“There he built an altar to the Lord” (Gen 12:8) City and Altar Building in Genesis 1

This essay examines Genesis’ depiction of the contrast between patriarchal altar-building ( הנב , Gen 12:7, 8; 13:18; 22:9; 26:25; 35:7; cf. 8:20) and pre-patriarchal city-building ( הנב , Gen 4:17; 10:11; 11:4). The patriarchal building is qualitatively different because the altars are built in the place where, and after, Y HWH appears to the patriarch, in the context of a word of blessing evocative of Genesis 12:1-3.It is suggested that the patriarchal altars of Genesis anticipated the place Y HWH would choose for his name to dwell.

The contrast between Abram and his ancestors, noted by Dillmann and Euhlinger in terms of building projects, and Gunkel's assertion that the narrator kept Abram from being identified with a city, raises the question of the narrative's shift from city construction by the nations, to altars by the patriarchs. It warrants an examination of city and patriarchal altar-construction depicted by ‫בנה‬ in Genesis.
Genesis employs ‫בנה‬ sixteen times to depict four different kinds of construction. 7 First, Genesis uses ‫בנה‬ in connection with three women: God builds Eve (Gen 2:22) in the pre-patriarchal narrative; in the patriarchal narratives Sarah and Rachel express their desire to be built (Gen 16:2;30:3 [passive]). Second, ‫בנה‬ depicts Cain, Nimrod/Assur 8 , and the ‫האדם‬ ‫בני‬ as builders of cities (4:17; 10:11; 11:4, 5, 8) in the pre-patriarchal narrative. Third, ‫בנה‬ describes Noah and the patriarchs as altar (Gen 8:20;12:7,8;13:18;22:9;26:25;35:7), not city builders. Finally, Genesis 33:17 describes Jacob building his house. Of the sixteen incidences, twelve depict city-and altar-construction. Notable among these is the shift from pre-patriarchal city to patriarchal altar building in Genesis 11:27-12:9: city-building is the province of Abram's ancestors, altar-building that of Abram and his descendants. The verb ‫בנה‬ develops this shift from one kind of construction to another, and the occasion of the construction: Abram's ancestors build cities without divine appearance or speech, the patriarchs only build altars at the place YHWH appears and speaks.
For reasons of space this essay will examine only Genesis' depictions of city and altar constructions 9 to demonstrate the thesis that Genesis contrasts patriarchal altar-building to the city constructions of their ancestors with a view to reminding its exilic audience that heaven's blessing ought to be sought only at the place where YHWH chooses to appear. I will briefly describe the ancient world's understanding of the role of city to argue that pre-patriarchal cities, evocative of the ancient world's imperial ideology but built without divine of instruction (i.e., from Israel's Deity), are an undesirable means of connecting 12]. Ein Beitrag zur Datierung des Jahwisten," BZ 36.2 (1992): 207-219, focuses on the dating of the text; his "Die Altarbaunotizen im Alten Testament," Bib 73.2 (1992): 533-546, narrows the study of altar-building in Genesis 12, 13, 26 and 35, and elsewhere in OT, to the naming of the places (Ibid., 537). 7 The verb ‫עשה‬ appears in Genesis to depict construction as follows: divine creation (1:7-31; 2:2-4; 5:1; 6:6-7, etc.), the construction of the ark (6:14-7:5), depict an already built altar (13:4, followed by ‫בנה‬ in 13:18) instruction to build an altar (35:1, 3, followed by ‫בנה‬ in 35:7). earth to heaven for heaven's blessing/fertility. Section two will briefly describe the role of the altar and argue that the altars the patriarchs build at the places YHWH chooses to appear provide the desired connection for heaven's blessing/fertility on the earth. Methodologically I will follow the lead of recent studies on narrative analysis. 10

Understanding cities of the ancient world
In his essay on the oriental city Mario Liverani shows that the ancient city has been defined within webs of accompanying ideologies, generally characterized by western-eastern polarity. 11 The western preference for Greek and Roman civilizations tended to understand the ancient city in terms of free citizens and open markets. Lacking such characteristics, eastern cities were understood as places where despots built their palaces and kept their military. Improved excavation techniques, especially the means to detect ancient bricks, led to a better understanding of how eastern cities filled their spaces, but the western mode continued to subordinate the eastern city. Thus, for example, scholarship of the colonial period held "that the ancient Near Eastern city (and civilization in general) became the first chapter in a world history of western authorship and finalization" (99). Post-colonial studies, emphasizing irrigation or the "Asiatic mode of Production" were rejected by western scholarship "mostly for political reasons" (102). Thereafter, however, "it has become impossible to simply counterpose the Oriental and the Western city, and to apply a negative judgment of value to the former-because 'despotic' or because 'immutable'" (102).
Two risky trends characterize recent studies. "The first trend is to think that cities are always alike (through time, through space) …. The opposite danger comes from considering every individual city as a unique case, and every attempt to build an 'ideal type' as a tremendous and unacceptable simplification" (105). Even so, models are necessary for both general historians and those who focus on particular ages of Mesopotamian history (106). Liverani concludes: "Nobody should need any longer a type or model of the 'Oriental' city, as opposed to the Western city, since this type was the product of a Eurocentric view and 10 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 88-112; Jean Louis Ska, "Our Fathers Have Told us": Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narrative (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1990); J.P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis. Specimens of Stylistic Analysis (Assen-Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1975), 11-45;idem, Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999). And P. J. Harland, "Vertical or Horizontal. The Sin of Babel," VT 48/4 (1998): 514, 518. 11 Mario Liverani, "Ancient Near Eastern cities and modern ideologies," in Die Orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch, (ed. W. Gernot;Saarbrücken: 1997), 85-107. Page numbers in the text refer to this article. colonialist attitude: it was the image of despotism pointed at the contempt of the Western democratic world" (107).
