Tag: Tower of Babel

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CERN-Our Generation’s Tower of Babel?

For my next blog-post, I thought that I would go back to the roots of this thing, and write something about the Tower of Babel again. I turned to social media with this question: What is our generation’s “Tower of Babel”? The results have been … interesting. I’ll soon be posting another couple of articles about everything else folks had to say to me. But a number of people suggested something that took me off guard: CERN.

What is CERN?

CERN (an abbreviation for Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire) is a multi-national nuclear research organization. They are probably most famous for running the “Large Hadron Collider,” the largest machine in the world. (Can you see where some of this might be heading yet?). The LHC collides particles into one another at incredible speeds. It helped to measure the properties of the “Higgs boson.” In fact, the LHC produced a subatomic particle that matched the proposed properties of the Higgs boson back in 2012.

All of this is pretty heady science. When dealing with quantum particle physics, there is lots of room for misunderstanding and sensationalism. Because the press popularly referred to the Higgs boson as the “God particle,” the sensationalism just grew and grew. And because Dan Brown (of DaVinci Code infamy) had already made particle research at CERN a big part of the plot of his Angels and Demons (later made into a film in 2009) I suppose that all of the ingredients were sitting right there for a spiritual conspiracy theory involving CERN.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 1

CERN Is Going to Blow Up the Universe!!!

Someone directed me to an article that they had written detailing their version of the theory. Some of what they have to say sounds a bit like Dan Brown’s convoluted ideas in Angels and Demons. So Dan Brown used the supposed threat of CERN developing anti-matter as a plot device. (As I understand it, to actually develop enough anti-matter for such purposes, and then to keep it stable up to the moment of deployment, is so incredibly cost-prohibitive as to render the entire plot of Brown’s novel farcical).

This individual with whom I have been having correspondence invokes Stephen Hawking. Somewhere Hawking supposedly said that the LHC “could pose grave dangers to our planet…the God Particle (also known as the Higgs Boson Particle) found by CERN could destroy the universe.” My correspondent summarizes the rest of Hawking’s explanation as to why this could happen. Supposedly, Hawking said that the energy generated in the LHC might create a “vacuum bubble” that would ripple through the delicate fabric of space and time, causing them to collapse in on themselves. This is what Hawking refers to as “vacuum decay.”

What Stephen Hawking Really Said

Except that Hawking never said just those words in just that order. As far as I can determine, the basis for this claim is something that Hawking wrote in the preface to a book called Starmus. This is what he actually said, “The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100 [billion] gigaelectronvolts (GeV). This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light. This could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”

Notice, Hawking is not talking about the Higgs boson in that quote, but the Higgs potential. These are two completely different things. Basically, he is suggesting that our universe is actually somewhat fragile. Because one bug of our universe is this Higgs potential trait, if something managed to generate 100 billion GeV of energy, it could instigate vacuum decay. And please note: Hawking does not suppose that the source of this energy might come from CERN. If it happens, it will be random. It “could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”

By the way, a machine capable of generating that much GeV of energy would be larger than our planet. CERN is not really a threat on that front, at least.

Supposedly Neil de Grasse Tyson has also warned us of the dangers of what CERN is doing, but I can’t find any trace of these warnings.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 2

One of the things that bothers Christian CERN conspiracy theorists is the presence of a large statue of Shiva on the premises. My correspondent asks, “Why does a science facility have this on their lawn?”

Actually, there seems to be a fairly innocuous explanation. CERN is an international research facility. One of the member nations is India. Evidently India donated the statue as a gift in 2004. You can read about it here.

Photo of the ceremony in which the statue of Shiva was donated to CERN by the government of India. Some conspiracy theorists think that CERN is our generation's "tower of Babel."
Photo from “Lord Shiva Statue Unveiled,” https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737. Pictured are the Director General of CERN, Dr. Robert Aymar, His Excellency Mr K. M. Chandrasekhar, Ambassador (WTO-Geneva) and Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Dept of Atomic Energy, India.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 3

Another element of the CERN conspiracy theory has to do with it’s logo.

The logo for CERN. Do you see "666"? Some people do. They think that CERN is our generation's "Tower of Babel."

Do you see it? This helpful drawing might help you out:

An attempt to demonstrate that CERN's logo has "666" embedded into it. Some people think that CERN is our generation's "Tower of Babel."
Image by Vincent Robleto on https://www.deviantart.com/kerblotto/art/CERN-is-666-97906513.

I don’t see it. No matter how I squint, I can’t get “666” out of CERN’s logo. I can only find two circles for two sixes, not three. And there are two too many stems!

In any case, the number of the beast is not what most people think it is.

CERN: Conspiracy Element 4

But the most perplexing thing to me about this conspiracy theory is the claim that CERN is using the LHC to open portals through which demons will invade our planet.

Sorry, but demons and super-villains do not use the same means of travel.

Supposedly this was the original function of the Tower of Babel, and CERN is trying to accomplish what the folks in Genesis 11 could not.

Here is one example that someone sent to me, from the Jim Bakker Show. (You do remember him, don’t you?).

