The Tower of Babel
by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563)
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According to the narrative in Genesis 11 of the Bible, the Tower (Strong's H4026: מִגְדָּל migdal, nm. a tower so called for its height (Gen. 11:4), especially used of the tower of fortefied cities and castles. Also adj. great, large, big, huge; strong; rich; grand. From primitive root: גָּדַל gadal: to grow, become great or important, promote, make powerful, praise, magnify, do great things) of Babel (Strongs H894 בבל Babel, "confusion (by mixing)") was a tower built by a united humanity "whose top [may reach] unto heaven."(Gen. 11:4)

Because the hearts of men were said to be inherently evil and disobedient, they were striving to make a name for themselves instead of worshiping the God who created them.

Narrative

Figures de la Bible. Illustrated by Gerard Hoet, and others. Published by P. de Hondt in The Hague (La Haye). 1728. Image courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries.
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see also: Figures de la Bible

¹ Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ² And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in[1] the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone,[2] and bitumen for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower[3] with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." ⁵ And[4] the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. ⁶ And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

⁷ Come,[5] let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech." ⁸ So[6] the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. ⁹ Therefore its name was called[7] Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Historicity

‘The Confusion of Tongues’ by Gustave Doré (1865): the artist has based his conception on the Minaret of SamarraHistorical and Linguistic context
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"Reaching heaven" is a common description in temple tower inscriptions.

This is the type of structure referred to in the Biblical narrative, though artists and biblical scholars envisaged the tower in many different ways. 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 xxx">Minaret of Samarra, which very much resembles some depictions of the tower of Babel.

Ziggurats are among the largest religious structures ever built. Some suppose the Biblical narrative is a reaction to the ancient Mesopotamian system of beliefs reflected in these impressive structures, beliefs that ruled the hearts and minds of some of the greatest civilizations of ancient times.

The Hebrew version of the name of the city and the tower, Bavel, is attributed in Genesis 11:9 to the verb balal, which means to confuse or confound in Hebrew. The ruins of the ancient city of Babylon can be found in the city of Al Hillah, in modern-day Iraq, in the province of Babil, approximately 60 miles south of the city of Baghdad.

Various depictions of the Tower of Babel
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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.

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.

In Genesis 10, Babel is said to have formed part of Nimrod's kingdom. Although not specifically mentioned in the Bible that he ordered the tower to be built, Nimrod is often associated with its construction in other sources.

One recent theory first advanced by David Rohl associates Nimrod, the hunter, builder of Erech and Babel, with Enmerkar (i.e. Enmer the Hunter) king of Uruk, also said to have been the first builder of the Eridu temple. (Amar-Sin (c. 2046-2037 BC), third monarch of the Third Dynasty of Ur, later attempted to complete the Eridu ziggurat. see also Great ziggurat of Ur ) This theory proposes that the actual remains of the Tower of Babel are in fact the much older ruins of the ziggurat of Eridu, just south of Ur, rather than those of Babylon, where the story was later transposed. Among the reasons for this association are the larger size of the ruins, the older age of the ruins, and the fact that one title of Eridu was NUN.KI ("mighty place"), which later became a title of Babylon. Both cities also had temples called the E-Sagila.

Traditionally, the peoples listed in Genesis 10 (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 a 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).

The ziggurat of Babylon

In 440 BC Herodotus wrote:

Babylon's outer wall is the main defence of the city. There is, however, a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength. The center of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter(Zeus) Belus (compare Belus (Babylonian), Belus (Egyptian), a square enclosure two furlongs [402 m] each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong [201 m] in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about half-way up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is chosen for himself by the deity out of all the women of the land.

This Tower of Jupiter Belus is believed to refer to the Akkadian god Bel, whose name has been hellenised by Herodotus to Zeus Belus. It is likely that it corresponds to the giant ziggurat to Marduk (Etemenanki), an ancient ziggurat which was abandoned, falling into ruin due to earthquakes, and lightning damaging the clay. This huge ziggurat, and its downfall is thought by many academics to have inspired the story of the Tower of Babel. However, it would also fit nicely into the Biblical narrative — providing some archaeological support for the story. More evidence can be gleaned from what King Nebuchadnezzar inscribed on the ruins of this ziggurat. See also: Great Ziggurat of Ur

In 570s BC, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, seeking to restore the ziggurat, wrote of its ruinous state,

A former king built [the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth], but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time earthquakes and lightning had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great lord, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site, nor did I take away the foundation stone ? as it had been in former times. So I founded it, I made it; as it had been in ancient days, I so exalted the summit.

In other sources

The destruction

1. Now the sons of Noah were three,--Shem, Japhet, and Ham, born one hundred years before the Deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God; for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible, by experience, of what sin they had been guilty: for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this their disobedience to the Divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be Oppressed.

2. 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 was 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. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

3. 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; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them divers 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 every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon." But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."[8]

Jubilees

Tower of Babel as
envisioned by Athanasius Kircher.

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)

Midrash

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, not cited in the Bible, 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 sinful generation even wanted to war against God in heaven (Talmud Sanhedrin 109a.) They were encouraged in this wild undertaking by the notion that arrows which 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, Noah, ed. Leghorn, 12b). 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.

