Explore the Fall of Babel Through Fiction

A WRITER AT HEART
When Brennan was 4 years old, he recalls lying in bed thinking about what Christ did for him and gave his life to the Lord. The stories of the Bible always intrigued him.  “I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Noah and the ark ever since I saw an old white-bearded man stuck to a flannel graph above a square boat,” he says.  When he was 5, Brennan recalls seeing past the cute giraffe head sticking out of the window.  “I realized the story was serious stuff,” he says.  Brennan started writing stories in his junior year in college.  Three years later, he produced his first novel, Cain, another story which fascinated him as a child.  Last year, he wrote his second novel, Flood, which is part of The Fall of Man (stand-alone) series.  His third novel, Babel, is based on the story of the Tower of Babel and the rebellion of man.  

The book, Brennan says, is based on the story of the Flood from Noah’s perspective.  The Bible indicates Noah was alive during the Tower of Babel.  Noah died 350 years after the Flood and the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel happened 101 years after the Flood.  “I had never heard a single sermon preached on Noah’s failure to stop his progeny from rebelling against the Almighty,” he says.  “The last we hear about Noah in Scripture, he is getting drunk and letting his family fall to pieces.” Brennan reminds us that this novel is not a recounting of history.  “It is applying my imagination to the text to help us grapple with the central truths of the story.  My paramount goal is always to inspire readers to engage more with the Scriptures.”

THE SINS OF A FATHER
Brennan always felt a connection to the early Genesis stories because he saw a familial theme.  The theme of his book series is the failure of the patriarchs.  The Bible is clear that the headship in the biblical family unit means that the father should take responsibility for the family’s mistakes.  Brennan says Adam bears the responsibility for bringing death on us all, though Eve was the first to eat the forbidden fruit.  “Essentially, failed fathers are the obvious cause of the evil in Genesis,” he says.  He says that similarly Noah sinned, and his mistakes rippled down into a fractured relationship with his son, Ham, and plunged the world into idolatry.  Incidentally, Abram sinned and his awkward relationship with his sons still bears fruit in the tension between Islam and Christianity.  

“This is why the Fall of Man series focuses on the important father-son relationship,” he says.   “Our faith is not divorced from our family lives…our decisions impact more than just ourselves.”  It is common for sons to go through a shift when they grow old enough.  “The dynamic with their fathers often changes,” says Brennan.  “When that happened to me, I realized much of my negative feelings about my father were a result of distance and misunderstanding more than anything of substance,” he says.  “The truth is, he’s a wonderful, beautiful, passionate, complex, God-fearing man.  He’s the greatest man I know.”

After his brother suffered a severe medical emergency during the launch of his second novel, Brennan says he realized how much his family meant to him and how he had been less present with his brother than he’d thought.  “It was a humbling experience that filtered down into realizing I wasn’t always as present with my daughter as I’d promised to be either. Life is complex; even fathers with good intentions can damage their families.  There is no perfect father except for God.”