Tower of Babel

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Tower of Babel

‫ִמְגַּד ל ָּבֶבל‬

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)

General information

Type Tower

Location Babylon

Height See § Height

The Tower of Babel (Hebrew: ‫ִמ ְגַּד ל ָּבֶבל‬, Mīgdal Bāḇel) narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is
an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.[1][2][3][4]
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and migrating
eastward, comes to the land of Shinar (‫)ִׁש ְנָע ר‬. There they agree to build a city and a
tower with its top in the sky. Yahweh, observing their city and tower, confounds their
speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the
world.
Some modern scholars have associated the Tower of Babel with known structures,
notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to
the Mesopotamian god Marduk in Babylon. A Sumerian story with some similar
elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.[5]
Narrative

German Late Medieval (c. 1370s) depiction of the tower's construction

1
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated
from the east,[a] they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And
they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly." And they
had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build
ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for
ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth." 5 The LORD[b] came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had
built. 6 And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language,
and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will
now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language there,
so that they will not understand one another’s speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them
abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the
city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused (balal) the
language of all the earth, and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face
of all the earth.

— Genesis 11:1–9 NRSVUE[7]

Etymology
The phrase "Tower of Babel" does not appear in the Bible; it is always "the city and the
tower" (‫ַהִּמ ְגָּד ל‬-‫ָהִעיר ְוֶאת‬-‫ )ֶאת‬or just "the city" (‫)ָהִעיר‬. The original derivation of the name
Babel (also the Hebrew name for Babylon) is uncertain. The native, Akkadian name of
the city was Bāb-ilim, meaning "gate of God". However, that form and interpretation
itself are now usually thought to be the result of an Akkadian folk etymology applied to
an earlier form of the name, Babilla, of unknown meaning and probably non-Semitic
origin.[8][9] According to the Bible, the city received the name "Babel" from the Hebrew
verb ‫( ָּבַלל‬bālal), meaning to jumble or to confuse.[10]
Composition
Genre
The narrative of the tower of Babel[11] is an etiology or explanation of a phenomenon.
Etiologies are narratives that explain the origin of a custom, ritual, geographical feature,
name, or other phenomenon.[12]: 426 The story of the Tower of Babel explains the origins of
the multiplicity of languages. God was concerned that humans had blasphemed by
building the tower to avoid a second flood so God brought into existence multiple
languages.[12]: 51 Thus, humans were divided into linguistic groups, unable to understand
one another.
Themes
The story's theme of competition between God and humans appears elsewhere in
Genesis, in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.[13] The 1st-century Jewish
interpretation found in Flavius Josephus explains the construction of the tower as
a hubristic act of defiance against God ordered by the arrogant tyrant Nimrod. There
have, however, been some contemporary challenges to this classical interpretation, with
emphasis placed on the explicit motive of cultural and linguistic homogeneity mentioned
in the narrative (v. 1, 4, 6).[14] This reading of the text sees God's actions not as a
punishment for pride, but as an etiology of cultural differences, presenting Babel as
the cradle of civilization.
Authorship and source criticism
Jewish and Christian tradition attributes the composition of the whole Pentateuch, which
includes the story of the Tower of Babel, to Moses. Modern biblical scholarship rejects
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, but is divided on the question of its authorship.
Many scholars subscribe to some form of the documentary hypothesis, which argues
that the Pentateuch is composed of multiple "sources" that were later merged. Scholars
who favor this hypothesis, such as Richard Elliot Friedman, tend to see the Genesis
11:1–9 as being composed by the J or Jahwist/Yahwist source.[15] Michael
Coogan suggests the intentional word play regarding the city of Babel, and the noise of
the people's "babbling" is found in the Hebrew words as easily as in English, is
considered typical of the Yahwist source.[12]: 51 John Van Seters, who has put forth
substantial modifications to the hypothesis, suggests that these verses are part of what
he calls a "Pre-Yahwistic stage".[16] Other scholars reject the documentary hypothesis all
together. The "minimalist" scholars tend to see the books of Genesis through 2 Kings as
written by a single, anonymous author during the Hellenistic period.

