The babel tower

[Papias]

purity2holiness wrote:

Here, humans decided to build a tower whose top reaches heaven; my questions are:
-could that building have reached at least 100km height?
-we know that after 100km breathing becomes difficult, could those men have reached their goal of reaching heaven?
-we also know about the universe and others planets made by God, this make us believe that heaven is far above 100km as must planets are separated by thousands or millions km....how could have these men reached heaven with brick building? can brick walls stand above 100km?
-why did the Lord react that way? He who knows everything?

Great questions. It's clear that you are really looking at God's word and thinking about it.

The story of the creation, flood, and tower of Babel are all written with a common description of the world. The creation story makes that view clear (even using the hebrew word for "hard dome" in Gensis 1:6, 7 and 8), as do aspects of the flood, and the points you raised here.

In that description, the sky is a hard, clear dome over a flat earth. In such a situation, one could really build a tower to reach the dome surface, and break through into heaven. God was not really threatened, (because He knows there isn't really a dome, etc.), but the story is written to communicate the idea that God is in charge, to people who would understand it because they did see the world as being under a hard dome. The story need not be an actual event that happened, but can be a story God tells us to convey his sovereignty.

This resolves all your questions, right?

This has been recognized for centuries by Bible Scholars, both Catholic and Protestant. It shows how God talks to people in ways they'll understand, just as God talks to us today in prayer.

In Christ's Love-

Papias

 

[Calminian]

the atmospheric layer is hight up to about 100km and it is known that breathing is impossible out of that layer;

Now, the Bible tells us in Genesis 11:4-7

"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, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
"
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 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.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

Here, humans decided to build a tower whose top reaches heaven; my questions are:
-could that building have reached at least 100km height?
-we know that after 100km breathing becomes difficult, could those men have reached their goal of reaching heaven?
-we also know about the universe and others planets made by God, this make us believe that heaven is far above 100km as must planets are separated by thousands or millions km....how could have these men reached heaven with brick building? can brick walls stand above 100km?
-why did the Lord react that way? He who knows everything?

If you look at how heaven is defined in scripture (shamayim), it is best understood as the expanse that is above the land that extends out to the stars and beyond. It's really a very simple term. Therefore, a tall tower, technically, in biblical nomenclature, would indeed reach into the heavens.

In a twist of irony, this passage actually destroys the notion that heaven is a solid mass, rather than an expanse, that Papias likes to push.

I'm not sure why we get the idea that heaven starts somewhere at a vast distance out there. For birds are said to fly in the face of the heavens (Gen. 1:20). And some birds don't get very high in the sky at all. Certainly the ancients knew that there was an expanse that existed beyond where birds flew.

Biblically, if you traveled in an airplane, you've been to heaven. Sometimes we try to impose our modern nomenclatures on biblical terms, and therefore, we may develop some false views of what heaven actually is. But biblically it's merely the expanse that is above the land, and where that starts can be very subjective. To the biblical reader I would say it starts maybe just a couple hundred feet or so above ground.

When Absolon got caught in the tree look at how his height is described.

2Sam. 18:9 ..Absalom rode on a mule. The mule went under the thick boughs of a great terebinth tree, and his head caught in the terebinth; so he was left hanging between heaven and earth. And the mule which was under him went on. ​

He was maybe 10 ft. off the ground at the most, and yet is described as hanging between heaven and earth. And birds actually fly on the "face" of heaven. When viewed correctly as an expanse starting relatively low to the ground, all confusion subsides.

Therefore, I believe this passage is very literal. The ancients understood heaven as a spacial expanse which began fairly close to ground.

Even in our modern nomenclature, what do you typically call tall buildings? Are then not sky(heaven)scrapers? The answers understood heaven as the sky or that open expanse which is above the land. It's so simple, yet we can't help ourselves to make it complicated.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

that city is probably that closed area on the Arabian Peninsula called "The Empty Quarter", and "ruins",The Arabian Peninsula area near Iraq would also have been included as "Shinar" before the tower event....