Ömür Harmançarah's study examines how the rhetorical and material culture shapes the memories of ancient near eastern cities. "Building projects," he writes, "are sites of material elaboration, where the intensive productive undertaking fosters an unusual spatial context for the exchange of ideas, craftknowledge, and technical innovation." He goes on to say that "monuments are commemorative in many layers by way of their material qualities," and that technology is more understood "as a means of 'creating and maintaining a symbolically meaningful environment' through practices of material production." 12 Harmançarah's emphasis on the rhetorical-material is to be expected, inscriptions and recovered architectural remains are the stuff of archaeology and, as such, illuminating for the depictions of such cities in biblical texts.
Michael O'Connor argues that biblical studies of the city start with flawed definitions of the Hebrew noun ‫:עיר‬ "the English word 'city' does not describe a biblical category; it is rather a historically conditioned category of ours that needs to be unpacked before it is used in historical or philological study of the ancient world." 13 He offers a crucial distinction between the literary-theological and archaeological modes of studying ancient cities. The literary-theological, being determined by the beginning and end of Christian Scripture, has a kind of completeness that discourages adding anything to the mix. … it has a degree of abstractness that leaves one hard pressed to contemplate the archaeological data. … the archaeological account is necessarily incomplete, since archaeology is a scientific endeavor, always seeking more data, revising hypotheses, chary of syntheses. Archaeologists of the historical period are given to a positivism of a sort that has sometimes led them to underestimate the role that written sources have played in their discipline or even to subsume written sources into an archaeological framework (20)(21) the ancient world as viewed by an Israelite narrator within the framework of the narrative's completeness. Recovery of other ancient texts describing this phenomenon may aid the reader's understanding of the biblical accounts-to that end O'Connor describes a useful taxonomy of ancient cities-but only within the horizons of the textual representation of the biblical account of city building, 15 whose completeness is found in the canonical form. This essay remains within the bounds of Genesis' literary-theological accounts of the cities in the pre-patriarchal narratives, and mutatis mutandis, accounts of altar building, in their ancient contexts, within the limitations of scholarly offered reconstructions of the biblical account. O'Connor's taxonomy is helpful in this regard.
Of the ancient city's three crucial features-size, function, natural history-the three functions of the ancient city, as defined by O'Connor, illuminate our discussion. First, the bureaucratic or store city, functions as an administrative centre whose purpose it is to collect taxes, characterized by secondary labour and luxury. The latter two, "key to the denunciations of the city by the eighth-century prophets … may also be behind the Tower of Babel story" (31). Second, the industrial city functions as a centre for the gathering of goods. Third, the ceremonial city, functions as a centre "for the regulation of the symbols that undergird and constitute a society," like Jerusalem (31-32). Jerusalem is both bureaucratic and ceremonial; Dan and Bethel are ceremonial (31, 34). But Babel, according to O'Connor, is bureaucratic, not ceremonial. In accordance with his literary theological mode of studying ancient texts, O'Connor explains his understanding of Babel with Amos' critique of labour and luxury and the store cities mentioned in Exodus 1:11 and 1 Kings 9:19. But is this enough to exclude Babel from the category of ceremonial city?
O'Connor's archaeological mode of studying ancient cities, has argued that Babel's city-with-a-tower evokes a ziggurat-like monument that spoofs Babylon, that it "echoes … the formulas used at the foundation of the city of Babylon" that identifies it with the Mesopotamian ideology of the city: the tower's heavenward direction 16 suggests a desire to touch the divine sphere, to establish a harmonious bond between heaven and earth to secure 15 D. D. Lowery, Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1-11. Reading Genesis 4:17-22 in its Near Eastern Context (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), defines the genre of Genesis 1-11 as proto-history, and then examines the cognitive environment within which to understand Gen 4:17-22. 16 Disputed by Hiebert, "The Tower of Babel," 53; Uehlinger, Weltreich und «eine Rede», 253, concluding his evaluation of ziggurat hypothesis, writes: "wenn sie auch nicht als unmöglich widerlegt und prinzipiell ausgeschlossen werden kann, jedenfalls nicht mehr, wie bisher üblich, fraglos vorausgesetzt werden darf"; Patrick D. Miller, Jr. ("Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology," HTR 9 [1985]: 242) writes that "city with a tower" is a hendiadys, that therefore the text focuses on the city. blessing/fertility. 17 Patrick Miller's comparison of Babel with Eridu and Dunnu, argues that Genesis 11:1-9 "is a about a human plan to build cities and cult places," and Walter Bührer, that the builders' desire for a name amounts to a "Verewigungsstrategie." 18 The instruction compliance sequence in creation and tabernacle construction accounts of Genesis 1 and Exodus 25-32 and 35-39, have their analogue in the Samsuiluna B inscription. Lines 96-101 declare "I did that which was good to Šamaš, Adad and Aya//I fulfilled the command of Šamaš and Marduk." 19 Requests for individual buildings were common, but royal inscriptions of city building seldom refer to them. "Divine requests are mentioned by Tukulti-Ninurta and Sargon, yet there is no elaboration of that in their inscriptions," perhaps because "founding a new city was considered to be an act of hubris." 20 Esarhaddon restored Babylon upon Marduk's order, but he "described in detail how he was hesitant to undertake the work, and consulted the oracles to see whether the gods were at peace with Babylon", for "the foundation of a city was too important a task to be left to a mere human." 21 O'Connor's characterization of Babel as a bureaucratic-storage city, then, is not wrong, but incomplete, for it also fits the category of a ceremonial city, designed "for the regulation of the symbols that undergird and constitute a society." 22 Moreover, whereas ancient society was militaristic, it was not so without the religio-symbolic underpinnings crucial to the construction and maintenance of the ancient temple-cities emblematic of imperial royal theology. describe the temple as having "its head like the heavens." "They want to break through the God-given order by means of a tower." Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis, 17. 18 Miller, "Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology," 242-243; Walter Bührer, "'Ich will mir Einen Namen Machen!'. Altestamentliche und altorientalische Verewigungsstrategien," Bib 98.4 (2017): 500: "Wichtig für unseren Zusammenhang ist, dass für die Autoren dieser Texte die Möglichkeit, sich durch Schriftstücke verewigen zu können real war." (Emphasis in original.) Giving the project on the plains of Shinar the name "Babel" in 11:9 would then be an ironic form of "Verewigung durch Schriftstellung." In O'Connor's terms, the above studies, based in different ways on archaeology, remain "necessarily incomplete, since," as already discussed, "archaeology is a scientific endeavor, always seeking more data, revising hypotheses, chary of syntheses necessarily incomplete." The literary theological is determined by "the beginning and end of Christian Scripture," and thus complete insofar as the biblical text is canonically fixed. This brings us to O'Connor's literary theological suggestion that Babel is a bureaucratic city, based Amos, 1 Kings 9:19 and Exodus 1:10-14.
