![]() ![]() Bruegel’s longstanding interest in depicting the Tower suggests that it is certainly possible that he shared these concerns, or at least that he appreciated that his audience could be receptive to them. So, if the Bible account has God punishing the Tower builders, this would typically be interpreted as a more general warning against over-arching human ambition, and against an approach to life based on material, rather than spiritual, concerns. Of course, Biblical stories naturally tend to contain or acquire a moral significance beyond the immediate circumstances in which they are set. Īt its simplest level, the painting can be seen a straightforward, dispassionate depiction of the Biblical episode, as the physical setting and reason for God’s punishment of the Babylonians’ pride. It is this painting, and its multiplicity of possible meanings, that we will explore in this article. Of all the depictions of this great tower that had so offended God, the most memorable is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Tower of Babel (1563). According to the Bible, “that is why the city was called Babel” or Babylon. The resulting confusion meant that “the building of the city came to an end”. God’s chosen punishment for this was to put an end to the common language that had previously united all peoples, and to create a multiplicity of different languages, “so that they will not be able to understand each other”. Humans were not supposed to aspire to such lofty heights, whether physical or metaphorical. So, what had the Babylonians done that was so inflammatory? In God’s eyes, they had challenged the order of things by their stated desire to become a “great people”, signified by their construction of a huge tower, “with a top that reaches to heaven”. ![]() And the third was when God, wary of the pride and presumption of the citizens of the thrusting new city of Babylon, “confused the whole world’s speech, and scattered them far away over the wide face of earth”. Then came the Great Flood, the punishment for humans’ multiplicity of iniquities. The first was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, following their discovery of Original Sin. According to the Old Testament story, God punished humankind in three ways. ![]()
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