ABSTRACT
In the Jehovistic version of the creation a feature of the myth of the expulsion is the apparent conflict between the thirst for knowledge and the will of the deity. In the story of Babel, the god is also opposed to the will of the people; it appears to impinge on his right to occupy heaven undisturbed. The Eden shows him opposed to eating that confers a knowledge of good and evil: the Babel myth shows him opposed to language because the common language confers on the people capacity to co-operate in building both a city and a tower, the latter facilitating entry into the god’s heaven. The punishment in Eden is expulsion from the garden: in the Babel story the integrity of the language is destroyed, each fragment becoming a new language, confusion supervenes and the differing language groups are scattered.