Amos' condemnation of luxury in 4:1-3 is followed by ironic satire of the cult in ceremonial Bethel and Gilgal (4:4-5), hardly a support for Babel's bureaucracy. And, while Solomon's store cities are part of a list that describes his bureaucratic luxury (1 Kgs 9:10-22), Exodus 1:10-14 is embedded in a narrative of oppression; Pharaoh forces Israel to build in response to its enormous growth. Furthermore, the language depicting the construction of Pithom and Raamses imitates Babel's builders. Thus, Pharaoh's initial solution to Israel's growth, expressed in and imperative plus cohortative sequence ‫נתחכמה(‬ ‫,הבה‬ Exod 1:10), syntactically resembles the human speech at Babel ‫לבנים(‬ ‫נלבנה‬ ‫הבה‬ and ‫לנו‬ ‫נבנה‬ ‫,הבה‬ Gen 11:3). Israel uses mortar and bricks ‫ובלבנים(‬ ‫,בחמר‬ Exod 1:14) as did Babel's builders ‫לחמר(‬ ‫להם‬ ‫היה‬ ‫והחמר‬ ‫לאבן‬ ‫הלבנה‬ ‫להם‬ ‫,ותהי‬ Gen 11:3). And, as YHWH examined the project before expelling its builders (cf. ‫,לרות‬ Gen 11:5), so he sees Israel's harsh servitude ‫,ראה(‬ Exod 2:25), before beginning Israel's rescue. Taken together, the building of the store cities in Exodus is more about their role in depicting Israel's oppression in a manner evocative of Babel, than about the cities as such. 23 That is, Pharaoh's oppressive management of Israel in Egypt illustrates the problem Babel depicts: the contrast between what the ‫האדם‬ ‫בני‬ want, now in Egyptian form, and what the Deity wants/permits. The literary theological language Exodus 1:10-14 does not support understanding Babel as a bureaucratic store city so much as it defines the forced building of Pharaoh's store cities in terms reminiscent of the Babel project. The similarity between the Babel and Pharaonic building projects is that God thwarts both; Babel lies unfinished, Egypt is ten times devastated.
Not the store cities of Solomon or Pharaoh, but the laying of the "first brick" of the future altar at Bethel in Babel's counter-narrative, provides a better understanding of Babel. Matthew Michael argues that in its "literary mapping" Genesis sets "the place" where Jacob slept over against Babel. 24 Repetition of key words link the narratives. First, the Babel project has "its head in heaven" 23 Thus, also Bernd U. Schipper, understanding the text to be non-P of the late preexilic period, the historical referent points to the forced labour of late 7 th century Judahites. See his, "Raamses, Pithom and the Exodus: A Critical Evaluation of Ex 1:11," VT 65/2 (2015): 271-273. 24 Matthew Michael, "The Tower of Babel and Yahweh's Heavenly staircase," HBT 39/1 (2017): 31-45.
‫בשמים(‬ ‫,)וראשו‬ Jacob dreams of a staircase whose top reaches heavenward ‫.)השמימה(‬ Second, Jacob calls this "place" the "gate of heaven" (28:17); Babel in the local language means "gate of god." Third, Babel's builders make bricks ‫;)אבן(‬ Jacob finds stones, one of which he consecrates, at the "place" (28:11, 18, 22). Fourth, at Babel YHWH comes down ‫)ירד(‬ to see Babel; at the "place" heavenly messengers "go up and down" ‫בו(‬ ‫ױרדים‬ ‫)עלים‬ the staircase. Finally, the ambitious builders on the plain of Shinar receive the name "confused"; Jacob gives the name Beth-El to the stone. Beth-El polemicizes Babel. Where Babel seeks heaven but is thwarted by the Deity, Bethel reveals a connection between heaven and earth, with God himself standing at the top of the staircase. The literary-theological connections between the Babel, Exodus 1 and Genesis 28:10-22 suggest the biblical narrator emphasizes Babel's ceremonial role.
