Editing Tower of Babel (section)

== Later literature ==
=== Book of Jubilees ===
The [[Book of Jubilees]] contains one of the most detailed accounts found anywhere of the Tower.
{{Blockquote|text=And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar. And they built it: forty and three years were they building it; its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height [of a brick] was the third of one; its height amounted to 5433 [[cubit]]s and 2 palms, and [the extent of one wall was] thirteen [[Stadion (unit of length)|stades]] [and of the other thirty stades].|source=Jubilees 10:20–21, Charles' 1913 translation}}

=== Pseudo-Philo ===
In [[Pseudo-Philo]], the direction for the building is ascribed not only to Nimrod, who is made prince of the [[Hamites]], but also to [[Joktan]], as prince of the [[Semites]], and to Phenech son of [[Dodanim]], as prince of the [[Japhetite]]s. Twelve men are arrested for refusing to bring bricks, including [[Abraham]], [[Lot (Bible)|Lot]], [[Nahor, son of Terah|Nahor]], and several sons of Joktan. However, Joktan finally saves the twelve from the wrath of the other two princes.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/bap/bap22.htm |title=The Biblical Antiquities of Philo |publisher=SPCK |location=London |date=1917 |translator-first=M. R. |translator-last=James |translator-link=M. R. James| pages=90–94}}</ref>

=== Josephus' ''Antiquities of the Jews'' ===
[[File:Tour de babel.jpeg|thumb|''Tower of Babel'', by [[Lucas van Valckenborch]], 1594, [[Louvre Museum]]]]

The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, in his ''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'' ({{circa|94&nbsp;CE}}), recounted history as found in the [[Hebrew Bible]] and mentioned the Tower of Babel. He wrote that it was Nimrod who had the tower built and that Nimrod was a tyrant who tried to turn the people away from God. In this account, God confused the people rather than destroying them because annihilation with a Flood had not taught them to be godly.<blockquote>
Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into [[tyranny]], seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power... Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of [[bitumen]], that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners <nowiki>[in the Flood]</nowiki>; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion. The [[Sibyl]] also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus:—"When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave everyone a peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon."</blockquote>

=== Greek Apocalypse of Baruch ===
[[Third Apocalypse of Baruch]] (or 3 Baruch, c. 2nd century), one of the [[pseudepigrapha]], describes the just rewards of sinners and the righteous in the afterlife.<ref name="Harris" /> Among the sinners are those who instigated the Tower of Babel. In the account, Baruch is first taken (in a vision) to see the resting place of the souls of "those who built the tower of strife against God, and the Lord banished them." Next he is shown another place, and there, occupying the form of dogs,
{{Blockquote|text=Those who gave counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks; among whom, a woman making bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child-birth, but brought forth while she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and continued to make bricks. And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a [[Gimlet (tool)|gimlet]], and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, "Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron." When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest.|source=Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 3:5–8}}

=== Midrash ===
[[Rabbinic literature]] offers many different accounts of other causes for building the Tower of Babel, and of the intentions of its builders. According to one midrash the builders of the Tower, called "the generation of secession" in the Jewish sources, said: "God has no right to choose the upper world for Himself, and to leave the lower world to us; therefore we will build us a tower, with an idol on the top holding a sword, so that it may appear as if it intended to war with God" ([[Genesis Rabbah|Gen. R.]] [https://archive.org/stream/RabbaGenesis/midrashrabbahgen027557mbp#page/n353/mode/2up xxxviii. 7]; Tan., ed. Buber, Noah, xxvii. et seq.).

The building of the Tower was meant to bid defiance not only to God, but also to Abraham, who exhorted the builders to reverence. The passage mentions that the builders spoke sharp words against God, saying that once every 1,656 years, heaven tottered so that the water poured down upon the earth, therefore they would support it by columns that there might not be another deluge (Gen. R. l.c.; Tan. l.c.; similarly Josephus, "Ant." i. 4, § 2).

Some among that generation even wanted to war against God in heaven (Talmud Sanhedrin 109a). They were encouraged in this undertaking by the notion that arrows that they shot into the sky fell back dripping with blood, so that the people really believed that they could wage war against the inhabitants of the heavens ([[Sefer haYashar (midrash)|Sefer ha-Yashar]], Chapter 9:12–36). According to Josephus and Midrash Pirke R. El. xxiv., it was mainly Nimrod who persuaded his contemporaries to build the Tower, while other rabbinical sources assert, on the contrary, that Nimrod separated from the builders.<ref name="JE" />

According to another midrashic account, one third of the Tower builders were punished by being transformed into semi-demonic creatures and banished into three parallel dimensions, inhabited now by their descendants.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/lginzberg/bl-lginzberg-legends-1-4l.htm |title=Legends of the Jews, Volume 1 |first=Louis |last=Ginzberg |author-link=Louis Ginzberg|location=New York |date=1909  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151001053501/http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/lginzberg/bl-lginzberg-legends-1-4l.htm|archive-date=1 October 2015}}</ref>

=== Islamic tradition ===
[[File:Turris Babel by Athanasius Kircher.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.9|''[[Turris Babel]]'' from [[Athanasius Kircher]]]]

Although not mentioned by name, the [[Quran]] has a story with similarities to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, although set in the Egypt of Moses: [[Pharaoh]] asks [[Haman (Islam)|Haman]] to build him a stone (or clay) tower so that he can mount up to heaven and confront the [[God]] of Moses.<ref>Pickthal, M. "Quran" (in English), Suras 28:36 and 40:36–37. Amana Publishers, UK 1996</ref>

