Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel (Hebrew: .mw-parser-output .script-hebrew,.mw-parser-output .script-Hebr{font-size:1.15em;font-family:'Ezra SIL','Ezra SIL SR','Keter Aram Tsova','Taamey Ashkenaz','Taamey David CLM','Taamey Frank CLM','Frank Ruehl CLM','Keter YG','Shofar','David CLM','Hadasim CLM','Simple CLM','Nachlieli','SBL BibLit','SBL Hebrew',Cardo,Alef,'Noto Serif Hebrew','Noto Sans Hebrew','David Libre',David,'Times New Roman',Gisha,Arial,FreeSerif,FreeSans}מִגְדַּל בָּבֶל‎, Migdal Bavel) narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united humanity in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating westward, comes to the land of Shinar (שִׁנְעָר). There they agree to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven. God, 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. The phrase 'Tower of Babel' does not appear in the Bible; it is always 'the city and the tower' (אֶת-הָעִיר וְאֶת-הַמִּגְדָּל) or just 'the city' (הָעִיר). 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. According to the Bible, the city received the name 'Babel' from the Hebrew verb בָּלַ֥ל (bālal), meaning to jumble or to confuse. The narrative of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11.1–9) 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.: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.:51 Thus, humans were divided into linguistic groups, unable to understand one another. 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. 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). 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. Tradition attributes the whole of the Pentateuch to Moses; however, in the late 19th century, the documentary hypothesis was proposed by Julius Wellhausen. This hypothesis proposes four sources: J, E, P and D. Of these hypothetical sources, proponents suggest that this narrative comes from the J or Yahwist source. The etiological nature of the narrative is considered typical of J. In addition, 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, and is considered typical of the Yahwist source.:51