The Tower of Babel

[Odell]

Are we to take this literal? I was talking with someone about how we have evolved withing our human race because Adam and Eve could not have been black white asian mexacan. And then he brought up this verse. Never heard of it. If we are not to take it literal than what was the author intending?

also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

Sound like two creations to me. We cant take them both literal can we? That is why I dont know if I should take the tower literal.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Are we to take this literal? I was talking with someone about how we have evolved withing our human race because Adam and Eve could not have been black white asian mexacan. And then he brought up this verse. Never heard of it. If we are not to take it literal than what was the author intending?

That story of the Tower of Babel is true and is from I think Gen 11 (or some chapter near that). As for how there are different races, that comes from the differences in climate, food, lifestyle, etc.

also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

Yes, there is no contradiction in Gen 1 and 2.

Sound like two creations to me. We cant take them both literal can we? That is why I dont know if I should take the tower literal.

They are both true and describe the same event. They are simply two perspectives.

 

[NotWorthy]

I believe the author of Genesis wanted to show two very different sides of God.

In the first Creation account, God is depicted as “The Almighty” (insert your own vision of thunder and lightning, here). All He has to do is say the Word, and it’s there. “Let there be light, and there was light”.

In the second Creation account, God is depicted as the loving Father. You can picture him molding us out of clay, like a gentle potter (a little bubbling brook and birds in the background will help complete the picture).

The author even refers to God in two different ways. In chapter 1, God is called “Elohim”. In chapter 2, God is called “Yahweh”.

 

[NotWorthy]

In the Tower of Babel story, the author is trying to show what happens to Man when he tries to make a name for himself, without calling on the name of the Lord. Hence, God punishes man, and confuses their languages.

Of course, on a side note, the Tower of Babel is undone at Pentecost (The NT Pentecost, that is).

In the OT, man was as one, and God punished them spreading them out all over the world giving them different languages.

In the NT, men come from all over the world to Jerusalem, and understand the Apostles even though they all speak many different languages. But this can only happen when men trust in God as the Apostles did.

 

[Valke2]

Are we to take this literal? I was talking with someone about how we have evolved withing our human race because Adam and Eve could not have been black white asian mexacan. And then he brought up this verse. Never heard of it. If we are not to take it literal than what was the author intending?

also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

Sound like two creations to me. We cant take them both literal can we? That is why I dont know if I should take the tower literal.

I"d say they are two creation stories meant to teach two different things.

 

[Valke2]

They are both true and describe the same event. They are simply two perspectives.

In one perspective man and woman are created at the same time. IN another perspective man is created first then woman. I can see how some might consider that contradictory.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Are we to take this literal? I was talking with someone about how we have evolved withing our human race because Adam and Eve could not have been black white asian mexacan. And then he brought up this verse. Never heard of it. If we are not to take it literal than what was the author intending?

also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

Sound like two creations to me. We cant take them both literal can we? That is why I dont know if I should take the tower literal.

The** Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture** published in 1953 (IIRC) puts forward the suggestion that Gen. 11.1-9 does not refer to the entire human race. And the CCHS is about as “conservative” as could be desired.​

Babylon is first heard of in about 2200 BC, under its Sumerian name Ka-dingir-ra, “gate of god” - the name Babel is a Hebrew form of Bab-ili, “gate of [the] god”. The passage is probably intended as mockery of the city & its patron god Marduk (the Bel of Isaiah 46.1). This would explain why the name is said to be derived from balal (= Hebrew for “confusion”), which has no connction whatever with “Babel” or with “Bab-ili”; the word for “confusion” in Babylonian is balalu, which is related to balal, as both Hebrew & Babylonian are Semitic languages. “Shinar” appears to be a Hebrew form of Shumeru, or Sumer (not Sumeria !) as it is better known - Sumer being roughly equivalent to what is now southern Iraq.

