The Babel story relates to Ascension/Pentecost but not straightforwardly: the tower of Babel is a story of an attempt to reach up to heaven. It results in the confusion of tongues. At the start of 2Theophilus (let the reader understand) Jesus ascends to heaven and this leads to the gift of tongues. Without considering the Ascension, trying to say that Pentecost is a kind of reversal of Babel seems a bit overblown. But seen through and from Ascension it can make some sense. In the Babel story, the attempt to Empire is resisted and undermined by diversity. In the Pentecost story, the diversity is affirmed. It results from a will not to dominate, but rather to co-operate.
In the Babel story it's interesting to ask who the 'we' are who wish to 'make a name for ourselves'. Certainly not the serfs and slaves living under a state whose mythology implicitly declares that this is their lot: they are made from the offal of defeated gods and have been made to work and particularly for the representatives of the gods (the kings and priests). This is Empire; co-opting the labour and resources of others for the aggrandisement of those at the centre; this is 'making a name for ourselves'. In such a context 'nothing will be impossible for them' becomes a chilling possibility of ever more demeaning and effective means to exploit and dehumanise. By contrast God's 'judgement' is one that de-centralises and re-humanises by forcing things to a smaller scale: Empire is cut down to size. God, it would seem, prefers subsidiarity. This gift of tongues in Genesis restores the trajectory towards diversity that Genesis traces to the command to fill the earth. This gift of tongues is actually blessing rather than curse. However, for those resisting God's purposes, a restoration of blessing may actually be felt as judgement.
Christ is given the name that is "above every name" (Phil. 2:9) and declared to be the ruler of heaven and earth. The Ascension is the seal and symbol of this. Jesus doesn't make a name for himself but is given the Name ... So: in Babel self-appointed representatives of humanity grasp at divine honours and control of humanity to the ill of the many. In the Ascension, a God-appointed representative of humanity is given the Name above all names in service of human welfare -of all.
Pentecost is not a restoration of a single tongue which would be what we'd expect if Pentecost was some kind of reversal of Babel. No, the pluriformity of tongues is affirmed and becomes the vehicle of the proclamation -to the ends of the earth (echoing Genesis). Pentecost is the redemption of Babel and the (re-)affirmation of the 'judgement' on it. Pentecost is an implicit critique of the project of Empire (Babylon -that is Babel) and its imposition of uniformity in pursuit of self-aggrandisement. Pentecost re-affirms that God is interested in all not just a few. "Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.' Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:1-9)
Further reading: The Liberating Image by Richard Middleton
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