1. And the whole earth was one language, and of one speech. (Naturally, since the language here was the language of nature.)
2. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
We should not look upon this chapter as even chronological. Its “they” are not the people of the preceding chapter, Noah’s sons and their descendants; that is taken up again in verse 10. The “they” are the creative forces in Involution, and the Babel story just another Creation myth. It appears here only because the Editor deemed it worthy of a place with the others. Worthy it may be but not original. Even the name Babel (Gate of God) came from the Akkadian-Sumerian Babili, about 3900 B.C., and means Gateway of God, one with the Greek “Gateway of the gods.” “Shinar,” the Hebrew form of the native name Sumir, is of similar origin.
3. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
Bricks are a building material and here symbolize the atomic units out of which “they” built a chemical world; and the place they burned them thoroughly was in the sun. When later they made biologic bricks (cells), they did not merely use slime; they were slime.
The city they built is earth, and its lofty tower the aura that rises heavenward from it. The “name” is that planetary index, the aura’s colors. The author does not tell us the real reason for this project but Josephus does. His account, however, is rather mystifying. When the waters departed, he says the sons of Noah came down to the plain and tried their best to persuade others to follow them. Now who were these “others”? And how could there be, as he asserts, a multitude at work on the tower? And who constituted the colonies he says God commanded them to send out? It might be argued that this was long subsequent to the Deluge, but no, the one who incited them to build the tower was Nimrod, Ham’s grandson. Now the sons and grandsons of one man do not constitute colonies and multitudes, but the creative forces do. Nimrod’s reason for building the tower is given as anger at God for drowning the race, and who can blame him? He said “J’accuse “but there’s never been another like him. He was also afraid there would be another mass murder in spite of God’s promise. To quote Josephus verbatim: “He wanted to avenge himself on God for the destruction of his ancestors thus: he would build a tower so high that the waters of another flood, with which the world might be afflicted, would not be able to submerge it.” And a Babylonian parallel ends thus: “But all this they did only from fear of another deluge.” And all this (mythic tales) the Jews had access to and used.
5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
“Children of men” is pure deception. These builders are the same as those of Blavatsky’s comment—Lipikas and Lords of Form. Now if they built that form called earth, who is this spying Lord? He is but a creation of the Jewish mind, which, honored for its monotheism, created many Creators, then told us the Lord is one. Exoterically, Bible and Babel are much alike—utter confusion.
6. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one (the Life Principle), and they have all one language (genetic); and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
And where is the monotheism here? This separating and confounding of the language represents the many divisions and tongues into which the life force divided in Evolution. If this be not the meaning, then this divider of one language is responsible for all the wars and woes that came therefrom. A universal language is one of the prerequisites of peace and civilization, a blessing, not a crime. It is also something man should strive for, the moral of Babel notwithstanding.
8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
The earth now built, they left off building it—”and God rested from all his labors.” And what a world it was: earthquake and volcano, jungle, savagery, barbarism and finally semicivilization. Its builder here is Nimrod, “A mighty hunter before the Lord,” which means he was the Lord, and like Cain and Lantech, a killer. What an indictment of God we have here! He, not man, made this place of chaos and confusion, of mindless matter and murderous force. How then is man to blame? Instead of its creator he is its savior; give him time and he will turn this God-made Babelonia into a man-made Utopia.
Verse 10 now takes up the generations of Shem again, where it left off in chapter 10. Here the lineage of Shem is traced down to Abraham, a genealogy no more factual or historical than that of Noah from Adam. It is but a priestly attempt to make it appear that the Jews descended from Adam and therefore straight from God. But little do they realize what that implies.
We now know who “they” were, but who were the “us”? “Let us go down—” Us is not monotheistic, and neither were the earliest Jews. The later ones deleted many of their gods and devils yet their literature as a whole is replete with them. There were, for instance, seven evil spirits of which Satan, or Beelzebub, was the prince; Vessels of Iniquity, whose chief was Belial; Deluders whose chief, Nahash, deluded Eve; Tempters, whose chief was Mammon; the Turbulents (Turbulentos), chief, Meriram. There were also Lying Spirits, Furies, Revengers, and Inquisitors. Against these were the seven opponents: Cherubim, Seraphim, Virtues, Thrones, Dominions, Powers and Principalities. There were also the seven archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Kamiel, Kadriel, Uriel and Zophkiel.
In Tobias, an Apocryphal book, it is related that the archangel Raphael seized Asmodeus, prince of the fourth order of evil spirits (fourth material plane energy), and bound him in the wilderness of Upper Egypt (earth). This is the angel Saint John said he saw binding Satan, billions of years after the event. A parallel myth is that of Apollyon, Prince of Darkness; simply Apollo, a sun extinguished, actually now our world. This is he whom the Bible calls “the prince of this world.” In the myth, his kingdom was over those “wandering stars for whom is laid up the blackness of darkness for ages and ages.” This is that stage and period we referred to earlier—between bright sun and life-bearing planet, in which the intermediate entity wanders alone until picked up by a sun. This is all part of the wisdom-knowledge of Creation of which the Bible is but a plagiarized and religionized relic.
Its deities, including its God, are just as mythic as Zeus and Apollo, Prometheus and Epimetheus, yet to any praise of the Greeks and their art the Christian priest makes haste to reply, “Oh, they were only myth-makers.” Yes, and the difference between the two is that the myth-makers did not believe in their myths literally, and we do, in ours.