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babel research
Posted May 30, 2003
www.christiananswers.net/q-abr...
Is there archaeological evidence of
the Tower of Babel?
The base of the Tower of Babel.
The familiar story of the building of the Tower and City of Babel is found in Genesis 11:1-9. From the initial setting given for the account, on the plain of Shinar, to the final lines where the city is identified with Babel, it is clear that the events recorded took place in southern Mesopotamia.
The Tower of Babel
Many generations after Noah, when the whole earth still spoke the same language, people traveled to a plain in the Middle East and settled there.
Then they said to one another, "Let's build a city and a tower, and let's make a name for ourselves, so we won't be scattered around the whole earth."
The people made a tower designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself.
This decision was a direct refusal to obey God's command to go out and fill the earth. Also, the tower was designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself. The Lord looked upon the city and tower which these people were building.
And He said, "Behold, the people are organizing as one group and since they all speak the same language, nothing they imagine to do will be held back from them. Let us go down and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand each other's speech." And the Lord mixed up their language, causing them to stop building the city.
Therefore the name of that city became "Babel", which means confusion; because there the Lord multiplied language on the earth, causing people to scatter abroad.
www.cwd.co.uk/babel/index2.htm - the virtual babel encyclopaedia
www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/CH1... - the tower of babel gallery
ToC | Reading the Old Testament . . . Chapter 1. Genesis 1-11 | ToC
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Tower of Babel Gallery
Mesopotamian ziggurats were staged temple towers that lifted worshippers closer to their gods. The biblical ziggurat, called the Tower of Babel, symbolized humanity in rebellion against God in their attempt to ascend to heaven. The Tower of Babel story has come to symbolize human sin. Examine this collection of Tower of Babel pictures to understand the nature of ziggurats and how artists have used it to portray human sin.
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research
Posted May 30, 2003
The Tower of Babel
by Ray C. Stedman
The appearance of the first city [after the flood, built by Nimrod] goes back in the story of Cain and Abel, when Cain went out and built a city. It illustrated the hunger of humanity to huddle together for companionship, even though they were not really ready to do it (as they still, obviously, are not ready to live together successfully in cities). God's final intention is to build a city for man. Abraham looked for "a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." But man was not yet ready for that. Now here they are, again ready to build a city to satisfy the desires of body and soul. There is nothing that does this better than for human beings to live together in cities. Cities are centers of commercial and business life where all the needs of the body can best be met. Also, cities are centers of pleasure and culture, where all the hungers of the soul can be satisfied: hunger for beauty, art, and music and all the ingredients of culture.
The tower, on the other hand, is designed to satisfy the spirit of man. Here we see, reflected in these two things, a fundamental understanding of the nature of man as body, soul, and spirit. All are to be satisfied in these two elementary needs, the city and the tower. A number of years ago, digging in the plains of Shinar, archaeologists discovered the remains of certain great towers that these early Babylonians had built. Some archaeologists have felt that they may even have found the foundation of this original tower of Babel. That is very hard to determine. But they did find that the Babylonians built great towers called ziggurats, which were built in a circular fashion with an ascending staircase that terminates in a shrine at the top, around which are written the signs of the zodiac. Obviously, the tower was a religious building, intending to expose man to the mystery of the heavens and the greatness of God. That, perhaps, is what is meant here by the statement that they intended to build a tower with its top in the heavens. They were impressed by its greatness architecturally, that is, it was a colossal thing for the men of that day to build and they may have thus thought of it as reaching into heaven. But they also unquestionably were thinking of it as a means of communication with God, of maintaining contact with him. God is not to be left out, you see, in the city of man. He is there, represented by this tower.
However, the heart of the matter is made clear in these words, "let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Already a haunting fear had set in. They were conscious already of a disruptive influence in their midst, of a centrifugal force that was pushing them apart so they could not live too closely together and which would ultimately, they feared, scatter them abroad and leave them unknown, unhonored, and unsung, living in isolated communities where they would be exposed to great danger. The fear of this caused them to build a tower and a city. The ultimate motive is expressed in these words, "let us make a name for ourselves."
From that day on this has been the motto of humanity, "let us make a name for ourselves." I am always amused to see how many public edifices have put a plaque somewhere on which the names of all the public officials who were in power when it was built are inscribed: the mayor, the head of public works, etc. "Let us make a name for ourselves," is a fundamental urge of a fallen race. It reveals one of the basic philosophies of humanism: "Glory to man in the highest, for man is the master of things." That is the central thought of humanism, glory to mankind.
