Babel

Description

Babel is the retelling of the Tower of Babel story from the Book of Genesis; a unified humanity become arrogant to their place and look to stand on the shoulders of giants. Set 1000 years after the Great Flood the city of Shinar is the beacon of the ancient cities during the Golden Age of man. Nebrod, the Empress of Shinar, a woman of fascinating beauty and intelligence has built Babel, the Gateway of God, and means to meet the Lord on her own terms. For this, the Angel Gabriel is fit to do to Shinar as she has done to Sodom and Gomorrah but the Lord wishes to approach Nebrod differently, face to face. Will Nebrod listen to the words of her Lord and do what is asked of her or will she instead stay her course, merely for her namesake? And can Gabriel give her Lord what He wants or will she dare to instead believe she can give Him, what He needs? Babel is an epic contemporary look at an ancient tale of love, jealousy and relentless human ambition.

Biblical Connection

Babel is based upon the Tower of Babel story found in the Book of Genesis 11:1-9, where a people of one language use new techniques to create a Tower to reach the Heavens. The Lord comes down to witness and is amazed by their achievements. But their actions are not in good faith and the Lord gives them different languages and spreads them across the world to prevent the construction of the Tower. When I was researching into the story and its origins I discovered it was originally written in Akkadian, an extinct Semtic language spoken in Ancient Mesopotamia. In Akkadian the word Babel translates as Gods Gateway (bab-gateway, el-God), which could suggest that the Lords amazement wasn't towards a stone tower to Heaven, but rather to a star gate or back door into Heaven itself. There are many ancient tales that speak of a humanity with greater technology than we even possess today, perhaps this technology was shards of God's wisdom bestowed in kind but eventually removed due to incorrect use.