Babel
The history of mankind is a very complex subject and has been researched over time to satisfy human curiosity, especially about their origins, and to derive lessons of conduct and explanations for today.
Historians do not know or do not trust what God reveals in His word, are always subject to serious errors and mistakes for lack of a sufficiency of evidence from most of what is available. They make deductions according to reports found on monuments, tombs and libraries in ancient ruins or other traces and even less reliable information. They often have preconceived theories and seek evidence to confirm them, rejecting that which could prove otherwise.
But the Bible is the revelation of the truth of the history that matters most to humanity. It was all inspired by men chosen by God to write their books by the Holy Spirit, the knowledgeable and faithful Witness of all historical facts.So it does not reveal all, and it would be humanly impossible to register its entirety, but chose what we need for our instruction, knowledge and wisdom, for example:
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Through wise Solomon the Holy Spirit tells us that "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” and tells us "apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to words of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7 and 23:12).
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He also inspired the dedicated prophet Isaiah to write: "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go." (Isaiah 48:17). They are the words of the LORD,God the Son, the second person of the Trinity (readhttp://www.bible-facts.info/articles/carenames.htm).
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In the New Testament the Holy Spirit confirms through Peter that untaught and unstable people twist the Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).
From the entire history of mankind, the Bible records the facts that most concern the relationship between the human being and his Creator, since his creation to the forecast of his future already determined by God.
We will focus here on one of them:
After the first seventeen centuries after the creation of the first human couple, there was the extinction of all humanity then existing with a flood that covered the whole earth, saving only a family of eight people: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. This cataclysm lasted forty days and after this time the whole earth was underwater. The mountains of Ararat were covered (which currently rise to a height of 5185 metres), probably the highest at that time. It was a deluge of universal proportions: there are more than 270 different accounts of the flood, coming from all parts of the world.
One of the most important events in human history in antiquity, after the flood, happened at Babel. Babel is a name that has come to mean "confusion", and illustrates humanity's rebellion against God: about a century after the flood, having travelled West Noah’s descendants settled on a plain between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and decided to build a city and a tower to the heavens, to become famous and avoid being scattered all over the earth (Genesis11:1-9). This was contrary to God’s command to Noah and his sons: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1, 7).
In the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers several ruins of brick towers have been found, built thousands of years ago, and similar to the tower of Babel – they are called ziggurats by archaeologists. Their construction is solid, funnel-shaped, with a passage outside circling to the summit where there is an altar for sacrifices. Surely the tower of Babel was their precursor, serving as a model for those built later.
The tower not only manifested the arrogant and rebellious attitude of humanity against God, but also was a religious symbol, like the ziggurats copied from it, where people worshipped the sun, moon, and stars (Nimrod, a great-grandson of Noah, and his wife Semiramis came to be deified and represented by the sun and moon in Babylonian religion and others derived from it).
As they all spoke the same language, with the intelligence and the natural resources they had and the desire for aggrandizement, their progress would be faster on the road to self-sufficiency and material comfort, doing whatever they wanted - and their heart was still bad, rejecting their Creator.
Then we see the hand of God mercifully intervening in the life of that pioneer population, to prevent a rebellion of humanity gathered there which would result in its inevitable elimination. The LORD introduced a barrier, which proved very effective in curbing the progress of humanity: He confused their language, so that they could not understand one another’s speech - a kind of gift of tongues without an interpreter! As a result, they were divided and scattered abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they ceased building the city.
Even today the different languages separate people and the division gave rise to different cultures, different physical characteristics, and the multitude of religions that now exist. Other global traces, such as the location of primitive stone tools and human fossils also make sense in light of biblical history.
The Bible reveals a very different history from what is presented by the supporters of evolutionary theory, and the tower of Babel is clearly the appropriate starting point for understanding human history and the many differences in our world. Take, for example:
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Civilizations: Around the globe, we find traces of ancient civilizations that sprang up shortly after Babel. The pattern is not surprising. After the Flood, it would have taken time for forests to grow again and for people to rediscover resources. The first humans who left Babel would have made do with whatever materials they could find. But in short order, these early people could quickly build remarkable new civilizations.
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Languages: In Babel, God created different languages - apparently dozens of them. Over time, these languages have turned into thousands of languages and dialects known today. However, all modern languages still follow the patterns of "families" of the original languages at Babel that God created. Each "family" is different, as if it had appeared suddenly and slowly separately and not of a common language.
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Genes: The genes of living humans are extremely similar, varying little from region to region. This is not surprising, given the short time since Creation and the Flood, the small number of people who survived the Flood, and mankind’s recent dispersion from Babel. By comparing the genes of modern populations, scientists may even be able to reconstruct the history of genetic variations—in broad outline—as the original populations spread from Babel.
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Skin tones:- All people on earth today descended from Noah’s three sons. In just a few generations after Babel, mutations and different combinations of previously existing genetic information resulted in distinct people groups, each with superficial differences, such as different skin tones and eye shapes. Because the differences are so small, the people groups must have split up very recently.
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Stonetools:- We consistently find evidence that people dwelled in caves and made simple stone tools before they built advanced cities. This makes sense if the immigrants from Babel first found temporary shelter and made tools out of whatever materials were available, before metal ores were discovered and cities built.
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Human & Ape Fossils: - We normally find fossils of various extinct apes buried in rock layers below human fossils. This pattern makes sense if the Bible’s account of Babel is accurate. If apes spread out and populated the earth after the Flood while humans huddled together at Babel, then many generations of apes would have lived, died, and been fossilized before humans ever arrived on the scene. In fact, a vast number of mammals appear to have flourished and then gone extinct during the years right after the Flood, before humans ever left Babel.
Humanity is now again gathering around a language - English - propelled by science and cybernetics, possibly another sign that the end of this age is near.
Babel reminds us of the second time that God intervened in human language: it was on the first day of the Feast of Pentecost after the Lord’s ascension, and on the three other occasions that the Bible teaches that the first components of the church of Christ in these four initial groups began to speak in the other languages of the people present (they did not speak in an unknown tongue, as some people like to say): the opposite of what happened at Babel.
It is as if God were saying "I have good news to give you in your ownlanguage."This is what He has done, and now the Bible has been translated into more languages than any other book, including hundreds of languages of primitive tribes. The Gospel is for all mankind, and the gift of tongues was intended to show that the confusion of tongues at Babel now has its remedy in the union of those who are saved through the redemption that is in Christ. “...I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb...”(Revelation 7:9).
R David Jones
See also: