The alphabet was invented in south Canaan in the second millennium B.C.E., and gradually spread around the Mediterranean. During those centuries, the Phoenicians, a seafaring folk, influenced cultures from Egypt to Crete and beyond — including Canaan. Phoenician traders from a city the Greeks called Byblos took the alphabet to Greece. In Greek, the word byblos came to mean "book" (actually, scroll), whence such English words as bibliography and bible.
The alphabet got to Greece by way of a Phoenician city known to the Greeks as Byblos. What was the city's Phoenician name?
Wouldn't it be interesting if the city's Phoenician name turned out to be Babel?
In the Bible version of the story of the Tower of Babel, "the whole earth had one language and the same words." Heading west, the "whole earth" settled on "a plain in the land of Shinar" — an area later called Chaldea, which in turn was the name for the priests, magicians, and astrologers (i.e., the intelligentsia) of Babylon, today named Persia.
The "whole earth" decided to build a city and a ziggurat. (The ziggurat was one of those ancient structures that look like a cross between a pyramid and a wedding cake.) The Bible explains that the "whole earth" did this to "make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
According to the Bible, YHWH came down from heaven, looked at the city and the ziggurat, and said, "This is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible to them." YHWH decided the best thing would be to confuse the world's languages and scatter the previously united humanity "over the face of all the earth. Therefore it was called Babel, because there YHWH confused the language of all the earth." (Genesis 11:1-9)
Taken at face value, this is a confusing story. The modern English meaning of "make a name for ourselves" is "make ourselves well known," and so the myth appears to say that the human race built its city and ziggurat out of pride, which YHWH punished by confusing them and casting them into diaspora. As we will see, the modern English meaning of the phrase has virtually nothing to do with its ancient Hebrew meaning.
The first thing to do is to look more closely at verse 4. Let's rephrase it just slightly: "We are going to be scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth unless we make a name for ourselves."
The most important thing to understand is how powerful language was considered to have been and how important names were. (I've written a whole article about it, located here.) The people who built on the plains of Shinar were not trying to become famous; they were trying to acquire metaphysical power for themselves, the same power Godde has to create and destroy on a vast scale.
The next important thing to understand is that primitive peoples placed great importance in mountains, trees, water, and the sky. Some theologians believe, for example, that one of Godde's alternate names, El Shaddai (literally, "the Godde with female breasts"), actually refers to breast-shaped mountains. (This may not be a totally bogus theory; in America, for example, the name "Grand Tetons" comes to us by way of the French "Big Breasts.")
In other words, the people who built on the plains of Shinar/Babylon were trying to acquire Godde-like power for themselves by building an artificial holy mountain, a ziggurat. The word "Babel" was an Akkadian word that meant "gateway to Godde" (the word El means Godde in Hebrew, too — for example, Gabriel, "man of Godde," or Elijah, "my Godde is Yahweh.") The Hebrew word that is translated "tower," "ladder," or "stairway" meant "gateway to heaven."
If we stick with the story in Genesis, then, the "whole earth," fearful of being broken up and dispersed, decided to acquire power for itself by building an artificial holy mountain. In response, Godde, either to reserve all power to Godself or to babyproof the nursery, confused human language and scattered humanity over the face of the earth.
But suppose that the Byblos/Babel link is a valid one? Suppose the incident on the plain of Shinar was not the punishment for humanity's overstepping its bounds as Godde's subservient worshippers, but instead it was the blessing of being given the alphabet? The alphabet, invented in south Canaan at roughly the same time the incidents described in the Babel story were supposed to have taken place, has made every human advance possible — the Bible; the spread of culture; the printing press; the Enlightenment; Einstein; walking on the Moon; the Internet.
The more I think about it, the more I think there's a good chance that the way we're supposed to understand this story is:
In the beginning, people lived in families that became extended families that became tribes that became amphictyonies. Each loose cluster of tribes evolved its own language, often closely related to the language of a nearby tribe, usually quite different from the languages of more than a few hundred miles away. Wars between neighboring lands were a way of life — for conquest, for trade dominance, to repel invaders, to gain glory or power for the men who fought them. (And language was an issue, of course; the Greeks called outlanders barbarians because to the Greeks, the foreign language sounded like a babble of bar-bar-bar.)
Godde looked at the world and saw that humans had scattered themselves over the face of all the earth. No one could understand the stranger, so all lived in fear and distrust.
And Godde had compassion upon humanity, in people's loneliness, isolation, and incomprehension. And Godd gave humanity written language, saying, "With this blessing, this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible to them."