Tower of Babel

[Zzyzx]

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Tower of Babel

Genesis 11:
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 throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
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.

Question for debate: Is this a true story of an actual event that occurred in the real world?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Zzyzx]

I believe it was indeed a historical event. In any case nobody can prove it was not.



JW




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[Divine Insight]

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Question for debate: Is this a true story of an actual event that occurred in the real world?

I've seen historical documentaries that suggest how and why this fictional story was created by Jews that were being held in captivity while some ruler was building a very large temple. The geologists even have found ruins that they believe were part of this temple. The problem is that the historical records have other reasons for this temple being built. It purpose was not to reach heaven.

One thing that always struck me as being interesting in this story is the following verse:

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.

This appears to imply that if all humans were ever capable of getting on the same page then anything they imagine to do would be possible. This suggests that we create reality by what we imagine to be true.

The only problem with this is that apparently our overlord God will prevent us from ever getting on the same page if he doesn't like the reality we are about to imagine.

Not only this, but if we create reality by what we imagine then what happened to the idea that God creates our reality?

It's an interesting thought, but one that is totally inconsistent with the rest of this theology. Why would we be creating our reality if God is supposed to be the creator?

It's almost like this story came in from some totally separate theological paradigm. And that's easy to believe as the Bible often shows signs of being a hodgepodge of theological plagiarisms.

[JehovahsWitness]

It's almost like this story came in from some totally separate theological paradigm.

Not really. The account is totally in harmony with the major themes in the biblical paradigm. It presents a God who consistently holds to His ultimate right to make the rules for humans and who will not be defied. The tower was contrary to His stated will and purpose and He acted accordingly.

If anything the story shows signs the bible is a harmonious interwoven body of theological thought; extremely impressive give it's history.




JW

[benchwarmer]

Question for debate: Is this a true story of an actual event that occurred in the real world?

If it was a real event, which I of course doubt, it only shows another pointless move by this god character.

Humans clearly have the capacity to learn other languages, so muddling peoples languages would only be a short term 'solution' to a 'problem' that makes no sense. It almost seems as if the god character is scared of what the humans can accomplish if they work together. Why would this be so?

Flash forward to modern Christianity where we are told to love on another and 'spread the word'. This seems counter productive to God's plan of confusing everyone and muddling languages. Are we supposed to be able to communicate with one another so we can work together or not?

Just another ridiculous story that was not well thought out IMHO.

[Divine Insight]

It's almost like this story came in from some totally separate theological paradigm.

Not really. The account is totally in harmony with the major themes in the biblical paradigm. It presents a God who consistently holds to His ultimate right to make the rules for humans and who will not be defied. The tower was contrary to His stated will and purpose and He acted accordingly.

If anything the story shows signs the bible is harmonious interwoven body of theological thought; extremely impressive give it's history.

JW

You are only kidding yourself here. This God is supposed to be omniscient and know exactly what's going to happen before it happens. In fact, the ability of this God to supposedly prophesize the future is a large part of the argument that this theology supposedly has merit. But this is an extremely flawed argument.

This God was surprised by the fact that humans did this. This is necessarily true for if he knew ahead of time that this was going to happen he could have prevented it by confusing humans before they ever set out on this quest.

This God was also surprised and even distraught over the idea that the thought of every human had turned to evil and he had to drown out his entire creation and start over from scratch precisely because things didn't go as he had planned. He even repented that he has ever created man.

These collections of fables have absolutely no continuity or consistency whatsoever.

Also, did anything this God ever do ever actually solve a problem?

According to the Bible the answer is clearly no.

Would mankind have ever fallen from grace on his own? According to the Bible we will never know because in order to corrupt man this God had to send an evil demon into the Garden of Eden to corrupt man.

This God then cursed this demon (after the damage had already been done) to crawl on his belly and eat dirt for the rest of his days. What did this solve? Absolutely nothing. According to the Bible this evil demon is still alive and well to this very day and causing as much evil havoc as ever.

Not only this, but if this God knows what's going to happen before it happens why not nip things in the bud before they get out of control? This is collection of myths about an imaginary God who never knows what's about to happen next.