Apocalypse of Baruch

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)

Qur'an and Islamic traditions

Another story in Sura 2:96 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.

Other traditions

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)

The Estonian myth of " the Cooking of Languages " (Kohl, Reisen in die 'Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 251-255) has also been compared, as well as the Australian myth of the origin of the diversity of speech (Gerstacker, Reisen, vol. iv. pp. 381 seq.).

Height of the tower

The biblical Tower of Babel however would have been built about 2000 years earlier. The narrative in the book of Genesis does not mention how tall the tower was, and thus it has traditionally not been much of a subject of debate. There are however at least two extra-canonical sources that mention the tower's height.

The Book of Jubilees mentions the tower's height as being 5433 cubits and 2 palms (8,150 feet, 2,484 meters high). This would be approximately four times taller than the world's tallest structures of today and the tallest edifice in all of human history. Such a claim would be considered as false to most scholars since builders in such ancient times would be considered incapable of building a structure nearly 2.5 kilometers tall.

The other extra-canonical source is found in the Third Apocalypse of Baruch; it mentions that the 'tower of strife' reached a height of 463 cubits (694 feet and 6 inches, 212 meters high). This would be taller than any other structure built in the ancient world such as the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza, Egypt and taller than any structure built in human history until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. A tower of such a height in the ancient world would have been so incredible as to warrant its reputation and mention in the Bible and later texts.

Popular culture and modern influence

In Architecture

• Several large tower projects have evoked Babel in their designs. The unbuilt Palace of Soviets in Moscow, with its receding tiers of cylindrical masses, was to have held the World Congress of Soviets. The Burj Dubai, is also reminiscent.

In Television

• There is a card called the "Tower of Babel" in the anime, Yu-Gi-Oh.
• The large tower-like energy weapons in the anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water are referred to as the Towers of Babel.
• The television series Babylon 5 is in great part based on the story of Babylon and the tower of Babel. Like in Babylon, Babylon 5 has hanging gardens, and like the tower of Babel, it is a gathering place for all people to build a common goal. This upsets the divine-like characters, the Vorlon and the Shadows. Whether the people of Babylon 5 are more successful than their biblical counterparts at reaching the metaphorical heavens is left to the audience's interpretation.

In Film

• In Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the story of the Tower of Babel is told by the evangelist Maria to a crowd of workers under the city. The moral she attaches to the story and the city's huge skyscrapers foreshadow the film's ending.
• In the 1927 and 2001 film versions of Metropolis, the newly-rebuilt Tower of Babel (known in the 2001 anime film version as the Ziggurat) is the symbol of the titular grand city-state and the center of human imperial power. In the 2001 anime film version, the superhuman robot clone of Duke Red's daughter, Tima is to sit on her throne to activate the Ziggurat's revolutionary solar superweapon of mass destruction in order to achieve the goal of reaching the stars and domination of the entire Earth. Like the Tower of Babel, the new Tower/Ziggurat was destroyed.
• The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze), a 1965 Czechoslovak film directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, makes reference to the Tower of Babel. In this film, the tower is a wooden eyesore constructed by the Slovaks who are loyal to German fascists. In addition to a multitude of other Christian symbols, it serves in illustrating the fact that the Nazis are playing God by liquidating Jewish individuals.
• There is an animated film called "Tower of Babel" by Jan Mimra, a Czech animator. In the 1966 movie The Bible there is a short segment that portrays the construction of the tower and the confusing of the languages per the book of Genesis. However, it inaccurately shows the tower being destroyed.
• In an episode of the anime Vandread, the main characters stumble upon a planet with a tower similar in structure to the Tower of Babel but which is used by the Earth to 'harvest'. Later in the episode, the water ocean around the tower rises, making all of the inhabitants climb the tower in a ceremony they think is salvation.
• The filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu is directing a film called "Babel", in which an ensemble of actors, including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, struggle with their ability to communicate.

In Music

• In the song "Der Schacht Von Babel" from the album "Ende Neu" by Einstürzende Neubauten, instead of building the Tower of Babel skywards, it is dug deep into the earth as a shaft or tunnel.
• The second song on Elton John's autobiographical album "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" is called "Tower of Babel" in accordance with the Western Country style of the album. Rocker and poetess Patti Smith makes frequent use of Babel-related imagery in her work.
• In the Gorillaz music video for "Feel Good, Inc.", it has been suggested that the Tower in the sky represents the Tower of Babel, symbolizing hedonism and excess arrogance, as the Gorillaz had felt that they experienced from immense success.
• The Bad Religion song "Skyscraper" is generally thought to criticize the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The song's lyrics suggest that the story depicts God unfairly holding back human potential.
• The Tool song "Schism" has references to the Tower of Babel. "Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication..We cannot see to reach an end crippling our communication..Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over to bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication". These suggest a tie into the biblical story. Schism also means "separation".
• A song from the Chilean band Los Tres is called "La Torre de Babel (Tower of Babel)", in the song is mentioned that in the tower live 50 cigarettes and a cigar.
• In the Japanese rock artist HYDE's song "DOLLY" from his album "FAITH", human technology is said to be the new Tower of Babel with which humans will once again try to attain godliness and disregard natural and moral law. The particular subject here is cloning (hence, the title "DOLLY").
• The Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins album contains a song titled "It Wasn't Me" that includes the lyrics "I've gone and quit my worshiping/Of the false gods and golden sins/Cause we've made love in the Tower of Babel and it fell down".
• Santa Sabina (band) a Jazz/Rock band entitled an album called "Babel", including a track with the same name.
• Amy Ray of Indigo Girls wrote a song called "The Ballad of Squeaky Fromme" which include the lyrics, "Now someone's sittin' in the Tower of Babel, givin' them their power".