Comparable myths
See also: Comparative mythology and Mythical origins of language
Sumerian and Assyrian parallel
There is a Sumerian myth similar to that of the Tower of Babel, called Enmerkar and the
Lord of Aratta,[5] where Enmerkar of Uruk is building a massive ziggurat in Eridu and
demands a tribute of precious materials from Aratta for its construction, at one point
reciting an incantation imploring the god Enki to restore (or in Kramer's translation, to
disrupt) the linguistic unity of the inhabited regions—named as Shubur, Hamazi,
Sumer, Uri-ki (Akkad), and the Martu land, "the whole universe, the well-guarded people
—may they all address Enlil together in a single language."[17]
In addition, a further Assyrian myth, dating from the 8th century BC during the Neo-
Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), bears a number of similarities to the later written biblical
story.[citation needed]
Greco-Roman parallel

Building of Babel

In Greek mythology, much of which was adopted by the Romans, there is a myth
referred to as the Gigantomachy, the battle fought between the Giants and the
Olympian gods for supremacy of the cosmos. In Ovid's telling of the myth, the Giants
attempt to reach the gods in heaven by stacking mountains, but are repelled by Jupiter's
thunderbolts. A.S. Kline translates Ovid's Metamorphoses 1.151-155 as:
"Rendering the heights of heaven no safer than the earth, they say the giants attempted
to take the Celestial kingdom, piling mountains up to the distant stars. Then the all-
powerful father of the gods hurled his bolt of lightning, fractured Olympus and threw
Mount Pelion down from Ossa below."[18]
Mexico
Various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel are found in Central America.
Some writers[who?] connected the Great Pyramid of Cholula to the Tower of Babel.
The Dominican friar Diego Durán (1537–1588) reported hearing an account about the
pyramid from a hundred-year-old priest at Cholula, shortly after the conquest of the
Aztec Empire. He wrote that he was told when the light of the sun first appeared upon
the land, giants appeared and set off in search of the sun. Not finding it, they built a
tower to reach the sky. An angered God of the Heavens called upon the inhabitants of
the sky, who destroyed the tower and scattered its inhabitants. The story was not
related to either a flood or the confusion of languages, although Frazer connects its
construction and the scattering of the giants with the Tower of Babel.[19]
Another story, attributed by the native historian Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl (c.
1565–1648) to the ancient Toltecs, states that after men had multiplied following a great
deluge, they erected a tall zacuali or tower, to preserve themselves in the event of a
second deluge. However, their languages were confounded and they went to separate
parts of the earth.[20]
Arizona
Still another story, attributed to the Tohono O'odham people, holds
that Montezuma escaped a great flood, then became wicked and attempted to build a
house reaching to heaven, but the Great Spirit destroyed it with thunderbolts.[21][22]
Nepal
Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been reported among
the Tharu of Nepal and northern India.[23][further explanation needed]
Botswana
According to David Livingstone, the people he met living near Lake Ngami in 1849 had
such a tradition, but with the builders' heads getting "cracked by the fall of the
scaffolding".[24]
Other traditions
In his 1918 book, Folklore in the Old Testament, Scottish social anthropologist
Sir James George Frazer documented similarities between Old Testament stories, such
as the Flood, and indigenous legends around the world. He identified Livingston's
account with a tale found in Lozi mythology, wherein the wicked men build a tower of
masts to pursue the Creator-God, Nyambe, who has fled to Heaven on a spider-web,
but the men perish when the masts collapse. He further relates similar tales of
the Ashanti that substitute a pile of porridge pestles for the masts. Frazer moreover
cites such legends found among the Kongo people, as well as in Tanzania, where the
men stack poles or trees in a failed attempt to reach the moon.[19] He further cited
the Karbi and Kuki people of Assam as having a similar story. The traditions of
the Karen people of Myanmar, which Frazer considered to show clear 'Abrahamic'
influence, also relate that their ancestors migrated there following the abandonment of a
great pagoda in the land of the Karenni 30 generations from Adam, when the languages
were confused and the Karen separated from the Karenni. He notes yet another version
current in the Admiralty Islands, where mankind's languages are confused following a
failed attempt to build houses reaching to heaven.

Mythological context
Hanging Gardens of Babylon (19th century illustration), depicts the Tower of Babel in the background.

