Tower of Babel II

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GOD SAID, Genesis 11:1-9:

1  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3  And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

4  And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6  And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7  Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8  So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9  Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

GOD SAID, Genesis 10:25:

And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.

MAN SAID: The concept that God gave man language via the miracle of creation, that all the world once spoke the same language, and that God divided that once common language into many at a place called the Tower of Babel, is sheer nonsense.

Now THE RECORD.  A Christian’s life is totally built upon the revelation of the Word of God in the Holy Bible.  It’s imperative, if we are to function in the spirit successfully, to know that God’s Words, found in the majority-text, are true and righteous altogether.  This subject is GodSaidManSaid feature article #371.  It will once again prove the full and complete veracity of the Word of God.  On this site, powerful certifiable proof is presented that proves the fidelity of the scriptures from the beginning to the end.  The most amazing and—yes—ridiculed accounts are absolutely accurate.  We need to know that.  Success is at stake.

Could it be true?  Do science, ethnology, archaeology, and etymology speak of a world that once possessed a single, common, God-given language?  Could it be true that the miraculous confounding of the languages actually took place at the city called Babel, a city whose name means “babbling and confusion?”  Is the miraculous description of this event, recorded in Genesis, which occurred approximately 4,200 years ago, which academia is just beginning to understand, an accurate portrayal of this momentous happening?  The research says, and the answer to the questions is, yes!

The latest powerful information concerning Babel will be added in this feature.  The first feature on this subject is titled “Tower of Babel.”  Visit it.  You won’t be disappointed.

Genesis 10:25, quoted above, reads, “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided;”  Famed historian and minister Bishop Ussher, who lived in the 1600s, refers in his 960-page tome, The Annals of the World, to Egyptian historian Manetho (who hailed from around 300 BC).  This third-party, non-Hebrew historian pegs the Tower of Babel five years after the birth of Peleg.  Ussher dates the event of Babel to have taken place in the 1,762^nd year of the history of the earth.

The height and overall design is mentioned by numerous historians, and the descriptions vary greatly.  What is obvious, though, is that was colossal.  The following paragraphs from the web read as follow:

The Third Apocalypse of Baruch, known only from Greek and Slavonic copies, seems to allude to the Tower, and may be consistent with Jewish tradition.  In it, Baruch is first taken (in a vision) to see the resting place of the souls of “those who built the tower of strife against God, and the Lord banished them.”  Next he is shown another place, and there, occupying the form of dogs, Those who gave counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks; among whom, a woman making bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child‑birth, but brought forth while she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and continued to make bricks.  And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty‑three cubits.  And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron.  When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest.  (Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 3:5‑8)

The 14th century traveler John Mandeville also included an account of the tower, and reported that its height had been 64 furlongs (= 8 miles), according to the local inhabitants.

The 17th century historian Verstegan provides yet another figure—quoting Isidore (probably St. Isidore of Seville) he says that the tower was 5164 paces high, about 7.6 kilometers, and quoting Josephus that the tower was wider than it was high, more like a mountain than a tower.  He also quotes unnamed authors who say that the spiral path was so wide that it contained lodgings for workers and animals, and other authors who claim that the path was wide enough to have fields for growing grain for the animals used in the construction.  [End of quote]

It is obvious that God’s intent in causing men to speak many languages versus one common language, and stopping their foolish efforts at Babel, was not a concern that men would succeed in building a tower to heaven.  It was God’s will that men would spread out and populate the whole earth.  But, the rebellious people had no intention of complying.  Genesis 11:4:

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

After the confounding of the languages, we read in Genesis 11:8:

So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

The scriptural accounts of creation, Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and the Tower of Babel—events common to all men and witnessed by the general population—should have been recorded and passed on generationally, and they certainly have.  Concerning this idea, a short excerpt from “Tower of Babel,” the original GodSaidManSaid feature, follows:

George Smith, the staff member of the British Museum who translated the Babylonian account of the Flood, published the following mind‑boggling translation of an ancient fragment found in the excavations. This is what the Babylonians had written:

The building of this temple offended the gods. In a night, they threw down what had been built, they scattered them abroad and made strange their speech. The progress then impeded.

Imagine, this is the Babylonians’ account, not the Holy Bible.  [End of quote]

Answers magazine, a publication of Answers in Genesis, weighed in on this subject in its April-June 2008 issue.  The writer lists Babel accounts from various locations on the earth.  Three of the nine accounts that were covered in the article follow:

• Middle East

Sumerians believed that all people spoke one language, as claimed in the poem “Enmerkar and Lord of Aratta”:

In those days . . . the whole universe, the people in unison, . . .

Enki, the Lord of abundance, . . .

Changed the speech in their mouths, and [brought?] contention into it,

Into the speech of man that [until then] had been one.

• Southeast Asia

A legend of the Gaikho tribe of Burma (Myanmar) says, “In the days of Pan-dan-man, the people determined to build a pagoda that should reach up to heaven. . . .  When the pagoda was half way up to heaven, God came down and confounded the language of the people, so that they could not understand each other.  Then the people scattered, and Than-mau-rai, the father of the Gaikho tribe, came west, with eight chiefs, and settled in the valley of the Sitang.”

• India

The Mikir tribe in northeastern India tells of the descendants of Ram who grew dissatisfied with earth and aspired to conquer heaven.  They began to build a tower.  “Higher and higher rose the building, till at last the gods and demons feared lest these giants should become the masters of heaven, as they already were of earth.  So they confounded their speech, and scattered them to the four corners of the world.  Hence arose all the various tongues of mankind.”  [End of quote]

It’s imperative, if we are to function in the spirit successfully, to know that God’s Words, found in the majority-text, are true and righteous altogether—and they certainly are!

GOD SAID, Genesis 11:1‑9:

1  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.