Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel[a] is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis[1] meant to
explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.[2][3][4][5]
Tower of Babel
‫ִמ ְג ַּד ל ָּב ֶב ל‬

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

General information
Type Tower
Location Babylon
Height See § Height

According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and migrating
eastward, comes to the land of Shinar (Hebrew: ‫ִׁש ְנ ָע ר‬, romanized: Šinʿār; Ancient Greek:
Σενναάρ, romanized: Sennaár). 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
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.[6]
Etymology

The phrase "Tower of Babel" does not appear in the Bible; it is always "the city and the
tower" (‫ֶא ת ָה ִע יר ְו ֶא ת ַה ִּמ ְג ָּד ל‬, ʾeṯ hā-ʿîr wəʾeṯ ha-mmiḡ dāl) or just "the city" (‫ָה ִע יר‬, hāʿîr). 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.[7][8] According to the Bible, the city received the name "Babel"
from the Hebrew verb ‫( ָּב ַל ל‬bālal), meaning to jumble or to confuse.[9]
Narrative

1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they
migrated from the east,[b] 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[c] 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[11]

Composition
 German Late Medieval
depiction of the tower's
construction from a
manuscript of Rudolf von
Ems' Weltchronik, cgm 5 fol.
29r (c. 1370s)
Genre
The narrative of the tower of Babel[12] 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.[13]: 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.[13]: 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.[14] 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).[15] 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.[16] 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.[13]: 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".[17] Other scholars reject the documentary
hypothesis altogether. 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

Sumerian and Assyrian parallel

There is a Sumerian myth similar to that of the Tower of Babel, called Enmerkar and the Lord
of Aratta,[6] 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."[18]
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.

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."[19]

Mexico
Various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel are found in Latin America. Some
writers 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.[20]
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.[21]

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.[22][23]

Nepal
Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been reported among the Tharu of Nepal and
northern India.[24]

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".[25]

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.[20] 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.[26] Genesis is described as beginning with historicized myth and ending with
mythicized history.[27] Nevertheless, the story of Babel can be interpreted in terms of its
context.
Genesis 10:10[28] 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.[29]
Genesis 11:9[30] 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".[31]
Etemenanki, the ziggurat at Babylon

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".[32]
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.[33]
Isaac Asimov speculated that the authors of Genesis 11:1–9[34] 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".[35]
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.[36]

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.[14] 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 (https://archive.org/stream/RabbaGenesis/midr
ashrabbahgen027557mbp#page/n353/mode/2up) ; 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.[29]
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.[37]

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.[38]
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.[39] A tale about Babil appears more
fully in the writings of Yaqut (i, 448 f.) and the Lisān al-ʿArab (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.[29]
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.[40]

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.[41]
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.[42]
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."[43] In either case, the
church firmly believes in the factual nature of at least one "great tower" built in the region of
ancient Sumer/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.[44]

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,[45] 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[46] 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'.[47] 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.[48]
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.[49]
In his Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1320), however, Dante changes his view to another that treats
the Adamic language as the product of Adam.[49] 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.[49]
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.[50]
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 (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

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.[51]
In the biblical introduction of the Tower of Babel account, in Genesis 11:1,[52] 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,[53] where it is said that the
descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gave rise to different nations, each with their own
language.[3]: 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.[54]
The Estonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages"[55] 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.[15]: 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).[56] 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.'"[57]
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."[58] 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.[59]
The political philosopher Michael Oakeshott surveyed historic variations of the Tower of
Babel in different cultures[60] and produced a modern retelling of his own in his 1983 book,
On History.[61] 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.[62]
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".[63]
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.[64]
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.[65]
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.[66] 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 the original
1993 Doom, 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".
Godspell features an opening number titled "Tower of Babble."
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).[67]
The fragmentation of modern society, in part due to social media, has been likened to a
modern Tower of Babel.[68]
In the video game Doshin the Giant, the final monument the island inhabitants can create
is called the Tower of Babel,[69] which begins to sink the island. The titular Doshin the
Giant then sacrifices himself to save the island.
The 2023 video game Chants of Sennaar is largely inspired by the Tower of Babel.[70]
See also

