The Bible as Mirror: Trump Tower and the Tower of Babel

Last updated on: May 25, 2017 at 3:14 pm by John C Holbert

The Bible as Mirror: Trump Tower and the Tower of Babel 2017-05-25T15:14:58-05:00 John C Holbert

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800px-Trump-Tower-3 The photographic image of Donald Trump’s signature tower in New York City has appeared in newspapers for years, but has become ubiquitous since the shocking election of Nov, 2016. The fact that the First Lady of the land, along with her son, spends nearly all of their time there, as opposed to the White House, makes the tower all the more well-known. It is fantastically, obscenely fitted out with features only the super rich can afford. Little wonder that Melania Trump would rather be there than in the, by comparison, wretched hovel that is the presidential residence in Washington. Trump’s Manhattan palace is truly fit for a king, a sultan, a potentate of fabulous wealth, all descriptions that I imagine The Donald would readily embrace. It is, in short, “a tower with its top in the sky,” as its counterpart in Genesis 11 is described. Today I wish to compare these two towers to discover whether, once again, the ancient Bible offers insight into the 45th president of the US.

There are several revealing characteristics of the Genesis story that bear a closer look. The builders of the Genesis tower are enabled to build, because “the whole earth had one language and the same words (NRSV),” (though the phrase might also be translated “similar words” or “a few words”). The implication appears to be that these folk could quite easily communicate since they all agreed in their speech. So it appears to be with Donald Trump. He uses few words in his speech—often confining himself to the 140 words of a Tweet—along with a seeming inability to speak consistently in complete sentences. Beyond those peculiarities, he speaks a language of wealth and power, a raw capitalism where only the strong survive and the weak are judged to be “losers,” (his chosen designation for any who disagree with him or his vision for the world).

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-The_Tower_of_Babel(Vienna)_-Google_Art_Project-_edited The Genesis tower builders select a choice spot for their magnificent project “on the plain of Shinar,” just as Trump chose downtown Manhattan, perhaps the most expensive real estate on the planet, for his pleasure tower. The ancient tower builders say to one another, “Come let us make bricks and fire them well!” No doubt, Trump instructed his builders to do the same in modern terms, namely, employ the very finest materials for his tower. Or did he? We know from various stories of his real estate activities in other places in the country and world, that Trump has often abused his workers, refusing to pay them what they are owed, and threatening them to take less than agreed for their work, or else to face him and his battery of lawyers in court. Is it possible that Trump’s towers are not all that they are cracked up to be, the very finest towers ever seen, since many who created them are disgruntled and furious at what went on in their creation?

In similar fashion, the Genesis builders, we are told, used “brick instead of stone, and bituminous pitch instead of mortar.” To get the humor of this phrase, it is important to remember that an Israelite wrote this story, however ancient the roots of the story may be. In Israel, mud brick is simply not the best material one can use to build with. Stone is far superior, and in Israel, is found everywhere. In fact, in modern Jerusalem there is a law that all buildings must be built with stone; after all there is an abundance of the stuff! No Israelite would ever venture to build a gigantic tower of mud brick! Why, one would not dare build an outhouse out of mud brick, let alone a tower! And to use “bituminous pitch instead of mortar,” is the height of idiocy. That sloppy and sticky stuff, so easily harvested from the Dead Sea in ancient days, is hardly a lasting material in the climate of Israel. No, mortar is the ticket for a tower, mortar adhering to solid stone. Now there is the way to build a tower! Mud brick and pitch cannot last; it is doomed to collapse in a very short time. The writer here is having fun, perhaps, with one or more of the great towers of Babylon that were, in fact, made of sun-dried mud bricks and pitch, like the massive tower constructed by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BCE called Etimenanki, a truly gigantic ziggurat pyramid, in the enormous capital of Babylon, perhaps 20 stories high. When the Israelite exiles gazed at that structure, they must have been struck speechless, since the tallest buildings they had ever seen were no more than two or three stories tall.

But an Israelite spinner of tales would delight in cutting these buildings down to size by satirizing their foolish means of construction, and so does this tale do here. The reason that these towers need to be made fun of arises in the end from the rationale for their construction. The builders say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Note the constant use of first person plural pronouns in this sentence; these builders are intent on creating city and tower on their own, apart from any outside help, and mainly apart from the presence of YHWH. YHWH had earlier promised Abram that “I will make your name great,” but the tower builders will have none of that. “We will make our own name,” they cry, and proceed to build a mud brick tower into the sky.

I am reminded of Trump’s noxious and xenophobic cry of “America first!” as he careens his way around the country and now the world. He, the needed strongman, will make his name great, and his magnificent tower is the very symbol of that greatness. But now comes the divine humor of the tale. “YHWH came down to see the city and tower,” we are told. In other words, YHWH could not even see the thing from where YHWH lives! It was so miniscule, so tiny, in God’s eyes that God had to come down to catch a glimpse. So much for the greatness of the tower of Babel! So much for the greatness of the Trump Tower!

And the result of the mud brick building? YHWH determines that the builders must be stopped. Why, thinks YHWH, who knows what they might decide to do? They might decide to build a mud brick bridge over the Mediterranean! And for good measure, YHWH confuses that simple and unified language so that the builders are no longer capable of communication. And the tower building comes to an abrupt end.

Why? Human beings, whoever they are, however grand they think themselves to be, when left to their own devices are inevitably doomed to cover their nakedness with fig leaves (Gen. 3) or to attempt sky high tower building with mud brick and pitch. Donald Trump’s simplistic language and grandiose plans will in the long run come to nothing, for they are forged out of mud brick and pitch and covered with scratchy fig leaves. As we said in our last installment of the Bible as Mirror, God wins in the end according to Revelation, and human hubris and self-serving actions will not last. Trump Tower, like the Tower of Babel, is a symbol of nothing more than uncontrollable greed and unfulfillable promises of power. All towers collapse; only God’s call for justice and righteousness for all creation, not merely for the few, abides.

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