Another story in [[Sura 2]]:102 mentions the name of [[Babil]], but tells of when the two angels [[Harut and Marut]] taught magic to some people in Babylon and warned them that magic is a sin and that their teaching them magic is a test of faith.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://quran.com/2/102 |title=Surat Al-Baqarah [2:102&#93; – The Noble Qur'an – القرآن الكريم |publisher=Quran.com |access-date=7 November 2013}}</ref>
A tale about Babil appears more fully in the writings of [[Yaqut al-Hamawi|Yaqut]] (i, 448 f.) and the ''{{Interlanguage link|Lisān al-ʿArab|ar|3=لسان العرب}}'' (xiii. 72), but without the tower: mankind were swept together by winds into the plain that was afterward called "Babil", where they were assigned their separate languages by God, and were then scattered again in the same way. In the ''[[History of the Prophets and Kings (book)|History of the Prophets and Kings]]'' by the 9th-century Muslim theologian [[Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari|al-Tabari]], a fuller version is given: Nimrod has the tower built in Babil, God destroys it, and the language of mankind, formerly [[Syriac language|Syriac]], is then confused into 72 languages. Another Muslim historian of the 13th century, [[Abu al-Fida]] relates the same story, adding that the patriarch [[Eber]] (an ancestor of Abraham) was allowed to keep the original tongue, [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] in this case, because he would not partake in the building.<ref name="JE">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Morris |last1=Jastrow |author-link1=Morris Jastrow |first2=Ira Maurice |last2=Price |first3=Marcus |last3=Jastrow |author-link3=Marcus Jastrow |first4=Louis |last4=Ginzberg |author-link4=Louis Ginzberg |author-link5=Duncan Black MacDonald|first5=Duncan B. |last5=MacDonald |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2279-babel-tower-of |title=Babel, Tower of |encyclopedia=[[Jewish Encyclopedia]] |publisher=Funk & Wagnalls |location=New York |date=1906|pages=395–398}}</ref>

Although variations similar to the biblical narrative of the Tower of Babel exist within Islamic tradition, the central theme of God separating humankind on the basis of language is alien to Islam according to the author [[Yahiya Emerick]]. In Islamic belief, he argues, God created nations to know each other and not to be separated.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Emerick|first1=Yahiya|title=The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam|date=2002|publisher=Alpha|location=Indianapolis|isbn=9780028642338|page=108|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T9OkFB--ScEC&pg=PA108}}</ref>

===Book of Mormon===
In the [[Book of Mormon]], a man named [[Jared (Book of Mormon)|Jared]] and his family ask God that their language not be confounded at the time of the "great tower". Because of their prayers, God preserves their language and leads them to the [[Valley of Nimrod]]. From there, they travel across the sea to the Americas.<ref>[[Book of Ether|Ether]] {{lds||ether|1|33|38}}</ref>

Despite no mention of the Tower of Babel in the original text of the Book of Mormon, some leaders in [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church) assert that the "great tower" was indeed the Tower of Babel – as in the 1981 introduction to the Book of Mormon – despite the chronology of the [[Book of Ether]] aligning more closely with the 21st century BC Sumerian tower temple myth of [[Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta]] to the goddess [[Innana]].<ref>[[Daniel H. Ludlow]], ''A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon'' p. 117, quoted in [[Church Educational System]] (1996, rev. ed.). [http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/bm-in-sm1996/manualindex.asp ''Book of Mormon Student Manual''] (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), ch. 6.</ref> Church apologists have also supported this connection and argue the reality of the Tower of Babel: "Although there are many in our day who consider the accounts of the Flood and tower of Babel to be fiction, Latter-day Saints affirm their reality."<ref>{{citation |url= https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1998/01/the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel?lang=eng |title= The Flood and the Tower of Babel |last= Parry |first= Donald W. |author-link= Donald W. Parry |journal= [[Ensign (LDS magazine)|Ensign]] |date= January 1998 }}</ref> In either case, the church firmly believes in the factual nature of at least one "great tower" built in the region of ancient Sumer/Assyria/Babylonia.

===Gnosticism===
In [[Gnosticism|Gnostic]] tradition recorded in the [[Paraphrase of Shem]], a tower, interpreted as the Tower of Babel, is brought by demons along with the [[Flood myth|great flood]]:

{{blockquote|And he caused the flood, and he destroyed your (Shem's) race, to take the light and to take away from faith. But I proclaimed quickly by the mouth of the demon that a tower come up to be up to the particle of light, which was left in the demons and their race – which was water – that the demon might be protected from the turbulent chaos. And the womb planned these things according to my will, that she might pour forth completely. A tower came to be through the demons. The darkness was disturbed by his loss. He loosened the muscles of the womb. And the demon who was going to enter the tower was protected so that the races might continue to acquire coherence through him.<ref>{{cite book|author1=[[Marvin Meyer]]|author2=[[Willis Barnstone]]|title=The Gnostic Bible|publisher=[[Shambhala Publications|Shambhala]]|chapter=The Paraphrase of Shem|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1SEFmwEACAAJ|date= 2009|isbn=9781590306314 |access-date=2022-02-14}}</ref>}}[[File:Confusion of Tongues.png|thumb|upright=.9|''The Confusion of Tongues'' by [[Gustave Doré]], an [[engraving]] depicting the Tower of Babel]]