Editing Tower of Babel (section)

=== 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>