The Tower of Babel (Biblical story)

Author: Traditional Jewish

Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE

Country or Culture: Middle East

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel begins in the context of a unified world, one that shares a single language. After journeying in the east, certain men settle in the plains of Shinar. Using bricks and mortar, the men decide to build a city, in which they build a tall tower to glorify themselves and their accomplishments. God descends to earth to observe the new city and its people. Examining the city, God realizes that because humanity shares but one language, its possible accomplishments are limitless. Therefore, God decides to scatter the people all over the earth, causing them to abandon the construction of their new city.

SIGNIFICANCE

The biblical account indicates that the city is called Babel “because the Lord there made a babble of the language of all the world” (Gen. 11:9). According to sources documented by T. W. Doane, the association of the name Babel with the transformation of language into “babble” is based on an error by the writer who inserted this story into the book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament). Doane reports that in Hebrew, Babel actually means “the gate of God,” but the writer of the story confused this meaning by tracing Babel to the word babal, which means “to confuse” (34).

The writer’s source for the story comes from a Chaldean story about the “confusion of tongues” (34). As related by Berosus, the Chaldean story offers more detail about the builders of the city and its whereabouts. In this account, the city is located in Babylon. The inhabitants are proud and disdainful of the gods, so they decide to build a tower that will touch the sky. Helped by the winds, the gods topple it and replace the inhabitants’ single language with many different tongues. A Jewish historian named Josephus later elaborated this tale by adding an evil ringleader named Nimrod, and the motivation for building the tower became the desire for a safe haven in case God “should have a mind to drown the world again” (34); the people also wanted revenge against God for the destruction of their ancestors. In this case, God responds not by destroying the people (given that they failed to learn from the prior punishment) but by introducing many languages so that the people can no longer understand one another.

Interestingly, Doane gathers evidence of myths from around the world (including places such as Armenia, India, Africa, and Mexico) strikingly similar to the Tower of Babel story. Two versions from India and Mexico are particularly noteworthy. Doane relates a Hindu version called the “Confusion of Tongues” in which a “world tree,” or “knowledge tree” (35–36) grows in the center of the earth and ascends almost to heaven. The tree says “in its heart: ‘I shall hold my head in heaven, and spread my branches over all the earth, and gather all men together under my shadow, and protect them, and prevent them from separating” (36). The god Brahmā punishes the tree’s pride by cutting off the branches and throwing them down to the earth, where they are reborn as wata trees that cause “differences of belief, and speech, and customs, to prevail on the earth, to disperse men over its surface” (36).

A version similar to the Genesis myth comes from Mexico. In this account, those who survived the flood sent to destroy humankind decide to build a lofty tower. Like the story elaborated by Josephus, the people built the tower for two reasons: to see what is happening in heaven and to have a place to hide if the gods send another flood. The wicked architect of this version is a giant named Xelhua, who orders bricks to be made and transferred hand to hand by a long line of men from a certain province to the city of Cholula, where the tower is to be built. Angered by Xelhua’s audacity, the gods cast fire onto the tower and the men building it, and the families involved “received a language of their own, and the builders could not understand each other” (36).

A common theme emerges from these analogues: a desire to reach the heavens to attain some aspect of divine power. God or gods then punish those who seek this power by destroying the tower (and, in some cases, the people) and by introducing many languages to hinder the people’s ability to communicate. These shared aspects point to a powerful etiological function of this story, showing how it serves to locate the origin of numerous languages in human transgression.

Doane also documents a historical reality that helps to explain the myth’s survival: the existence of an actual tower in Babylonia. This tower was apparently built by a king and used to study astronomy. The structure had seven “stages” dedicated to the sun, the moon, and five planets. According to one source, the tower was neglected and eventually fell into ruins. Although this account includes no details related to the Tower of Babel myth, the historical presence of a ruined tower in Babylonia helps to explain how an architectural reality might have served to sustain the myth among ancient people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Bible. Ed. Samuel Sandmel. New York: Oxford UP, 1976. Print. New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Ed.

Doane, T. W. Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions. New York: Commonwealth, 1882. Print.

Jacob of Serug. Homily on the Tower of Babel. Trans. Aaron Michael Butts. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2009. Print.

Kramer, Samuel Noah. “The ‘Babel of Tongues’: A Sumerian Version.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 88.1 (1968): 108–11. Print.

Mengham, Rod. On Language: Descent from the Tower of Babel. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Print.