Babylonian (or Akkadian, which is its more common name - see Genesis 10; “Accad” is the same place as Akkad) spread over a wide area of the Near East in 1500-1200; it certainly reached Palestine, so it is quite possible that both the language & at least some of the literature (such as the Flood story) was known there. In fact, Gen. 11.1-9 reads like a parody of an episode in the Enuma Elish (the so-called “Babylonian Creation Epic”) in which Marduk chooses Babylon as his holy city; which the assembled gods then build for him. A “tower reaching to heaven” or “filling the earth” (see the mountain that does this in Dan. 2) is a common description of a temple tower in Akkadian texts. The principal temple of Marduk in Babylon was about 295 feet high - very different from the Jerusalem Temple. It was called by the Sumerian name E-sagila - “House, lifting up [its] head”: rather appropriate.

Which rather suggests that this part of Genesis is not intended as history, but as theologically-motivated mockery of a god & city for which the Jews had no great liking.
Is 4200 years long enough to allow the degree of racial variation there is between those different peoples ? Even if so, there is still the history of language to deal with: Egyptian had a history of several centuries by 2200 BC, as did Sumerian & Akkadian; & they are all different languages. In fact, it has so far been impossible to connect Sumerian with any other. Either Babylon would have to be far older than it is, or the histories of the various languages would have to be far shorter, for the passage in Genesis 11 to be an account of the origin of all languages; & it makes very good sense even if - especially if ? - it is not taken in that sense.

“Adam” & “Eve” are both Hebrew names - & Hebrew is far from being the oldest language; yet the play on Babel & balal depends for its effect on a knowledge of Hebrew. The derivation from balal is a folk-etymology; it is, properly speaking, incorrect - but the passage is not a history of Hebrew morphology. A linguist would understand that sort of writing; the vast majority of people, then or now, would not: & the Bible is meant to be understood by the the average person; it’s not intended for the experts alone. So it does not need to be scientifically correct, in linguistic matters or anything else.

 

[Valke2]

Snapple Babel:

It was not just for the “sin” of building the tower that God scatters them. After the flood they were commanded to go forth…
not stay put.

 

[Oliviad]

I"d say they are two creation stories meant to teach two different things.

I have never seen a difficulty in seeing the two as simply one narrative, about one creation, with a little back tracking in the second overlapping the latter part of the first section. Those that speak of a difficulty have, as far as I have seen so far, when I have asked, been told there was a difficulty.

Perhaps when the languages were confused, something was done that also gave a gradually appearing difference in looks. There have been experiments made that showed that in areas where there was a small, closed community, the people soon looked very similar to one another, with little variation of their community’s newly developed ethnic look. I can spot a Mennonite in any store, even if they wear modern clothes. They made themselves a different ethnic branch in their generations of isolation. (But now many of them are mixing in with others and will doubtless have descendants that have a wide variety of looks.)

I have been studying languages for years now, comparing them one to another, and it has become evident to me that what I am seeing almost resembles a kaleidoscope, or a Rubic’s Cube in certain ways, in the manner of shifts of form that both seem to have developed from one mother form, and yet seem to leave tracks coming and going from two directions at once.

The tower was built in the plain of Shin’ar, which was Sumer. People still argue over whether the Sumerians were black or white, etc., but the Scripture says that all were arrived there at one point, when the human race was yet small. (By this time, there could have been diversity, passed through Noah’s three sons, reflecting the pre-Flood diversity. I know a family in which three sons were born to one pair of parents: one was red-haired and freckled, one pale skinned with straight blck hair, and one looked like an African in skin color, facial features, and curliness of hair - and these traits, they said, in the last son’s case, reflected a gene they had heard was evident once 16 generations back. I am only passing on the explanation this family gave my mother.)

Interestingly enough, there was from very ancient times, in Sumer, a school for studying languages, and translating texts from one to another, and the school used pictographs, which, like international sign language, could transcend many linguistic defference barriers. That would make sense that the builders of the tower and of the first Babylonian city would try to overcome this linguistic difficulty in a way that they thought would prevent future misunderstanding between one another.

[There is, furthermore, a Sumerian legend about the scrambling of languages.]

Also, Nimrod, who was the builder of the city in which the tower was built, was said to be a son of Kush. The first to rule Sumer called themselves the “black-faced” people, and, similarly, the Greeks coined an exact translation of this, in the form of “Aithiopoi” or “Aithiopsoi”, from which we get our term “Ethiopians”. In African Ethiopia, there is a notable ancient style of building that suggests a fascination with creating things of surpassing height. (A side-note for consideration: At a city called Nimrud, there is an image of a man that looks mighty and rather Ethiopian in appearance - perhaps it is Nimrod himself.)

