This series “The Tower of Babel” is part of the Section “God and Man Learning to Work Together – The Journey Begins” and consists of fourteen posts. The series proposes new explanations for why God destroyed the Tower of Babel.

Review of the previous post

The previous post, Number 5 of 14, was the second of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

Preview of this post

This post, Number 6 of 14, is the third of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

III. Explanations for the story

1. Retrospective explanation of plural languages

As mentioned in previous posts, a common explanation for the story of the Tower is that the story serves as the reason God forced humanity to have many different languages.

There is an apparent inconsistency between the concept of language as stated in Genesis 10 and in Genesis 11. However, it is easily explained by combining the next statement in the story with a map of the area^[1]. The next statement in the story is “And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. It is only logical that when the men and clans began their journey from the mountains of Ararat, they all spoke the same language. As stated in the Jewish Study Bible at page 23: “The mountains of Ararat refers to the hill country of ancient Urartu, a country in eastern Asia Minor, occupying parts of what is now Turkey, Iraq, Armenia and Iran (cf. 2 Kings 19:37; Jer. 51:27).” Again, viewing the map, it seems clear that the mountains of Ararat lie east of Babylon. Thus, it seems clear that the tribes of the sons of Noah began their journey all speaking the same language. However, when they ended their journeys they has traveled westward past Babylon and they settled in geographically separated regions. Living in geographically different regions without efficient communication naturally gives rise to differences in language and customs. As such, the descendants of these men would be expected to have adopted different customs and developed different languages. The text is not clear regarding the time lines so the beginning of Chapter 11 may be referring to when all of the men and clans began their journeys and the end of Chapter 10 may be referring to when the men and clans ended their journeys. The exact interpretation is not critical. What is crucial is that the actual story of the Tower occurs in Chapter 11 where it is stated that everyone had the same language.

Thus, the statements regarding language seem to be consistent: when the story begins, in Babylon, they spoke the same language, but when they finally settled their descendants spoke different languages.

The difference in language seems to be the subject of the story of the Tower of Babel.

As discussed above, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the difference in languages (geographic distance without efficient communication will create diversity in language and customs among people). Therefore, one explanation of this story is backward looking in that we all speak different languages, hence it must have been God’s wish for this. An explanation of this which would fit the Biblical narrative would be that the different languages were punishment for man’s hubris in building a tower to “make a name for ourselves” and in defiance of God’s will which would be vitiated by the establishment of one single common language; and rationalized by God: “If as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach….” as humans seeking to infringe on His power. The punishment for this hubris seemed to be quite mild: destruction of the Tower and multilingual status.

The explanation provided by Naham Sarna in “The JPS Torah Commentary Genesis” (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society,1989, hardback), is

“But the biblical Narrator is disturbed by the vast diversity of languages that characterizes the human race. Given the Bible’s presupposition that all mankind constitutes one great family traceable to a common ancestry, it become necessary to account for the rise of a polyglot humanity. The present narrative deals with this development. Conscious of the misunderstandings, discord, and strife that result from the disruption of commination between human beings, it looks upon the lack of a common language as a calamity that humankind has brought upon itself in consequence of its overweening pride and deliberate defiance of God’s will.”

Preview of the next post

The next post, Number 7 of 14, is the fourth of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel.

^[1] The map used is presented on page 27 of The Jewish Study Bible JPS Tanakh”(Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society of Philadelphia Oxford University Press, 1999.