shalak

Hey guys, I know this if my first post so I will first introduce myself a bit. I have been involved in religion for 22 years and recently begin questioning the historical accuracy/reliability/truth etc of the Bible. The funny thing is this critical inquiry started just a few days ago and so far I have reached a pretty high level of skepticism. However I have not fully investigated either side so I am still undecided. Now that the intro is over onto the question. I got introduced to this forum I believe by being lead from an ex-church of Christ support forum, to infidels.o** to the archives for this forum actually which introduced me to a lot questions that are facing the Bible. It is nice to see that many people who posted in that archive are still very active on this forum so I have seen a lot of you discuss many different topics before. I have internet proof you guys existed in the past!!! Anyway...

It looks like on the surface to me that God for some reason was afraid of what man might accomplish if they successfully built the tower of Babel? Here is the text from the American Standard Version below.

Ge 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said, Come, 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 Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And Jehovah said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because Jehovah did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did Jehovah scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Verse 6 is the key verse but I think it is best to take the story as a whole instead of just one verse.

Verse 6 in KJV: Ge 11:6 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

Verse 6 in NKJV: Ge 11:6 And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

I didn't look at the other translations but they all seem to be in agreement that God was worried about what man would be able to accomplish. I suppose my question is why would the God of Israel be afraid of mankind's accomplishments? I am also assuming that the Jews would have taken Genesis to be literal which also means the same God who was powerful enough to speak the heaven's into existence is the same one who appears to be worried in this story about man's abilities.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what is represented here. I understand that the Bible does use symbolism and parables but I assume most people who adhere to the scriptures whether they be Jewish or Christian accept this story as literal. If nothing else I am assuming those who believed in the Pentateuch in ancient times took this story as literal.

I do remember reading a post on here regarding the tower of Babel and other ziggurat's and how it seemed strange that God would only be upset at this once when other structures like it were built etc. Since I am still undecided on whether or not I trust the Bible I suppose this is just one of the many issues that I am interested in investigating further.

So what are your guys thoughts on the matter? My impression is most of you don't take the Bible as actually being true which is part of the reason I am interested in what you have to say. Also, is this comparable to perhaps ancient people building a structure that would in a sense allow them on
Mount Olympus which would probably upset the Greek God's?

JonA

In this story, YHWH is used as a plot device.

It's a just-so story, meant to give an explanatory myth for why, despite humanity originating from one man and woman, there are so many different languages on Earth.

Jon

shalak

Thank you for your response JonA. Even though I haven't researched it a just-so story would make sense. The ancient Greeks employed similar plot devices to explain things on earth they didn't understand either. I am really wondering though why the Jewish writers thought it would be a good idea to make God afraid of man in this story. That seems to weaken the idea of God's supreme power in my eyes.

This may be a question with an obvious answer but I suppose it is partly for reasons like this that many of you have become skeptics from formerly being members of a faith? Maybe I am being too harsh but I feel like we don't accept just-so stories in any other aspect of history so why would we make a special case in this scenario?

Also if all the languages of the earth were confounded you would think that someone, even though it would be in a different language, would write about the phenomenon of all of the sudden not understanding anyone around them. I mean that would be a big deal. This is also after the flood so saying the flood destroyed those documents would not be a valid response. Again this may be a very simple thought for most of you but I only started my serious critical inquiry a few days ago. Does anyone know of any source that tries to prove the validity of this story? I am not saying I am going to take what they say as true but I am moreover interested in someone with some credentials providing their argument for it still being true. I am moreover interested in examining a lot of the arguments because so far a lot of apologetic arguments have fallen apart easily for me.

Toto

The Tower of Babel is linguistic creationism. It can be shown to be false just as the idea that the world was created 6000 years ago as described in Genesis can be shown to be false by physical evidence. We have records of different languages that existed before the Tower of Babel, especially in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and China, and no indication that people suddenly could not understand each other.

For a book length explanation, see Roger Pennock's Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (or via: amazon.co.uk) - cheap used copies on Amazon.

Juststeve

Very few Jews would treat the Tower Of Babel story as literal so perhaps it has another meaning. Perhaps something about men trying to make themselves Gods, or something like that. Even as an atheist I can appreciate the idea that men ought not try to be Gods, or I could just mock a story I don't understand.

Steve

Toto

I don't think anyone here is "mocking" it. As a literal story, it is impossible. It obviously can be interpreted as allegory, about the dangers of hubris.

But even if the story is treated as symbolic or allegorical, the story does not deserve much respect from a civilization that has explored space. It is just a quaint part of our folklore.

John Kesler

Read chapter seven (page 107) of James L. Kugel's How to Read the Bible. Understanding that the concept of God changed over the period that the Bible was written sheds light on passages like this and others that are in tension with later concepts of omniscience, omnipresence, etc.

Sarai

I checked the Torah & commentary used in my synagogue for its view of the Tower of Babel story. It points out that the "sin" of the people isn't specified so that's what has been predominantly subject to interpretation, citing the 2 most common:

1) They attempted to equal, or displace, God.
2) They refused to "fill the earth" as they'd been commanded by God. (They huddled together in their city, so God forced them to spread out and "fill the earth".)

There's a 3rd interpretation given that is sort-of based on the second: Namely, that the point of the story is that they stopped building the city, and it's an anti-urban story. Interestingly enough, there's very little mention of the linguistic aspect of the story. There's a bit more, but it basically boils down to the 3 points I listed above. Hope this helps.

Sarai

davidstarlingm

If one assumes at the outset that the authors or redactors of this passage believed in a deity that could be harmed or otherwise threatened by humans, then the "God afraid of man" interpretation is a possibility. However, once we consider the off chance that the author/redactor's beliefs were closer to the commonly accepted Judaic view, this doesn't make so much sense.

Verse 4 says that the people began to build the city (the tower was only one part of the city) to avoid being dispersed across the earth. Verse 8 and verse 9 both assert that the purpose of God confusing their languages was to effect the desired dispersal. The tower is only mentioned in verses 4 and 5; it was the city that they "left off building" in verse 8 after the languages were supposedly confused.

This myth, then, has nothing to do with God (or the gods) fearing men, but communicates the belief that humanity "ought" to spread out over the earth rather than congregate into one place. To back this up, God is pictured as greatly stunting the abilities of humanity in order to force them to separate from each other and spread across the earth.

This is a particularly odd account for several reasons. Most myths throughout the ancient world can be traced, however tenuously, to a natural event that developed a supernatural backstory over time. A sudden confusion of languages in no way reflects any natural event; the only explanation for the development of such a myth would be that the story arose as a fable to answer the question of why different languages exist. However, this particular "fable" is mirrored in many cultures across the world, particularly in South America. This may point to a common origin for many of the world's religious systems -- an origin that goes back as far as the origin of homo sapiens himself.

shalak

Ah I appreciate all the points you made. I took a look at some commentaries/heard from someone else that there is a possibility that this was actually also a temple built to the heaven's. Basically saying that part of the reason for the dispersal was to stop them from building a pagan temple. However the dispersal idea makes a lot more sense then that although it is a point to consider I suppose.