Tower of Babble (a bunch of baseless babble)

um. clearly we are little more than colonies of specialized cells. much like algae. brown algae even has little branches and looks like a plant. and then you have plants which are VERY LITTLE more than algae. oh and coral and jellyfish are very little more than algae too. (kingdoms are constructed.. not real. there is no such thing as plant v animal). and then from jellyfish you can just about jump straight to simple molusks and then a short skip to cephalopods that may be just about as smart as we are. how bout that?anyways. completely off topic but so are you.the tower of babel is a case of the jews making fun of the babylonians who have the same story that ends with an unbuilt tower for a slightly different reason. the story of bab-el (gate to the gods in babylonian) includes the gods suggesting that maybe they didn't want a gate and people should stop building led to the unfinished ziggurat. the hebrew tale about babel (confusion in hebrew) suggests that the babylonians were impetuous. this idea of cultural namecalling is not unique in the bible (nor has it left the modern people imho).

Continuing from my last post where I said, "There's another article from a link that is gone out of date called, 'Genesis According To The Maio People;, which does chronicle the flood, tower of babel, and history of the people from thenceforth. If I can remember (going to bed soon), I'll retype and post it up on a Geocities link"......It turned out that the article wasn't dead at all, but that the mother site had simply changed the link to the article, which happens from time to time (and makes my internet research quite troublesome)... So here you go:The Institute for Creation ResearchContinuing on to the latest post by Brennakimi... If I'm to take your post literally, what motive would the Jews have for making fun of the Babylonians? Curious...This message has been edited by bibbo, 12-04-2005 09:06 PM

We Canadians are always making fun of the Americans. It's one way the little guy has of getting back at the big guy.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Until we get some more thoughts on the subject at hand, let's bring up another another question posed by quicksink:"How high would such a tower have to be?"As mentioned earlier, the motive, not the height, was the key behind the tower. Bob Brier mentions the dimensions and whatnot of what he thinks the tower would have looked like in his Learning Channel special, "Pyramids, Mummies, and Tombs":He starts out by showing a muddy hill with tall dead grass, "The tower doesn't exist anymore. Alexander the Great tore it down 2000 years ago... This is all that's left of the original tower of Babel, a muddy moat and the base of the tower, but at least it gives us an idea of size and shape at the bottom. For the upper levels, let's go 100 miles south to the ancient site of Ur. Here, in the center of one of the world's oldest cities, the people built a great pyramid, or zigurat as they would have called it. It's the best preserved of all Iraqi zigurats. It's only half the supposed height of the tower of babel, which gives us an idea of just how huge that might have been. So, it's the zigurat of Ur that gives us the best clues of our own reconstruction. Well, let's start building! From the ancient base and muddy moat, we know that the base was about 7 acres. And from the rubble, we know that the tower was made of bricks. From our zigurat at Ur, we know that it was stepped, and given the size of the base, the tower would have had 7 steps and soared 300 feet into the sky. At the very top was the whole purpose of the pyramid, a temple near to the gods. The walls were covered with blue glaze tiles, and then the icing on the cake, huge bronze bulls horns on the four corners of the temple. It was a massive building, with a ramp and steps up to the top. The walls gleaned with a thick coating of white plaster. Brilliant blue tiles formed parapets on the tops of the walls, so it looked like a huge towering fortress." shortened the link to some shopping network or suchMultimedia: Pyramidology - Archaeology Magazine ArchiveThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 12-07-2005 01:24 PM

I notice you talk about "the" tower as if there was only one - or at least that one of them is more significant than the rest. But then you go on to the description of a different ziggurat.Since Mesopotamia is peppered with quite a few of these "towers", how is "the" Tower of Babel in any way distinct? If the Bible story is to be taken seriously, in a literal sense, how do you explain the plethora of other towers that the Bible fails to mention?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

When I talk about the "tower of Babel", I am making mention of only one certain tower since, though there were most likely other buildings around at the time, though not of the same intensity and splendor, the tower of babel would have been a precursor to all the of the similar towers around the world, such as the Egyptian pyramids, Mesoamerican pyramids, Indian step temples (ex: Meenakshi Temple in Tamil Nadu), etc...The mention of the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis needed only be mentioned for at least 3 primary reasons:
1. Give an brief overview of the diversification of peoples and languages...
2. ...make sense as to why Abraham later on is leaving the Ur of the Chaldees...
3. ...and narrow everything down to viewing history thenforth from the viewpoint of the Hebrews (Habiru) toward the nations they continue to come in contact with from there on out.For this simple reason, the other pyramids are not mentioned. For the various biblical writers, the topic just isn't as relevant anymore. Now from the viewpoint of you or I who eagerly try to piece together the ancient past and make sense of it all, it's now suddenly extremely important.

