Tower of Babel
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- GlobalSecurity.org - Tower of Babel
- McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia - Babel
- Ancient Origins - The Legendary Tower of Babel: What does it mean?
- Academia - Exegesis of Tower of Babel
- Associates For Biblical Research - Is there Archaeological Evidence for the Tower of Babel?
- JewishEncyclopedia.com - Tower of Babel
- Jewish Virtual Library - Tower of Babel
- Denison's Digital Commons - The Tower of Babel: The Dispersion of God's People
- Livius - The Tower of Babel
- Bible Odyssey - The Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel, in biblical literature, structure built in the land of Shinar (Babylonia) some time after the Deluge. The story of its construction, given in Genesis 11:1–9, appears to be an attempt to explain the existence of diverse human languages. According to Genesis, the Babylonians wanted to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and a tower “with its top in the heavens.” God disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that they could no longer understand one another. The city was never completed, and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth.
The myth may have been inspired by the Babylonian tower temple north of the Marduk temple, which in Babylonian was called Bab-ilu (“Gate of God”), Hebrew form Babel, or Bavel. The similarity in pronunciation of Babel and balal (“to confuse”) led to the play on words in Genesis 11:9: “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.”