Biblical scholars see the Book of Genesis as mythological and not as a historical
account of events.[25] Genesis is described as beginning with historicized myth and
ending with mythicized history.[26] Nevertheless, the story of Babel can be interpreted in
terms of its context.
Genesis 10:10[27] states that Babel (LXX: Βαβυλών) formed part of Nimrod's kingdom.
The Bible does not specifically mention that Nimrod ordered the building of the tower,
but many other sources have associated its construction with Nimrod.[28]
Genesis 11:9[29] attributes the Hebrew version of the name, Babel, to the verb balal,
which means to confuse or confound in Hebrew. The first century Roman-Jewish author
Flavius Josephus similarly explained that the name was derived from the Hebrew
word Babel ( ‫)בבל‬, meaning "confusion".[30]

Etemenanki, the ziggurat at Babylon

Main article: Etemenanki

Reconstruction of the Etemenanki

Etemenanki (Sumerian: "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth") was the name
of a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk in the city of Babylon. It was famously rebuilt by the
6th-century BCE Neo-Babylonian dynasty rulers Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II,
but had fallen into disrepair by the time of Alexander's conquests. He managed to move
the tiles of the tower to another location, but his death stopped the reconstruction, and it
was demolished during the reign of his successor Antiochus Soter. The Greek
historian Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) wrote an account of the ziggurat in
his Histories, which he called the "Temple of Zeus Belus".[31]
According to modern scholars, the biblical story of the Tower of Babel was likely
influenced by Etemenanki. Stephen L. Harris proposed this occurred during
the Babylonian captivity.[32] Isaac Asimov speculated that the authors of Genesis 11:1-
9[33] were inspired by the existence of an apparently incomplete ziggurat at Babylon, and
by the phonological similarity between Babylonian Bab-ilu, meaning "gate of God", and
the Hebrew word balal, meaning "mixed", "confused", or "confounded".[34]

Later literature
Book of Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees contains one of the most detailed accounts found anywhere of the
Tower.
And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks
served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was
asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of
Shinar. And they built it: forty and three years were they building it; its breadth was 203
bricks, and the height [of a brick] was the third of one; its height amounted to
5433 cubits and 2 palms, and [the extent of one wall was] thirteen stades [and of the
other thirty stades]. (Jubilees 10:20–21, Charles' 1913 translation)

Pseudo-Philo
In Pseudo-Philo, the direction for the building is ascribed not only to Nimrod, who is
made prince of the Hamites, but also to Joktan, as prince of the Semites, and to
Phenech son of Dodanim, as prince of the Japhetites. Twelve men are arrested for
refusing to bring bricks, including Abraham, Lot, Nahor, and several sons of Joktan.
However, Joktan finally saves the twelve from the wrath of the other two princes.[35]
Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews

Tower of Babel, by Lucas van Valckenborch, 1594, Louvre Museum

The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 CE),
recounted history as found in the Hebrew Bible and mentioned the Tower of Babel. He
wrote that it was Nimrod who had the tower built and that Nimrod was a tyrant who tried
to turn the people away from God. In this account, God confused the people rather than
destroying them because annihilation with a Flood had not taught them to be godly.
Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was
the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He
persuaded them not to ascribe it to God as if it were through his means they were
happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He
also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning
men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power...
Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod and to esteem
it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any
pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude
of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the
thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height
seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick,
cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit
water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them
utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners [in the
Flood]; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages,
and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to
understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon,
because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the
Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this
tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus:—"When all men were
of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to
heaven; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave everyone
a peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon."