I suspect that the one in Babel was the only one mentioned, not because of "intensity" or "splendor" but because that was where the children of Israel were held captive. What do you mean by "precursor", exactly? Are you suggesting that those other "towers" were somehow influenced by the one in Babel? If memory serves, those other edifices were built for a variety of purposes, not all related to the "stairway to heaven" concept of the ziggurat. And don't some of them predate their alledged "precursor"? Maybe he was anticipating Horace Greeley's "Go west, young man."

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

"I suspect that the one in Babel was the only one mentioned, not because of 'intensity' or 'splendor' but because that was where the children of Israel were held captive."To which extent, what were the motive of "the children of Israel"? Have you charted much of this out yet?"Are you suggesting that those other 'towers' were somehow influenced by the one in Babel?"Architecturally? Yes. The towers would have collapsed if built straight up (ex: the tilting tower of piza). The original basis of architecture was to build a broad base and have it narrow the taller it went. Not all towers would have been the same as well. One must also account for achievements in design."If memory serves, those other edifices were built for a variety of purposes, not all related to the 'stairway to heaven' concept of the ziggurat."Obviously, as the people split up, they would have learned their lesson, with some being more stubburn than others. I'm not so sure the pure reason for the original tower's full use has been realized yet. If the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel is true, then that would be a sunstantial key to this mystery."And don't some of them predate their alledged 'precursor'?"Well, that all depends on your personal view of history. For example, in regards to the chronology of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, I tend to look toward David Rohl's "new chronology". In other words, just about everything BC in the history books is a jumbled mess that needs to be carefully analyzed, scutinized, and revitalized.

The "the children of Israel" only wrote about themeselves. After all, they were the protagonists of the tale, why would they write about any other big ol' tower? That's a silly statement. The concept of a load bearing wall evolved independantly in many cultures and regions. China, Japan, africa, south-america, babylon, etc. I mean, seriously, it's not that hard a thing to figure out. Given a culture, with suficient size, time, money, and intentions I don't see why each one couldn't develop it independantly.You also seem to assume that meso-americans (whose earlyest structures date back to around 300 AD) brought their ideas with them from the middle-east.... tell me.... why did they bring architectural knowledge but no knowledge of their language, history, writting, gods, culture, etc?It seems rather odd that an entire peoples would migrate around the world and only manage to bring with them a foreign knowledge of architecture.Further, why do their genetics indicate that they are closer in relation to polonesians than middle easterners?This point is moot anyway since the methods used for building the various pyramids, as well as the architectureal variety, were profoundly different.Uxmal: Teotihuacan: Ziggurat: Giza: Meso-American pyramids were built in stages. They would build a smaller temple at first, and each successive ruler would renovate the temple by building a larger temple "shell" over the previous one. As a result you can literally peel off "temple layers" from an Aztec pyramid to reveal the smaller temple bellow.Ziggurats in the middle-east were built by piling up huge mounds of earth, then building elaborate walls around that earth. They are basically an elaborate pile of rocks.Giza, or the Egyptian pyramids, were ambitious architectural projects often spanning a pharoes lifetime. Huge stone blocks were hauled for miles using elaborate and inventive techniques. Master architects planed their placement as well as designed the pyramids interior. These pyramids were not allways dusty brown, they were covered in a smooth finish of white marble with a gold cap. They must have looked amazing from afar as the sun hit them in the morning.This message has been edited by Yaro, 12-17-2005 11:33 AM

What? No one wan't to discuss pyramid construction?

