The Tower of Babel — if you're like me, you have probably always envisioned something like the Eiffel Tower, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or Rapunzel's tower: a tall, skinny building that goes up and up. And you've probably always envisioned Jacob's Ladder as being just that, a really big ladder.

Would it surprise you to know that neither one is what the person who wrote these stories down had in mind?

The word "Babel" was an Akkadian word that meant "gateway to Godde" (the word El means Godde in Hebrew, too — for example, Gabriel, "man of Godde," or Elijah, "my Godde is Yahweh.") The word that is translated "ladder" or "stairway" meant "gateway to heaven."

Both the Tower of Babel and Jacob's ladder were ziggurats. The ziggurat is a "stepped" tower: a sort of oblique pyramid built in seven receding stages that looks a lot like a squared-off wedding cake. (The first three stories were each 26 feet high, and the remaining four 15 feet high; the seventh stage probably contained the ark or tabernacle, which was also 15 feet high, and must have nearly covered the top of that story — making the whole thing 153 feet high. The Washington Monument is 555 feet, 5.12 inches tall.) There were ziggurats in any number of cultures, including Babylon/Chaldea, Guatemala, and Mexico.

The ziggurat that was featured in Babylonian architecture was probably originally intended to represent a stylized reproduction of a holy mountain — that is, a sacred place at the center of the universe, at the top of which the gods lived. Some ziggurats even had places on the top where sacrifices were made to the gods. In Guatemala and Mexico, where there are plenty of mountains, the ziggurat was probably an attempt to lift the sacred activities of the priest-rulers above the people, thus creating a do-it-yourself holy place.

The whole Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11:1-9) was at least in part etiological (that is, a story explaining a custom, a place, or a thing), in this case probably referring to a prehistoric memory of a ruined city, with an uncompleted ziggurat, on the plains of Mesopotamia. There is another possibility, however, that just occurred to me recently; I discuss it here.

By the time Jacob came along, it had become a habit for people who were hoping to receive a visitation from the god or goddess of a shrine to go to sleep at that shrine, usually using a stone from the shrine as a pillow; the god or goddess would then come to them in a dream. This is what Jacob did at Bethel, "the house of Godde" (Gen. 28:10-22).

Jacob dreamed that there was a "ladder" set up on earth that reached all the way to heaven; "angels" — that is, messengers of Godde — were going up and down the "ladder," and Godde was standing at the top. Again, Jacob's Ladder was not actually a ladder as we understand it — it should be imagined as a sloping ramp going up the middle of one face of a ziggurat. Once again, the ziggurat should be imagined as a holy place where heaven and earth almost touch each other, or the gate between heaven and earth.

Recollect that Jacob accepted Godde's love conditionally — "If Godde will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then YHWH shall be my Godde" (28:20-21). Pretty arrogant for a mere human being.

In other words, both stories have this moral: Where ziggurats are bliss, 'tis folly to be wise!