Who is Babylon anyway? (Part 1/3)

So now we get down to the nitty gritty. 

[I've decided the best way to get the conversation going is to use a half-baked interview style]

What's up with Babylon already? Why write a book right? 

Isn't it commercialism??? or some terrible Star Trek knockoff???  Bob Marley sang about it... and ahhhh...  Vin Diesel made a sci-fi movie...  right???

So basically you don't know squat about Babylon?  That's okay... neither did I. 

Well...  let me ask you... Do you want the WHOLE enchilada?  Then...  read my book.  

But if you want a brief summary built for a blogspace...  you've come to the right place.

Babylon arises in Genesis 11 and falls in Revelation 18.  It is literally one of the first things and (appropriately enough) "last things" of the biblical narrative (aka God's view of redemptive history).  The Babylon thread weaves throughout the entire Word of God.  In the view of Scripture...  Babylon is important.

When the Bible mentions Babylon, think First Century Rome.  At its zenith, Rome was unique in history by virtue of its seat of global power.  

So its this powerful, influential city right? 

Yes... but its much more than just a city.  Babylon is belief.  It is an ideological fantasy built on a system of beliefs. 

Or in other words... a religion.  Babylon is religion.

I believe most everyone can understand the global capital dynamic of Babylon.  It's the center of the earth's politics, economics, technology, and culture.  That part is fairly straight forward.

But what do we understand about the religion of Babylon?

To understand the roots of Babylon you need to go back to its inception.  Back in those days the global populous successfully optimized communication efficiency because... well... they all spoke the same language. 

And with all this efficiency the human race unified to achieve a peculiar objective.  They wanted to build a community that would ascend to realm of the gods.  

But to ascend up to the heavens they needed a "gateway" to get up there.  They needed a Bab (gateway) El (gods)... A Babel (gateway of the gods). 

They hadn't perfected the mechanics of flight yet, so it was decided they needed a ladder that could reach up to heaven.  Finally they'd get up in those fancy looking clouds were all the gods were chilling out, drinking wine and such.  

But the ladder idea didn't workout (too wobbly)...

they settled on building a tower instead. 

This achievement would mark history with the greatness of this burgeoning civilization.  I mean if this group of people figured out how to enter the realm of the gods, history would never forget them.  This "gateway" would be crowing achievement of the human race.

To build this tower they would need technology.  Just the old run of the mill wooden fire torches wouldn't be enough this time.  They needed the cutting edge stuff.  So they would use the latest technology to come out, the newly minted bricks worked way better than the old fashion stones and the bitumen was the wonderful new adhesive for the mortar.  An achievement of this magnitude required the greatest minds and the best tools available.

This project is gonna be great!!!!  Right????!!!!

To be continued....