It seems the pattern keeps repeating to today.
It seems the pattern keeps repeating to today.
The use of "the LORD" at the beginning pegs this as a "Jahwist" passage. It was written fairly early on, when Judaism was much less of a monotheistic religion. The next verse is "Let us go down"..." There are various interpretations of "us", but it suggests that it was written when "Jahweh" was one creator deity among others.
The same author also wrote the bit about the fall from Eden, the story of Cain, and the story of Noah. In general, it seems like a deity that was big on making judgments about people, and keeping them separate from the realm of the deities.
It's a very classic kind of deity, personifying real traits of the world. We've always been "dumb, scared, and fractured", and somebody wanted to tell a story about why that is.
There's a weird kind of hope in it: we really could be god-like if we just pulled together. But God really hated us and so he gave us Facebook and Twitter.