Babel, Temple, and Atonement

My good friend J Green posted some ideas I think are worth entertaining and pondering. He says he
is making more extensive notes. I hope so!

Despite the play on babel as confusion (from heb. balel), the real reference here is to babilu or bab
el ('gate of the gods' or 'gate of god'), which very much has gatekeeper connotations, and definitely
puts us into the realm of Jacob's vision of the ladder (a kind of tower). But there's a parallel to
another Book of Mormon story here. In short, the tower at Babel has temple connotations and is built
to make a name for those involved. If you look closely at the 'make a name' terminology throughout
the Hebrew Bible, you find it connected to redemption from bondage over and over. It is a temple
theme of atonement, with associations to the divine name used once a year by the High Priest at the
temple. When congregated Israel hears the pronunciation of the word in the context of their release
from bondage, they fall to the earth. (See the "I am He" in John for parallels as the Savior
pronounces his own divine name after the atonement of Gethesemane to the soldiers who come to
arrest him, and they fall to the earth.) But back to Babel . . . The result of this mess is a scattering
and confusion of tongues. It is additionally associated with Nimrod's start of the kingdom of Babylon
(a kingship rite), soon after warfare with the nations.

Compare this to King Benjamin as the "Anti Nimrod". Soon after a huge war with the Lamanites, right
after he encounters another remnant of scattered Israel who experienced their own confusion of
tongues, soon after he has read the large stone that gives the account of the Jaredites and their
scattering and confusion of tongues at the tower . . .

He builds a tower at the temple to give his people a name. The context is making his son a king and
proclaiming atonement to his people (after which they fall to the earth).