Excuse me if it takes a few days for me to come back and respond. I tend to come back and post when I have a day off from work or just with plenty of spare time between doing whatever.Now, where were we?"The 'the children of Israel' only wrote about themeselves. After all, they were the protagonists of the tale, why would they write about any other big ol' tower?"Are you saying that the "children of Israel" were once Babylonian/ and/or Sumerian/Assyrian/Chaldean (whatever)... Where are you going with this?Plus Jacob (Israel) isn't said to be born until some time later (Genesis 32:28)."That's a silly statement."I didn't realize I was so hilarious... (ahem) "The concept of a load bearing wall evolved independantly in many cultures and regions."I have nothing against that statement. I'm not against the evolution of wall-building, per se', but the order of events in which architectural development occured in relation to the aforementioned "pyramid"."You also seem to assume that meso-americans (whose earliest structures date back to around 300 AD) brought their ideas with them from the middle-east.... tell me.... why did they bring architectural knowledge but no knowledge of their language, history, writing, gods, culture, etc?"1st and foremost, we must remember, for instance, Diego de Landa's destruction of Mayan documents, so to say there have been absolutely no knowledge of language, history, writing, and so forth is preposterous. There's no telling what juicy info might very well have been in those documents.Writing: (May I suggest "Alpha Beta" by John Mann and "The Universal History Of Numbers: From Prehistory To The Invention Of The Computer".)Let's start with your dating of 300 AD. I'm curious as to how you came to that conclusion.Of course, going with the biblical account of the beginning of various languages starting at Babel, it's safe to assume that when the peoples split up, these various languages and pictograph writings thereby evolved independantly with blendings of local peoples as time transgressed.Where history, gods, and culture are concerned, based on my 1st 2 posts on "Tower of Babble (a bunch of baseless babble)", the worldview of the people within the 1st city-states were completely hacked to death by Nimrod and Semiramis, so it wouldn't be all too far-fetched to see, as the people stretched forth upon the face of the Earth, a faint recollection of their origins (bows and arrows, tents, buildings, pictographs, ceremonial sacrifice, burial customs, marriage and courting customs, belief in afterlife, people naming, etc...) Let's try and talk about one cultural aspect as a time, to not make the whole convo overwhelming..."Further, why do their genetics indicate that they are closer in relation to polonesians than middle easterners?"According to the study of "The Table of Nations" (Genesis 10), the Polynesians (as well as the Chinese, Japanese, Eskimos, Pacific Islanders, AmerIndians [North/South America, etc.] are all descendants of Canaan. As each group independantly split up and began to only inter-breed amongst themselves, new and different characterics of a physical nature suddenly took form. At times, people would settle and others continue to migrate, thereby allowing the physical nature to make slight changes for each individual group.It would be rather awkward to assume that the various pyramid construction techniques would be rather altogether similar considering, for example, how long it would have taken the descendants of the Canaanites to reach the Americas and settle down. You could also argue as to why all tents aren't the same as well...

Hey bibo. First off, you should learn how to quote better. See how I (and others) get those nice little quote boxes, hit the "peek" button on my post and you can see how it is done. Basically you type(qs)my quote(/qs)where these '(' are these 'My quote[/qs]Anyway, on to the debate... Oh. I was using "children of Isreal" as basically the hebrew people. The ancient jews wrote about themselves, their acomplishments etc. It's a legend about them and the formations of the cultrures around them. I didn't mean it as a reference to Isreal himself. Ok. Then Is suppose we are in agreement. Different cultures developed pyramid-like structures independantly. Ya, I agree, it's very sad. But from what evidence there is (which is actualy alot as of late) the meso-americans were quite a distinctive culture. Sound's neat actually. I'll look into it. I was going by the Olmec culture which was the first advanced meso-american civilization to leave behind sculpture/architecture on a grand scale. Olmecs - Wikipedia.ABE: just re-read the wiki, 1200BC-400BC. My bad Anyway, we don't see anything even remotely advanced again till around 1200AD which was my basic point anyway.Not much is left of them today. Anyway, we don't start seeing cool stuff like them again till the Aztec and the Inca which apear in the 1300's and the 1200's respectively. Do you have any proof of this even happeneing? I mean, we should see some sort of radial pattern of human/cultural migration. We don't see this unless of course you use genes to trace us all back to affrica. That's all well and good, but again, I don't see any evidence for this. I see evidence against it.Note the bold portion. All evidence points to independant development of these technologies. Like the pyramids, no two cultures do it the same way. The general idea is the same, but the execution is very different. Again, do you have any proof of this? The genetics of polanesians do not link them to middle-eastern folks. You sooner hit africa.I can't get into a lengthy post right now as I think this topic is way to broad in a sense.I'll tell you what, pick a line of evidence to discuss, and lets persue it to it's end. Be it architecture, heredaty, etc.I think that will ultimately be more productive than discussing a bit all over the place. Let me know.This message has been edited by Yaro, 12-19-2005 07:48 PM

God objected to the building of the tower of babyl because of man's arrogance. The bible says that God was concerned because if man can do this, then he will think he can do anything. So he scattered the people and confused languages so that will make it harder for man to play God. But of course, God knew this wouldn't keep men from trying to play God but He knew it would make it harder for us to do so and keep us humble. But even so, the desire for man to play God has escalated to the degree that man has decided that men came from apes instead of from Him, so man's need to play God and rebel against him will be alive and well until judgment day.

