In a certain Skeptical publication in 1998, Stephen Van Eck put forth an analysis of the Tower of Babel story. Some of it is quite unobjectionable and agreeable, and if assumed (as we will assume) correct, informative. But I'll have to bite my tongue and nitpick a bit about some of the "devastating logical and theological problems" Van Eck thinks he has uncovered. (Though I take the story as reflecting history, it doesn't matter with respect to this article.)

According to Genesis 11, God implicitly took offense at the arrogance of man in attempting to build a tower reaching to heaven, and it says he "came down." First of all, this contains the antiquated notion that heaven is literally "up," something no theologian today would assert. This story is the product of an earlier time with a different conceptual universe.

What's the theological problem here? Even today the heavens are "up" from our perspective, and the best view in any event is always going to be "down" -- does Van Eck think it would be better to stare up through the earth?

At the same time, what probably motivates the "come down" language more than theology is poetry. No, not in the sense that the scene is figurative, in the sense of ancient poetic-literary patterns. The Babel story is laid out in the form of a chiasm -- an ancient literary technique that aided in remembrance. The "go down" is a parallel back to the men's "go to" in 11:4. (Similarly, "let us make bricks" parallels to "let us mix up" -- there's also a pun there, since bricks in Hebrew is nilbenah and "mix up" or confuse is nabelah. This is the sort of literary craftsmanship that moderns like Van Eck just don't get they try to read the story as a newspaper report.)

Another problem is the fact that even the largest of ziggurats reached only a final height of around 300 feet (very tall buildings were not really possible in Mesopotamia, where only sun-dried bricks were available). The pyramids of Egypt were much taller, yet God did not object to their intruding on his domain and thwart their construction.

Tallness had nothing to do with it. The ziggurats were designed to look like step-ladder edifices that formed a stairway between the gods and the earth [Matthews, Genesis commentary, 471]. Design and purpose, not height, was the issue at hand. A physical ascent was not intended; even in Babylon the intent was symbolic and the "reaching" achieved by spiritual and ceremonial methods. Form was dictated by function. (The first Babylonian ziggurat was called Esagil, or "house with the raised head" -- Wenham, Genesis commentary, 235ff. Let us note further that making a tower with its top in the heavens didn't require a lot of height, by the ancient definition of what the heavens constituted -- basically, any fair distance above the ground!)

Genesis also offers their motive for building the tower: so that they wouldn't get scattered all over the world. As a reason for building, this makes not the slightest bit of sense. What's more, it exhibits a prior awareness of future events, serving as foreshadowing. Hence its literary and mythic basis is apparent.

Hence Van Eck belies his further lack of relevant knowledge. Again, in light of the purpose of the ziggurat, the idea was that men would empower themselves by being able to ascend to the divine -- not physically, walking up the side of the ziggurat, but by spiritual means. The desire not to be scattered is in direct rebellion to the earlier command to "fill the earth", which would require being spread out. Man is depicted as defying God's order and of trying to take matters into his own hands by reaching for the divine. The rationale makes perfect sense once we understand the contexts.

In this tale (11:7), "God" spoke to an apparent plurality of gods, an indication of pagan borrowing that hadn't yet been entirely laundered away.

Plurality of what, exactly? See here. Note as well that the "let us" is a parallel to the "let us" of the men in the chiastic structure of the story.

He complained that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." This divine complaint would make a lot more sense today than it did back then. We can fly through the skies (once thought reserved for the angels), we've gone to the moon, and we've invented numerous technological marvels. We've cured many diseases (once thought sent by God), we've lengthened the lifespan, and we're unlocking the secrets of DNA, the consequences of which are potentially staggering. (All this despite language barriers!) It's utterly illogical to think that God would allow all this to occur without a hint of objection but once got upset when people build a tower that couldn't have possibly reached heaven, one that was not so tall to begin with.

As we have seen Van Eck is off target anyway regarding height. As for the rest, flying, et al. is not what is in mind. The Hebrew word "imagined" here is the rare word zamam, used only 14 times in the OT, meaning to plot or plan, usually in a bad sense, but not always. (Deut. 19:19, Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you; Ps. 17:3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.) All that is of concern here is what the builders have specifically plotted to do, which is build the city in order to serve as a central hub for a new and rebellious religious movement that will assist them in staying put.

It must also be pointed out that, contrary to Genesis 11:9, "Babel" means "gate of god." Both Genesis and Exodus resort to folk etymology consistently, even when incorporating foreign names. The emphasis was on finding a symbolic meaning in the context of the story, but in application it was frequently a stretch.

In a real sense this is correct, but it is merely obscuratanism to call this a "stretch" as if ancient writers intended such etymology to be taken literally and as the result of professional linguistic study. Puns and wordplay were par for the course in the ANE. Babili means "gate of the gods"; balal means confusion. The play on words is not a serious etymology, not even a folk etymology, but a subtle dig at Babylon's own name for itself. (Wenham adds that "gate of the gods" is probably not correct either, but rather Babylon's own attempt at what Van Eck prejudicially calls "folk etymology".)

I see no need to take up a further apologetic defense Van Eck cites. The bottom line as usual for the Skeptical crowd is that it's hard to make a decent argument when you don't have educated eyes to see.