Babel illustrates the technology-assisted ambitions of people for dominance over others. A naive reading of Genesis might give the impression that the exile from Eden and the scattering and confusion of the language of the Babel builders is motivated by the Lord’s concern about a threat to his own throne. Yet the threat is primarily to human beings themselves. People make dangerous gods for others – and for themselves – and as they progress beyond the infancy of the garden, as the Mesopotamian god-kings arise, along with the later vast empires of Babylon and its successors, this truth becomes increasingly evident.

Those who seek to usurp God’s rule also lose grip on their own humanity.