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The Tower of Babel

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THE TOWER OF BABEL

The Tower of Babel ( oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563) Courtesy of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Genesis 11:1 – 9, the Babylonians wanted to build a tower "with its top in the heavens." Angry at their presumption, God disrupted the enterprise by confusing the languages of the workers so that they could no longer understand each other. The tower was left unfinished and the people dispersed over the face of the earth. The myth may have been inspired by a tower temple located north of the Marduk temple and known as Bab-ilu ("Gate of God").
It was an edifice built after the Flood by the men of Shinar (Babylonia) in their attempt to reach heaven. All the people of the world at that time only spoke a single language. But with Babylonians’ intention to make a name and to avoid dispersal over the earth; they built and constructed a tower which would reach the heaven. However, as God was mad of their presumption, their audacity was punished by confounding their language to prevent them from communicating with one another and they were dispersed throughout the world (Gen 11:1-9). The name Babel (Babylon) derives from the Hebrew word "to confuse".
It was Nimrod who led and successfully excited the Babylonians to cause such an offended act and contempt to God. Nimrod, a tyrant, was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded the Babylonians not to ascribe to God, as if it were through his means they were being happy. He made them to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on ones power. Then, the multitude were prepared to follow the determination of Nimrod and to esteem it a

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