Arguments for teleology are present in most religions, as exemplified by God giving Adam the power of language in order to do other things. A simple example would be the claim that giraffes developed long necks in order to be able to reach leaves on higher branches of trees.Robert Dunbar (1996: 152-3) describes one of these towers from a historical point of view. Apparently there were many large towers built in Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq) which all had names suggesting they were perceived as stairways to heaven. This can be viewed as an explanation of how humans started with a single language and ended up with thousands of different, mutually unintelligible languages all over the world. (Genesis 11: 5-9)ġ.B The tower of Babel The usual interpretation of these events is that humans were united in a single language and working together to build a tower which represented a challenge to God, and God intervened in some way so that they couldn’t understand each other and dispersed them to different places. Therefore is the name of it called Babel because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language: and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE (TASKS) Yule, George (2011).
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