Genesis 11:1 explicitly states that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech prior to the construction of the Tower of Babel, whereas the preceding chapter, Genesis 10:5, 20, and 31, describes the descendants of Noah already dividing into their respective lands, families, and nations, each according to their own distinct tongue. Traditional harmonization resolves this chronological tension by explaining that Genesis 10 provides a thematic, birds-eye overview of how the world was eventually populated, while Genesis 11 serves as a historical flashback detailing the exact event that triggered that linguistic dispersion; conversely, critical scholarship views it as a structural overlap of independent traditions—the genealogical records of the Table of Nations and the localized folklore of the Babel narrative—compiled non-chronologically by later redactors.