A bridged version of A very short History of the Skyscraper; After Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, I, iv

The Tower of Babel was conceived as an attack on Heaven. The officials in charge of construction were few. The work-force was innumerable. So commands might not be misconstrued, every worker was required to speak the same language.

Little by little, as generations of masons past, the Highest Authority became anxious the concept of a war against Heaven might be meaningless. Worse, that God, in His Heaven might not exist. The Central Committee launched a probe into the sky. Salvoes of missiles were fired vertically; returning to Earth bloodstained. Proof that God, after all, was mortal: and work on the Tower should proceed. He, for His part, resented the assault. One morning, with a disdainful puff, He unsteadied a mason on an uppermost terrace, causing him to drop a brick on the mason below. It was an accident. Everyone knew it was an accident, but the mason below began shouting threats and insults. His comrades tried to calm him in vain. Everyone took sides in the quarrel without knowing what it was about. Everyone, in his righteous anger refused to listen to his neighbour, and used language intended to confuse. The Central Committee was helpless: and the work gangs, now speaking different languages, took refuge from each other in remotest regions of the earth.