No, this is definitely incorrect. The people after Ararat moved eastward into Shinar...check a map...the Arabian Peninsula is south and west

Paul

The tower builders went east from where they were -they were not at Ararat at that time- looking for a place to build a tower, and east from where they were to scout out for building the tower: they went "a two days -walk" from where they were; and built the tower in the land of Shinar.
From no place in Shinar is Ararat a two days journey westward, nor is Ararat west of Shinar.

Genesis redacts a bit from the record in Jasher:
Gen 11:1 ¶ And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
redaction
Gen 11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
Gen 11:3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
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, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth
redaction
Gen 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Jasher 9:21-
And king Nimrod reigned securely, and all the earth was under his control, and all the earth was of one tongue and words of union.
And all the princes of Nimrod and his great men took counsel together; Phut, Mitzraim, Cush and Canaan with their families, and they said to each other,

Come let us build ourselves a city and in it a strong tower, and its top reaching heaven, and we will make ourselves famed, so that we may reign upon the whole world, in order that the evil of our enemies may cease from us, that we may reign mightily over them, and that we may not become scattered over the earth on account of their wars.

And they all went before the king, and they told the king these words, and the king agreed with them in this affair, and he did so.

And all the families assembled consisting of about six hundred thousand men, and they went to seek an extensive piece of ground to build the city and the tower, and they sought in the whole earth and they found none like one valley at the east of the land of Shinar, about two days' walk, and they journeyed there and they dwelt there.
And they began to make bricks and burn fires to build the city and the tower that they had imagined to complete.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

....
Now, my point is still that, if heaven is far above in the sky, it must be far above 100km and these men would have never reached their goal if we refer to science and God must have known that because he knows everything, so why did he react as if these men could have reached heaven?

Heaven is that expanse stretched out between the waters of creation, with half the waters above the stretched out expanse and half below.
The waters above circle the stretched out expanse and the waters below were gathered together into one place, and the "dry" appeared.

Mayim מים is plural for waters. ים is seas. the stretched out expanse/firmament/רקיע is then named "sha-mayim/שמים", denoting that it is between the divided/two waters.

Scripture gives us 3 heavens -stories- in the stretched out heavens, and waters above those: and the stars may be [most likely are] revolving in their paths in the revolving around the earth heavens within that body of half the waters of creation raised up from the created earth.
It is an electric creation and the stars are conductors of the power which the sun collects and refracts back out to the creation, and the waters increase the power called "light" which God called "to be", on day 1.

Scripture names the face/פנים paniym as our atmosphere "where the fowl -and other flying creatures- fly".

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the face/פנים paniym firmament/רקיע raqiya` of heaven/sha-mayim/שמים.

Jesus rose in His own New Man creation flesh human being body and ascended into heaven in it.

Elijah ascended into the same heaven in his own old man flesh body -not yet regenerated- and is in Eden above, with Enoch, who is in his own regenerated transformed human being flesh body, and dwelling with the angels in Eden, and with Moses, who died and did not corrupt in his flesh yet, but was raised in his same old man flesh body and ascended into heaven, and is in Eden above, with Elijah, awaiting to return to preach Jesus in Jerusalem for 3 1/2 years, and to be killed, rise in regeneration of the flesh, and ascend into heaven.

Eden is where Adam was set to be in God's "rest" and tend the Garden/Paradise. Eden is also the same heavenly Mount Zion, the Holy Mount of God, where Paradise is, and where the throne of the Son of Man is, when He will take His throne there and rule over His ransomed dominion as the Firstborn of the creation, as God, our Redeemer/Kinsman, come in flesh.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

In Christ's Love-

Papias

The firmament is in stretched out stories, from earth. the birds fly in the firmanent, and the story they fly in is called the face of heaven.
Water has a "face", also, just like the heavens do, and if you dive in, you go deeper than the face. If you ascend upwards, from the earth, you go higher than the face.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the face/פנים paniym firmament/רקיע raqiya` of heaven/sha-mayim/שמים.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

The firmament is in stretched out stories, from earth. the birds fly in the firmanent, and the story they fly in is called the face of heaven.
Water has a "face", also, just like the heavens do, and if you dive in, you go deeper than the face. If you ascend upwards, from the earth, you go higher than the face.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the face/פנים paniym firmament/רקיע raqiya` of heaven/sha-mayim/שמים.

