The tower of Babel
Beginnings · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 39966cbca5e30102 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: not assigned.
Speaking one language, the people settle in the land of Shinar and set out to build a city with a tower reaching to the heavens, to make a name for themselves and not be scattered. The LORD confuses their language and scatters them over all the earth, and the city is called Babel.
Primary Scripture
11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech.
11:2 And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
11:3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” So they used brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar.
11:4 “Come,” they said, “let us build for ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of all the earth.”
11:5 Then the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building.
11:6 And the LORD said, “If they have begun to do this as one people speaking the same language, then nothing they devise will be beyond them.
11:7 Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
11:8 So the LORD scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
11:9 That is why it is called Babel, for there the LORD confused the language of the whole world, and from that place the LORD scattered them over the face of all the earth.
Related Scripture
At Pentecost people from many nations each hear God’s works in their own language; Christians have long read this as the reverse of Babel.
Location evidence
Babel is the Hebrew name for Babylon, in Shinar, southern Mesopotamia. The marker shows the city; Genesis does not identify the tower with a known building.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [44.422222, 32.543333]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Babel (Babylon): Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [44.422222, 32.543333]. Classification source: editorial.
For the class
What were the builders trying to achieve, and why does God scatter them?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/beginnings.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm