Honey Bunches of (Reading) Notes: Noah

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563). Found on wikipedia.
The stories for this section come from The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909).
The Curse of Drunkenness 
Noah starts growing grape vines and producing alcohol of some sort, I'm assuming wine. He cultivates the vine takes from the Garden of Eden by Adam. Satan works as his assistant in the vineyard- as if that wasn't a sign that things were not going well. This first production of wine lead to Noah becoming a "man of the ground" and became the first man to get drunk, curse at his friends, and introduce slavery. Good job Noah. Satan begins his partnership by slaying animals and driving the blood not the roots of the vine. Direct symbolism about how the vines are corrupt and take away the innocence of the drinker. Before the wine, he is as innocent as a lamb. In moderation, as strong as a lion. And in excess, as silly as a monkey. The animals slaughtered for sacrifice on the vines roots. Noah gets drunk and acts like a fool, and then his son finds him and tells others. In return, the son and all his descendants get cursed. Cause that seems fair. 
The people of Nimrod planned the building of the tower as a rebellion against God. They planned to wage war on him in order to take the kingdom of heaven as their own. They worked with intensity, not remarking on deaths, births or other life events. however, the loss of material was mourned. They kept working up and shot arrows into the sky. When they fell covered in blood they assumed that those in heaven had been slain. God created other languages and their work began to fail. They fought over miscommunications to the point of death. God turned people who wanted to set up new idols into apes. Those who wished to wage war against heaven turned against each other. Others were scattered around the globe, separated from those with which they had banned together to reach heaven and confront god.

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