Also....
sea creatures descend below the "face" of the waters and do just fine, cause they are made for it.
Adam ascended above the face of the heavens and did just fine, cause he was made for it, before the fall.
We are not what we were before the fall, and yet, Elijah and Moses are up there, breathing just fine in Mount Eden, and so is Jesus and those who came out of their graves and ascended with Him, as first of Firstfruits of the first harvest of sons of God adopted into His New Man name, who have received their inheritance in Mount Eden above.

 

[Papias]

Readers may notice that my post is one of the few that actually addresses the OP's main question, that of "why would God care?".

He cared in the story because they might reach Heaven, his home. He would not care if they would have just reached "the heavens" - the sky.

Biblical scholars have for a long time realized that the stories of the creation, flood and babel describe the hard dome/flat earth model described, but that doesn't change that fact nor the scholarship supporting it.

In this case, like so many others, the stories in Genesis just plain make obvious sense when looked at in context of the hard dome world the ancient Hebrews thought they lived in. It also gives glory to God by showing that He speaks to people in the way they will understand, on their terms.

In God's Love-

Papias

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Readers may notice that my post is one of the few that actually addresses the OP's main question, that of "why would God care?".

He cared in the story because they might reach Heaven, his home. He would not care if they would have just reached "the heavens" - the sky.

Cal and others may be insecure about the fact that Biblical scholars have for a long time realized that the stories of the creation, flood and babel describe the hard dome/flat earth model described, but that doesn't change that fact nor the scholarship supporting it.

In this case, like so many others, the stories in Genesis just plain make obvious sense when looked at in context of the hard dome world the ancient Hebrews thought they lived in. It also gives glory to God by showing that He speaks to people in the way they will understand, on their terms.

In God's Love-

Papias

Actually, you went off from the first, using mens opinions to make a diagram in direct opposition to what the Word says, from Genesis 1.

The firmament is in stretched out stories, from earth. the birds fly in the firmament, and the" story" they fly in is called the "face of heaven" -the firmament.
Water has a "face", also, just like the heavens do, and if you dive in, you go deeper than the face. If you ascend upwards, from the earth, you go higher than the face.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the face/פנים paniym firmament/רקיע raqiya` of heaven/sha-mayim/שמים.

You also erred in not checking out what the Word says about His exact and specific dwelling place, which the Word is clear in Hebrew and in the Greek Septuagint, and in the English Douey-Rheims, that "He has set His dwelling place/tabernacle in the sun".

We live in a supernatural creation created by a supernatural Creator and upheld by the Supernatural Word in whose image we were made, so as to be a tabernacle for His Glory to indwell, as the "first temple not made with hands" -which is why the Word became flesh and stripped Himself of the Glory so as to come in that New Man creation flesh in the likeness of His flesh creation brother, Adam; but without the sin, so as to give His Life which He had by His power for our Redemption back, as cleansed by that blood souls, born anew into His Living Spirit [which is the adoption as sons], waiting for our adoption bodies made in His New Man creation human being flesh image, so that we can be brought back "For the Glory" to indwell us and to dwell in our Rest, above, which is God's Holy Mount and is where the Tree of Life is and is where Adam got driven away and cast down to the earth, below, from, when his flesh became a defiled temple and his soul unclean and his spirit dead, as a son of God.

