The Tower of Babel - Slightly Shaky?
According to the Tower of Babel story, the many human languages were created instantaneously by God; however, languages evolved gradually over long periods of time.
From Genesis 11 (NIV)
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 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. ——-
Break it down now:
(11:1) “The whole earth was of one language.”
This could not be true, since by this time (supposedly around 2400 BCE) there were already many languages, each unintelligible to the others. This is even admitted earlier in Genesis (10:5, 10:20, 10:31) where other languages are mentioned before the tower of Babel was supposedly constructed.
(11:4-6) “Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”
God worries that the people will succeed in building a tower high enough to reach him in heaven, and that by so doing they will become omnipotent.
(11:5) “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower.”
Couldn’t he see it from where he was? If not… what does this MEAN? o-o
(11:7-9) “Let us go down.”
Us? God might have multiple personalities.