In Genesis' pre-patriarchal accounts not deities, only humans-Cain, Nimrod, and the ‫האדם‬ ‫-בני‬build cities, and all do so without the divine instruction the ancient world thought crucial for the welfare of its temple cities. If so, then it is crucial to note that the critique of the third city-building comes from the deity associated with earthly Jerusalem, whose opposition to Babylon is well-known (cf. Jer 51:10, 14, 35-36, 50). 25

2.
The cities of Genesis 11:27-50:26 Explicit city building in Genesis occurs only Genesis 2:4-11:26, and is the province of pre-patriarchal human culture, beginning with Cain and his descendants, carried through by Nimrod, and ending with the ‫האדם‬ ‫‪'s‬בני‬ attempt to build Babel. Setting these aside for the moment, the rest of Genesis depicts cities but not their construction: Ur (Harran, 11:27-31), the cities ruled by Kedorlaomer and his allies, and Melchizedek's Salem (14), , Nahor (24), Gerar (26) Patriarchal Genesis does not depict city building, only altars constructed by patriarchs. It is these altars 26 that define the cities crucial to the identity of the exilic audience. Not the temple city constructed by the ‫האדם‬ ‫בני‬ without divine construction, but the altars built where YHWH appears, are recommended to the audience. Patriarchal Genesis, then, depicts a mode of construction different from that of the ‫האדם‬ ‫.בני‬ We turn, therefore to the building of cities in prepatriarchal Genesis.

3.
The cities of Genesis 1:1-11:26 Three increasingly detailed literary-theological accounts depict city building in Genesis 2:4-11:26. The Cain account, 27 9 words long, adds only that he named the city after his son, Enoch; the Nimrod narrative, 31 words long, associates him with ancient named cities. Neither of these accounts include human or divine speech. By contrast, the 121 words long Babel episode lavishes detail on the human and divine speeches, all fraught with intentionality (imperative plus cohortative constructions). The builders' first speech expresses their desire to "brick bricks" ‫לבנים(‬ ‫,נלבנה‬ Gen 11:3) and to build a city and a tower with its top in heaven. To this they add a second wish: to make themselves a name in order to avoid being scattered. This city is not only their earthly destiny, its tower will also bring them into contact with heaven, a connection that presumably assures blessing/fertility. 28 Having descended ‫,ירד(‬ Gen 11:5) from heaven, YHWH imitates the ‫האדם‬ ‫‪'s‬בני‬ syntax of intended result 29 to thwart their desire to construct a cosmic centre and to grant them their wish for a reputation: They will be remembered as confused. The length, detail, and intentionality of the Babel speeches all underscore the climactic function of this last narrative episode of the pre-patriarchal narrative. As the third city-building account the Babel episode may also be construed as a detailed evaluation of pre-patriarchal city-building. 30 26 Gunkel, Genesis, 167: "Abraham founded … during his first sojourn … in the later Northern Kingdom, the two greatest sanctuaries of the ancient period." 27 It is generally agreed that Cain is the subject of the present participle ‫בנה‬ (Gen 4:17). Dillmann, Die Genesis, 98-99; Gunkel Genesis, 53-54. Westermann reads ‫כשמו‬ instead of ‫בנו‬ ‫…"-כשם‬ and bore Enoch, who became the builder of a city, and he called it Enoch, after his own name." Nevertheless, he holds that MT intends Cain to be the builder. Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 332. On Cain as the subject, see also Wenham,111;and,Walter Vogels,17)," Theof 40 (2009): 164, 166. Lowery (Toward a Poetics of Genesis 1-11, 115-119), after a careful review of the major views, also translates "he was building a city" (Ibid. 74), referring to Cain as the subject. 28 Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 116-118. 29 Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis, 13-14. Fokkelman notes the repetition of the vowels ‫ה‬ ‫נ,‬ ‫,ב,‬ as they appear in the verb ‫בנה‬ and the phrase ‫האדם‬ ‫בני‬ (Ibid. 28). If so, Genesis views and evaluates negatively 31 the ancient pre-patriarchal city as humanity's autonomous 32 attempt to seek the divine. In contrast to the divine appearance at Babel, the theophanies in the patriarchal narratives will occasion a positive results and demonstrate a crucial difference: "In Babylon, one ascends to the divine; in Israel, God descends from his abode to meet the humans where they are (see Gen 11:5, 7)." 33 The biblical world depicts heaven's descent in Babel's counter-narrative (Gen 28:10-22), which includes the transformation of a Canaanite city, Luz, into Bethel, 34 including a "first brick" ‫,אבן(‬ Gen 28:11, 18, 22; cf. 11:3) 35 that functions like but is not described as an altar, until Jacob builds one in fulfilment of the vow he made at Luz/Bethel (35:7).
