119th Street. The Tower of Babel

The picture above is entitled "Rage Over Babylon". It's a picture based on the Biblical story of the creation and destruction of the Tower of Babel. It is an entry drawn by Ziv Qual for the "Spectacular Challenge", a competition organized by the CG Society.

One of my favorite Biblical story is that of the Tower of Babel. More precisely, it is the interpretive possibilities of the story the intrigues me. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, it goes like this: In the story, humankind came together to build a magnificent tower that bridges Heaven and Earth. This tower, is called the Tower of Babel.Through this tower, human kind aspires to enter the abode of God himself. God was displeased. He destroyed the tower, gave the people of Earth different languages so they can never understand one another, and hence unable to come together and build such a tower again.

As I have said earlier, the thing about Biblical stories is that it is able to go either way you want. It can, be seen as simply a story about how we ended up speaking in different tongues, or even a warning against ambitiousness of human kind to want to enter the guarded realm of God. I however, offer THREE interpretations of the story:

1) The story shows the creative and technological powress that can be achieved through a united effort of human kind.

2) The period in which human kind came together to build the Tower of Babel is the ONLY time when there is peace and unity.

3) God, by giving people different tongues and languages only served to DIVIDE humanity, and hence, created centuries of division, wars and chaos.

The more I ponder about the story, the more it made me think if PEACE is what God really wanted for human kind? Maybe we are meant not to understand one another, maybe we are destined to wage war after war against one another 'cause that's the only way we won't come together and build something that may challenge the authority of God. Why are we made to believe that we can't create things greater than that of God, when the Bible has told us that we could?

People see the Tower of Babel as some symbol of the transgressive nature of humanity. that requires correction from God. No. The Tower of Babel is symbolic of the brilliance of humanity, the unity of human kind - a unity that we know we can never again achieve. The story, will be for me an inspiration, a puzzle and an enigma.