A lot of things fit the scheme of the Biblical narrative - only much later atheistic guesser’s subjective speculations exist to try to make this perfcet set of correspondences in all of history seem here or there impossible. But the Biblical Record couldn’t, by guessing, have invented a parallel set of elements and time proportions for the spacing and order of these.

Another thing well woreth considering: there is still a power at wok that makes people have problems with various phonetics, according to ethnicity, or even cause people to mix up sounds they well know in their own language, in other languages. By the HOLY SPIRIT this can be overcome.

 

[Oliviad]

Snapple Babel:

It was not just for the “sin” of building the tower that God scatters them. After the flood they were commanded to go forth…
not stay put.

Also, they weren’t to trample on one another’s inheritances, but Nimrod was the first to rule a multitribal group not according to a firstborn’s right to govern his own kindred, but as a mere conqueror, encroaching upon the land of Asshur, the father of the Assyrians. This was a beginning of imbalance in the world, even as once godly men marrying other men’s rightful wives, according to a general, rather than specific attraction, led to imbalance that brought the Flood on the world.

 

[Oliviad]

Snapple Babel:

It was not just for the “sin” of building the tower that God scatters them. After the flood they were commanded to go forth…
not stay put.

Also, they weren’t to trample on one another’s inheritances, but Nimrod was the first to rule a multitribal group not according to a firstborn’s right to govern his own kindred, but as a mere conqueror, encroaching upon the land of Asshur, the father of the Assyrians. This was a beginning of imbalance in the world, even as once godly men marrying other men’s rightful wives, according to a general, rather than specific attraction, led to imbalance that brought the Flood on the world.

 

[Oliviad]

Snapple Babel:

It was not just for the “sin” of building the tower that God scatters them. After the flood they were commanded to go forth…
not stay put.

Also, they weren’t to trample on one another’s inheritances, but Nimrod was the first to rule a multitribal group not according to a firstborn’s right to govern his own kindred, but as a mere conqueror, encroaching upon the land of Asshur, the father of the Assyrians. This was a beginning of imbalance in the world, even as once godly men marrying other men’s rightful wives, according to a general, rather than specific attraction, led to imbalance that brought the Flood on the world.

 

[Oliviad]

In one perspective man and woman are created at the same time. IN another perspective man is created first then woman. I can see how some might consider that contradictory.

Actually, it doesn’t say in the second chapter that the woman’s creation didn’t happen the same day, nor in the first does it say both were created in the same hour, and it lists male before female. The first account merely tells the basic itinerary of the day - it doesn’t say moment by moment how HE went about it. In the complimentary, supplimentary account, it tells in depth details about focused on moments of the day of man’s creation, and it focuses in on the one Garden set as the first home of Adam and Eve on the earth.

 

[Oliviad]

Babylon is first heard of in about 2200 BC, under its Sumerian name Ka-dingir-ra, “gate of god” - the name Babel is a Hebrew form of Bab-ili, “gate of [the] god”. The passage is probably intended as mockery of the city & its patron god Marduk (the Bel of Isaiah 46.1). This would explain why the name is said to be derived from balal (= Hebrew for “confusion”), which has no connction whatever with “Babel” or with “Bab-ili”; the word for “confusion” in Babylonian is balalu, which is related to balal, as both Hebrew & Babylonian are Semitic languages. “Shinar” appears to be a Hebrew form of Shumeru, or Sumer (not Sumeria !) as it is better known - Sumer being roughly equivalent to what is now southern Iraq.

Scholars presume they can date ancient texts, and they are unfair about the age of the Scriptures in many cases. We can’t know that what is dated as the earliest case of the term for Babel is the earliest time it was known in the past, and without that particular point being pinned, there is no possibility of concluding that a name meaning “gate of god” couldn’t have come after the earlier. “Babel” from “balel” isn’t impossible. There are numerous cases of Hebrew verbs with a repeating consonant (the second reappearing in the third) producing cognate words that do not express this duplication. The second /L/ could very easily have been lost in creating the subsyantive “Babel”. It is actually quite a rich word form, for many reasons, which I will explain here when I have sufficient time to write with enough care to not leave any of my thoughts out. But perhaps there is something at this late date that many are missing out on understanding here.

