comment #1

Merlyn says ...

Babel: A tower mentioned in Genesis 11. The Bible describes how there was only one language used prior to construction of the tower. God was offended by the construction, and caused its builders to speak in different languages. Almost all linguistic experts, except those who are conservative Christians, consider the story to be a myth.

comment #2

Monument says ...

There's nothing wrong with myth.

comment #3

iamanerd says ...

There isn't anything wrong with myth, as long as what you get from it are IDEAS that are fundamental truths about human nature and experience. The stories in myth may never have happened, and that isn't important. Even if they are historically accurate, that isn't terribly important either.

What is true and important from/about the story of the tower of Babel is that with the migration of people (as the bible says is happening after the flood with the children/people of Noah) languages and cultures started to get farther and farther apart geographically. With this, everything in those new settled places becomes specific to that place. Sort of like out of Latin we get tons of language. The whole chapter before the story of the tower discusses the nations established after Noah's people start to spread out. Chapter 10 even mentions the "descendants of Japheth, by their families, their LANGUAGES, their lands, and their nations." It does the same things for Shem and Ham, the other sons of Noah. It is crystal clear in the chapter before that there is more than one language, and that the languages seem to be based on where/by whom places were settled. The bible never says that God came down and made a bunch of new languages or even that God made everyone there speak a different language. Sure, that would be really convenient to account for all the wacky languages we now speak, but then we must remember that most of the actual languages spoken in the bible aren't used/spoken anymore. What the bible says is that the Lord came down to CONFUSE the language, which is a play on words in Hebrew--the word babel.

The bible is full of lovely contradictions that are fun and exciting if you like literature and stories, but you sort of have to willing to concede that the bible is full of contradictions in the first place. Those who are literalists, who say to follow the bible exactly and take every word literally, always seem to confuse me because I assume they have never read it. God marks Cain for killing Abel so that anyone who met Cain wouldn't kill him. Well, if the only people around are Adam, Eve, Cain, and no longer Abel, then who exactly is God protecting Cain from?

I'd say, as a Christian, that the really interesting part of this story of the Tower of Babel is that the motivation we see from God is scary. He comes down to see this tower and city that the folks are building as one happy unit and decides that this cooperation of mankind is working too well. The Lord basically says that this sort of effort by mankind could do anything. So he fucks with them a little. On the one hand you could freak out, or you could think that is sort of cruel in the Greek god sense. I know that we are usually preached AT that the people were punished for trying to build their way to heaven. It just doesn't really say that in the bible. I tend to think that if God created everything, then that is good because I can blame Him for all the fuck-ups out there.

comment #4

iamanerd says ...

And yes, those fuck-ups would include my and all my typos.

comment #5

York "Budd" Durden says ...

The Bible is fiction, although useful for literary references it is unmatched in its universal familarity.

Having said that, to quote Vonnegut "it's all there in the sermon on the Mount." If only more people would get over the comic-book aspects, ie, the resurrection and other supernatural elements, then we might have something.