The third heaven is where Paradise is. Adam was set in Paradise in the third heaven to "rest" and do God's works there, as the " human being firstborn son of earth" who ruled his dominion from there. But Adam never ascended to his throne, there: and so the Son of Man is come in flesh as the Kinsman/Redeemer of the lost seed of the human being son of God, Adam, to be their "Kinsman/Redeemer" and to restore the inheritance which Adam lost at the fall;
but in His own New Man name, not in the Adam name [which circumcision signs the cutting off, of, in the 8th Day, "that Great Day of Regeneration of all things" which is the 8th millennium and the New Beginning] Adam never ascended to the throne in heaven, but the Son of Man -God the Word, has always occupied that throne from before the foundation of the world, as it was written in heaven to be, and He is come and He was there, as God the Word hidden in God, and with God, holding the place in heaven for His ascension to that Throne in the flesh of second human being creation, and the Firstborn Son of earth who ransomed the dominion back from the curse of sin and corruption, by His blood.

Soon, He is coming take His ransomed kingdom to Himself, and reign in flesh over the dominion from that Paradise above, as the Firstborn son of God of the human being kind, and as the "God of the whole earth" in human being flesh, which is a position Adam lost at the fall.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Amo 9:6
"He builds His ascents/stories in the heaven".
He stretched out the heavens between the waters on day 2 of creation week.
In the stretched out heavens, He built "ascents". Paradise is in the third heaven.
Jesus ascended to the third heaven and never left there as God the Great Glory when He extended His Living Spirit into the New Man flesh creation human being body of the living "Firstborn Son of God", to come be our Redeemer/Kinsman.

 

[Rubiks]

The way I understand the tower story is that, The people could never actually reach heaven by building a tower. God changed the languages because of their intent i think, not because the tower would actually reach heaven if God hadn't intervened (The bible never suggests the tower would actually work, it just gives a description of their effort) I'm a bit unsure why God would care about the tower, though.

 

[pshun2404]

Because they were trying to get up and in by another way than the Gate of entry. The very name "Bab-El" translates to "Gate God".
The cherubim with flaming swords were put on guard at the gate of entry into the Mount of God which is Eden/Mount Zion when he drove Adam out and cast him down to the earth below, and set the guards so that Adam [we are all Adam as to our name and kind -Genesis 5:2] could not enter in and eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, and so, live forever in defiled bodies that could only be cast into the Lake of Fire and not be able to be regenerated in flesh and glorified as sons of God, as temples made to bear the Glory of the Unseen Creator.

Nimrod & Co wanted to "name themselves" gods and live forever by eating the fruit and taking over Mount Eden, where the throne of God is prepared for the Son of Man who has dominion over the earth.

They wanted to get back to where Adam was cast down from when he died as the "prince" a son of God =an elohym, of the human being kind. Read Psalm 82 using the Hebrew concordance for the words. Notice that in the Hebrew, Adam is the one [echad] prince/elohym/son of God who died and was cast down and the congregation of elohym in Eden are being addressed to rule earth with righteousness [they are the Watchers set over earth] or they will "die like Adam, the one prince/son of God and be cast down".

Bab-El = Gate God...Mount Eden...Adam cast "down to earth"? Where did you get this? Can you at least give us a source for your Babel (which means confusion) definition? "Gate" in every instance is sha'ar in Hebrew, and pyle' in Greek...?!? Please...where did this come from? Thanks

Paul

 

[yeshuasavedme]

Bab-El = Gate God...Mount Eden...Adam cast "down to earth"? Where did you get this? Can you at least give us a source for your Babel (which means confusion) definition? "Gate" in every instance is sha'ar in Hebrew, and pyle' in Greek...?!? Please...where did this come from? Thanks

Paul

Babylon definition_Babylon translation_ Babylon explain_what is Babylon_Online DictionaryBabylon at English => English (English Etymology) Of Explained:

1362, from Gk. version of Akkad. Bab-ilani "the gate of the gods," from bab "gate" + ilani, pl. of ilu "god" (cf. Babel). ///

