what does Babel mean?

Answer 1

"Babel" is actually just the Hebrew name for the city we call "Babylon". In fact, in every biblical passage where this name appears, English Bibles translate it AS "Babylon", with the single exception of Genesis 11, in the story of the "Tower of Babel". (That is, the story could more accurately be called "the Tower of BABYLON".) But it seems that the name "Babel" was kept in this instance perhaps as a means of helping underline the point of the story.

It may help to know that the Hebrew word is simply an adaptation of the name the Babylonians themselves gave their own city. The ancient Babylonians along with the Assyrians spoke a Semitic language (that is, the same large language family that Hebrew belongs to ) which modern scholars usual call "Akkadian". In Akkadian the city's name was "Bab-ilu", which was said to mean "gate of the gods", that is, the place where heaven and earth met.

You can even see this theme in the Tower of Babel story. BUT the Hebrew story, in a very artful way, actually uses several wordplays --based on differences between Hebrew and Akkadian -- to mock the Babylonians and their lofty claims. (Note how the story mocks their efforts by showing us that the people do not reach their goal of 'reaching the heavens', since God has to "come DOWN" to take a look).

Now the FINAL wordplay of the story is that on the name of the city itself. In place of "gate of the gods", the writer suggests that the city's name means something like "Confusion". The Hebrew verb "balal" means "confuse" (the word used to refer to God "confusing" their tongues).

The fortunate result of the decision (first made in the Latin Vulgate translation I believe) to use the word "Babel" here, instead of the expected "Babylon" is that we end up with a very fitting pun in ENGLISH -- Babel sounds like "babble"... the perfect word choice to make the point of this story! (I don't know for sure why the Latin translation made this decision --perhaps to seem to deliberately mangle the name and make the story's point?? BUT I believe many English translations have stuck with it not simply out of tradition, but because it works so well for us.)

Answer 2

Babel is the name of a city where the king built a great tower so that he could reach out and make contact with God. At that time, all of the people in the world spoke the same language; when God found out what the king was up to, he "confused the language" of the people by making all of them speak different languages. They couldn't understand each other any longer, so work on the tower stopped. This is how the different languages came to be, and the tower is known as the "Tower of Babel." This is also the origin for the term "babbling," used when someone is speaking in a manner that doesn't make sense.

Answer 3

In addition to the correct answers before, on should mention that Babel means the ancient city of Babylon.

Answer 4

Babel relates to the Tower of Babel (read about it in the Bible).

When people built that tower in an attempt to reach heaven, God punished them by dividing the people into various language groups.

That's why -according to the Bible - we have so many different languages on this planet.