The Flood and Babel as Creation and Fall

 The Flood was a new creation, a re-creation, a new Genesis 1-2. Just as God separated the waters and the land in the original creation, so God separated the waters from the land as the Flood subsided. God preserved Noah and his family, along with representatives of all the animals on earth, so that He might through them start again with a New Creation.

Likewise, the Tower of Babel was a new Fall, a new Genesis 3. Whereas Adam and Eve sought to be like God, without restrictions, so the people at Babel would have been without restraint, had God not confused their language (11:6-7). As God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden, so also He scattered the people of Babel across the earth. In the latter case as in the first, God’s command and intention were the same - that mankind might fill the earth and take dominion over it (1:28, 9:1). But due to Adam’s sin, this could only be fully accomplished by Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:21, 1 Timothy 6:16, 1 Peter 4:11, 1 Peter 5:11, Jude 1:25), and by those after Him who trust in Him and obey the call to fill the earth and subdue it to His Kingdom.