Which is more likely?

[Athetotheist]

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people 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; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 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. 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.
(Genesis 11:1-9)

Is it more likely that this literally happened, or is it more likely that this was originally someone's answer when a child asked why people in different places have different languages?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Mr E in post #29]

It's not disqualifying in the least. The point being that you don't know how they did the things they did at the time they did it.

That's the reason for your intrigue.

The reason for my intrigue is that I can see where massive stones were somehow used for construction, not that a book says some people once built a brick tower to the heavens.

[Mr E]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #31]

If you want to be a critic, you should strive to be an honest one. The text says "heavens" in English, but it says "sky" in Hebrew. We still call tall buildings skyscrapers to this day.

In addition-- you should admit that you have no idea whatsoever what their actual construction methods were. The text says that they used fired bricks for stone and 'slime' for mortar. The passage from Jubilees gives more detail and says that the bricks were cemented together with asphalt that came from the sea.

Have you ever heard of Herod's cement? More properly known as self-healing-roman-marine-concrete.

Ancient Roman harbors, breakwaters, and monuments like the Pantheon Rome have withstood seawater crash and earthquakes for over 2,000 years. Modern marine concrete often degrades within decades.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard discovered that Romans used hot-mixing techniques with volcanic ash from Pozzuoli and lime clasts. This triggers a chemical reaction when seawater enters cracks, automatically filling them with newly grown crystals. While we understand the basic chemistry now, we cannot replicate this exact self-healing reaction reliably on a massive, modern industrial scale.

To be a skeptic is easy work. To marvel is to appreciate the fact that you don't know everything. It takes humility to believe.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Mr E in post #32]

If you want to be a critic, you should strive to be an honest one. The text says "heavens" in English, but it says "sky" in Hebrew. We still call tall buildings skyscrapers to this day.

That raises another question. What would be the point of confusing people's language and scattering them across the world to stop them from building vast cities and skyscrapers when they would just learn each other's languages and build vast cities and skyscrapers anyway?

Height: Roughly 8,150 feet (2,484 meters)—nearly three times taller than the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world today.

AI overview:
"A purely brick building standing 8,150 feet tall is physically impossible because the bricks at the bottom would crush under their own weight"

To be a skeptic is easy work. To marvel is to appreciate the fact that you don't know everything. It takes humility to believe.

I revel in the fact that I don't know everything. I believe in the mysterious, but I also believe in respecting the difference between what we can't know and what we can know.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
---Galileo

[Mr E]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #33]

When pondering, know that there are things you simply don't know.

Admit you don't know what construction methods they employed. All you really know is that we don't know how to build a tall building with bricks and asphalt mortar like they did. You reject it out of hand because AI tells you it's physically impossible. AI can list a dozen or more ancient architectural examples that exist today that would be impossible for us to build. -We can't even go back to the moon, because we lost the technology lol.

And according to scripture the point of scattering the people was so that they would disperse and build cities elsewhere, not to prevent them from doing so. The problem with the tower and city was that the people had left their cities and congregated all in one place, uniting as one. I can think of a hundred reasons why this wouldn't be desirable. Disease, famine, natural disaster, overpopulation, resource depletion-- one event of catastrophic proportions would be extinction level. No, the directive from the beginning was 'to be fruitful and multiply' --'to fill the earth and have dominion over it.' It was repeated to Noah after the flood-- Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (fill it).

I revel in the fact that I don't know everything. I believe in the mysterious, but I also believe in respecting the difference between what we can't know and what we can know.

Wonderful.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
---Galileo

Even better.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Mr E in post #34]

All you really know is that we don't know how to build a tall building with bricks and asphalt mortar like they did.

If you can accept that snakes don't talk, why can't you accept that brick can't hold up an 8,150-foot building?

You reject it out of hand because AI tells you it's physically impossible.

You accept it without question because Jubilees tells you that it happened.

And according to scripture the point of scattering the people was so that they would disperse and build cities elsewhere, not to prevent them from doing so. The problem with the tower and city was that the people had left their cities and congregated all in one place, uniting as one. I can think of a hundred reasons why this wouldn't be desirable. Disease, famine, natural disaster, overpopulation, resource depletion-- one event of catastrophic proportions would be extinction level.

According to the text, the concern was that if they were allowed to continue to build, nothing would be impossible for them.

No, the directive from the beginning was 'to be fruitful and multiply' --'to fill the earth and have dominion over it.' It was repeated to Noah after the flood-- Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth (fill it).

It isn't repeated in the Babel story, which gives an entirely unrelated reason.

[RBD]

Is it more likely that this literally happened, or is it more likely that this was originally someone's answer when a child asked why people in different places have different languages?

I’m not sure how much this matters, but the passage does not say that this is why people in different places have different languages.