Zach Drew on “The Jim Bakker Show,” making the case for CERN creating demon-portals. Comic-book interpretation of Scripture like this is a new thing for me.

Strangely, I have had a few Catholic correspondents tell me the same things this video argues.

Why CERN Can’t Build a Demon-Portal (Even if They Wanted to Do So)

How Angels Can Be in a Place

I cannot stress how absurd this is, especially for certain Catholic conspiracy theorists. The reason is this: angelic beings do not have material bodies that require physical portals for their movement. Who better to explain angelic movement than the angelic doctor? St. Thomas Aquinas explains, beginning with what it means for an angel to be in a place:

It is befitting an angel to be in a place; yet an angel and a body are said to be in a place in quite a different sense. A body is said to be in a place in such a way that it is applied to such place according to the contact of dimensive quantity; but there is no such quantity in the angels, for theirs is a virtual one. Consequently an angel is said to be in a corporeal place by application of the angelic power in any manner whatever to any place.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 52, 1

A Further Explanation

Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP, has offered a helpful commentary on this difficult passage in his Angels and Demons: A Catholic Introduction.

An angel, being incorporeal, cannot be situated in a place in the same way as a body is localized. However, as St. Thomas already explained in reference to God, an incorporeal being is present, by dint of a virtual contact, wherever it acts. Thus an angel (or a demon) is present to the corporeal substance to which he applies his causality, not as though he were contained in that corporeal reality but rather as that which somehow contains it.

Bonino, Angels and Demons, pg. 123.

How Angels Travel

The consequences of this for angelic movement should be readily apparent, but let us hear what Aquinas has to say, anyhow:

An angel can successively quit the divisible place in which he was before, and so his movement will be continuous. And he can all at once quit the whole place, and in the same instant apply himself to the whole of another place, and thus his movement will not be continuous.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 53, 1

In the next article, Thomas explicitly states that angels do not have to move through “mid-space” because they do not have bodies.

The actual passing from one extreme to the other, without going through the mid-space, is quite in keeping with an angel’s nature; but not with that of a body, because a body is measured by and contained under a place; hence it is bound to follow the laws of place in its movement. But an angel’s substance is not subject to place as contained thereby, but is above it as containing it: hence it is under his control to apply himself to a place just as he wills, either through or without the intervening place.

Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 53, 2

Bonino’s Explanation

Bonino is again helpful on this point.

Since an angel is not in a place in the same manner as a body is, his displacement—his passage from one place to another—is not of the same type as that of a body. In particular, the translation of a body is continuous, in the sense that a moving thing must pass through all the points between A and B, whereas the displacement of an angel is discontinuous, discrete.

Bonino, Angels and Demons, pg. 124.

I was talking with a good friend about this the other day, and he shared a nice perspective on this. We might say that angels travel to us by shifting their attention to us.

Conclusion

To sum up, demons are not supervillians that depend on portals to enter our world. Unfortunately, they are already here.

Of course, it is hardly surprising that conspiracy theories run wild when folks at CERN do stunts like this one.

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The Tower of Babel and Bab-Ilani: a Biblical Joke

Ruins of É.TEMEN.AN.KI

Like many stories in Genesis, the tale of the Tower of Babel seems to have drawn inspiration from older ancient Near Eastern stories and culture. One example is the story of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. In this story, Enmerkar forces the people of Aratta to erect a palace or temple that resembles a mountain. One of his ambitions is to unite the diverse peoples of Sumer in the worship of Enlil. “May they all address Enlil together in a single language!” To achieve this monolingualism, he plans to enlist the help of the god Enki. He “shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one.”

É.TEMEN.AN.KI-The Foundation House of Heaven and Earth

But the more proximate source of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel is surely É.TEMEN.AN.KI, “the foundation house of heaven and earth”. This was a massive ziggurat, 90 feet tall, likely built centuries before Saul or David reigned in Israel, maybe even by the great Hammurabi, c. 1790 BC.

Arial View of All That Is Left of É.TEMEN.AN.KI
Lyaschuchenko / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

This temple is probably mentioned in Enûma Eliš, the Babylonian creation myth. Tablet VI 63 mentions “ziqqurrat apsî elite,” the “upper ziggurat of Apsu.” It seems as though there was a fresh water lake (“apsu” in Akkadian) dedicated to Enki (believed to dwell in the cosmic well of freshwater beneath the earth’s surface) in the vicinity of É.TEMEN.AN.KI. The ziggurat was destroyed in 689 BC by Sennacherib. But it was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II as part of his series of impressive construction projects. É.TEMEN.AN.KI was surely a centerpiece of Nebuchadnezzar’s ideological architecture, because of what it represented for the Babylonians.

Here is a stele that Nebuchadnezzar probably had placed around the ziggurat’s foundation:

The "Tower of Babel" Stele
From https://www.schoyencollection.com/history-collection-introduction/babylonian-history-collection/tower-babel-stele-ms-2063.

Here’s a clearer view of it:

Reconstruction/Drawing of "Tower of Babel" Stele

That’s a portrait of Nebuchadnezzar you’re looking at there. This is the same Nebuchadnezzar that, according to the Bible, burned down the Temple in Jerusalem, threw the three Hebrew children into the fiery furnace, and spent seven years of his life in madness, behaving like a beast of the field. And there beside him is the É.TEMEN.AN.KI.

