Toppling The Tower of Tale - Of Babel, Babble, and Burst Bubbles

And here we have, in that book of wild fables, another strangely compelling tale that comes apart at the seams upon closer inspection.

Genesis 11:1-9

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

I'll admit: it's a neat story. Simple, straight to the point, not big on details. It is contradicted, however, by examining the book itself, for one thing.

Genesis 10: 5 - By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
Genesis 10: 31- These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.

My first issue here, is that Genesis 10:5 and Genesis 10:31 are set BEFORE the infamous monolith, and both verses STIPULATE that there were INDEED other languages.

"Traditionally, the peoples listed in Chapter 10 of Genesis (the Table of Nations) are understood to have been scattered over the face of the earth from Shinar only after the abandonment of The Tower, which follows as an explanation of this cultural diversity. Some, however, see an internal contradiction between the mention already in Genesis 10:5 that "From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with his own language" and the subsequent Babel story, which begins "Now the entire earth was of one language and uniform words" (Genesis 11:1). Others answer this claim with the fact Genesis is listing the descendants of Noah's son Japheth, not stating a time period as much as referring to separate cultures. They claim that there is no reason to presuppose these descendants had gotten their own languages prior to the Tower's construction."

Secondly, the Tower of Babel seems to infer that the world's population was in the Middle East (which we know isn't true).
Thirdly, if we are to assume one king, in one country, decides to blaspheme (Genesis 11 stipulates as much). So God punishes everyone far and wide? How come? If your teenage kid almost burns down the house, and did it on his own, do you punish the rest of the children as well? Is this supposed to set an example? If others aren't doing the same thing, and God is omniscient, what exactly is the point here?

Fourthly, it seems to have been borrowed from Sumerian tradition:

"A large construction project in the ancient world might have used pressed labour from a diverse set of conquered or subject populations, and the domain of the empires covering Babylon would have contained some non-Semitic languages, such as Hurrian, Kassite, Sumerian, and Elamite, among others.

"The Tower of Babel in the background of a depiction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon by Martin Heemskerck.

"There is a Sumerian myth similar to that of the Tower of Babel, called Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, where the two rival gods, Enki and Enlil end up confusing the tongues of all humankind as collateral damage arising from their argument."

Fifthly, it seems to be another one of those myths that span cultures:

"Various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel are found in Central America. One holds that Xelhua, one of the seven giants rescued from the deluge, built the Great Pyramid of Cholula in order to storm Heaven. The gods destroyed it with fire and confounded the language of the builders. The Dominican Diego Duran (1537-1588) reported hearing this account from a hundred-year-old priest at Cholula, shortly after the conquest of Mexico.

"Another story, attributed by the native historian Don Ferdinand d'Alva Ixtilxochitl (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.

"Still another story, attributed to the Tohono O'odham Indians, 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. (Bancroft, vol. 3, p.76; also in History of Arizona)

"Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been reported among the Tharus of Nepal and northern India (Report of the Census of Bengal, 1872, p. 160); and according to Dr Livingstone, the Africans whom he met living near Lake Ngami in 1879 had such a tradition, but with the builders' heads getting "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding" (Missionary Travels, chap. 26)"

Sixthly, a similar tradition of the area has the same basic story, but with a few twists.

"Though not mentioned by name, the Qur'an has a story with similarities to the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, though set in the Egypt of Moses. In Suras 28:38 and 40:36-37 Pharaoh asks Haman to build him a clay tower so that he can mount up to heaven and confront the God of Moses.

Another story in Sura 2:102 mentions the name of Babil, but gives few additional details about it. However, the tale appears more fully in the writings of Yaqut (i, 448 f.) and the Lisan el-'Arab (xiii. 72), but without the tower: mankind were swept together by winds into the plain that was afterwards called "Babil", where they were assigned their separate languages by Allah, and were then scattered again in the same way.

In the History of the Prophets and Kings by the 9th century Muslim historian al-Tabari, a fuller version is given: Nimrod has the tower built in Babil, Allah 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."

It's only natural for more primitive peoples to assume that their tribe and language was the root from whence we all came (monogenesis).

The major problem with the fable, is that if true, would have disrupted civilizations world-wide - archeological evidence shows conclusively that no such event occurred at the time most biblical scholars agree on: 2044 - 2007 B.C.E. One only needs to check the dates of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the Intermediate period. Just like the myth of the Great Deluge, it is a fairy tale best told to small children, not adopted as literal truth by adults.