This was not an innocent, scientifically naive, primitive effort to reach the highest heavens! It was, instead, a brilliant but blasphemous effort to dismiss forever the God who had commanded Noah and his three sons after the Flood to “ be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” ( Genesis 9:1). 1 The pyramids of Egypt and, much later, the great Mayan temples of Central America, reflected the design of the original Tower of Babel. In the centre of the room would be their “god” seated upon a throne! Nebuchadnezzar later rebuilt such a tower in Babylon, which the Sumerians had called E-TEMEN-AN-KI (‘the building of the foundation-platform of heaven and earth’). The inner walls, in all probability, were decorated with blue glazed tile, with the sun, the moon, and the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) lined up along the plane of the zodiac. And this is exactly what ancient Mesopotamian ziggurat temple-towers were for! The top compartment represented heaven. (The KJV italicizes “may reach”.)īut what happens when the Hebrew wording is translated literally? We then have “ a tower whose top into heaven.” (cf. First, were these Mesopotamians who descended from Noah’s family actually attempting to build “ a tower whose top reach into heaven” ( Genesis 11:4)? The clear answer is “No!” The NASB puts the words “will reach” in italics, which means that they are not in the original Hebrew text, but were added in an effort to make sense out of the wording. Let us now consider these three statements in order. “ In days the earth was divided” ( Genesis 10:25).And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” ( Genesis 11:6). “ Behold, they are all one people, and they all have the same language.“ Come, let us build for ourselves … a tower whose top will reach into heaven” ( Genesis 11:4).Mankind has never recovered.īut what really happened, and why? For centuries, Bible students have wondered about the following three statements:

Overwhelmed by fear and frustration, each family group moved away from the others. Thousands of workers suddenly found themselves incapable of communicating with anyone outside their extended family group.

Picture of tower of babel today