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Tower of Babel
REAL PLAYER LINKThe government censors in England said “No” to the God Said Man Said radio commercials we submitted for airing – blocking us from London’s airwaves. They informed us that alterations were required if we wanted to advertise.
Their alterations began with the very first sentence of the 30-second radio spot, which originally read, “You’ve got questions? God’s got answers!”
Their challenge was, “Who is God? What god are you referring to?”
We sent back a revised script and the lead sentence read, “You’ve got questions? The God of the Bible has answers!” This was also rejected. Numerous other claims in the commercial were challenged for substantiation as well, such as the statement, “Live eight years longer.” We e-mailed full scholastic support, but I’m relatively sure no one read it. Their challenge was to the God of the Bible and our equating of the Bible as God’s unadulterated word. We told the radio station representative that the England that produced the Authorized Version of the King James Bible, the England whose monarch, King James, sent Englishmen to colonize America under the banner of the Evangelical Charter, had fallen a long way.
England’s radio schedule was cancelled. We just ended a radio flight in Pittsburgh and, God-willing, we’ll shortly be airing in Sydney, Australia, New York City, and Nashville, Tennessee. We also have a short flight that airs on U.S. television weekly.
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To all who would like to know, God Said Man Said is a tax-deductible corporation having no paid employees. Almost all donations received are used to purchase advertising. For example, I’m looking at a New York City radio buy where $212.50 will purchase one 60-second radio spot with a potential for 68,200 listeners – and among them will be those who come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. With a blood-bought soul as the most valuable “commodity” in the universe, one will scarcely find a better investment on this planet. Now for today’s subject.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.
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 the Tower of Babel is sheer nonsense.Now THE RECORD. Do history, archaeology, etymology, and common logic certify the Bible’s miraculous account of God’s overthrow of the Tower of Babel and the confounding of man’s one common language into many? The answer is, of course, “Yes!” Those who make a mockery of such supernatural accounts are simply demonstrating their lack of knowledge. Let your faith abound. The words found in the majority-text are true and righteous altogether. Build your life on the solid rock, Christ Jesus. As an aside, to those of you who have yet to become born-again, click on to “Further With Jesus,” for instant entry into the Kingdom of God.
In Genesis, chapters 10 & 11, the word of God records the account of Nimrod, the city of Babel that he founded, and the defiant Tower of Babel that he and the rebellious ones who followed him constructed. Babel becomes the city of Babylon. In Revelation 17:3-5, we find the final fruit of the root of disobedience and confusion:
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
The Bible records that, until the time of Babel, everybody spoke the same language. In the city of Babel, Nimrod and his followers decided to build a tower to heaven. They wanted to make a name for themselves – an ungodly name. God, seeing that nothing could restrain them from their foolish and wicked endeavor, decided at this place to confound their language. It was there in city of Babylon that God created diversity of languages.Nimrod refused to submit himself to God’s desire that men should spread out and populate the entire earth. God said in Genesis 8:17 and 9:1:
8:17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
But Nimrod and his followers said in 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.
We cannot know all the wisdom of God’s judgment in this matter, but some points are readily obvious:
1. Dense mega-populations are prime breeding grounds for all manner of infectious diseases.
2. Mega-populations house and promote a myriad of sins. Sins such as adultery, homosexuality, theft, assault, and murder, etc., abound.
3. By spreading out the people, man could escape the magnitude of the problems listed in #1 and #2. Also, man could more perfectly develop the varied resources and benefits of the earth.
But Nimrod and his adherents would have none of it.The famed Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote shortly after the life of Christ, states in his book, “Antiquities of the Jews,” the following:
Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, —that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the ear
th, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner: but they were so ill instructed, that they did not obey God;
Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, —a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, —seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!
Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work; and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that the reby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them divers languages; and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon; because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, Confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: —“When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon.”
It was at Babel that the world’s nationalities began. Because the Italian couldn’t understand the Russian, the Russian couldn’t understand the German, the German couldn’t understand the English, so on and so forth, each group separated according to their languages. (Note that the nationalities mentioned above did not exist as so-named in the days of Nimrod, but are used for example only.)Again, Josephus on the formation of nationalities:
After this they were dispersed abroad, on account of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere; and each colony took possession of that land which they light upon, and unto which God led them; so that the whole continent was filled with them, both the inland and maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands; and some of those nations do still retain the denominations which were given them by their first founders; [End of quote]
Doctors Morris and Clark weigh in on the founding of nations in “The Bible Has The Answer.” The following excerpts are from their book:
The division and separation of the nations took place at Babel, when “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” (Genesis 11:9). This judgment followed man’s first attempt after the great Flood to build a “United Nations,” established for the purpose of exalting man’s will against that of God.
