Babel: The Mother Culture?

Biblicists claim that Babel was the mother culture. If this is the case, ancient Babylon was extraordinarily advanced for being the progenitor of the rest of the human race. Their ziggurat architecture, for example, was astonishingly complex.They used clay to make bricks to better build their structures. They were also skilled potters, which presents a problem given that other cultures that derived from the Babylonians, such as Caral in Peru, had no clue as to what pottery even was. How could an extraordinarily advanced culture like Caral in Peru not have been aware of the uses of pottery and brick-making if they derived from the mother culture of Babel? Clearly, these skills would have been important enough in these times of sheer survival to be passed down to succeeding generations.Also, what was the purpose of preventing Babel from being built if the people at Caral would later do the same thing? These ancient Peruvians built the largest pyramid ever to be built, possibly larger than the ziggurat which the Babylonians were planning. How did confusing the languages help any if a monument even bigger would be built years down the line after the diaspora of the Babelites?

Ophir, I just read this PNT (Proposed New Topic) of yours and am wondering what point you wish to make?

Which Forum do you want your topic in? Once you select your preferred forum, we then know a bit about which direction you want your topic to go.

What are Biblicists? Do all Biblicists think alike?

​

Give us some feedback here. Other admins are welcome to take up this discussion also.

Accuracy and Inerrancy? Geneology and the Flood? This topic doesn't seem to be a perfect fit for either, but my preference is for the Accuracy forum.I wish to disprove the idea that the world's complicated systems of language poofed into existence merely because the Sumerians had a big idea.Since cultures pass their skills on to succeeding generations (which results in refinement of the craft), I'm wondering how biblicists (i.e., fundaliteralist Christians, and, yes, they think alike enough to have indoctrinated me cult-style for 15 odd years*) would explain how highly advanced early cultures, such as the early Peruvians at Caral, would not have known the skills of brick-making and pottery. How could it have antedated the Caralians by as much 7,000 years (Japanese pottery goes back that far) and the Caralians, for example, have no clue about it?If we derived from one civilization who already had this skill so refined that they were in danger of accomplishing the most staggering architechral feat known to man (The Tower of Babel), how could other cultures who followed them not be aware of the benefits of such technology?* Evangelical Christians all

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I don't think this one will float. As I understand the legend, the point of the confusion of languages was to reduce the level of humanity's technical ability.Obviously this wouldn't work if every (or any) different language group contained members of each technical profession.No, the real problems with the myth are:(a) Our knowledge of the actual history of languages and of Babylon.(b) An allegedly omniscient God was apparently worried that the people of Babel might build a tower "whose top may reach unto heaven".BTW, here's the inimitable Kent Hovind on the subject:"Probably, after the Flood, the Tower of Babel took place. God put them into different language groups. They spread out. Those that spoke French went one way. Those that spoke German went a different way. Those that spoke Spanish went a different way." *BWAHAHAHAHA!

The thing is, if you believe in a tale such as this you have to believe that the xian god is real and has magical powers. If you don't agree to that premise and then draw your conclusions from that premise you cannot conclude that the tower of babel fable was accurate.I think you will be hard pressed to find a biblical literalist who will have much more to say on the matter; but that's the nature of evc: welcome to the fray.

Considering the fact that there was no French, German, or Spanish back then, I'm inclined wonder just how much crack Hovind is on these days. Actually, this wouldn't float either. Literalists have explained this by pointing out that it was the intent that mattered. Man thought he could reach heaven with his mortal technical skills, and such arrogance wasn't tolerated by god. A member (I think it was crashfrog) once pointed out that we could start building a skyscrapper with the intent of reaching heaven to see if we could bring the wrath of god again.

---

Place yourself on the map at http://www.frappr.com/evc

​

The thread about this map can be found here.

What do you mean this won't float?I'm merely looking at the myth from the biblicist's perspective and pointing out an obvious flaw (one of many) in thinking Babel was the first civilization.If they were so advanced as to know how to construct the Tower--and untold numbers of smaller ziggurats before that--how could their descendants have "forgotten" how to make clay bricks and pots? These skills are passed down; they are not something advanced cultures just forget.And since biblicists will tell me that the Caralians in Peru, like every other race, derived from the Sumerians who scattered across the globe after the confusion of languages, I'd like to know how they explain their ignorance of the uses of clay.*It is a cathartic thing for me. I was indoctrinated into believing their pernicious lies for a good many years. I want revenge.* This is not to put down the Caralians. They were an amazing civilization that lived in peace for 1,000 years and built the largest pyramid on the planet.