BABEL, BABYLON (1) - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Keep in mind that the word "bab-el" is the reason for the coined word "babble". The nuking of Sodom and Gommorah gave us the coined words "Hades, sodomy, and gonorrhea.
There are many coined words that date from a happening or event or person's name that mean something different than the original meaning of the word: like "quisling", for instance -and you can think of many more.. Bummer was the name of a sniper in the Vietnam war, and the dead bodies come upon by the soldiers in his unit gave us the cliche "that's a bummer" -so a friend who is a vet tells us; but there are many instances in the Word. In Jasher, I read that Naples, Italy, was named after the son of Latinus [Nablus] who lost his life in a war and was buried there. Ever after, that place was called by his name, but you will not find that in the encyclopedias because they lost the history. The history of Hades being coined by the nuking of Sodom is right there in the Word, in Genesis 14 and Jude, but men lost their Bibles and lost the history of why words are coined

Nimrod built 4 cities after the tower affair and named each after a happening at the tower, but none of them were the sight of the tower or city, which has never been built again and was still ruins in the day of the writing of the historical record book called "Record of the Upright/Book of Jasher"

 

[yeshuasavedme]

The way I understand the tower story is that, The people could never actually reach heaven by building a tower. God changed the languages because of their intent i think, not because the tower would actually reach heaven if God hadn't intervened (The bible never suggests the tower would actually work, it just gives a description of their effort) I'm a bit unsure why God would care about the tower, though.

God said they could do what they could imagine, therefore, he confounded the mother tongue into 70 [which branched into 6,000 or so today] and shortened the lives of Adam beginning from that event, and divided the one land mass into the many, beginning at that event.

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.

 

[Calminian]

Readers may notice that my post is one of the few that actually addresses the OP's main question, that of "why would God care?".

I dont' think God actually cared about them making the tower that could reach the lower heavens where the birds fly. If you look at the passage carefully, you'll see what the real motive of the builders was, and why this was a concern to God.

Gen. 11:3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”​

Papais, I think you've completely misunderstood this entire passage. The men at that time were attempting to rebel against God and stay centralized on the earth and not spread out and fill the entire land. The great city and tower were a way attract them to stay near and thus disobey God.

Then look at God's response.

Gen. 11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.​

God says nothing about Him being afraid they might invade His home. The notion doesn't fit with the narrative at all. Very plainly He explains that this city would be the first step in them realizing all their evil desires, and repeating the folly of the last culture that God destroyed in the flood. Thus he created the languages, forcing them to break up and scatter all over the earth. And that was exactly the result.

But I just found it a bit ironic how this passage refutes the notion that these ancients believed heaven to be a solid dome and not an open expanse. For clearly these builders understood that the sky was very high and no tower could possibly reach a height to reach to sun and stars. For even a tower going up as high as the clouds would have been impossible, let alone a theoretical dome far far above the clouds. This would have been an obvious visual inference.

But when you allow scripture to define its own terms, and not try to force fit it with other ancient beliefs, you'll see the heavens (biblically) were really an expanse which encompassed the clouds and even bird flying heights, everything makes perfect sense. Building a tower just a couple hundred feet high was well within their reach, thus proving what concept of heaven they really had.

This is yet another passage in scripture that doesn't fit with the ancient cosmologies some of these 'scholars' are trying force them into. If these ancient really believed in a solid dome way up there beyond the clouds they would have never purposed to build a tower to it. Clearly this scriptural account preceded solid dome cosmologies. My thinking is, they likely developed much later after Babel.

 

[Papias]

Cal wrote:

I dont' think God actually cared about them making the tower that could reach the lower heavens where the birds fly. If you look at the passage carefully, you'll see what the real motive of the builders was, and why this was a concern to God.

Cal-

Thanks for the clearly laid out and cordial response. I agree that looking at the text is the first thing to do - especially with this being such a short passage, allowing us to copy pretty much whole thing right here, as you did.

Gen. 11:3 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” ​

​

Gen. 11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
​

Papais, I think you've completely misunderstood this entire passage. The men at that time were attempting to rebel against God and stay centralized on the earth and not spread out and fill the entire land. The great city and tower were a way attract them to stay near and thus disobey God.

