober 2009, München, ed. K. Kainuth, A. Löhnert, J. J. L. Miller, A. Otto, M. Roaf and W. Sallaberger (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013), 1–18; Berlejung, “Living in the Land of Shinar,” 96.

See, e.g., Claus Ambos, “Ziqqurrat: A. Philologisch,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 15: 323–325; and Peter A. Miglus, “Ziqqurrat. B. Archäologisch,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 15: 325–330.

For the meaning of its ceremonial name and brief history of the ziggurat, see A. R. George, House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 149, no. 1088.

E.g., von Rad, Genesis, 150–151; Markus Witte, Die biblische Urgeschichte: Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 265 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998), 302; Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 80; Hendel, “Genesis 1–11 and Its Mesopotamian Problem,” 31–33; Beaulieu, “Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon as World Capital,” 10; Eckart Frahm, “Counter-texts, Commentaries, and Adaptations: Politically Motivated Responses to the Babylonian Epic of Creation in Mesopotamia, the Biblical World, and Elsewhere,” Orient 45 (2010): 3–33 (at 14–17); A. R. George, “Xerxes and the Tower of Babel,” in The World of Achaemenid Persia: History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, ed. J. Curtis and St. J. Simpson (London: Tauris, 2010), 472–480, (at 473); Berlejung, “Living in the Land of Shinar,” 97; and Ambos, “Ziqqurrat,” 323. Editor’s note: The number seven was broadly significant in ancient Near Eastern culture, beyond Israel, as well. See the brief discussion in Elaine Goodfriend, “Seven, the Biblical Number,” TheTorah (2021), including the examples in footnote 62.

For the meaning of the ceremonial name and brief history of the temple, see George, House Most High, 139–140, no. 967.

= MS 2063. See A. R. George, “A Stele of Nebuchadnezzar II,” in Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, edited by A. R. George, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 17 (Bethesda, MD: CDL, 2011), 153–165.

This ziggurat would not have been a new structure but rather would have replaced an earlier edifice that had, like all structures made of mudbrick, required rebuilding.

E.g., Berlejung, “Living in the Land of Shinar,” 98. During the Hellenistic period, the tower debris was removed from the site, most likely in preparation for restoring the temple tower. Rebuilding plans were never fully carried out, however (Olof Pedersén, Babylon: The Great City [Münster: Zaphon, 2021], 158).

The exact definition of the term me is notoriously difficult. Briefly said, Sumerians saw me as the very reason why each concrete and abstract thing existed. In his new Sumerian dictionary, Pascal Attinger, Glossaire sumérien-français: principlement des textes littéraires paléobabyloniens (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021), 718, offers “essences, puissances, potentialités” as its meaning.

See Hanspeter Schaudig, Explaining Disaster: Tradition and Transformation of the “Catastrophe of Ibbi-Sîn” in Babylonian Literature, Dubsar 13 (Münster: Zaphon, 2019), 182–185.

Schaudig, Explaining Disaster, 182–185.

Uehlinger, Weltreich und “eine Rede,” 397–399 and passim).

Scholars have rejected interpreting the Babel story as a response to Enuma Elish because they could not find exact parallels between the two texts. Those parallels do exist, but they are obscured by the ways the Hebrew thinkers twisted the wording in Enuma Elish to create a brilliant reproof for its original plots.For fuller discussion on the intertextuality between Enuma Elish and Genesis 11:1–9, see Oshima / Gruseke, “L’homme propose.”

See, e.g., Pongratz-Leisten in Simo Parpola, Assyrian Royal Rituals and Cultic Texts, State Archives of Assyria 20 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2017), LXII–LXIII, and likewise Frahm, “Counter-texts, Commentaries, and Adaptations,” 14–17. Editor’s note: On the Babylonian annual festival, see Uri Gabbay, “Babylonian Rosh Hashanah,” TheTorah (2014). For a discussion of Ezekiel as an example of contact between the Judean scribal community and Babylonian culture, see Laurie Pearce, “Ezekiel: A Jewish Priest and a Babylonian Intellectual,” TheTorah (2017).

See, e.g., W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, Mesopotamian Civilizations 16 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 439–444.

A caution is in order: In reality Esagil was the name of the lower temple in historical Babylon as well as the enormous temple precincts of consisting of Esagil itself, Etemenanki, and the temples of Ea, Madanu, Amurru, and Belet-Babili (George, House Most High, 91). In Enuma Elish, however, it is a lofty temple tower of the Apsu (VI 63).

According to Speiser (“Word Plays on the Creation Epic’s Version of the Founding of Babylon,” 319), the expression “with its head in heaven” in Genesis 11:4 had its origin in Enuma Elish. It probably goes too far to imagine biblical writers being conversant with Sumerian. The temple name, unless explained to them, would have been opaque, but the text of these important sections, as we argue here, would not. On the other hand, if they had been formally educated according to the norms of cuneiform learning, the study of Sumerian would have preceded Enuma Elish in the curriculum.

^{בראשׁית יא:ו} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה הֵן עַם אֶחָד וְשָׂפָה אַחַת לְכֻלָּם וְזֶה הַחִלָּם לַעֲשׂוֹת וְעַתָּה לֹא יִבָּצֵר מֵהֶם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יָזְמוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת. ^יא:ז הָבָה נֵרְדָה וְנָבְלָה שָׁם שְׂפָתָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ אִישׁ שְׂפַת רֵעֵהוּ. ^יא:ח וַיָּפֶץ יְ־הוָה אֹתָם מִשָּׁם עַל פְּנֵי כָל הָאָרֶץ וַיַּחְדְּלוּ לִבְנֹת הָעִיר.

^{Gen 11:6} And YHWH said, “They are one people, and they have one language for all of them. This is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they propose to do will be safe from them. ^11:7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s language.” ^11:8 So YHWH scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they ceased building the city.

See, e.g., Schüle, Der Prolog der hebräischen Bibel, 411–412; and Uehlinger, Weltreich und “eine Rede,” 372–380.