The text of this treatise is Gen. xi. 1–9, which is given in full in the first section. Philo begins by stating the objections which the sceptical critics had brought against the story. They had said that the project of building a tower to reach heaven was really the same as the Homeric myth of the Aloeidae (2–4), and had pointed out the absurdity of the idea. Philo will leave the literalists to answer these criticisms as they can. His own answer is to give an allegorical interpretation of the whole story.