Greek Apocalypse of Baruch

Third Apocalypse of Baruch (or 3 Baruch, c. 2nd century), one of the pseudepigrapha,
describes the just rewards of sinners and the righteous in the afterlife.[13] Among the
sinners are those who instigated the Tower of Babel. In the account, Baruch is first
taken (in a vision) to see the resting place of the souls of "those who built the tower of
strife against God, and the Lord banished them." Next he is shown another place, and
there, occupying the form of dogs,
Those who gave counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth
multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks; among whom, a woman making
bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child-birth, but brought forth while
she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and continued to make
bricks. And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built
the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a gimlet,
and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of
clay, or of brass, or of iron. When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them
with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest. (Greek
Apocalypse of Baruch, 3:5–8)

Midrash
Rabbinic literature offers many different accounts of other causes for building the Tower
of Babel, and of the intentions of its builders. According to one midrash the builders of
the Tower, called "the generation of secession" in the Jewish sources, said: "God has
no right to choose the upper world for Himself, and to leave the lower world to us;
therefore we will build us a tower, with an idol on the top holding a sword, so that it may
appear as if it intended to war with God" (Gen. R. xxxviii. 7; Tan., ed. Buber, Noah, xxvii.
et seq.).
The building of the Tower was meant to bid defiance not only to God, but also to
Abraham, who exhorted the builders to reverence. The passage mentions that the
builders spoke sharp words against God, saying that once every 1,656 years, heaven
tottered so that the water poured down upon the earth, therefore they would support it
by columns that there might not be another deluge (Gen. R. l.c.; Tan. l.c.; similarly
Josephus, "Ant." i. 4, § 2).
Some among that generation even wanted to war against God in heaven (Talmud
Sanhedrin 109a). They were encouraged in this undertaking by the notion that arrows
that they shot into the sky fell back dripping with blood, so that the people really
believed that they could wage war against the inhabitants of the heavens (Sefer ha-
Yashar, Chapter 9:12–36). According to Josephus and Midrash Pirke R. El. xxiv., it was
mainly Nimrod who persuaded his contemporaries to build the Tower, while other
rabbinical sources assert, on the contrary, that Nimrod separated from the builders.[28]
According to another midrashic account, one third of the Tower builders were punished
by being transformed into semi-demonic creatures and banished into three parallel
dimensions, inhabited now by their descendants.[36]
Islamic tradition

Turris Babel from Athanasius Kircher

Although not mentioned by name, the Quran has a story with similarities to the biblical
story of the Tower of Babel, although set in the Egypt of
Moses: Pharaoh asks Haman to build him a stone (or clay) tower so that he can mount
up to heaven and confront the God of Moses.[37]
Another story in Sura 2:102 mentions the name of Babil, but tells of when the two
angels Harut and Marut taught magic to some people in Babylon and warned them that
magic is a sin and that their teaching them magic is a test of faith.[38] A tale about Babil
appears more fully in the writings of Yaqut (i, 448 f.) and the Lisān al-ʿArab [ar] (xiii. 72),
but without the tower: mankind were swept together by winds into the plain that was
afterward called "Babil", where they were assigned their separate languages by God,
and were then scattered again in the same way. In the History of the Prophets and
Kings by the 9th-century Muslim theologian al-Tabari, a fuller version is given: Nimrod
has the tower built in Babil, God destroys it, and the language of mankind,
formerly Syriac, is then confused into 72 languages. Another Muslim historian of the
13th century, Abu al-Fida relates the same story, adding that the patriarch Eber (an
ancestor of Abraham) was allowed to keep the original tongue, Hebrew in this case,
because he would not partake in the building.[28]
Although variations similar to the biblical narrative of the Tower of Babel exist within
Islamic tradition, the central theme of God separating humankind on the basis of
language is alien to Islam according to the author Yahiya Emerick. In Islamic belief, he
argues, God created nations to know each other and not to be separated.[39]
Book of Mormon
In the Book of Mormon, a man named Jared and his family ask God that their language
not be confounded at the time of the "great tower". Because of their prayers, God
preserves their language and leads them to the Valley of Nimrod. From there, they
travel across the sea to the Americas.[40]
Despite no mention of the Tower of Babel in the original text of the Book of Mormon,
some leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) assert
that the "great tower" was indeed the Tower of Babel – as in the 1981 introduction to the
Book of Mormon – despite the chronology of the Book of Ether aligning more closely
with the 21st century BC Sumerian tower temple myth of Enmerkar and the Lord of
Aratta to the goddess Innana.[41] Church apologists have also supported this connection
and argue the reality of the Tower of Babel: "Although there are many in our day who
consider the accounts of the Flood and tower of Babel to be fiction, Latter-day Saints
affirm their reality."[42] In either case, the church firmly believes in the factual nature of at
least one "great tower" built in the region of ancient Sumeria/Assyria/Babylonia.
Gnosticism
In Gnostic tradition recorded in the Paraphrase of Shem, a tower, interpreted as the
Tower of Babel, is brought by demons along with the great flood:
And he caused the flood, and he destroyed your (Shem's) race, to take the light and to
take away from faith. But I proclaimed quickly by the mouth of the demon that a tower
come up to be up to the particle of light, which was left in the demons and their race -
which was water - that the demon might be protected from the turbulent chaos. And the
womb planned these things according to my will, that she might pour forth completely. A
tower came to be through the demons. The darkness was disturbed by his loss. He
loosened the muscles of the womb. And the demon who was going to enter the tower
was protected so that the races might continue to acquire coherence through him.[43]

