Editing Tower of Babel (section)

== Analysis ==
[[File:Meister der Weltenchronik 001.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Late medieval German depiction of the Tower being constructed, from a manuscript of [[Rudolf von Ems]]' ''{{lang|de|Weltchronik}}'', cgm 5 fol. 29r ({{c.|1370s}})]]

=== Genre ===
The Tower of Babel is a type of myth known as an [[Origin myth|etiology]], which is intended to explain the origin of a custom, ritual, geographical feature, name, or other phenomenon—namely the origins of the multiplicity of languages.<ref name="coogan">{{cite book |last1=Coogan |first1=Michael D. |title=A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: the Hebrew Bible in its Context |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195332728}}</ref>{{rp|426}} The confusion of tongues ({{langx|la|confusio linguarum}}) resulting from the construction of the Tower of Babel accounts for the fragmentation of human languages: God was concerned that humans had blasphemed by building the tower to avoid a second flood and so God brought into existence multiple languages, rendering humanity unable to understand each other.{{r|coogan|page1=51}}

Prior to this event, humanity was stated to speak a single language, although the preceding Genesis 10:5 states that the descendants of [[Japheth]], [[Gomer]], and [[Javan]] dispersed "with their own tongues".<ref>{{bibleverse||Genesis|10:5|HE}}</ref> [[Augustine of Hippo]] explained this apparent contradiction by arguing that the story "without mentioning it, goes back to tell how it came about that the one language common to all men was broken up into many tongues".<ref name="Louth et al">{{cite book |last1=Louth |first1=Andrew |title=Genesis 1–11; Volume 1 |last2=Oden |first2=Thomas C. |last3=Conti |first3=Marco |date=2001 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=1579582206 |page=164}}</ref> Modern scholarship has traditionally held that the two chapters were written by different sources, the former by the [[Priestly source]] and the latter by the [[Jahwist]]. However, that theory has been debated among scholars in recent years.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hiebert |first=Theodore |date=Spring 2007 |title=The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World's Cultures |journal=[[Journal of Biblical Literature]] |volume=126 |issue=1 |pages=31–32 |jstor=27638419}}</ref>

=== Themes ===
The story's theme of competition between God and humans appears elsewhere in Genesis, in the story of [[Adam and Eve]] in the [[Garden of Eden]].<ref name="Harris">{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=Stephen L.|author-link1=Stephen L. Harris|title=Understanding the Bible: A Reader's Introduction|date=1985|publisher=Mayfield|location=Palo Alto|isbn=9780874846966}}</ref> The first century Jewish interpretation found in [[Flavius Josephus]] explains the construction of the tower as a [[hubris]]tic act of defiance against God ordered by the arrogant tyrant [[Nimrod]].

There have been some contemporary challenges to this classical interpretation, with emphasis placed on the explicit motive of cultural and linguistic homogeneity mentioned in the narrative (11:1, 4, 6); this reading of the text sees God's actions not as a punishment for pride, but as an etiology of [[cultural differences]], presenting Babel as the [[cradle of civilization]].<ref name="hiebert">{{cite journal|last1=Hiebert|first1=Theodore|title=The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World's Cultures|journal=Journal of Biblical Literature|date=2007|volume=126|issue=1|pages=29–58|jstor=27638419}}</ref>

=== Height ===
The Book of Genesis does not specify the tower's height; the phrase "its top in the sky" (11:4) was an idiom for impressive height, rather than implying arrogance.{{r|hiebert|page1=37}} The [[Book of Jubilees]] 10:21 mentions the tower's height as being 5,433 cubits and 2 palms ({{cvt|2484|m|feet mi|sigfig=3|disp=semicolon}}), about three times the height of [[Burj Khalifa]].

The [[apocrypha]]l [[3 Baruch|Third Apocalypse of Baruch]] mentions that the "tower of strife" reached a height of 463 cubits ({{cvt|211.8|m|ft|sigfig=3|disp=semicolon}}), taller than any structure built [[Timeline of three tallest structures in the world|in human history]] until the construction of the [[Eiffel Tower]] in 1889, which is {{convert|324|m|ft|sigfig=3}} in height.

[[Gregory of Tours]] writing {{circa|594}}, quotes the earlier historian [[Paulus Orosius|Orosius]] ({{circa|417}}) as saying the tower was "laid out foursquare on a very level plain. Its wall, made of baked brick cemented with pitch" is 50 cubits in width by 200 cubits in length ({{cvt|23|by|91.5|m|ft|disp=semicolon}}), and 470 [[stadia (length)|stades]] ({{cvt|82.72|km|mi|disp=semicolon}}) in [[circumference]]. A ''stade'' was an ancient Greek unit of length, based on the circumference of a typical sports stadium of the time which was about {{convert|176|m|feet}}.<ref name="engels">Donald Engels (1985). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/295030 The Length of Eratosthenes' Stade]. ''American Journal of Philology'' '''106''' (3): 298–311. {{subscription required}}.</ref> The description continues, "Twenty-five [[gate]]s are situated on each side, which make in all one hundred. The doors of these gates, which are of wonderful size, are cast in bronze. The same historian tells many other tales of this city, and says: 'Although such was the glory of its building still it was conquered and destroyed.{{'"}}<ref>Gregory of Tours, ''History of the Franks'', from the 1916 translation by Earnest Brehaut, Book I, chapter 6. Available online in [http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gregory-hist.asp#book3 abridged form].</ref>

A typical medieval account is given by [[Giovanni Villani]] (1300): He relates that "it measured eighty miles [130&nbsp;km] round, and it was already 4,000 [[paces]] high [{{cvt|5.92|km|mi|2|disp=semicolon}}] and 1,000 paces thick, and each pace is three of our feet."<ref>[http://www.elfinspell.com/VillaniBook1a.html#sect2 Selections from Giovanni's ''Chronicle'' in English].</ref> The 14th-century traveler [[John Mandeville]] also included an account of the tower and reported that its height had been 64 [[furlong]]s ({{cvt|13|km|mi|0|disp=semicolon}}, according to the local inhabitants.

The 17th-century historian [[Verstegan]] provides yet another figure{{snd}}quoting Isidore, he says that the tower was 5,164 paces high ({{cvt|7.6|km|mi|1|disp=semicolon}}), and quoting Josephus that the tower was wider than it was high, more like a mountain than a tower. He also quotes unnamed authors who say that the spiral path was so wide that it contained lodgings for workers and animals, and other authors who claim that the path was wide enough to have fields for growing [[grain]] for the animals used in the construction.

In his book, ''Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down'', [[J. E. Gordon]] considers the height of the Tower of Babel. He wrote, "brick and stone weigh about 120&nbsp;lb per [[cubic foot]] (2,000&nbsp;kg per cubic metre) and the crushing strength of these materials is generally rather better than 6,000&nbsp;lbs per square inch or 40 mega-pascals. Elementary arithmetic shows that a tower with parallel walls could have been built to a height of {{cvt|2.1|km|mi|1}} before the bricks at the bottom were crushed. However, by making the walls taper towards the top they ... could well have been built to a height where the men of Shinnar would run short of oxygen and had difficulty in breathing before the brick walls crushed beneath their own dead weight."