That of the three city building accounts Babel alone mentions bricks and mortar, supports its climactic and definitive ideological function. Material cultural elements are mentioned in the Babel account and Cain genealogy, not, however, to record material-rhetorical achievements as such, unlike the emphasis on the material in the construction and commemoration of ancient near eastern cities. 36 Scholarship agrees that Israel locates the origin of human culture outside : 403-417) argues that the divine scattering is an act of grace that enables humanity to fulfil the divine instruction to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28). Similarly, Harland, "Vertical or Horizontal. The Sin of Babel," 527-528. But the phrase "to fill the earth", crucial to Gen 1:28, does not occur in the Babel narrative. Rather, it depicts the extent of violence (Gen 6:11, 13) that leads to the flood. On linking the Babel narrative to Gen 9:19 and not 1:28, see, for example, Euhlinger, Weltreich und «eine Rede», 572-575; C. Houtman, "…Opdat wij niet over geheel de aarde verspreid worden," NTT 31.2 (1977) Harmançarah, Cities and the Shaping of Memory, 154-155. The "architectural meaning is constituted through [the] processes of spatial production and by the rhetorical and elaborate, residue-leaving practices that inscribe themselves onto architectural spaces. Architectural remains are then important records of human interaction with the environment and especially with their own past, in such a way that the narrative of its own historical formation. Of the 14 different "human arts" he discerns, Gunkel writes that none of them are "attributed to Israelites, (they are) … placed in a time long before the formation of Israel." In contrast to the Phoenicians' detailed cultural history, "Israel does not seem to have developed such a complete system." 37 Von Rad considers the cultic activity of Genesis 3-5 to belong "intimately to culture," and that city building alongside the emergence of smiths demonstrates "man's cultural progress." 38 Westermann writes that "Israel did not regard the foundation of cities and urban civilization as something a priori negative"; rather, this cultural formation indicates that city building began outside of Israel's own history. 39 That is, Genesis depicts city-building as the unique province of the pre-patriarchal peoples. Israel, writes Gerhard Wallis, could not ascribe city building and the accompanying culture to the gods-as did ancient Babylon 40 -because she believed YHWH to be the only God. For that reason, "erlegte es die Enstehung der Erfindungen, Zünfte und Gewerbe in die Urzeit. Die Erfinder sind also Menschen"; 41 not gods. Israel would identify itself on the world stage as a people that sought heaven's approbation at the place heaven itself choose, not in terms of the ancient world's urban culture.
Genesis 4:17-24 subordinates its depiction of material culture to the narrative's main interest: Cain and his relative Lamech. Syntactically, the wayyiqtol sequence foregrounds 42 only four activities: Cain builds a city, he architectural spaces appear as material worlds of historical representation" (Ibid., 194). The biblical texts are only rhetorically constructed commemorations of cities; the material culture mentioned is, in general incidental, or subordinate to the theological meaning of the structure, as for example, the tabernacle and the temple of Jerusalem. 37 Gunkel, Genesis 51. The second building account (Gen 10:11-12) does not mention the material culture at all. Rather, it links the city-builder to ancient Assyrian, Mesopotamian and Sumerian cities, thereby evoking the imperial power their deities exercised for millennia, and Assyria and Babel later against Israel. Mary Katherine Hom writes, "… whereas a Babylonian or Assyrian monarch typically presumed to be king of the world, 'before YHWH' makes clear that YHWH is actually king of the world, … [Nimrod] is defined and determined only in relation to YHWH." 44 The third building account, in addition to God's involvement, foregrounds building material by playing on the verb "to make bricks" in the first line of the ‫האדם‬ ‫‪'s‬בני‬ speech; it could be translated: "Come, let us brick bricks (11:3, ‫לבנים‬ ‫נלבנה‬ ‫".)הבה‬ Although bricks were commonly used in temple and city construction, the word play and alliteration based on the consonants of the noun and verb for "brick, to make bricks" brings unusual attention to bricks. Might it evoke aspects of ancient religious culture: the ritual of the first brick associated with Mesopotamian temple? Or, as Fokkelman suggests, is the language of Babel "a Fundgrube for these people … the source of creative thinking"? 45 The explicit mention of bricks expands the evocation of the imperial ideology evoked in the Nimrod account: the city and its tower compose a temple-city. Ancient Near Eastern iconographic depictions of deities qtl provides background information. See also, Eep Talstra, "A Hierarchy of Clauses in Biblical Hebrew Narrative," in Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible. Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996 (ed. Ellen Van Wolde; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 85-118. 43 Ebach, Weltentstehung und Kulturentwicklung, 298, writes, with respect to Adam and Eve's clothing: "das Gewicht liegt nicht auf dem Errungenschaften, sondern auf der Folge Tat-Ergehen, wobei mit der Strafe zugleich die Bewahrung vor dem völligen Untergang verbunden ist." (Emphasis added.) seated on mountain-like thrones from which flow waters from which grow trees 46 indicate that Babel's tower evokes the mountain-like temple, specifically the fertility/blessing associated with the ancient world's monumental attempts to ritually express harmony with the cosmos to keep the life forces flowing and disorder at bay. 47 But YHWH prohibits Babel's builders from completing their harmonization with heaven with a self-designed temple-city. Pre-patriarchal city-building with its material culture runs into a cul-de-sac.
If the sequential reading from Cain, through Nimrod, to Babel argues for the latter being paradigmatic, reading in the reverse direction is also instructive. Hom argues that the Babel narrative is the point from which the Nimrod account may be retroactively evaluated. Given the repetition of ‫,חלל‬ ‫,שנער‬ and ‫בבל‬ in both narratives, "Nimrod and his activities are retroactively reinforced as rebellious" 48 ; his association with ancient cities implies the same imperial theology. 49 Given that the Nimrod repetition foreshadows Babel it is uncertain whether the retroactive reading is primary. The most one can say is that the repetition in the Nimrod account secures a reading in both directions, anticipatory from the Nimrod account and retroactive from Babel. The repetition of ‫בבל‬ ‫חלל,‬ and ‫שנער‬ in the Babel passage also supports its function as the climax of Genesis' depiction and evaluation of the ancient city, in the sense that each of these words further explain what the Nimrod account only hints at. From that narrative point of view, all the ancient imperial cities of Genesis 10:10-12 are subsumed under Babel.