Is 4200 years long enough to allow the degree of racial variation there is between those different peoples ? Even if so, there is still the history of language to deal with: Egyptian had a history of several centuries by 2200 BC, as did Sumerian & Akkadian; & they are all different languages. In fact, it has so far been impossible to connect Sumerian with any other. Either Babylon would have to be far older than it is, or the histories of the various languages would have to be far shorter, for the passage in Genesis 11 to be an account of the origin of all languages; & it makes very good sense even if - especially if ? - it is not taken in that sense.

I don’t understand: if the languages were produced by an act of GOD, in an instant, much of the developement would be the absolute result of an immediate setting of the various tongues at new settings, so to speak.

As for Sumerian, that is no longer the case that no one finds a similar language to it. There are specialists claiming kinship between Sumerian and Latvian, and between Sumerian and Hungarian (or Magyar). I haven’t seen a good argument against these claims yet.

“Adam” & “Eve” are both Hebrew names - & Hebrew is far from being the oldest language; yet the play on Babel & balal depends for its effect on a knowledge of Hebrew. The derivation from balal is a folk-etymology; it is, properly speaking, incorrect - but the passage is not a history of Hebrew morphology. A linguist would understand that sort of writing; the vast majority of people, then or now, would not: & the Bible is meant to be understood by the the average person; it’s not intended for the experts alone. So it does not need to be scientifically correct, in linguistic matters or anything else.

How would you know that an archaic form of Hebrew is not the oldest language? If GOD formed all the languages but the oldest in their earliest forms at once, then who could tell the oldest from the newer?

 

[Grace_Angel]

Are we to take this literal? I was talking with someone about how we have evolved withing our human race because Adam and Eve could not have been black white asian mexacan. And then he brought up this verse. Never heard of it. If we are not to take it literal than what was the author intending?

also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

Sound like two creations to me. We cant take them both literal can we? That is why I dont know if I should take the tower literal.

There are indeed two creation stories, one written by an author called the Yahwest and the other by Priestly authors.
We know this because of the language used.
The Yahwest was written (It is believed) during the reign of Solomon and the Priestly during the exile in Babylon.
In One God is portrayed anthropomorphically, the Priestly shows a cultic nature of the writings. The writings were about 500 years appart.
GraceAngel.

 

[Valke2]

Actually, it doesn’t say in the second chapter that the woman’s creation didn’t happen the same day, nor in the first does it say both were created in the same hour, and it lists male before female. The first account merely tells the basic itinerary of the day - it doesn’t say moment by moment how HE went about it. In the complimentary, supplimentary account, it tells in depth details about focused on moments of the day of man’s creation, and it focuses in on the one Garden set as the first home of Adam and Eve on the earth.

And God said: 'Let us mae man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish o fhte sea…And God created man in HIs own image, in the mage of God created He him; male and female created He them. 28. And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply… And
Behold I have given you …every herb…tree…

Chapter 2:
No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no herby of the field had yet sprung up…
7. Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the gournd and he breated into his nostrils the breath of life…

1. ANd the Lord God planted a garden…
2. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree…

It seems obvious that in Chapter 2, Eve is not formed before God gives Adam the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And it seems obvious that they are created simultaneously in Chapter 1.

Plus the issue of shrubs, trees and herbs being created before man in chapter 1 and after in chapter 2. The simplest explanation would be that these are two stories.

 

[NotWorthy]

There are indeed two creation stories, one written by an author called the Yahwest and the other by Priestly authors.
We know this because of the language used.
The Yahwest was written (It is believed) during the reign of Solomon and the Priestly during the exile in Babylon.
In One God is portrayed anthropomorphically, the Priestly shows a cultic nature of the writings. The writings were about 500 years appart.
GraceAngel.

If this is true, do they have separate versions of these creations stories. I understand that archaeologist have never found a text with just one creation account. They ALWAYS were found together.

Wouldn’t this cast doubt on your theory?