(sigh) hehe Personally, I thought I could get away with it as long as possible. It just seemed a bit easier and less troublesome, but ah well, let's continue, shall we? That sounds welcoming enough. Actually, I'm intrigued by your statement... I'm hoping you would expound on that. What little I've read (ex: books by Samuel Noah Kramer) attribute a few of the biblical writings such as concerning the deluge, babel, or Job to stories from Sumer.(p.s. : sorry my reply has taken so long. With work and the whole "holidays" season thing going on, it can wear out a person, )....Hey, Carico.This message has been edited by bibbo, 12-31-2005 11:17 PM

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In the time the tower was constructed, it could have only have been as tall as the smaller skyscrapers of today. So why has god not destroyed these?

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Why would God have to destroy these?

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Why would god even be threatened by this "tower"? He hasn't appeared threatened by our towers.

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Why do you think God was threatened by the Tower of Babel to begin with?

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- Why did they want to build a tower and waste a tremendous amount of resources to peek into the living room of a god they didn't even believe in?

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Why would they not have believed in God? It shouldn't be viewed as illogical that early post-flood man built a tower to God. There are no shortage of other colossal ancient structures built for religious purposes. This may seem silly to modern man but was clearly not viewed as silly in antiquity.

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- Why would they build a tower in the lowlands when they could get ahead by starting on the top of a mountain a few hundred kilometers north?

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Personally, I think the premise that they tried to build a tower that reached to heaven, literally, is absurd. One would have to suppose that these post-flood men were complete idiots. I think it's more of an expression, or simply meant to be the most spectacular temple of the time, that, in their minds, would be used to commune with God. The OT, written in Hebrew, is loaded with figures of speech and expressions. I see no reason to restrict that possibility with this passage, particularly since it is logical if it is the case, and completely nonsensical if it is not.

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- Why try building a huge tower in the lowlands [except perhaps for defensive walls] where every brick had to be made from mud, ?

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Why not? Why would they not do it this way? Were mud-bricks not the resources available to them there?

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- Finally, why would any god not just have a tremendous belly laugh at the futility of his subjects? [And why has God not responded similarly to modern skyscrapers--or are we expected to believe that the pile of mud bricks was way higher? And why would God even care, unless He actually did live just a few hundred feet overhead, and a human who reached His home could seriously challenge His supremacy? RJR]

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I think the point of the story is that they did not disperse over the whole earth, as commanded in Genesis 9:1. Notice that in 11:4, part of the Babel story, it says, "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," which makes it clear that they were disobeying the command to spread over the earth and instead were staying all together in one spot. Unless the building of modern day skyscrapers in some way violates a command from God, there is no reason why God would destroy them.

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Well, at least we can answer that question. There is absolutely no humor in the Bible (or any other religious text that I know of). It's tough being a god--you are not allowed to laugh.

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Good luck trying to prove this one. I think this is just a baseless assumption, intended to make sport of religion. No?

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And Paul C. Anagnostopoulos wants to know: Why aren't all languages spoken everywhere? Why did the people who got Hindi decide to move en masse to India? Cherokee to North America? Why did all the Hebrew speakers stick around the Middle East?

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I'm not sure how Paul thinks this is an important question. Wouldn't the most logical outcome be that the folks who could understand each other, stay together?

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And yet another sacrilegious correspondent asks: How high would such a tower have to be? Could fundamentalists build one? What about satellites, moon shots, and interplanetary missions? Haven't they already gone higher than said tower?

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This is just mocking aimed at Evangelicals.

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unless a creationist can prove that the tower of babble was indeed constructed, and is the origin of languages, than I take the tower of babble as proof that the bible is nothing more than fiction, and SHOULD BE TAKEN WITH A PARTICULARLY LARGE GRAIN OF SALT.

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This does not logically follow. Why would there have to be proof of this tower and lingiuistic division and dispersion from the middle east? Let's address the first point shall we? Let's suppose there was a tower of Babel, why then would it have to still be standing? If people lived at the spot where is was built after the project was cancelled, why would they not simply appropriate it's building materials for other building projects? How many cancelled building projects in modern day times are left in tact for posterity? It seems logical to me, that they would simply use it's building materials elsewhere.And in fact, actually, the tower may have been completed, given the wording of the text. But once again, perhaps they simply destroyed it for use elsewhere. Would make sense too, since it seems likely they would have gathered that God was displeased with their project if they then had their languages scrambled.Division and dispersion of languages being pinned to the middle east, is a bit much to ask for. One could counter with, "show me evidence that it didn't disperse from there." Which would be an equally unproveable claim. No?It seems to me that the real point of this post is to make sport of the Bible, without seriously analyzing the plausibility of it's claims. There is nothing here by any reasonable logical standard that condemns the Bible. Once one actually reads the text in question, it becomes clear that the argument here, is based heavily on ignorance of the basic claims of the text.This message has been edited by idontlikeforms, 01-01-2006 01:53 AMThis message has been edited by idontlikeforms, 01-01-2006 01:56 AM