Repetition also frames the east of Eden pre-patriarchal narratives. Cain, the first son of ‫האדם‬ and first city builder, 50 names his city after his son ( ‫קרא‬ ‫)71:4שם‬ and the narrator declares that Babel is called ‫שמו(‬ ‫קרא‬ ,11:9) "confusion" after the Lord's visit. 51 Given the frame formed by the repetition of ‫שם‬ ‫קרא‬ and the climactic function of the Babel story it is also possible to construe Cain's city-building as anticipating the ancient world's temple cities, such as Aššur and Nineveh in the Nimrod account. And then there are the descendants of the third son of ‫האדם‬ in whose days people began to call on the name of the Lord ( ‫קרא‬ Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 555, writes that Genesis 11:1-9 "is a continuation of the beginnings of civilization described in 4:17ff." (Emphasis added.) ‫יהוה‬ ‫,בשם‬ Gen 4:26). In Genesis, no one else exercises this kind of cultic activity at an altar until Abram builds one to the Lord who appeared to him (12:7-8).

Altars in the ancient world
‫מזבח‬ refers to a sacred place or to the thing itself, an object associated with sacrifices or libations for the deity. Fixed altars were rare in Egypt but part of the temple furniture in Mesopotamia. 52 The altar can also represent the deity itself. 53 An Akkadian stepped altar associated with Ishtar, "with its high back turned towards the goddess" and which "stands between her and her worshipper" with walls "recessed to imitate the façade of a temple," 54 indicates it is an analogue of a ziggurat-like altar. 55 If so, an altar whose steps rise to the place of sacrifice or libation also evokes its religious function of providing a meeting place between heaven and earth.
Temple mounds are typically found in a ceremonial city, a centre "for the regulation of the symbols that undergird and constitute a society," 56 like Aššur or Babylon. While the Babel episode, with its reference to building a tower with its top in heaven, evokes such an ancient city, the rest of Genesis lacks reference to such an altar-city. In contrast to the builders of Babel, 57 the patriarchs build altars, not wherever they settle ( ‫וישבו‬ ‫שם‬ , Gen 11:31; cf. 11:2), but where God appears to them. 58

2a
Altar building as piety The altar constructions (Gen 12:7-8; 13:8) depict Abram's response to God's unexpected appearance, that is, he builds the altar in grateful response to the deity's activity; Noah's construction of an altar responds to salvation from the flood. 64 Although Zwickel does not specifically comment on Genesis 22:9; 26:25; and 35:7, these would presumably belong to the same category because the patriarchs build an altar in response to the deity's appearance ‫,ראה(‬ Gen 26:24; ‫,גלה‬ 35:7) or in response to divine instruction ( ‫...והעלהו‬ ‫לך‬ … ‫קח‬ , Gen 22:2; ‫,עשה‬ 35:1, 3). From Zwickel's point of view, therefore, patriarchal altar construction, because it is an expression of piety, contrasts sharply with that of the city builders. Jacob's building an altar at Bethel illustrates this piety in three ways: 1) unlike Abram and Isaac, Jacob builds the altar explicitly in response to divine instruction; 2) this instruction motivates Jacob to remove all "gods" from 60 Although he does not mention God's appearance before the altars are built, Pekka Pitkänen ("From Tent of Meeting to Temple. Presence, Rejection and Renewal of Divine Favour," in Heaven on Earth [ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Simon Gathercole; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004], 28) points to an important difference: "The ancient Near East gods were usually perceived as dwelling in heaven, Yahweh's 'coming' suggests that he 'comes' to the local altar from heaven and not from another earthly locality. The earthen altar serves as a meeting place between heaven and earth." 61 Siegbert Riecker, "Ein theologischer Ansatz zum Verständnis der Altarbaunotizen der Genesis," Bib 87 (2006): 530. 62 Zwickel, "Die Altarbaunotizen im Alten Testament," 544. 63 Zwickel, "Die Altarbaunotizen im Alten Testament," 537-538. 64 Zwickel, "Die Altarbaunotizen im Alten Testament," 537. his household (35:2, 4); and, 3) Jacob builds the altar in fulfilment of his vow at Luz/Bethel (35:3).
The contrast between the two kinds of construction surfaces clearly upon comparison of repeated expressions. Both building accounts employ the phrase "to call a name." Cain gives his son's name to the city and Genesis 11:9 applies the name Babel to the unfinished construction project; in contrast God promises to give Abram a great name (12:2). 65 The builders construct their city and tower for themselves ‫,לנו(‬ Gen 11:4), Abram, Noah before him, for YHWH ‫,ליהוה (‬ Gen 8:20;12:7;12:8;13:18). Abram and Isaac call on the name of YHWH, an extension of the piety that led to building of the altar. Before them Seth's descendants began to call on the name YHWH, but without an altar. By contrast, the city builders do not call the name of YHWH; 66 they lack the piety Genesis recommends. Finally, in the Babel narrative YHWH's appearance responds to humanity's construction, the opposite of the altar accounts where construction follows upon this appearance. Bührer, "'Ich will mir Einen Namen Machen!'," 501. 66 They do not even acknowledge YHWH, as does, for example, Abimelech (Gen 20:5; 26:28), or mention his name, as does Pharaoh in Exod 5:2, ‫את-יהוה‬ ‫ידעתי‬ ‫.לא‬ Applying Zwickel's third category of altar building as demonstration of piety to pre-patriarchal city building underscores a sharp contrast in three ways: 1) the giving of a personal name of the builder, 2) the goal of the construction: ‫לנו‬ or ‫,ליהוה‬ and 3) calling on the name the of YHWH.

Altars and builders
Klingbeil's study 67 offers three aspects of altar-building in Genesis (12:7,8;13:18;22:9;26:25) that support this contrast between the two kinds of building activities: the situation, ritual objects, and ritual action. In terms of the situation, Babel's builders do not interact with the deity, Abram does; and, consequent upon God's call, Abram and the patriarchs build altars during their journey as resident aliens. 68 With respect to ritual objects, the relevant altar texts describe neither the material composition nor the manner of building them; Babel requires bricks and mortar. Finally, Klingbeil associates ritual action with the phrase "to build an altar"; it is a "summary statement involving sub-rites of construction, sacrifice and adoration/prayer." 69 I will briefly discuss these three aspects with respect to the two kinds of construction.

