Babel in time

A friend, Toby Sumpter, points out that the tower of Babel project must have taken a considerable time. Nimrod, who founds Babel/Babylon (Gen 10:10), was a great-grandson of Noah (Noah-Ham-Cush-Nimrod). But the earth was divided in the days of Peleg (10:25), in the sixth generation from Noah (11:10-17: Noah-Shem-Arpachshad-Shelah-Eber-Peleg), at the midpoint of the 10-generation span between Noah and Abraham. Thus, whatever the specific numbers, Babel/Babylon must have existed for several generations before Yahweh came down and scattered them. Plus, practically speaking, a project like the tower at Babel/Babylon would have taken a long time to plan and pursue.

This means that the story in Gen 11 is temporally compressed, and from beginning to end covers a century or more. The story is accurate, but we shouldn’t read it as if the tower went up one week, Yahweh came down the next, and instantly confused the languages of the earth. And this in turn means that the confusion of languages likely occurred over a considerable period of time. Gen 11 makes clear that it is a judgment from God but we have no reason to think it is an instantaneous one. Diachronic linguistic development was part of the process, and confused linguistic development was the focus of God’s judgment.