Condraz23

Hey everyone. I've got two questions. Are there any Christians here that can help me with these?

First question...

According to the narrative in Genesis, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. Because man had it in his heart to be like God, God stopped this project by confusing their languages so that each spoke a different language. As a result, they could no longer communicate with one another and the work was halted. The builders were then scattered to different parts of Earth. This story is used to explain the existence of many different languages and races.

Assuming that this is correct, why were the many different religions in the world only published in the language of the country that they were founded by?

The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. God only communicated with people who spoke these languages. God never attempted to recommunicate with the ancient Chinese or Mayan people, even though the descendents of the ancient Chinese and Mayans believed in God.

These "loners" were excluded from the kingdom of God and exiled into different parts of the world. Eventually formed today's rich diversity of languages, races, and religions.

Is this correct?

Second question...

Assuming that the world is 6,000 years old and the flood happened at 2300 BC, is it true that everyone in this planet is related by around 90 generations from a common ancestor?

Please don't be offended. I'm not criticising the bible. I'm just seeking answers, that's all.

Roger Pearse

By whom?

What other language could those who invented them use?

Christians do not think this. They think that God chose to use the Hebrews specially. Naturally stuff written down along the line started in those languages. Note that there seems no special tie to special languages in Christian teaching -- a translation, so long as it is accurate, is as good.

Lots of ideas in here which are not necessarily so.

Christians -- real Christians -- are not committed to these numbers. Even in antiquity Christians held differing views on whether these things should be understood as a description of history and biology, or as an allegory. Eusebius of Caesarea, for instance, in book 1 of his Chronicle, describes the Garden of Eden as an allegory for unfallen mankind.

It is a mistake to presume that a conclusion inferred from the scripture, wisely or otherwise, has the force of scripture. It is likewise a mistake to suppose that every Christian is equally well-travelled. Most Christians belong to the human race (although some people have asked about me, sometimes...).

Fair enough. But I would ask whether you are starting at the wrong end.

Most questions in life have to be worked from some certain start point, or confusion ensues. It's best to start with things of which we are certain, and work from those to things of which we are not. Speculations of the above kind mean nothing to most people, and are rather like calculating the number of tax inspectors who could dance on my head. (3.14157 at the last count).

Note also that examining stuff like the above is meaningless unless we are already certain that the real alternative to Christianity in most periods -- which seems to be no different than to live by some subset of the societal values set by those who control the media agenda in the period of history in which we happen to live -- is not so. Otherwise our (correct) instinct that all these questions are a bit unnatural will simply be used as an excuse to stop thinking. IMHO, of course.

I wish someone would put Origen's sermons online.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

S.C.Carlson

As best we can tell, Jesus and his immediate followers were speakers of Aramaic. Yet the New Testament was written not in Aramaic but in Greek, which was the cosmopolitan language of its day (like English is today).

NZSkep

the other question toaks is is god was so offened by someone building a tower to heaven, why did he not mind when we started flying much higher and exploring space etc?

GakuseiDon

You know, you are posting on a board called "Internet Infidels", so I doubt that anyone here is going to be offended, from a religious perspective at least. Why not try those questions on a Christian apologetics board, like "Theologyweb": http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/forumdisplay.php?f=15

Condraz23

Thanks for the link. I've never seen that website before.

Anyway, I was going by what it said on Wikipedia, it said that...

"This story is used to explain the existence of many different languages and races."

It also says...

"Traditionally, the peoples listed in Chapter 10 of Genesis are understood to have been scattered over the face of the Earth from Shinar only after the abandonment of The Tower of Babel, which follows as an explanation of this cultural diversity."

In another source, it states that "Before the Tower of Babel, everyone on earth spoke the same language"

So, this means that all the races and languages in the world were derived from a group of people who lived a few thousand years ago.

Evidence from a Christian point of view goes as follows...

Historically, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people spoke the Chinese language. Before the Japanese and Korean language was invented, most Asian people spoke a form of Chinese.

German people speak German, English people speak English, and Scottish people spoke the Scots language. These languages bear similarities, which means that they were all derived from a common ancestor.

All Asian languages show similarities and are spoken by the Asian race of people. All African languages show similarities and are spoken by the African race of people. Same goes with most other languages and races. Therefore, God didn't only change everyone's languages but he also assigned people into different races according to what they now spoke. Then, he altered their religious beliefs and their physical appearances and finally scattered them throughout the Earth.

Is this correct?

Roger Pearse

Well, Wikipedia gets written by many people, of no better education than you and I and just as many prejudices (if not more). On articles on religion and politics, I would not trust it AN INCH.

Speaking as probably the most fundamentalist Christian on this forum, I wouldn't feel committed to any such propositions. The bible is not written as a handbook of philology or anthropology, but as a tool to get a bunch of hurt and dying people off this planet before it and they implode.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

premjan

I don't think Japanese people ever spoke Chinese. In fact Chinese as a single language existed only in written form from the empire-forming age in China. Japanese is apparently descended from a form of extinct Korean.

KDB

basically it is also a creation vs evolution matter with languages
and here too linguists have come pretty far and are already busy reconstructing the original human language, which in all likelihood was a bit similar to khoisan. from that common ancestor all other languages have evolved by isolation and interaction of peoples over thousands of years.

but reconstructing languages is a difficult task due to all the unknown migrations. in nigeria for instance there are over 200 different languages, some as different from each other as chinese and dutch, belonging to entirely different families. eg hausa (which is related to hebrew) and yoruba (related to bantu languages).

Huon

Condraz23, if you are interested in languages, here is a link :

http://www.ethnologue.com/language_index.asp

Inside, there is a list of many, if not all, languages of the world. If you click at letter C, you will find references to many chinese dialects.

But linguistics has nothing to do with religion.