ABSTRACT
The biblical myth of the Tower of Babel begins:
“Throughout the earth men spoke the same language,” with the same words. The people united to build a city and a tower with its top reaching to heaven, “to make a name” for themselves. God saw this unity, “one people with one language,” had resulted in a drive for power and decided that man would stop at nothing to achieve his ends. He confused their language so that they could not understand one another. He scattered them over the face of the whole earth and they stopped building their city. It was named Babel because there God confused the language of the earth. Inflated power resulted in a disintegration of the original union. This led to the formation of diverse languages and nations.
Quoted extracts from The Jerusalem Bible 1968: Genesis 11. 1–9