Confusion of tongues
This article is about the origin myth. For the film, see The Confusion of Tongues.
The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré, a woodcut depicting the Tower of Babel

The confusion of tongues (confusio linguarum) is the origin myth for the fragmentation
of human languages described in Genesis 11:1-9,[44] as a result of the construction of the
Tower of Babel. Prior to this event, humanity was stated to speak a single language.
The preceding Genesis 10:5[45] states that the descendants of Japheth, Gomer,
and Javan dispersed "with their own tongues." Augustine explained this apparent
contradiction by arguing that the story 'without mentioning it, goes back to tell how it
came about that the one language common to all men was broken up into many
tongues'. [46] Modern scholarship has traditionally held that the two chapters were written
by different sources, the former by the Priestly source and the latter by the Jahwist.
However, that theory has been debated among scholars in recent years.[47]
During the Middle Ages, the Hebrew language was widely considered the language
used by God to address Adam in Paradise, and by Adam as lawgiver (the Adamic
language) by various Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholastics.
Dante Alighieri addresses the topic in his De vulgari eloquentia (1302–1305). He argues
that the Adamic language is of divine origin and therefore unchangeable.[48]
In his Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1320), however, Dante changes his view to another that
treats the Adamic language as the product of Adam.[48] This had the consequence that it
could no longer be regarded as immutable, and hence Hebrew could not be regarded
as identical with the language of Paradise. Dante concludes (Paradiso XXVI) that
Hebrew is a derivative of the language of Adam. In particular, the chief Hebrew name
for God in scholastic tradition, El, must be derived of a different Adamic name for God,
which Dante gives as I.[48]
Before the acceptance of the Indo-European language family, these languages were
considered to be "Japhetite" by some authors (e.g., Rasmus Rask in 1815; see Indo-
European studies). Beginning in Renaissance Europe, priority over Hebrew was
claimed for the alleged Japhetic languages, which were supposedly never corrupted
because their speakers had not participated in the construction of the Tower of Babel.
Among the candidates for a living descendant of the Adamic language
were: Gaelic (see Auraicept na n-Éces); Tuscan (Giovanni Battista Gelli, 1542, Piero
Francesco Giambullari, 1564); Dutch (Goropius Becanus, 1569, Abraham Mylius,
1612); Swedish (Olaus Rudbeck, 1675); German (Georg Philipp Harsdörffer,
1641, Schottel, 1641). The Swedish physician Andreas Kempe wrote a satirical tract in
1688, where he made fun of the contest between the European nationalists to claim
their native tongue as the Adamic language. Caricaturing the attempts by the Swede
Olaus Rudbeck to pronounce Swedish the original language of mankind, Kempe wrote
a scathing parody where Adam spoke Danish, God spoke Swedish, and the
serpent French.[49]
The primacy of Hebrew was still defended by some authors until the emergence of
modern linguistics in the second half of the 18th century, e.g. by Pierre
Besnier [fr] (1648–1705) in A philosophicall essay for the reunion of the languages, or,
the art of knowing all by the mastery of one (1675) and by Gottfried Hensel (1687–1767)
in his Synopsis Universae Philologiae (1741).

