Was the Tower of Babel Left Under Construction?

NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY

When the German archaeologists Robert Koldewey investigated the remains of the ziggurat of Babylon during his excavations there (1899–1917), his findings were both exciting and disappointing. They were exciting because he claimed to have discovered the biblical Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), for which scholars had previously searched in vain at other Mesopotamian sites. But they were also disappointing, because all that remained of the massive tower were ruins: it had been dismantled in antiquity; basically, only the foundations remained to be seen and excavated.

In fact, the tower had fallen into disrepair at several points in its long history. This has led many biblical scholars to believe that the writer of Genesis 11 was alluding to a time when the tower was already dilapidated. In the Genesis narrative, when God saw what the people were building, he confused their language (which had been singular and global until then); they ceased to understand each other, and God scattered them “over the face of all the earth” (vv. 6–9). As a result, they stopped building the city of Babylon and, in particular, its tower—or so says the mainstream interpretation of Genesis 11.

Accordingly, iconographic depictions of the tower, from the Huqoq synagogue mosaic (fifth century CE) to the late Renaissance paintings of Pieter Bruegel (16th century) and many others, always show the building as a work in progress, never as a finished structure. However, unknown to most modern readers, a minority interpretation argues that the tower was brought to completion in the eyes of the Genesis author. Indeed, both of us have argued that the biblical author intended to portray the tower as having been finished.¹

The story’s ancient Jewish reception already bears witness to the two competing understandings. On the one hand, the pseudepigraphic book of Jubilees (second century BCE), a narrative retelling of Genesis and Exodus, clearly states that the Babylonians “ceased to build the city and the tower” (10:24). On the other hand, the book of Biblical Antiquities (c. 100 CE) claims that God’s intervention came when people “had begun to build the tower,” which suggests it was not yet finished (7.2).² Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish scholar who lived in Egypt in the early first century, explicitly stated that the tower had been completed (On the Confusion of Tongues 155–158).

Later, in the Midrash Rabbah (from about the fifth century), Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Hiyya ben-Abba said the same, although the latter argued that only a third of the tower was left standing because another third collapsed and yet another third was burned. Finally, the Midrash Tanhuma (perhaps ninth century) claims that God “allowed [the Babylonians] to erect the tower,” for otherwise, they would have argued that its non-completion was the only reason they could not “ascend” to “wage war” against God. They needed a finished tower to attempt their coup, a “skyscraper”—Genesis 11:4 speaks of “a tower that reaches to the heavens.” God deprived them of that argument: he was not afraid of them; let them come! This interpretation implicitly acknowledges that the tower was complete.

Why these disagreements between ancient interpreters? It all comes down to the wording of Genesis 11, which at first seems ambiguous. Even today, translators render it variously. According to the NIV, verse 5 says that YHWH “came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.” The imperfect “were building” implies that the construction work was still in progress: people were still working when God looked down to inspect the situation. In contrast, however, the same verse in the NRSV says that YHWH “came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.” The pluperfect “had built” implies that the construction work is already over when God looks down.

Is it possible to decide between the two translations, “were building” and “had built”? Yes, because modern studies on Hebrew syntax have shown that in relative clauses such as “which mortals …” in verse 5, the specific “conjugation” (qatal) that is used corresponds to our pluperfect.

Yet there remains an ambiguity. What is the grammatical antecedent of “which,” in “the city and the tower, which mortals had built” (v. 5)? In other words, what is said to have been built: “the city and the tower” or just “the tower”? The answer is given in verse 8, which says of the humans that “YHWH scattered them abroad … and they left off building the city.” It is only after God had confused the language of the humans (v. 7) and scattered them (v. 8) that the humans stopped building the city—not when God had initially looked down to inspect what they were doing (the time referred to in v. 5). Consequently, “the city” cannot be part of what is said to have been completed in verse 5. To put it differently, we could faithfully translate verse 5 by putting a comma after “city,” as follows: “YHWH came down to see the city, and the tower that mortals had built.” In fact, this is how several ancient translators—including those responsible for the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate—understood the text.

In conclusion, Hebrew grammar and the internal logic of the text support the view, held by only a few modern scholars, that the Tower of Babel was completed. If this is correct, then there is little point in looking for a time in antiquity when the tower was in ruins as the background to the Genesis narrative. Archaeological excavations have revealed much about the ziggurat—its dimensions, its internal structure, the bricks used in its construction, and so on—but they cannot help us situate the biblical text historically. For the story’s author, the Tower of Babel was much more than just a building; it was a symbol of a united human group antagonizing YHWH.