2b
The situation of the altars Klingbeil rightly calls attention to the contrast between the episodes' situations, but it is not interaction that constitutes the contrast. Interaction would require a back and forth of the kind depicted in Abraham's pleas with God before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Neither Genesis 11:1-9 nor 12:1-9 depict such. Rather, it is a contrast between the time of divine intervention: at Babel it follows, with Abram it precedes the construction. That Abram, Isaac and Jacob built altars at the place where God revealed himself, adds an important nuance to the contrast with Babel, built at the place where "all the earth" settled (11:2). Terah "settled" in similar fashion (11:31); not Abram (cf. ‫ונסוע‬ ‫,הלוך‬ Gen 12:9). Divine appearance between Bethel and Ai, as unexpected as the speech of 12:1-3, occurs during Abram's compliance with the instruction to undergo a journey 67 Klingbeil, "Altars, Ritual and Theology," 504-505. Gen 35:7 is not included. 68 Klingbeil, "Altars, Ritual and Theology," 508-509. 69 Klingbeil, "Altars, Ritual and Theology," 511. The different destinations of the builders illuminate the contrast between the two constructions. All the earth travels from the east and, arriving in Shinar, settles "there" (11:1-2). East of Eden, the post-diluvial descendants of Cain, the first son of ‫,האדם‬ have no place to rest their feet (cf. ‫,מנוחה‬ Gen 8:9; Deut 28:65) because divine intervention scattered the ‫האדם‬ ‫בני‬ "from there" over "all the earth" (11:8). Like their ancestor Cain, they can only wander aimlessly ‫ונד(‬ ‫,נע‬ Gen 4:13, 14). In contrast, the patriarchs, even as resident aliens, do not wander aimlessly nor build wherever they would settle. Rather, their journey has a definite goal, the divinely promised land. The patriarchal goal-oriented journey belongs to the "situation" of altar-building.

2c Ritual objects and ritual action
In contrast to Babel, the altar-building texts describe neither the material composition nor the manner of building them. 71 The focus is on the ritual action of Abram's building an altar and calling on the name of the Lord, 72 not on sacrifice (except for 22:9), although Klingbeil thinks it implicit. In the light of the ancient world's ritual-cultic brick ceremony and temple-building, Babel's project may then also be construed as depicting ritual-cultic action. That being the case, the pre-patriarchal narratives end and the patriarchal narratives begin with different ritual-cultic action construction projects, each of which textually memorialize 73 their respective eras: one named and characterized by confusion ‫בבל(‬ ‫שמו‬ ‫,קרא‬ Gen 11:8-9), the other by "the name," YHWH ‫יהוה(‬ ‫בשם‬ ‫,קרא‬ Gen 12:8; 26:25; ‫מז‬ ‫שם‬ ‫ױבן‬ ‫ליהוה‬ ‫בח‬ , Gen 13:18; and ‫בית-אל‬ ‫אל‬ ‫למקום‬ ‫ױקרא‬ ‫מזבח‬ ‫שם‬ ‫ױבן‬ Gen 35:7). The contrast between the two projects, illuminated by three aspects of Klingbeil's altar-building taxonomy and underscored especially by the extended paranomasia 74 of ‫שם‬ ("name" and "there"), suggests that not sacrifice as such, but location and divine appearance before the altar is built are the major concerns.

2d
A pre-patriarchal altar: Noah The contrast between Babel and Abram's altar in Genesis 12:7, 8, and the similarity of depiction among the patriarchal altars, suggests that Isaac's and Jacob's altars are also to be understood as Babel's antipodes. Thus, the patriarchal altar building episodes remind their audience that attempts to ascend to the divine meet with divine disapproval and that God himself descended to engage his people at the places he will choose (Deut 12:11). Noah's altar, however, distinguishes itself from the patriarchal altars in several ways: it belongs to the post-diluvial but pre-Babel epoch, and thus can also not be the antipode of a temple-city; God speaks to but is not depicted as "appearing" to Noah; and, Noah offers a victim which satisfies God. Scholars understand the role of the sacrifice variously: in view of loss of paradise it points everything heavenward, expresses gratitude for salvation, reconciliation, and appeasement of wrath. 75 Although the verb ‫כפר‬ is not used, Noah's burnt offering can be connected to the rupture between heaven and earth, typical of a ritual of maintenance which resolves the disruption of the creation order 76 between heaven and earth, a rupture subsequently depicted by Babel's builders. The divine speech which follows the sacrifice-God's commitment no longer to hold the ground in contempt ‫,קלל(‬ Gen 8:21) and to maintain the regular order of the seasons, despite humanity's wickedness (8:21b-22)-may then be understood as the response to 73 Van Seters ("The Religion of the Patriarchs," 232) suggests that the Genesis altar building stories present "an alternative to the iconoclastic method of Deuteronomy, namely a reinterpretation of these objects of popular piety as witnesses and memorials to Israel's past history". 74 Jack M. Sasson, "Wordplay in the OT," IDB Supplement, 970. 75 Dillmann (Die Genesis, 149), writes that "der Altar weist als Erhöhung über die gemeine Erde allerdings himmelwärts," especially because of the loss of paradise and the presence of God; Westermann (Genesis 1-11, 452-453) understands the burnt offering to express gratitude for salvation; von Rad (Genesis, 121) as indicating reconciliation; and, Wenham (Genesis 1-15, 189) that the phrase ‫ניחוח‬ ‫ריח‬ indicates appeasement of God's wrath. 76 Frank H. Gorman, Jr. Leviticus. Divine Presence and Community (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 8, 15, 23-24. the sacrifice as a mitigation of the rupture between the elemental realms and a return to regular blessing/fertility on the post-diluvial world (9:1, 7). Where, however, God accepts Noah's building an altar with its sacrifice, 77 he rejects the ‫האדם‬ ‫‪'s‬בני‬ altar-city and place ‫,שם(‬ Gen 11:2, 7), presumably because the builders disregarded the crucial boundary 78 between heaven and earth. The divine scattering from a humanly constructed centre ‫,משם(‬ Gen 11:8, 9bis) echoes the deity's exile of humanity from the divinely constructed garden. Finally, Noah's altar is also a-locative; it distinguishes itself from the other altar constructions by not being built "there" ‫.)שם(‬ 2e Location: Calling on the name ‫)שם(‬ of YHWH there ‫,)שם(‬ at the altar Abram only builds an altar at the places YHWH chooses to reveal himself ( ‫ױרא‬ ‫אברם‬ ‫אל‬ ‫,יהוה‬ Gen 12:7-8). Then and there, unlike Noah, he calls on the name of YHWH ‫יהוה(‬ ‫בשם‬ ‫ױקרא‬ ‫ליהוה‬ ‫מזבח‬ ‫שם‬ ‫,ױבן‬ Gen 12:8), the first to do so since Seth's descendants began this practice (4:26, but without an altar at a particular location). The importance of the adverb "there" ‫)שם(‬ 79 in the construction episodes depends on its first use in Genesis: a modifier of the space where YHWH places the man (2:8), the Garden as cosmic and cultic centre 80 fundamental for an ordered human life in the divine presence. That the adverb next appears in Genesis 11:2 (they settled "there," in the plain of Shinar), suggest that the place of their construction is Eden's opposite. Built without divine instruction YHWH rejects the project and scatters the builders from there ‫,משם(‬ Gen 11:8, 9bis). Thereafter, the patriarchs build altars where YHWH appears to them and there ‫,שם(‬ Gen 12:8; 13:4; 26:25) they call upon his name.
Calling upon YHWH at an altar built in the place YHWH chose, is a "Gründung eines geistlichen Brückenkopfes in diesem Gebiete," a proclamation of its "Eigentumsrecht auf das vom altar 'kontrolierte' Gebiet. Hier hat er seinen Namen, d.h., seine Macht gefestigt." 81 Thus, even before Joshua distributed the 77 Using language that evokes Leviticus ‫ניחוח(‬ ‫,ריח‬ Lev 8:21; and see Lev 1:9, 17; 2:9, 12; 3:5, 16). 78 Richard D. Nelson, Raising up a Faithful Priest: Community and Priesthood in Biblical Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 36-38, 57. 79 Harmançarah, Cities and the Shaping of Memory, 190, underscores the importance of place: "The production of places or place-making involves a negotiation between local cultural practices and political interventions from above, and requires a delicate balance between cultural memory and stately narratives of history. The archaeology of place therefore demands attentiveness to the long-term biographies of places and the short-term events that transform them. Monument construction incorporates existing 'places of power,' while opening them to new forms of expression, practice and negotiation." (Emphasis added.) 80 Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 118. land to the tribes, the patriarchal altars declared YHWH's sovereignty and ownership of the land, including his power to bless the land or withhold its fertility (cf. 1 Kgs 18:30-32, 36-39 and rebuilding of YHWH's altar). Although the altar building formulae do not use the verb ‫בחר‬ (Deut 12:11, 21), the deity's appearance, building at the location of the appearance, and the phrase "to call on the name", together indicate the patriarchal altars' likely anticipation of the mountain place YHWH chose for his name to dwell (1 Kgs 8:18,19,44,48;cf. Deut 12:11,21;14:23,24;16:2,6,11), to fill with his presence (1 Kgs 8:10-11; cf. Exod 40:34-35), and from it bring blessing on Abram and his descendants (Pss 46, 84).

D CONCLUDING REMARKS
This study argues that Genesis contrasts two kinds of construction the ancient world employed to order earthly life in accordance with heavenly will: a temple/altar-city, illustrated by the Babel episode, evocative of imperial royal ideologies associated with cities such as Aššur and Babylon; an altar, illustrated by the patriarchal altars. Even as Abram is not associated with a city, 82 so the altars he, Isaac, and Jacob built are not located in a temple-city of his building. They are built "there" ‫)שם(‬ where the deity appears, in contrast to Babel's builders who built their temple-city where they settled ‫שם(‬ ‫.)וישבו‬ Moreover, where the pre-patriarchal city-building takes place under the east of Eden curse ‫,ארר(‬ Gen 3:14, 17; 4:11; 9:25), the patriarchs build altars in the context of the divine blessing ‫,ברך(‬ Gen 12:1-3), blessings repeated in the altar building episodes as they moved towards the land God promised to Abram (Gen 12:7; 13:14-17; 26:24; 35:10-12). In contrast, YHWH forces Babel's builders away from the place they selected to settle and build their city-with-a-tower, effectively remaining under the declared curse.
The ironic ending of the Primary History depicts Abram's descendants returning to Ur of the Chaldees/Babylon (2 Kgs 25:5-7), for failure to maintain the temple-city YHWH had chosen for his name to dwell (2 Kgs 23:27). Along with the ruins of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 25 those of Babel frame the PH. 83 As ruins