Linguistics
Further information: Origin of language and Mythical origins of language
For a long time, historical linguistics wrestled with the idea of a single original language.
In the Middle Ages and down to the 17th century, attempts were made to identify a
living descendant of the Adamic language.
Multiplication of languages

Tower of Babel by Endre Rozsda (1958)

The literal belief that the world's linguistic variety originated with the tower of Babel
is pseudolinguistics, and is contrary to the known facts about the origin
and history of languages.[50]
In the biblical introduction of the Tower of Babel account, in Genesis 11:1,[51] it is said
that everyone on Earth spoke the same language, but this is inconsistent with the
biblical description of the post-Noahic world described in Genesis 10:5,[52] where it is said
that the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gave rise to different nations, each
with their own language.[2]: 26
There have also been a number of traditions around the world that describe a divine
confusion of the one original language into several, albeit without any tower. Aside from
the Ancient Greek myth that Hermes confused the languages, causing Zeus to give his
throne to Phoroneus, Frazer specifically mentions such accounts among the Wasania
of Kenya, the Kacha Naga people of Assam, the inhabitants of Encounter Bay in
Australia, the Maidu of California, the Tlingit of Alaska, and the K'iche' Maya of
Guatemala.[53]
The Estonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages"[54] has also been compared.
Enumeration of scattered languages
There are several mediaeval historiographic accounts that attempt to make an
enumeration of the languages scattered at the Tower of Babel. Because a count of all
the descendants of Noah listed by name in chapter 10 of Genesis (LXX) provides 15
names for Japheth's descendants, 30 for Ham's, and 27 for Shem's, these figures
became established as the 72 languages resulting from the confusion at Babel—
although the exact listing of these languages changed over time. (The LXX Bible has
two additional names, Elisa and Cainan, not found in the Masoretic text of this chapter,
so early rabbinic traditions, such as the Mishna, speak instead of "70 languages".)
Some of the earliest sources for 72 (sometimes 73) languages are the 2nd-century
Christian writers Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I, 21) and Hippolytus of Rome (On
the Psalms 9); it is repeated in the Syriac book Cave of Treasures (c. 350
CE), Epiphanius of Salamis' Panarion (c. 375) and St. Augustine's The City of God 16.6
(c. 410). The chronicles attributed to Hippolytus (c. 234) contain one of the first attempts
to list each of the 72 peoples who were believed to have spoken these languages.
Isidore of Seville in his Etymologiae (c. 600) mentions the number of 72; however, his
list of names from the Bible drops the sons of Joktan and substitutes the sons of
Abraham and Lot, resulting in only about 56 names total; he then appends a list of some
of the nations known in his own day, such as the Longobards and the Franks. This
listing was to prove quite influential on later accounts that made the Lombards and
Franks themselves into descendants of eponymous grandsons of Japheth, e.g.
the Historia Brittonum (c. 833), The Meadows of Gold by al Masudi (c. 947) and Book of
Roads and Kingdoms by al-Bakri (1068), the 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn, and the
midrashic compilations Yosippon (c. 950), Chronicles of Jerahmeel, and Sefer
haYashar.
Other sources that mention 72 (or 70) languages scattered from Babel are the Old
Irish poem Cu cen mathair by Luccreth moccu Chiara (c. 600); the Irish monastic
work Auraicept na n-Éces; History of the Prophets and Kings by the Persian
historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (c. 915); the Anglo-Saxon dialogue Solomon
and Saturn; the Russian Primary Chronicle (c. 1113); the
Jewish Kabbalistic work Bahir (1174); the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (c. 1200);
the Syriac Book of the Bee (c. 1221); the Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum (c. 1284;
mentions 22 for Shem, 31 for Ham and 17 for Japheth for a total of 70); Villani's 1300
account; and the rabbinic Midrash ha-Gadol (14th century). Villani adds that it "was
begun 700 years after the Flood, and there were 2,354 years from the beginning of the
world to the confusion of the Tower of Babel. And we find that they were 107 years
working at it; and men lived long in those times". According to the Gesta Hunnorum et
Hungarorum, however, the project was begun only 200 years following the Deluge.
The tradition of 72 languages persisted into later times. Both José de Acosta in his 1576
treatise De procuranda indorum salute, and António Vieira a century later in his Sermão
da Epifania, expressed amazement at how much this 'number of tongues' could be
surpassed, there being hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages indigenous only to
Peru and Brazil.
Height
The Book of Genesis does not mention how tall the tower was. The phrase used to
describe the tower, "its top in the sky" (v.4), was an idiom for impressive height; rather
than implying arrogance, this was simply a cliché for height.[14]: 37
The Book of Jubilees mentions the tower's height as being 5,433 cubits and 2 palms, or
2,484 m (8,150 ft), about three times the height of Burj Khalifa, or roughly 1.6 miles
high. The Third Apocalypse of Baruch mentions that the 'tower of strife' reached a
height of 463 cubits, or 211.8 m (695 ft), taller than any structure built in human
history until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889, which is 324 m (1,063 ft) in
height.
Gregory of Tours writing c. 594, quotes the earlier historian Orosius (c. 417) as saying
the tower was "laid out foursquare on a very level plain. Its wall, made of baked brick
cemented with pitch, is fifty cubits (23 m or 75 ft) wide, two hundred (91.5 m or 300 ft)
high, and four hundred and seventy stades (82.72 km or 51.4 miles) in circumference. A
stade was an ancient Greek unit of length, based on the circumference of a typical
sports stadium of the time which was about 176 metres (577 ft).[55] Twenty-five gates are
situated on each side, which make in all one hundred. The doors of these gates, which
are of wonderful size, are cast in bronze. The same historian tells many other tales of
this city, and says: 'Although such was the glory of its building still it was conquered and
destroyed.'"[56]
A typical medieval account is given by Giovanni Villani (1300): He relates that "it
measured eighty miles [130 km] round, and it was already 4,000 paces high, or 5.92 km
(3.68 mi) and 1,000 paces thick, and each pace is three of our feet."[57] The 14th-century
traveler John Mandeville also included an account of the tower and reported that its
height had been 64 furlongs, or 13 km (8 mi), according to the local inhabitants.
The 17th-century historian Verstegan provides yet another figure – quoting Isidore, he
says that the tower was 5,164 paces high, or 7.6 km (4.7 mi), and quoting Josephus
that the tower was wider than it was high, more like a mountain than a tower. He also
quotes unnamed authors who say that the spiral path was so wide that it contained
lodgings for workers and animals, and other authors who claim that the path was wide
enough to have fields for growing grain for the animals used in the construction.
In his book, Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down (Pelican 1978–1984),
Professor J.E. Gordon considers the height of the Tower of Babel. He wrote, "brick and
stone weigh about 120 lb per cubic foot (2,000 kg per cubic metre) and the crushing
strength of these materials is generally rather better than 6,000 lbs per square inch or
40 mega-pascals. Elementary arithmetic shows that a tower with parallel walls could
have been built to a height of 2.1 km (1.3 mi) before the bricks at the bottom were
crushed. However, by making the walls taper towards the top they ... could well have
been built to a height where the men of Shinnar would run short of oxygen and had
difficulty in breathing before the brick walls crushed beneath their own dead weight."

