Paul Seely wrote:
>Por favor: Ham's most noted descendant Nimrod went directly to the
>region, indeed, right to Babel itself (Gen 10:10).
>
>There are a number of exegetical reasons why the traditional interpretation
>is correct--at least in that it understands that whoever all built the tower
>of Babel, all people on earth at that time were speaking the same language.
>And this is still the standard interpretation among modern scholars liberal
>and conservative. Nor do they think the Bible writer "mixed up the
>chronology." They think he was going back to speak more in depth about an
>earlier event.
My point exactly. They have to surmise that Babel was an earlier event
reported out of order.
>Note that after the genealogy of Cain in chapter 4, he goes
>back to Adam and the birth of Seth. One could scarcely argue that Seth was
>not born until after Lamech because his birth is reported after mentioning
>the activities of Lamech.
And we can assume that Seth's son Arphaxad listed in Genesis 11 was
contemporary with his own brothers listed in Genesis 10 and with Ham's sons
and Japheth's sons also listed also in Genesis 10. Reporting parallel
genealogies emanating from a common patriarch necessarily must overlap.
I think it is fair to say that if we read Genesis 10 and encountered the
following:
Genesis 10:2-5: "The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and
Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz,
and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish,
Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in
their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their
nations."
... and then in the next chapter we read:
Genesis 11:9-10: "Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the
LORD did there confound the language of all the earth [land] and from
thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
These are the generations of Shem. Shem was an hundred years old, and
begat Arphaxad two years after the flood."
... we could easily get the impression that at least the sons of Javen had
journeyed to the "isles of the Gentiles", and were unrepresented at Babel.
Genealogies aside, let's look just at events in their reported
sequence: Adam created (Gen. 1:27); Adam sins (Gen. 3:6); Adam banished
from garden (Gen. 3:23); Cain kills Abel (Gen. 4:8); Cain banished (Gen.
4:16); Cain built a city (Gen. 4:17); Noah built an ark (Gen. 6:22); God
brings the flood (Gen. 7:17); Isles of the Gentiles divided by Javen and
sons (Gen. 19:4-5); Asshur built Ninevah (Gen. 10:11); earth [land] divided
(Gen.10:25); a city and tower (Babel) is built (Gen. 11:4-5); the Lord
confused their tongue and scattered them (Gen. 11:7-8).
The order of events looks pretty straight forward to me. After the flood,
three events are recorded prior to Babel and two of them require
departure. Furthermore, Ninevah had its own tower that was built at the
same time as the other ziggurats, which were built in cities all over the
region. When were the other ziggurats built? Asshur is a good example
because he was a Semite. Do you suppose after the Babel incident he would
have gone north and built another tower? Didn't learn much, did he? And
what language did the Assyrians speak? Was it not Hebrew? Either Asshur
left before the confusion at Babel (as the Bible records), which means
"all" were not present, or if he left after Babel, and they still spoke
Hebrew, there was no alteration of language.
From the Sumerian king list we learn that after the flood "kingship was
restored at Kish." Then other cities were established: Lagash, Nippur,
Sippar, Uruk (Erech, Nimrod's kingdom), and eventually Babylon. History
does not record that Babylon was built, the tower was built, and then all
the other cities were built after the scattering which is what traditional
exegesis requires. By the way, the Chinese were speaking Chinese in China
long before the ziggurats were built in southern Mesopotamia.
>Could it be that the vast majority of exegetes got Gen 11:1 right, and only
>those with the concordist presupposition got it wrong?
Not a chance.. They can't find the garden of Eden even though a virtual
road map tells us where it was, they think Adam was the first of the Homo
sapiens, they think the flood was universal. What makes you think they got
this right?
Dick Fischer - The Origins Solution - www.orisol.com
"The answer we should have known about 150 years ago"
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