What about the flood? What did that solve?

Absolutely nothing.

After the flood things went right back downhill again until this God eventually had to desperately sacrifice his only begotten Son in an attempt to offer humans undeserved amnesty because he finally realized (after thousands of years) that humans are never going to behave themselves on their own.

That's a pretty slow learning desperate God for a God whose supposed to have a plan and know how its going to unfold ahead of time.

And what did sacrificing Jesus solve?

Apparently not much at all. Things are still just as bad as ever and even according to Jesus the vast majority of humans will be damned. This is necessarily so since he proclaims that only FEW will make it into the kingdom of God.

So the Bible is a collection of ridiculous inconsistent fables of a God who can never solve a problem. Never actually knows what's going to happen next. Always uses violence and ignorance as his method to try to solve problem. And according to Christianity he finally gave up on humans entirely and resorted to an extremely desperate act of having human brutally crucify himself or his demigod Son in an apparently futile attempt to offer a few humans undeserved amnesty because contrary to what this God had originally hoped for not a single solitary human he ever created was capable of living up to his expectations.

He could have saved everyone a lot of pain and agony in the Garden of Eden just just offering Adam and Eve undeserved amnesty right off the bat.

To try to argue that the Bible is a consistent theology is utterly absurd.

It's all over the place. And Christianity has it ending with the most desperate act this God could ever possibly imagine. Sacrificing himself or his demigod Son to being brutally crucified on a pole in the hope of saving a FEW undeserving humans via offering them undeserved amnesty if they'll simply accept this extreme act of desperation on their behalf.

How can you even pretend to argue that this story makes any sense?

Christianity in particular is the most absurd version of this mythology to have ever been created by men. Christianity is a religion that demands that our creator is extremely inept and desperate to try to save even just a few undeserving humans from his extreme ineptitude.

The only mystery surrounding Christianity is why so many people can't see how utterly absurd it truly is. They keep trying to defend it as somehow being reasonable and consistent when in truth it's nowhere near to being either of those two things.

[Divine Insight]

Question for debate: Is this a true story of an actual event that occurred in the real world?

If it was a real event, which I of course doubt, it only shows another pointless move by this god character.

Humans clearly have the capacity to learn other languages, so muddling peoples languages would only be a short term 'solution' to a 'problem' that makes no sense. It almost seems as if the god character is scared of what the humans can accomplish if they work together. Why would this be so?

Flash forward to modern Christianity where we are told to love on another and 'spread the word'. This seems counter productive to God's plan of confusing everyone and muddling languages. Are we supposed to be able to communicate with one another so we can work together or not?

Just another ridiculous story that was not well thought out IMHO.

Exactly.

Not only this but today with the Internet and instant translations of languages we're back to having "One Language" again for all intents and purposes.

So now this God would need to intervene again and destroy the Internet.

How anyone can buy into these ancient fables as being credible is beyond me.

[1213]

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Question for debate: Is this a true story of an actual event that occurred in the real world?

I believe so.

[Willum]

It is amazing that, in this day and age, any functioning adult can examine history and myth and see the Bible gets its "true and holy stories," from the acknowledged childrens' stories of other cultures. The Sumerian fable was written hundreds of years before, and the Sumerians believed it was a fable, not a holy story.

That took something then, and a great deal of faith now.

I mean "Google," makes these things easy.

The Tower of Babel was originally a tale about respecting each other more than the material world.
Judaists corrupted it very badly.

Biblical scholars see the Book of Genesis as mythological and not as a historical account of events. Wiki

[Difflugia]

In any case nobody can prove it was not.

That depends on how much of the story needs to be left standing for you to still convince yourself that it's true.

We can prove that the expansion of humanity was neither instantaneous nor did it originate with Shinar. We can prove that it happened before the Flood (which we can prove didn't happen, anyway). We can prove that Canaanites and Israelites are not genetically distinct populations, thus invalidating the so-called "table of nations."

So, if the story is limited to sometime in the past, unknown people build an unknown tower that was destroyed in a way that didn't affect history and didn't totally match what the Bible says about it, then you're right. We can't prove that didn't happen.