“I Mobilized All Countries Everywhere”

This is what part of the cuneiform text on the stele says:

“Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon am I. In order to complete E-TEMEN-ANKI and E-UR-ME-IMIN-ANKI I mobilized all countries everywhere, each and every ruler who had been raised to prominence over all the people of the world–loved by Marduk, from the upper sea to the lower sea, the distant nations, the teeming people of the world, kings of remote mountains and far-flung islands. The base I filled in to make a high terrace. I built their structures with bitumen and baked brick throughout. I completed it, raising its top to the heaven, making it gleam bright as the sun” (translation from https://www.schoyencollection.com/history-collection-introduction/babylonian-history-collection/tower-babel-stele-ms-2063).

Nebuchadnezzar and Enmerkar

Nebuchadnezzar sounds very much like his ancient, Sumerian counterpart, Enmerkar. He is boastful and determined to unite all of the peoples in his empire in the construction of this ziggurat. He certainly emulates Enmerkar’s prideful attitude. Perhaps Nebuchadnezzar knew of Enmerkar, and was intentionally imitating him. But if you are familiar with Genesis 11, you should be drawing all kinds of parallels to this short text. Of course the most explicit link to be drawn is the mention of “bitumen and baked brick” on the stele with the “brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar” in Genesis 11:3.

Ziggurats and Mesopotamian Religion

The purpose of ziggurats, and Babylonian religion in general, was primarily to maintain order and hold chaos at bay. The year revolved around the Akitu festival in the Spring. That is when Enûma Eliš was read in a liturgical ceremony.

Enûma Eliš is the story of how Marduk became the lord of Babylon by conquering his ancestress, Tiamat the chaos-dragon. It also tells of how he constructed the cosmos out of her corpse. The story concludes with Marduk creating human beings as slaves to serve the gods. Their first task is to build a city with shrines that the gods will inhabit. These slaves are to provide the gods with sacrifices for their sustenance. This city is Bab-ilani, the “gate of the gods.” É.TEMEN.AN.KI was the most important and impressive of Babylon’s ziggurats. At every Akitu festival, as a result of the sacrifices and liturgical reading of Enûma Eliš, Tiamat was kept in the grave for another year. It was also when the annual destinies for Babylon were decreed by the gods.

The Tower of Babel

Sometimes I come across a commentary or journal article on Genesis 11 with a snarky tone. It might say something like this: “This is an etiological narrative explaining how Babylon came to have its name. Since the author did not know Akkadian, he has supplied his own interpretation of ‘Babel,’ based on a Hebrew root meaning ‘confusion’.”

I don’t think that’s what is going on in this story at all. In fact, I think that the author of this text, at least in its current form, knew Akkadian quite well. He was probably living in Babylon as part of the Jewish community in exile there. If he was an author, he had surely been pressed into service for the government as a scribe. Maybe he had to write and copy texts similar to the one inscribed on Nebuchadnezzar’s stele.

What Genesis 11 Is Trying to Say

The author of Genesis 11 knew that Bab-ilani means “gate of the gods.” But he also knew that the gods referred to in the name of his new city were not the real lords of creation and order. So, he decided to compose a piece of protest literature. He synthesized the older traditions of the origin of languages, and maybe even an older text or two, with the residual memory of Enmerkar and his construction of the mountain of divine decrees. And then he intentionally drew verbal connections with the architectural propaganda of Nebuchadnezzar. The author knew that Nebuchadnezzar was styling himself as a new Enmerkar. But he remembered some things that Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten.

Nebuchadnezzar Will Go the Way of Enmerkar

Enmerkar’s building project had been powerful. His imperial reign once was overwhelming. By imposing a divine language, he had seemingly unified the peoples under his dominion. But all of that had disappeared. The winds of history eventually erased Enmerkar’s ziggurat. The same would happen to Nebuchadnezzar’s. (Alexander razed the ruins of É.TEMEN.AN.KI to the ground a few centuries later). The empire of Enmerkar disappeared. The same would happen to the Babylonian Empire. (Cyrus made sure of that in the space of half a century). All of the peoples forced to speak one language under Enmerkar eventually dispersed into their various ethnic groups and cherished their own mother-tongues. It wouldn’t be long before the peoples of the Babylonian empire would return to their own languages and literatures. (It has been a very, very long time since anyone ever spoke Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian dialect of Akkadian).

The Tower of Babel: A Monument to Chaos and Confusion

All of the efforts of these kings to secure order for their empires in opposition to the reign of the Creator God resulted, ultimately, in confusion. É.TEMEN.AN.KI, the “foundation house of heaven and earth,” is really nothing more than the Tower of Babel, a monument to chaos and confusion.

The Babylonians styled their capital city as Bab-ilani, the “gate of the gods.” They viewed it to be the geographical epitome of cosmic order. But the author of Genesis 11 knows that “Babel,” the Hebrew name for Babylon, sounds like the Hebrew word for confusion. So, he runs with it, and writes a divinely inspired joke. “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9).