In popular culture
 Pieter Brueghel's influential portrayal is based on the Colosseum in Rome,
while later conical depictions of the tower (as depicted in Doré's illustration)
resemble much later Muslim towers observed by 19th-century explorers in
the area, notably the Minaret of Samarra. M.C. Escher depicts a more
stylized geometrical structure in his woodcut representing the story.
 The composer Anton Rubinstein wrote an opera based on the story Der
Thurm zu Babel.
 American choreographer Adam Darius staged a multilingual theatrical
interpretation of The Tower of Babel in 1993 at the ICA in London.
 Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, in a flashback, plays upon themes of lack of
communication between the designers of the tower and the workers who are
constructing it. The short scene states how the words used to glorify the
tower's construction by its designers took on totally different, oppressive
meanings to the workers. This led to its destruction as they rose up against
the designers because of the insufferable working conditions. The
appearance of the tower was modeled after Brueghel's 1563 painting.[58]
 The political philosopher Michael Oakeshott surveyed historic variations of
the Tower of Babel in different cultures[59] and produced a modern retelling of
his own in his 1983 book, On History.[60] In his retelling, Oakeshott expresses
disdain for human willingness to sacrifice individuality, culture, and quality of
life for grand collective projects. He attributes this behavior to fascination with
novelty, persistent dissatisfaction, greed, and lack of self-reflection.[61]
 A.S. Byatt's novel Babel Tower (1996) is about the question "whether
language can be shared, or, if that turns out to be illusory, how individuals, in
talking to each other, fail to understand each other".[62]
 The progressive band Soul Secret wrote a concept album called BABEL,
based on a modernized version of the myth.
 Science fiction writer Ted Chiang wrote a story called "Tower of Babylon" that
imagined a miner's climbing the tower all the way to the top where he meets
the vault of heaven.[63]
 Fantasy novelist Josiah Bancroft has a series The Books of Babel, which
concluded with book IV in 2021.
 The Tower of Babel appears in the 47th episode of the anime series Arabian
Nights: Sinbad's Adventures.
 This biblical episode is dramatized in the Indian television series Bible Ki
Kahaniyan, which aired on DD National from 1992.[64]
 Chris Huelsbeck, the composer for the music appearing in several parts of
the Turrican game series, has created an orchestral piece titled "Tower of
Babel" which appears in Turrican II: The Final Fight.
 In the 1990 Japanese television anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, the
Tower of Babel is used by the Atlanteans as an interstellar communication
device.[65] Later in the series, the Neo Atlanteans rebuild the Tower of Babel
and use its communication beam as a weapon of mass destruction. Both the
original and the rebuilt tower resembles the painting Tower of Babel by
artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
  In the video game Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones the last stages of the
game and the final boss fight occur in the tower.
 In the web-based game Forge of Empires the Tower of Babel is an available
"Great Building".
 Argentinian novelist Jorge Luis Borges wrote a story called "The Library of
Babel".
 The Tower of Babel appears as an important location in the Babylonian story
arc of the Japanese shōjo manga Crest of the Royal Family.
 In the video game series Doom, the Tower of Babel appears multiple times.
In Doom (1993), the level "E2M8" is named and takes place at the "Tower of
Babel". In Doom Eternal the campaign level "Nekravol" contains the Tower of
Babel, but instead of its biblical purpose, it functions as a processing line for
the suffering of human souls. In-game it is referred to as "The Citadel", but
the concept art for Doom Eternal (The Art of Doom Eternal artbook, and the
Steam Trading Card) refers to it as the "Tower Babel".
 2017 comic book La tour de Bab-El-Oued (The tower of Bab-El-Oued)
from Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat series refers to the Tower of Babel in a context of
intercultural conflict and cooperation (Jews and Muslims during the French
colonization in Algeria).[66]
 The fragmentation of modern society, in part due to social media, has been
likened to a modern Tower of Babel.[67]
 In the video game Doshin the Giant, the final monument the island
inhabitants can create is called the Tower of Babel,[68] which begins to sink the
island. The titular Doshin the Giant then sacrifices himself to save the island.

