The Tower of Babel (/beɪbəl/; Hebrew: מִגְדַּל בָּבֶל, Migdal Bavel) is a story told in the Book of Genesis of the Jewish Bible meant to explain the origin of different languages. According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar (Hebrew: שנער). As the King James version of the Bible puts it: 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. —Genesis 11:4–9[1] The Tower of Babel has been associated with known structures according to some modern scholars, such as Stephen L. Harris, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk by Nabopolassar, king of Babylonia (c. 610 BC).[2][3] The Great Ziggurat of Babylons was 91 metres (300 ft) in height. Alexander the Great ordered it demolished circa 331 BCE in preparation for a reconstruction that his death forestalled.[4][5] A Sumerian story with some similar elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 02:08:17 +0000
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