The fact that this was a religious tower-and yet built to make a name for man-reveals the master motive behind religion. It is a means by which man attempts to share the glory of God. We must understand this, otherwise we will never understand the power of religion as it has pervaded the earth and permeated our culture ever since. It is a way by which man seeks to share what is rightfully God's alone. This tower was a grandiose structure, and undoubtedly it was intended to be a means by which man would glorify God. Unquestionably there was a plaque somewhere attached to it that carried the pious words, "Erected in the year ___, to the greater glory of God." But it was not really for the glory of God; it was a way of controlling God, a way of channeling God by using him for man's glory. That is what man's religion has always sought to do. It is a way of making God available to us.
Man does not really want to eliminate God. It is only sporadically and then only for a relatively brief time, that men cry out for the elimination of God. Atheism is too barren, too pessimistic and too morally bankrupt to live with very long. The communists are finding this out. No, we need "dear old God," but let's keep him under control. Do not let him get out of his place. "Don't call us, God; we'll call you." This is the fundamental philosophy of society. It is the tower of Babel all over again. (from The Beginnings, by Ray C. Stedman, Waco Books, 1978.
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tower research - www.ldolphin.org/babel.html
Posted May 30, 2003
THE TOWER OF BABEL
AND
THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES
by Lambert Dolphin
The building of the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Tongues (languages) in ancient Babylon is mentioned rather briefly in Genesis Chapters 10 and 11. Genesis 10 is the so-called "Table of Nations" --a list of 70 names of Noah's descendants through Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The list is probably not complete, but we are given a good picture of the division of our race into three branches each having been gifted special giftedness and unique qualities by God, highlighting the spiritual, intellectual and physical sides of man as he was created in the image of God. Genesis 10:6-12 includes a parenthetical section on one of the sons of grandsons Ham, Nimrod the son of Cush.
"The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, 'Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.' The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city...(Genesis 10:6-12)
Nimrod's name is from the verb "let us revolt." He is said to be a mighty hunter (gibbor tsayidh) in the sight of the Lord, but the language has a dark meaning. He becomes a tyrant or despot leading an organized rebellion against the rule of Yahweh. He hunts not animals, but rather the souls of men. Cain, a condemned murderer had started the first cities before the Flood. Nimrod builds the first post-Flood cities. The region he settles in is now mostly modern Iraq--unusual for Ham--most of the sons of Ham went south to Africa or East to China. The people of Shem stayed close-in to the region where the Ark landed, the Japhethites headed mostly North and West. Genesis 10 continues with a list of the other descendants of Ham, then presents a list of Shem's lineage. Chapter 11 resumes the account of Nimrod's Babylon:
"Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.' Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:1-9)
"Babel" is composed of two words, "baa" meaning "gate" and "el," "god." Hence, "the gate of god." A related word in Hebrew, "balal" means "confusion."
Nimrod probably began to build his cities within a hundred years of the Flood. The confusion of tongues is usually thought to have occurred during the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25). The chronology one derives from most English Bibles, which are translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, places the time of Peleg only about 100 years after the Flood. This is probably incorrect. Barry Setterfield dates Peleg as living 530 years after the Flood, using the Vorlage Text and the Septuagint (LXX). See his Creation and Catastrophe Chronology. The dates computed by Setterfield are a much better fit to what we know from archaeology and recorded history about the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Fertile Crescent Region. The world population at the time of the Dispersion at Babel may have been of the order of tens of thousands of persons.
Babylon becomes, in history, the fountainhead of false religion in the Post-Flood world. The city Babylon and Iraq figure in Biblical prophecies connected with the end of the age. "Mystery Babylon" is a theme seen even more in Bible prophecy. Revelation 17-18 depicts God's final judgment of world religion plus world commerce and trade since these man-made systems have sprung from the source rebellion of Nimrod and Babel. See Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done... for a description of the place of Babylon in Biblical eschatology.
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Radford?
Posted May 8, 2003
Short guys all the girls think are cute don't get asked to play by the basketball players. The church with two bells, and a derelict site, show the noise and confusion, and destruction this causes.
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Kerresley?
Posted May 8, 2003
Into seclusion begins with a start, a brief interlude met by the crash of cold metal. Over a styl and dancing horses playing, a tin church protrudes, a symbol of beauty in ugliness. The mannor house, a glorious achievement before. Before the village pockets of seclusion met with confusion.
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