Julio

Is it only a tale, or did something specific happen?
Please, explain to me:
1. “the whole earth” meant what?
2. “heaven” meant what [whose top may reach unto heaven]?
...
1 - And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 - And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 - And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 - And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 - And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 - And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 - Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 - So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 - Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
[Genesis 11, KJV]

GakuseiDon

1. The known world.
2. The firmament, that big blue dome you can see overhead. It's made of iron or crystal, and God sits in a throne above it.

Toto

It's a creationist myth meant to explain why there is a diversity of languages. There's no reason to think that there was any historical event behind it.

Check out Robert Pennock's Tower of Babel (or via: amazon.co.uk)

rizdek

It's a bedtime story parents told their kids when they asked too many questions. Just like the creation myth, The flood, etc. Other cultures had similar stories, but the Bible seem to be particularly effective at convincing many people today that these fairy tales are acts of their god.

Julio

Yes. But how is a Christian to explain the reason for Jehovah to get upset with the tower?
And, how many languages were spoken in those days? Two, three?

John Kesler

Some previous threads about the Tower of Babel:
http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...d.php?t=181253
http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...d.php?t=195554
http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...d.php?t=142265

Julio

Thanks for the links.
Why would the story put Yahweh upset with a tower made of bricks?
That's what I would like to know [from a Christian's point of view, if possible].

semiopen

This seems more ridiculous than the flood since the concept that this is the start of different languages is clearly false (in addition to the other issues).

Yet literalists believe it.

Julio

But the confusion with languages must have started around that time, with a "world population" of some few thousand souls.
What do you think about that?

Toto

It's totally wrong as far as history and linguistics.

Pennock explains how the Tower story is impossible, given the known languages and their rates of change.

This thread from 2006 in the archives Development of Languages - does the OT describe it accurately? has the information that you are looking for.