In Literature

• The Babel legend has appeared regularly in western literature and art since the Middle Ages - for a chronology see The Virtual Babel Encyclopedia. The image of language multiplication as a curse instead of enriching has been used in the promotion of international auxiliary languages. However, in Douglas Adams' science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a "Babel fish" is a fictional fish that one can insert into one's ear, and thus be able to understand any language in the universe.
• Jorge Luis Borges' 1941 story, "The Library of Babel," depicts an universe comprised of hexagonal chambers, each containing the same number of books with the same amount of characters. No two books are exactly alike with the universe consisting of every possible letter combination within a finite number of pages. Inhabitants of Borges' universe drive themselves insane searching for a book with meaning.
• Franz Kafka's story "The City Coat of Arms" is a retelling of the Babel story, and he also alludes to it elsewhere, as in this fragment: "If it had been possible to build the tower of Babel without ascending it, the work would have been permitted."
• Robert Sawyer's Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy alludes to the Tower of Babel when discussing the engineering difficulties of a space elevator. And it has been suggested in Neal Stephenson's science fiction book Snow Crash that the line, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven", (or "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky", New JPS Translation) actually refers to the sky charts painted in the top of the ziggurats of ancient Babylon. Snow Crash also speculates much more on the Tower's real meanings: according to the book, the Tower of Babel was a metaphor. Following the spreading of the Asherah virus, which made evolution in the Sumerian society practically non-existent, the god Enki (portrayed as a priest who happens to be the first hacker in history), as a counter-measure, produces a nam-shub -- a spell that stops everyone from speaking the Sumerian language. This way, the Asherah virus, which used oral and verbal means of transmission, was stopped.
• Some recent commentators (e.g. Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler) have claimed similarities between the materialistic stance of the "tower builders" and the dialectic materialism of communism.
• Primo Levi makes reference to the Tower of Babel and the Tower of Buna in "If This is a Man", to emphasise many aspects of the location such as the large number of languages and foriengn workers that the camp contained
• Ted Chiang's award-winning short story "Tower of Babylon" depicts the events that might have occurred if the Tower of Babel project had been completed.
• In Yuichi Kumakura's King of Bandit: Jing anime and manga, the first adventure undertook by the thief takes place in "The City of Thieves", which was apparently designed on the Tower of Babel.
• In Stephen King's Cell (novel) King likens the world wide wireless network to the Tower of Babel, "They saw we had built the Tower of Babel all over again..and on nothing but electronic cobwebs. And in a space of seconds they bushed the cobwebs aside and our Tower fell."
• The Tower of Babel plays a prominent role in Jonathan Carroll's novel "Outside the Dog Museum."
• That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis is based on the story of the Tower of Babel.
• In the Queen song The Miracle, the Tower of Babel is mentioned directly.
• The JLA story arc "Tower of Babel" concerns the villain Ra's al Ghul rendering all human language indecipherable as part of a plan to destroy the Justic League.

Notes

1. « Genesis 11:2: Genesis 10:10; 14:1, 9; Isa 11:11; Dan 1:2; Zech 5:11
2. « Genesis 11:3: Genesis 14:10; Exodus 2:3
3. « Genesis 11:4: Deut 1:28
4. « Genesis 11:5: Genesis 18:21
5. « Genesis 11:7: Genesis 1:26; Psalm 2:4
6. « Genesis 11:8: Genesis 10:25, 32; Luke 1:51
7. « Genesis 11:9: Genesis 10:10
8. « The Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Wiston. CHAPTER 4. Concerning The Tower Of Babylon, And The Confusion Of Tongues. Retrieved 9/1/2010
9. « The Book of Jubilees, translated by R. H. Charles
10. « 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…
11. « Entry on "Sack" in Betty Kirkpatrick (ed), Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1992.
12. « 145f.: an-ki ningin2-na ung3 sang sig10-ga den-lil2-ra eme 1-am3 he2-en-na-da-ab-dug4.
13. « Rohl, David. Legend: The Genesis of Civilization, 1998.
14. « Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament(1918), chap. 5.
15. « Folk-lore in the Old Testament by James George Frazer, p. 384 ff.
16. « Kohl, Reisen in die 'Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 251-255
17. « Bukatman, Scott. Blade Runner. BFI modern classics. London: British Film Institute, 1997. ISBN 0851706231. p. 62-63.
18. « Selections from Giovanni's Chronicle in English.

References

• 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).