God says nothing about Him being afraid they might invade His home. The notion doesn't fit with the narrative at all.

You are right that God doesn't explicitly say his "home". It does, however, say "heavens" which is closer to God's realm, and also suggests that God's concern is what they might to next, such as perhaps going farther. I've bolded what was said by people and God, and I only added v7 so as to complete the quote.

I think our views of this story are a little different, but overall, I agree that it doesn't obviously support my view (or yours). It's simply not a really clear passage as far as cosmology, becuase the cosmology is jsut assumed, as it usually is just assumed and not stated. Someone else might argue that it is simply a pourquoi story - a story describing why something is the way it is - in this case, why there are different languages.

Very plainly He explains that this city would be the first step in them realizing all their evil desires, and repeating the folly of the last culture that God destroyed in the flood. Thus he created the languages, forcing them to break up and scatter all over the earth. And that was exactly the result.

There isn't any reference, by humans or God, to pre-flood sins, which are described (Gen 6) as being "violence" toward each other. In fact, the notion of God retaliating because people did follow the command to fill the earth works direclty against the flood story itself. If anything, the pre-flood people, in the story, had followed God's command in Gen 1:28

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
​

After all, before the flood they certainly had multiplied, and spread out to fill the earth.


The fear in the Babel story, by contrast, seems to be that they would enter the realm of God, be more like God, or otherwise "make a name for themselves". (because they had aready started a tower to reach the heavens, and God was concerned what they might do next). The Babel story says nothing of "violence" - the sin that brought about the flood.

Thus, I think the sin of hubris fits better than the sin of "not following the command to multiply".

The "scattering" is portrayed as a weakening effect by both humans and God, not as a commandment. The people aren't building as to avoid any later cities in other places, but rather so that they can work together to accomplish great things, making a name for themselves.

But I just found it a bit ironic how this passage refutes the notion that these ancients believed heaven to be a solid dome and not an open expanse.

I don't see why you think it refutes the hard dome/flat earth idea. It's completely consistent with it.

But when you allow scripture to define its own terms, and not try to force fit it with other ancient beliefs,

Which is what I think allows the scriptures to show the hard dome/flat earth view. Letting it speak itself.

We've discussed that a lot. I can find a link to our earlier discussion to referenece here? - maybe that would be better than rehashing it all again. I don't think either of us realistically expects to convince the other.

My thinking is, they likely developed much later after Babel.

Perhaps. I think the hard dome/flat earth view developed independently in many places - after all, it's what the world looks like to those who who don't haven't launched rockets off the earth to see it is a sphere. That's why I'd guess the view predates the Babel story, but it's hard to know either way, and I appreciate your view.

Papias

 

[Calminian]

...I don't see why you think it refutes the hard dome/flat earth idea. It's completely consistent with it....

I just find it incredible to believe that these ancient were so dumb, and so ignorant in engineering and architecture that they believed they were going to build a 20,000 30,000 foot tower that could touch a supposed sold dome why beyond the clouds. It would take blind faith for me to accept that.

But if their concept of heaven was like the one expressed in Genesis—an open expansed which engulfed the birds, clouds and luminaries, then their statement makes perfect sense. Rather than complete idiots, they we merely stating that they could build a very tall tower that could be seen from miles away reaching the lower portions of the sky. Even today we call our tall buildings sky scrapers.

Considering the way Genesis describes the expanse of heaven, I see no reason to read the passage any other way but literally.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

The tower of Bab-El was being built to "climb up to heaven" where Paradise is, and where Adam was taken to, and which is " God's Rest" and which Adam was driven out of and cast down to the earth below, from.

The gate of entry was guarded by the Cherubim with the flaming swords to keep Adam from entering and eating of the Tree of Life and living forever, in his defiled, vain state of being, and without possibility of being cleansed in soul and adopted in Spirit and elementally transformed in his body of flesh into the New Man flesh of adoption; so as to be what he was created to be in the beginning, and lost; which was a temple for the Glory of the Unseen YHWH to indwell as a son of God of the human being kind.


