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 3 of 14, presented some questions raised by the story.

Preview of this post

This post, Number 4 of 14, is the first of seven posts presenting some possible explanations for the God’s destruction of the Tower of Babel and explores some legends associated with the Tower of Babel story.

III. Explanations for the story

1. Legends

As reported by Louis Ginzberg in Legends of the Bible (Philadelphia, PA, The Jewish Publication Society of America 1975, hardback), Nimrod instigated the building of the Tower of Babel as a rebellion against God in order to wage war against God, or to set up idols in heaven or to ruin heaven with bows and arrows. When the Tower reached a great height, warriors ascended and shot arrows into heaven. In retaliation, God confounded their language so that they could not continue erecting the tower because the builders would not be able to follow instructions and set the warriors against each other. Two-thirds of the Tower was destroyed with one-third remaining. The remaining portion causes passers-by to forget all he knows. The punishment given to the builders was lenient because they loved each other whereas the Nephilim hated each other and thus warranted total destruction while the Tower builders were spared. Note that the legend affirms that part of the tower remained (see explanation point number B below).

Other legends connect the inhabitants of Babel with Adam in the following way. In Genesis 4:16, it is stated that “Cain left the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod^[1], east of Eden.” Some^[2] identify the sons of Noah with the sons of Cain, and hence sons of Adam and Eve. Then, the Bible traces the lineage from Noah’s son Ham to his son Nimrod. Hebrew myth then theorizes that there was war between Nimrod and the sons of Japeth (another son of Noah). These myths declare Nimrod the victor over both the sons of Japeth and Shem and have him crowned king. As king, Nimrod built a city which he called Shinear. Nimrod then attempts to build the tower of Babel in order to protect the people by giving them ground that is higher than Mt. Ararat as refuge in case God decides to send another flood (which clearly implies that the humans did not trust God’s promise to Noah not to bring another flood to destroy the world, hence implying that humans did not trust God, which is blasphemous in and of itself). As reported in the Bible, they also planned an assault on heaven via the tower.

Preview of the next post

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

[1] “Nod” in Hebrew means “wondering,” thus, Cain was a wandering in the land of wondering.

[2] See, Sir Walter Raleigh in The History of the World, and Dryden in his essay “Virgil and Aeneid”.