The Romans were extremely advanced in their plumbing. They had aqueducts which carried the water from the tops of mountains, lead pipes which directed the water through the city, and taps in their sinks and baths. After the Roman Empire fell, all of this technology was "forgotten" until modern times. So perhaps the Babylonians "forgot" how to build buildings, too.

Yes, any relatively advanced technology requires an infrastructure to produce it, to supply the raw materials, to provide for the division of labor needed to produce technicians with the required expertise.If nothing else, if the result of Babel was that people were spread out and forced to live in small communities, they wouldn't even have the manpower necessary to construct large buildings. And without any practicing these arts, they could easily be forgotten.

---

Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Well, I think that the story is ltterally true... but I think the most important point of the story is often missed. It is a change in worldview that the story reveals.This isn't very good, but read it slowly and try and catch the point. It is very difficult to express.I have prepaired myself for the guffaws!Genesis 11

​

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”
They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.Luke 12; 51 . ”Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”The Tower of Babel is the story of mans attempt to create truth and unite all things to himself. It is the story of underestimating the glorious depths of truth. It is an ongoing story . The Lord made all of creation to reflect His Glory. The truth of God (Christ, the begotten Son) defined and shaped all things, and created things to fashion them for the purpose for which all things we’re made. The philosophy of God is simply the truth. It was not created, but simply is. He is the master philosopher. No other contrived ideal would reflect the University of God and His creations; they are meant to be in him. Without him they do not exist.As these men developed their religion of man, divisions arose quite super-naturally by the transcendence of Gods reality. No other key would fit the whole. God confused their thoughts by his depth, and University splintered under their knives.One likely insisted on some of the old sacrificial ways of Gods very Word, and the other considered human sacrifice, and another the worshiping of idols. They became diverse, and their one human will split into oblivion. They had put themselves first; above the truth of God which is their only salvation. They tried to dominate the true philosophy that is infinitely beyond their capacity to forsee. They had sought a better way to live; without His divine ordinance. They would no longer simply be men, but sought to understand God by they’re own word.In the process of these diversions, they created many new and conflicting truths. They spread out to create their own realities on the earth under the authority of their imaginations. Rather than dominion with God, they inherited useless dominions of men. They’re spiritual tower had been thwarted. It was never completed and will never be completed by men. It is already completed by God. Babylon is doomed and reduced to mysterious babbling.The language of truth they lost to their divergent ideals. They moved on with pride, and looked to the inventions of their minds to achieve the goal that they believed had only temporarily eluded them. They still believed in their dreams and themselves; confident, proud, and frustrated with their detractors. They look to escape the curse; onward they go, looking for glory, and looking for the God they had crucified with their pride.As their new philosophies we’re made but not begotten, the religions of the past arose, and the foundation of the modern world began their fruition; blossoming in blood. To this day, the proponents of their respective truths misunderstand each other, and they battle for the supremacy that lay only in the Word from the very mouth of God. The word of God (Christ) confused and divided them.The story of the Tower of Babel is the super-natural condemnation of the mystery of Babylon. It is a mystery because it makes no sense. It is unreasonable. It is the ambition of man and his seducing spirit to create what already is, and was in the beginning, and will be forever. It is the babbling of foolish and darkened hearts. It is the philosophy that cannot be; the philosophy of man. It is the unneeded religion; the redundant and the nothing. It is not true, for it cannot be true. Man cannot create the light of reason, for it precedes him. He depends upon it first, in order to try to invent it. The Word created men; therefore men cannot create the Word.God alone is true and faithful. He is the light. His is the spirit of reason. His is the love that brings whole (holy) community and family; individually as well as collectively. His is the freedom of morality and virtue. His is the living. His and His alone is the light. He offers peace to those who have denied Him. They deny, yet He accepts. For those who accept Him, and ask Him to take His residence with them; He is the light of the world.The mystery of Babylon is in the contradiction; the ideal of the light from man. It defeats itself, and collapses under its own weight. It is the mystery of the illogical nature of the spirit of man and his refusal to worship what is to be worshiped. It is the spirit which says there is no truth, and then proposes that that is a true statement. It is the spirit that says there is no God, and in doing so becomes the God of his own will. It is the spirit of lies, from the father of lies.Isaiah 14; 12-16

​

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cast down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart:
”I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.

