The last mythological fragment we have in the Torah before we come to the figure of 

Abraham is the Tower of Babel. With this episode theTorah turns its attention from the universal to the particular, from the history of humanity to the descendants of Shem, Noah's firstborn son.

As preserved, the story is but nine verses--brief, insignificant and unedifying, not much more than a dismissive satire on Babylon. At best, we try to connect this fragment to the mystery of human language. If we are all progeny of Noah, how did we come to speak so many different languages?

But that question has a slightly academic ring to it. What is really missing at this juncture in the narrative of the Torah is an etiology of polytheism. Given that the polemic against polytheism plays such a central role in the Canon of ancient Israel, why is there no speculation in narrative form as to how humanity strayed from monotheism to polytheism?

Indeed, the early chapters of Genesis assume that our first ancestors were monotheists. They sensed intuitively that the built-in multiplicity of reality emanated from a single supreme deity with whom they could readily communicate. Adam and Eve "heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day" (3:8). Cain and Abel and Noah after them offered sacrifices spontaneously to express their thanksgiving to God (4:3-4, 8:20). In short, we are left in the dark by the Torah as to how humanity lost its way theologically.