Genesis: The Tower of Babel

"Then they" [they referring to the families of Noah's sons] "said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, "Look they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city." (Gen:11.4-9)

If we look at this through the lens of Socio-historic criticism it's important to note that the ancient Sumerians used to build towers of worship known as ziggurats. It's very possible that the passage above was referencing those places of worship which were truly massive. Below is an example of a ziggurat:

Another association with the tower of babel that occurs to me is in Tarot. The sixteenth card in the Major Arcana is called THE TOWER. The meaning of this card is "Breakdown of the old to herald the new... Learn to adapt and adjust quickly... External disruption...Chaos." (Bartlett)

This meaning does in some ways coincide with the story in the Bible. The "confusion of language" is definitely chaotic and requires rebuilding of some kind.

I've added a song from another Stephen Schwartz musical called Godspell. The song is called "Tower of Babble" performed by the 2000 Off Broadway Cast. It opens the show. It takes the idea of The Tower of Babel, and adds a fun little twist: