Tower of Babel

In the beginning, the whole world spoke one language. As the people migrated to the East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar to live. The location of Shinar encompassed both Babylon (Babel) and Uruk (Erech). Here they made bricks of clay and baked them in fire. These bricks were used as stones and asphalt as mortar. The Babylonian soil is still celebrated for these architectural materials. Here a fine clay, mingled with sand, forms the very best material for brick, while stones are not to be found at a convenient distance. Asphalt is found boiling up from the soil in the neighborhood of Babylon and of the Dead Sea, which is hence called the "Lacus Asphaltites".

The people then decided to build themselves a city with a tower that has its top reaching up into heaven, so that they could make a name for themselves and not be scattered all over the earth. God came down to see the city and the tower the people were building and said “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other". So God made the people speak many different languages so they could not work together on building the city and tower. Then He scattered the people around the world and the city was abandoned. The city was called "Babel" because God confused their languages.

On the surface, the Tower of Babel offers an explanation for the many different languages spoken on earth. But there is much more to this. In ancient times, people thought the heavens were not far above the earth. If only they could build a tower to the sky, they could climb up and be like God themselves. Mankind had once again lost sight of God and become arrogant and self-sufficient.