Thanks for keeping up this discussion, gentlemen.
I can see one other similarity between the story of Lot/Sodom and Numenor, although I grant it is hardly likely that such would have been one of Tolkien's intentions. Both stories demonstrate a traditional attitude towards women in patriarchial societies. Numenor enacts the traditional idea that it is an ill fate for a woman to inherit the throne--this was one of the prejudices which Elizabeth I constantly faced and had to fight down; in the story of Sodom Lot's wife is punished for looking back but Lot is never punished for offering his own daughters to be raped (to say nothing of what happens subsequently with the lewd story of drunkenness and incest--although the land of his son Moab is said to be a tainted land). Gender does not play a role in Babel except that I suppose one can say it is males who presume to build a tower to heaven in order to preempt further punishment from God--with God taking back his gift to Adam of naming things by creating linquistic diversity Himself.
Yet upon further ruminations I wonder if a lesson needs to be a central part of the story of Numenor. Perhaps the most salient point is that the pure, perfect Undying Lands are saved from the rude incursion of a deeply sinful people. Arda Unmarred (can I call the Deathless Lands Arda Umarred?) is removed from any possibility of taint or evil by this action. This was Eru's motivation, to preserve the only or last vestige of pureness from the hand of evil, rather than to teach sinful Men a lesson per se. He was preserving the last remnant of his perfect music by making it impossible for Men to know of it.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Tolkien, Akallabeth
And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.
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Just another suggestion.