Sorry to keep POUNDING you like this! But you have a sign on your back!
The Bible is Wrong About The Tower of Babel
Christians! The Tower of Babel story presents a real dilemma for you.
your God is selfish and cruel.
” and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
The Lord, your God wants to suppress his creations’ imagination and their ability to carry out their dreams. He doesn’t really want us to be godlike.- your God is not omniscient as indicated by the fact that he has to “come down to see the city and the tower”
- your God is not very smart as indicated by the fact that he actually thought the good citizens of Babel could really build a tower so high it would reach Him in heaven
- your God is not very smart if he thinks that if the people reach heaven via the tower, they will become omnipotent. Isn’t he God? Couldn’t he change that with a blink of his eye?
One More Contradiction
this story contradicts earlier bible stories
in Genesis 10:5, we learn that “the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”- in Genesis 10.20 we learn that “These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.”
- in Genesis 10:31 we learn that “These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.”
So, it turns out that “And the whole earth was NOT of one language", and of one speech (as Genesis 11:1 says it was!!)
No Time for Babel to Become A City
The Babel story is set three generations after Noah. Noah begat Ham who begat Cush who begat Nimrod, the “mighty hunter” and the beginning of his (Nimrod’s) kingdom was Babel. How large was the “city” of Babel at the beginning? We can’t say, but there is not much time elapsed between Nimrod founding Babel (Genesis 10:10) and the Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11:1). There is no indication that anyone went to Babel with Nimrod. Other sons of Cush went together to form other cities in the land of Shinar.
And the beginning of his (Nimrod’s) kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Genesis 10:10
There is no reason to believe that there was anything resembling a “city” of Babel; maybe Nimrod and who #1 and who #2 but that’s about all that could have been with Nimrod at that time.
Confounding Speech Doesn’t Cause Dispersion
Why does “going down and confounding their speech” cause them to disperse? Where were they going to go? We are supposed to believe that each person, knowing only their own personal babble language, would leave his friends and go off alone to start up another city? Ridiculous. In that situation they would band together, fearful of the unknown and would soon learn to communicate with each other again.
Think about it…. what would you do if everyone in your group of family and friends started speaking babble. Would you run off alone into the unknown to start a new city? No, you would not. You would stay and use sign language and gestures and grunts and soon you would have a common language.
Summary
The Tower of Babel fable presents your God as not omniscient but stupid, not as loving, but selfish and cruel; it contradicts earlier biblical stories about the origin of multiple languages, it presents a scenario opposite of what people would do, and it contradicts what everyone knows about languages; i.e. they evolve and are still evolving.
The Truth IsThe earth was never of one speech. The history of language is as full and complex as the history of mankind. See History of Language. It is patently obvious to anyone with a working brain that this story was an attempt of either J, E, D, or P (See documentary hypothesis) to explain how different languages came to be. Of course the author of this “explanation” was unaware of the other author’s (J, E, D or P) “explanation” because the various writings weren’t combined until after all had been written.
One more ridiculous bible story penned by an ignorant person trying to explain the reason for multiple languages, which would have been a real mystery to the ignorant people of the time.
What do YOU think, Greg or ee!? Not a mystery to you, eh?! :-) :-) |