How not?

Gen 11:9
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.

The people were of one language, and the Lord made them to be with many different languages, and then separated them by their languages.

I don't see any other way to read it, than exactly how it's written. Is it the miraculous nature of the single event, that you don't accept?

[RBD]

The story starts with the whole world having one language and a common speech and ends with the people scattered over the whole earth with their languages confused. What else could it mean?

I can give you my personal interpretation. I claim it as nothing more than that, though I admit the ideas are not original to me.

The event took place. It has nothing to do with the development of languages.

??? I suppose if you mean developing over time, then sure, the Scripture is not saying that. The Scripture says these language began all at once.

Languages develop slowly.

Not those languages begun at the same time by the LORD at Babel.

I can give you my personal interpretation. I claim it as nothing more than that, though I admit the ideas are not original to me.

Of course not. There's plenty of people that only believe in the natural development of things, and not supernatural events of a God.

So, the next time you don't want to share your personal unbelief, then just say you don't believe it. It takes up less time and is less confusing, than trying to argue something that makes no literary sense.

[RBD]

All languages emanate only from God, across all generations.

Excellent point. Even as all people are created in the image of God, and God is the God of all languages of angels and men.

I.e. men 'developing' intelligent languages naturally on their own, is just godless natural humanism. Plenty of confessing Christians are more natural humanist, than believers in supernatural work of the Spirit. Like carnal minded people: if it isn't naturally done, then it can't be done on earth.

At Babel, we can even compare the Potter and His vessels:

Rom 9:20
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me to speak thus?

[RBD]

I believe it likely happened as told in the Bible, because people have the tendency to go opposite direction, to a single language, to control everyone.

I believe it, because that's what it says. It then becomes a simple matter of what the Scripture may be teaching in addition to what it says.

Gen 11:1
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

All it reveals is that all people on earth up to this time, simply spoke the same language. A latter assumption would be that people always had different languages. Which of course must reject the beginning of the first man and woman on earth, as well as only Noah and his family on earth after the flood.

It wasn't until this time that apparently someone rose up to use their common language to his own personal advantage: Nimrod, who began his own kingdom first at Babel. He then later kept those speaking his language to establish his kingdom in the land of Shinar: Nimrod the Great, and shining star of Shinar.

Gen 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,

Many such shining stars would and still do rise up to proselytize people unto themselves rather than the true God, until of course their star falls back to the dust of the earth and the grave.

[RBD]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #15]

bjs1 says: Similarly, if you tell me that Genesis 11 is about the development of languages throughout the world (beyond the themes arrogance and self-importance), then I would ask you to show me where the passage says that.

The problem with unbelief in the words written is compounded, by changing them enough to say something more acceptable to the unbeliever.

It's not about worldwide 'development' of all languages today. It's about the LORD's supernatural beginning of many languages on all the earth in the day of Babel.

bjs1 says: Indeed, that is exactly what has happened.

Only if someone believes in natural development of all languages, and not any supernatural beginning by a God, which of course is just more natural humanism.

Once again, the natural linguist cannot change Gen 11 to say something more naturally believable, but only dismiss it as unbelievable.

Let's try a short quiz.

1. In the first sentence of the passage, what are we told about the whole world?

2. What do the people fear will happen if they do not make a name for themselves?

3. When Yahweh comes down to see the city and the tower which the people are building, on what basis does he assume that nothing will be impossible for them?

4. It was called Babel because Yahweh confused the language of _______________.

5. In the last sentence, Yahweh scatters the people ________________________________.

Bonus question:
Is the modern world more like the beginning of the passage or more like the end of the passage?

1. Spoke one same language.
2. Be scattered over the earth.
3. Necessary point here: Not nothing shall be impossible to them. But only restrained by their imagination. They were seeking to fulfill the promise of the serpent, to be as gods on the earth, whose only restraint is their own imagination. They were still naturally living for hundreds of years. But only with God shall nothing be impossible. They were imagining to be gods in the sky, not seeking the true God of the heaven above all natural things.

Gen 3:4
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

4. All the people.
5. Through all the earth.

I.e. Gen 11 has nothing to do with any natural development of languages over the earth.

Well done. You're pretty good at studying Scripture exactly as written, when only seeking to establish what it does say, and in context, vs what it does not say at all.

I suspect, you'll now get to see the same things I do, when unbelievers begin to confuse the simple study, in order to continue arguing something different than what's plainly written.

Very interesting: A 'believer' now joins you in not believing what's written: Supernatural beginning of different languages on earth. However, he then argues something that's not written to justify the unbelief: Natural development of all languages on earth. And finally you now, like a believer, compel proper study of what's written to prove the argument is senseless...You can read the Bible and teach it well when you want to.