Canaan and later Israel also had ‘high places’ where sacrifice was offered to God.Īfter official worship was established in Jerusalem, the ancient prophets condemned this practice – though it still went on for a long time. This practice spread throughout the ancient biblical lands. As they once prayed on mountain tops, now they prayed from the top of ziggurats.

People who moved to low-lying areas around the two great rivers may have built ziggurats as enormous platforms. Where did they get this idea? Historians think the people in this part of the world originally came from the mountains to the north, and were accustomed to praying to their gods from ‘high places’ – mountain tops. It is possible that a ziggurat was meant to be a ‘stairway to heaven’ and that the worshippers believed the gods descended from heaven to this intermediate platform to communicate with mortals. Stairways were an intrinsic part of any ziggurat, serving a ceremonial and practical purpose This land was the original homeland of the great fore-father Abraham and the Hebrew princess Sarah, and the great ziggurat of Babylon must have inspired the story of the Tower of Babel (Babylon/babble/Babel).So ‘Babel’ is Babylon, the fabled city of over-indulgence. Modern-day politicians take note!īuilders and slave labour from all over the known world must have been needed to construct a ziggurat and all its subsidiary buildings – hence the ‘babble’ that led to confusion and mis-communication. The story also makes a sly dig at over-ambitious rulers who built bigger and bigger ziggurats, spending vast amounts of public money to outdo each other and impress the gods.

The vivid Bible story explains the variety of languages and dialects that already existed : a ‘babble’ of tongues. First, where did the story come from? You’ll see the text of Genesis 11 at the bottom of this page.

We’ve all heard of the Tower of Babel, but what was it, and what did the Bible story mean? What was the Tower of Babel? Bible Study Resource A ‘Babble’ of languages Bible Top Ten, Daily Life, Paintings Daily Life – Prayer – Paintings – Books of the Bible – Bible Paintings.

Where was the tower of babel