The Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1-9. A Tower to Reach Heaven

Genesis 11:1-9, Helaman 6:28, and Ether 1:3-4

• What was the stated purpose of building a tower?

The purpose that they claimed they were building the tower was so that they could reach Heaven by their own works and to be protected from another flood.


• Why do you think this angered the Lord?

The Lord's children were disregarding how He has taught them to get to heaven and they were prideful and thought they could get to heaven without His help. I feel as if they thought they were "outsmarting" God.

• What did God do to scatter the people?

God scattered the people by changing their languages and making them unable to understand each other. Because there was no ability to communicate they were not able to build the tower and they were seperated or scattered from each other.

• Ether 1:33-43 How the Jaredites from the Book of Mormon fit into this story.

I never realized this before but I thought this was really cool. The brother of Jared was at the tower of Babel at the time the Lord confounded everyone's language and manner of speaking. But the brother of Jared saw what was happening and had faith and cried unto God that he would not confound their language. And God had compassion on him because of his belief and promised to bless his his posterity, and through that the Jaredites came to be.

 

As is typical with Satan’s tactics, he will take a truth and twist it into a counterfeit. Note that the people building the tower of Babel tried to make a name for themselves, while the followers of the Lord willingly take His name upon them.

Acts 4:12; Mosiah 3:17, 5:7-15; and Doctrine and Covenants 18:21-25,
How we can receive “a name” (Genesis 11:4) that will truly help us reach heaven...

I think that it is so interesting that Satan works that way. He mingles the truth with a little bit of a lie so that we are confused and are able to justify ourselves. I am sure that is something that everyone is guilty of every once in a while and I think that if we were fully aware that it was Satan gaining power over us we would all be so much more careful in making sure we had ALL of the truth. The people of Babel thought that they could reach heaven with out the atonement and without Christ.

Through Jesus Christ we can recieve a name that will enable us to truly reach heaven. We can take his name upon us when we are baptized and when we endure to the end. None of us will be perfect and that is why we need our Savior, we need to repent and become perfect at repenting. By taking the sacrament ever week we will be able to continue to take His name upon us and make a name for ourselves that will help us reach heaven.

When I took out my endowments I feel like all of this had another meaning to me and I know that we can not be saved with our Savior. The people of Babylon were prideful and I think that we can learn a lot from our example. When we put ourselves above Christ and our Heavenly Father and don't believe that we need them we will suffer a similar fall. If we believe that our name is enough then we will soon be brought down to humility and realize how far we have errored. We need the name of Jesus Christ and I feel so humbled and blessed that we have a Savior who has made it possible for us to return home.