Notes
1. ^ Or migrated eastward
2. ^ Hebrew: YHWH. As with other verses where "Lord" is fully capitalised.[6]

References
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Further reading
 Sayce, Archibald Henry (1878), "Babel" , in Baynes, T. S.
(ed.), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3 (9th ed.), New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, p. 178
 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Babel" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 91.
 Maas, Anthony John (1912). "Tower of Babel" . In Herbermann, Charles
(ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
 Knecht, Friedrich Justus (1910). "The Tower of Babel" . A Practical
Commentary on Holy Scripture. B. Herder.
 Pr. Diego Duran, Historia Antiqua de la Nueva Espana (Madrid, 1585).
 Ixtilxochitl, Don Ferdinand d'Alva, Historia Chichimeca, 1658
 Lord Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 9
 H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (New York, 1874)
 Klaus Seybold, "Der Turmbau zu Babel: Zur Entstehung von Genesis XI 1–
9," Vetus Testamentum (1976).
 Samuel Noah Kramer, The "Babel of Tongues": A Sumerian Version, Journal
of the American Oriental Society (1968).
 Kyle Dugdale: Babel's Present. Ed. by Reto Geiser and Tilo Richter,
Standpunkte, Basel 2016, ISBN 978-3-9523540-8-7 (Standpunkte
Dokumente No. 5).