Couldn’t they have just been two literary styles meant to show God as both Creator Almighty and Loving Father?

 

[Ilroy]

From OP:
also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true? Ch 2 18 “The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a suitable partner for him so the Lord formed out of the ground various wild animals.”

This is not what verse 18 actually says…see verses 18-19:
18 And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself.
19 And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name.

This shows that God had already formed all the animals and now brought them to Adam.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Scholars presume they can date ancient texts, and they are unfair about the age of the Scriptures in many cases. We can’t know that what is dated as the earliest case of the term for Babel is the earliest time it was known in the past, and without that particular point being pinned, there is no possibility of concluding that a name meaning “gate of god” couldn’t have come after the earlier. “Babel” from “balel” isn’t impossible.

I have more Akkadian than Hebrew, so I bow to your superior knowledge . But I have yet to read a commentator on Genesis 11 who connects Babel with balal I should have said - the Sumerian name, is said to be a translation of the Akk. Bab-ili; it appears that the Akk. name is a popular distortion of a pre-Semitic & pre-Sumerian word babilla*, meaning “forest”. None of this however allows the Akk. to come from the Heb. OTOH, Biblical Heb. includes Sum. & Akk. loanwords, like hekal, from E.GAL, Sum. for “Great house” (= palace), & Akk. ekallu. Are there any Heb. words in Akk. ? Some Aramaisms, yes - but Heb. words ? It would be interesting to know.​

There are numerous cases of Hebrew verbs with a repeating consonant (the second reappearing in the third) producing cognate words that do not express this duplication. The second /L/ could very easily have been lost in creating the subsyantive “Babel”.

How would that account for the medial B though ?​

It is actually quite a rich word form, for many reasons, which I will explain here when I have sufficient time to write with enough care to not leave any of my thoughts out. But perhaps there is something at this late date that many are missing out on understanding here.

I look forward to it ​

I don’t understand: if the languages were produced by an act of GOD, in an instant, much of the developement would be the absolute result of an immediate setting of the various tongues at new settings, so to speak.

As for Sumerian, that is no longer the case that no one finds a similar language to it. There are specialists claiming kinship between Sumerian and Latvian, and between Sumerian and Hungarian (or Magyar). I haven’t seen a good argument against these claims yet.

References please ? What do Christine Thomsen & John Hayes (for instance) have to say about this ? Both have written grammars of Sumerian. I’ve heard of claims for Magyar & Turkish, even Gaelic - but not of a claim of affinity being sustained; I’m “all ears” TY.​

How would you know that an archaic form of Hebrew is not the oldest language?

Because people who know far more than I, derive it from Canaanite​

If GOD formed all the languages but the oldest in their earliest forms at once, then who could tell the oldest from the newer?

Egyptian has a written history going back to 2700 or so, two centuries before Akkadian - Hebrew, in contrast, is unattested until the second millennium at the earliest. It is clutching at straws to insist on the the priority of Hebrew, merely to make a non-historical text look as if it is relating an historical event.​

We can’t appeal, in academic matters, to “what God can do” - this would make all academic study impossible, because we would have to be open to the possibility that God might have “doctored” the evidence without our knowing: which would lead to endless uncertainty It would also suggest that God is a liar. It would be pointless even to buy a pack of butter - God might have made it look fresher than it was. IOW, we need a measure of control over what we study & do - & we have it by not assuming that God done something remarkable unless there is very good reason to suppose this; by assuming that natural processes are regular, uniform & intelligible. Without such control there can be no regularity, no intelligibility, no increase in knowledge, no sciences (linguistic or other) - only chaos. ##

 

[Valke2]

From OP:
also I was talking to him about the two different creation stories in Gen Ch1 and 2 where first God created Man after beast but in creation story Ch 2 God created beast after man and Adam named the creatures. He was telling me that it is not two creation stories but God was just bringng the animals forth that he already created in Ch 1 before Adam. Is this true?

I don’t believe so.
Gen 2:18 And the Lord God said: It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.’ 19. And out of the ground the Lrod God formed every beast of the field…

It seems pretty clear that in Chapter 2, man is created before beast. Also, in chapter 2 the birds are created out of earth. In chapter 1 they are created out of water.