The amazingly accurate tenth chapter of Genesis names the earth’s seventy original national units, resulting from this dispersion. Archaeology and ethnology have confirmed the existence and migrations of most of these primeval nations in a remarkable way, and the chapter deserves much more study and application than it has yet received. It concludes with the statement: “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood” (Genesis 10:32). [End of quote]
This notion of Babel and its great tower has been ridiculed through the years, but listen to the facts. In 1899, the German Oriental Society set out on an expedition under the direction of Professor R. Koldewey to examine the famous ruin mound of Babel on the Euphrates. It took 18 years of excavation. They uncovered the royal seat of Nebuchadnezzar, and at the same time one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens. They also uncovered the legendary Tower of Babel.Listen carefully to this next piece of information. This is a statement concerning the common language. It was at the Tower of Babylon that God changed man’s speech from one common language to many. 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.A man by the name of Alfredo Trombetti in his book titled, “The Unity of the Origin of Language,” states that he is able to prove the common origin of all languages. Max Muehler, the comparative philogist, declared concerning the common origin of speech, “We have examined all possible forms which language can assume and we now ask, ‘Can we reconcile with these three distinct forms, the radical, the terminational, inflectional – the admission of one common origin of human speech? I answer decidedly, ‘yes’.”
“The admission of one common origin of human speech?” Could it be? The following excerpt is from J.M. McDowell’s “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict.”
There is now considerable evidence that the world did indeed have a single language at one time. Sumerian literature alludes to this fact several times. Linguists also find this theory helpful in categorizing languages. [End of quote]
Again from Doctors Morris and Clark:
The origin of human language, and especially of the tremendous diversity of human languages, is as yet quite inexplicable to the evolutionist. There is nothing even remotely comparable to such an ability among the higher animals. That human speech and language are divine creations is by far the most reasonable explanation. Furthermore, the fact that the great variety of languages reflects a divine judgment on early man, as the Bible teaches, is also the most reasonable explanation we have.
In the book review section of Discover magazine, March 2002, is found the following paragraph in review of M.C. Baker’s book, “The Atoms of Language: The Mind’s Hidden Rules of Grammar:”
Are the world’s 6,000 languages fundamentally different from one another, or do they share a common underlying structure? Baker, a cognitive scientist, argues that most, if not all, languages conform to a common set of rules. Mapping these rules, says Baker, could produce a periodic table of language, a single framework from which all tongues are derived. [End of quote]
Otto Jesperson of the University of Copenhagen wrote, “Some scholars see the insufficiency of the usual theories and giving up all attempts at explaining it the natural way fall back on the religious belief that the first language was directly given to the first men by God through a miracle.”One of the world’s most visible and dogmatic Darwinists has this to say about language, as quoted in the March 2001 issue of Ba
ck To Genesis:
…all the thousands of languages in the world are very complex (some say they are all exactly equally complex, but that sounds too ideologically perfect to be wholly plausible). I am biased towards thinking it was gradual, but it is not quite obvious that it had to be. Some people think it began suddenly, more or less invented by a single genius in a particular place at a particular time.
Finally, on this subject, modern anthropology knows that the world’s population sprang forth from the area of the Near East – from the area of the Tower of Babel – from one common mother and father, and yes, from one common God-given language.Once again, God’s word is vindicated; for it was from Babel that one common population was scattered around the world when God confounded their language.
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.
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 the Tower of Babel is sheer nonsense.Now you have THE RECORD.
References:
Authorized King James Version
Free, J.P., “Archaeology and Bible History.”
Free, J.P., “The Library of Ashurbanipal,” February 10, 1945.
Josephus, F., “Josephus, Complete Works,” Kregel Publications, p30.
McDowell, J., “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict,” Nelson, 1999, p105.
Morris, H.M., “The Mystery of Human Language,” Back To Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, March 2001.
Morris and Clark, “The Bible Has The Answer,” Master Books, 2001, pp70, 112-113.
“Reviews,” Discover, March 2002, p78.
Smith, George, “Chalderan Account of Genesis,” New York, Scriber’s, 1876.
Trombetti, A., “The Unity and Origin of Language.”
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