Bible portal
Judaism portal
Islam portal
Babylonian astronomy
 Borsippa
Enuma Anu Enlil
Eridu
Evolutionary linguistics
List of tallest structures
Minar (Firuzabad)
Origin of speech
Generations of Noah
Notes

a. /ˈbeɪbəl/ BAY-bəl; Hebrew: ‫ִמ ְג ַּד ל ָּב ֶב ל‬, romanized: Miḡ dal Bāḇel; Ancient Greek: Πύργος τῆς Βαβέλ,
romanized: Pýrgos tês Babél; Latin: Turris Babel.
b. Or migrated eastward
c. Hebrew: YHWH. As with other verses where "Lord" is fully capitalised.[10]
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1. 11:1–9
2. Metzger, Bruce Manning; Coogan, Michael D. (2004). The Oxford Guide To People And Places of
the Bible (https://books.google.com/books?id=amlXOOaSuLMC) . Oxford University Press. p. 28.
ISBN 978-0-195-17610-0. Retrieved 22 December 2012.
3. Levenson, Jon D. (2004). "Genesis: Introduction and Annotations". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc
Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195297515) . Oxford
University Press. p. 29 (https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195297515/page/n60) . ISBN 978-0-
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6. Kramer, Samuel Noah (1968). "The 'Babel of Tongues': A Sumerian Version". Journal of the
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69. Kyojin no Doshin 1: Koushiki Gaidobukku (Doshin the Giant 1: Official Guide book) for 64DD
version. Nintendo Co., Ltd. 20 February 2000. ISBN 4-575-16201-9.
70. Donlan, Christopher (12 September 2023). "Chants of Sennaar review - a puzzling linguistic
marvel" (https://www.eurogamer.net/chants-of-sennaar-review) . Eurogamer. Retrieved
13 September 2023.
Further reading

Sayce, Archibald Henry (1878), "Babel" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6di

a_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/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" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6
dia_Britannica/Babel) . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press. p. 91.
Maas, Anthony John (1912). "Tower of Babel" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Enc
yclopedia_(1913)/Tower_of_Babel) . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia.
Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Knecht, Friedrich Justus (1910). "The Tower of Babel" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Pr
actical_Commentary_on_Holy_Scripture/VIII._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).
External links

Tower of Babel
at Wikipedia's sister projects
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Commons
 Quotations from Wikiquote
"Tower of Babel." (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/47421/Tower-of-Babel)
Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Babel In Biblia: The Tower in Ancient Literature by Jim Rovira (http://www.towerofbabel.co
m/sections/tome/babelinbiblia/)
"The Tower of Babel and the Birth of Nationhood" (http://azure.org.il/article.php?id=53
6) by Daniel Gordis at Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation
SkyscraperPage – Tower of Babel (http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=9362) ,
Tower of Babel – Baruch (http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=47329)
HERBARIUM Art Project. Anatomy of the Tower of Babel. 2010 (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20120328091916/http://herbarium-art.ru/3/gh-5eng.htm)
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE), James Orr, M.A., D.D., General Editor
– 1915 (online (https://web.archive.org/web/20111007052238/http://www.thecorner-ston
e.org/Bible-Study-Resources/Dictionary/Bible-Word-Compendium/b/Ba/babel-tower-o
f.php) )
Easton's Bible Dictionary, M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., published by Thomas Nelson, 1897.
(online (https://web.archive.org/web/20111007052238/http://www.thecorner-stone.org/B
ible-Study-Resources/Dictionary/Bible-Word-Compendium/b/Ba/babel-tower-of.php) )
Nave Topical Bible, Orville J. Nave, AM., D.D., LL.D. (online (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0111007052238/http://www.thecorner-stone.org/Bible-Study-Resources/Dictionary/Bible
-Word-Compendium/b/Ba/babel-tower-of.php) )
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1896) (online (https://web.archive.org/web/20111007052238/htt
p://www.thecorner-stone.org/Bible-Study-Resources/Dictionary/Bible-Word-Compendiu
m/b/Ba/babel-tower-of.php) )