Genesis 11 Unlimited Human Power

[Saint Beloved]

[VERSE=Genesis 11:5-8,KJV_APOCRYPHA][VERSENUM]5[/VERSENUM] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

[VERSENUM]6[/VERSENUM] And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

[VERSENUM]7[/VERSENUM] Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

[VERSENUM]8[/VERSENUM] So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.[/VERSE]

A friend of mine prepared a study session for this chapter (that I wasn't in attendance for so I only have one side of the conversation to go on) but the group except for one was excited about humans having unlimited power to do whatever their imaginations wanted to do provided they were united and working for a common goal.

Is this talking about human only power to accomplish anything?
Is this talking about humans with God's power to accomplish anything?
Were Adam and Eve prior to the fall ultimately powerful as my friend suggests?
Will we once resurrected be ultimately powerful as my friend suggests?
Do you think it is likely humanity can/will be united in this fashion again before Christ's return or only after?

Thank you and God bless.

PS. My friend is an ex religious education and philosophy of religion teacher at A Level.

 

[Tolworth John]

They were human, not superhuman, so they did not have God like powers.
What they did have was inteligence, more than we do today.
They learnt how to make bricks, build tall towrs, smelt metals, deviced music and musical instruments all from scratch, with no one to teach them.
So yes the passage does refer to the ability of humanity to investigate and apply the results.

 

[Saint Beloved]

They were human, not superhuman, so they did not have God like powers.
What they did have was inteligence, more than we do today.
They learnt how to make bricks, build tall towrs, smelt metals, deviced music and musical instruments all from scratch, with no one to teach them.
So yes the passage does refer to the ability of humanity to investigate and apply the results.

So this power was solely human but limited to a specific set of peoples and time not to be considered as still existing for us today, am I understanding you correctly?

 

[Tolworth John]

I think they were ordinary people like you and me, but that there ability to think, reason was not as corrupted as our ability to do these things.
There is documented evidence that people had greater mental abilities than we do today.

 

[Saint Beloved]

I think they were ordinary people like you and me, but that there ability to think, reason was not as corrupted as our ability to do these things.
There is documented evidence that people had greater mental abilities than we do today.

I'm sure that's true our minds have so many technological and digital distractions impeding us!

 

[CrystalDragon]

So this power was solely human but limited to a specific set of peoples and time not to be considered as still existing for us today, am I understanding you correctly?

I think that it's just more of a case that with enough power and teamwork humans can accomplish whatever they set their minds to, either on their own or through technology. God for some reason stopped it back then (at least the tower building), but now we've built things that are likely much higher than the Tower of Babel ever might have been.

 

[CrystalDragon]

I'm sure that's true our minds have so many technological and digital distractions impeding us!

Though we are living longer and able to heal people more thanks to technology (when it isn't being abused).

 

[Tolworth John]

The reason God acted at babbel was not technological but spiritual. They wanted to become like God, to remove God as the sole person to be worshipped.
It was a continuation of the devils temptation to Eve, 'You will become like God!'
That is why God scattered that, that and that in building the tower they were disobeying the command to go and fill the earth.

 

[archer75]

I also tend to believe that people in the distant past had greater (human) abilities than most people do today, but I don't have a bucket of solid evidence for that.

 

[CrystalDragon]

The reason God acted at babbel was not technological but spiritual. They wanted to become like God, to remove God as the sole person to be worshipped.
It was a continuation of the devils temptation to Eve, 'You will become like God!'
That is why God scattered that, that and that in building the tower they were disobeying the command to go and fill the earth.

It wasn't the devil, it's clearly indicated in Genesis to be just a serpent. Also the serpent said "you will not die, but you will become like God, knowing good and evil". The latter actually happened and was the only way humans would "become like god". The "not dying" was what the serpent lied about.

Other than that, I agree.

 

[Papias]

[VERSE=Genesis 11:5-8,KJV_APOCRYPHA][VERSENUM]5[/VERSENUM] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

[VERSENUM]6[/VERSENUM] And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

[VERSENUM]7[/VERSENUM] Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

[VERSENUM]8[/VERSENUM] So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.[/VERSE]

A friend of mine prepared a study session for this chapter (that I wasn't in attendance for so I only have one side of the conversation to go on) but the group except for one was excited about humans having unlimited power to do whatever their imaginations wanted to do provided they were united and working for a common goal.

Is this talking about human only power to accomplish anything?
Is this talking about humans with God's power to accomplish anything?
Were Adam and Eve prior to the fall ultimately powerful as my friend suggests?
Will we once resurrected be ultimately powerful as my friend suggests?
Do you think it is likely humanity can/will be united in this fashion again before Christ's return or only after?

Thank you and God bless.

PS. My friend is an ex religious education and philosophy of religion teacher at A Level.

No, it's not saying that humans beings will be "ultimately powerful". Not before the fall, or after being resurrected, or anything.

The Babel story is simply a story to remind us of the sovereignty of God. It's also an etiological story - a legendary story that explains some aspect of the world - and is not meant to be taken as literal history. It obviously can't be literal history for a number of clear indications in the text. First of all, the origin of language is well known, having changed over time and branched off from earlier proto-language well over 8,000 years ago. Here is the family tree for the Indo-European languages (this type of evolution is similar to the evolution of species).

Secondly, it assumes a flat earth under a hard dome, with heaven above the dome. This is what is described in Gen 1, and the whole story of Babel hinges on the threat of humans building a tower to reach the top of the inside of the dome, and reaching Heaven without permission.

Third, it's main components are taken from earlier Sumerian stories, and recrafted into an etiological story.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[juvenissun]

Is this talking about human only power to accomplish anything?

Human is powerful. Today, we do not have much language barrier any more. And see what are we doing today in technology. We ARE building another Tower.