​

“Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying:
”Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook the kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?’”Luke 14; 28-35, Jesus said:

​

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first,
and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he
hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to
mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or
what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth
whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty
thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an
ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you
that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good: but
if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for
the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”When you hear the story of Babel... think philosophy (spiritual language) more so than physical language. I personally think it is both. And it is the overlapping meanings and truisms of some of these ancient stories that leads me to conclude that they are supernatural in depth and origin.hope that wasn't too long...

If the people smitten with the Caralian language didn't include any potters.Now you may think that you know the uses of clay, but you don't, really. How do you find clay? How do you treat it before use? (I can vaguely remember that the process takes a year or so, but I can't remember any of the details.) How do you fire it, exactly? Yes, the process requires heat, but can you be more specific, without looking it up? If you had available substitutes (wood, bone, gourds, et cetera) wouldn't you give up trying?There are a number of cultures on small islands which, proveably, are descended from more sophisticated cultures, but which have lost skills such as making boats, or fishing nets, or other useful things. Anthropologists believe that this is because their population was too small to maintain a skill base involving all of the skills of the parent culture. One year both the people who know how to make fishing nets fall sick and die ... and that's it.The Babel myth has severe problems, but if the whole point of the destruction of Babel was to destroy the technological base, then it's no objection to the myth to point out that apparently it did so.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, Babylonians were just one set of people's coming from the line of Shem. There are others, particularly in that area of the greater Mesopotamian region. As well, you aren't taking into account either Hamitic line or the Japheth's lineage. Surely, Egyptians were closely contemporaneous with Babylonians. In other words, Babylonians weren't the only advanced civilization on the block. If the Deluge and the dispersion really happened then it makes alot of sense. Everyone on earth was once centralized in the Mesopotamian region for over a thousand years. Knowledge increased there, including astronomy and architecture until the Flood took them away. Among the preserved was Noach and his family to repopulate the earth. After the tower of Babel came the confusion of tongues and the people began to disperse. Some cultures have managed to retain their original heritage. For instance, the progenitor of Armenians was Togarmah. Armenians to this very day still regard themselves as the "House of Togarmah."Who the progenitors of the Caral are, or for any of those from Asian descent has always been a bit cryptic. But it is typically assigned to Hamitic lineage. The significance of the story isn't found so much in the building of the Tower. The tower is just symbolic of man wanting to set himself apart from God. A physical building was never the issue.Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus expounds on the story with this discourse:"Now the sons of Noah were three, - Shem, Japheth, and Ham, born one hundred years before the Deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. (Shinar is the Biblical rendering of the Mesopotamian valley)"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 earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner. But they were so ill instructed that they did not obey God; for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible, by experience, of what sin they had been guilty: for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they, imagining the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favor of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this their disobedience to the Divine will, the suspicion that they were therefore ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be Oppressed.

​

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 on 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 thereby 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 diverse 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." But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."" -Flavius Josephus

---

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

NJ writes: Sorry, it makes no sense to me. If some flood is responsible for virtually all sediments, how could one locate where any Mesopotamian region was prior to the wholesale reworking of the Earth's crust? Or are you suggesting the sediments were deposited prior to any flood? Also, when was this supposed tower built? Do the pyramids pre-date or post-date the flood and tower? Why is the tower symbolic and the flood real? Scottness says in post 11 s/he thinks the story is literally true, there was an actual tower. Where is the dividing line between symbolic and real to YECs and who decides where it lies in this matter?I think you defenders of Biblical literalism and inerrancy need to get on the same sheet of music because right now all I can hear is a cacaphony of noise. Edited by anglagard, : add ?

All your words and quoting scripture will not alter the clear meaning of this passage.The Gods were concerned that a unified mankind could rival the Gods.The god envision in the OT was a warrior god not too far advanced from humans. This is clear in the above passage and others like "The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name".The OT even gives god human like qualities such as "the LORD grew angry" or "Wine cheereth God and man" or "So the Lord changed His mind"Now with our increased understanding of the universe (no thanks to the religious extremist) we realize just how foolish that world view is.