They could do what they set out to do, and God stopped them; confounded the one mother tongue into 70, which caused the tribes to scatter and continue to scatter as tongues continued to divide; and stopped them by shortening the lifespans of the Adam persons, beginning from that time; and stopped them by dividing the one land mass from that time, as the tribes began to scatter out from Bab-el's tower site. Unity of evil minds is just not on God's agenda, in our fallen state of being.


They never built the city or the tower any more forever, from that time. They remained "ruins".
The book of Jasher tells the history of it. The tower was 40 years in building before God took it down, and it took one whole year to ascend from the bottom to the top with supplies for building up higher, for each supply train that began its ascent.
God struck it with an earthquake so that a third descended into the earth, and a third was burnt completely up with fire and a third was left standing and it took three days to walk around the base of what was left.

God also veiled the nations eyes so that we can no longer find the gate of entry for looking, or even see Mount Eden, which is Mount Zion of the heavenlies. They can see us from there, but we can no longer see them from here, since Babel.
Earthlings will see Eden again in the Millennial reign, for the veil will be removed form all nations' eyes and all nations will speak the one mother tongue of Eden, again, says the Word of God.

 

[Papias]

Originally Posted by Papias

...I don't see why you think it refutes the hard dome/flat earth idea. It's completely consistent with it....

I just find it incredible to believe that these ancient were so dumb, and so ignorant in engineering and architecture that they believed they were going to build a 20,000 30,000 foot tower that could touch a supposed sold dome why beyond the clouds. It would take blind faith for me to accept that.
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But the idea that it is possible is presupposed in the very story itself in both the teller and the audience. If it were as you say - that building a tower to the dome was obviously impossible - then God's response in the story would have been "Oh, that's impossible anyway, so I'll let them work at it and fail."

I don't think the ancients were dumb - far from it. That's why they would have gone with the hard dome/flat earth idea - because that's what is obvious if one just goes out and looks around.

Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree on this one, to me (and scholars), just reading the literal text of Genesis (and elsewhere) makes it clear that the world expressed was that of the hard dome/flat earth.

Have a good day in whatever you do-

Papias

 

[yeshuasavedme]

...
Which is what I think allows the scriptures to show the hard dome/flat earth view. Letting it speak itself.
..

Papias

You are not correct. The Scripture in no place teaches a flat earth nor hard "dome" view. You believe it without Scripture support.
Genesis 1: the heavens are stretched out between the waters of creation which are cut in halves, on day 2.

The stretched out expanse -firmament- is called "heavens", on day two.
The sun and moon are made and set in the firmament on day four, to govern/rule the light brought into being on day 1, and by day and night.
The stars are also made to rule the seasons [climate controllers of winds, rains, seasons, hail, snow, rains], as Genesis states.
In the face of the heavens, creatures fly -day 5.

And man can go to the stars -the planets, that is, and make their "nests" there, says God. Planet means "wanderer", and the planets that are not "lights" wander, and they also are part of the control of earth's climate in the seasons, as God ordained. ****

Man will apparently "make their "nests" on the stars" from where God will bring them down, in the near future -wanna sign up for a one way trip to Mars, anyone, and dwell in a "domed" "nest/cell" there?

Oba 1:4 Though thou exalt [thyself] as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.

Think God doesn't mean it? -look again:


Amo 9:2 Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they עלהascend/ `alah to heaven/shamayim, thence will I bring them down:

**** Applications open for one-way trip to Mars: Mission calls for couple willing to be cooped up together on 501 day trip | Mail Online

Want to go to Mars? Applications open for astronauts willing to take one-way trip to the red planet

• Over 10,000 people have already applied - despite the process not being officially announced until today
• Final choice will by made by viewers of a TV show
• It aims to establish a colony on the red planet by 2023

By Mark Prigg
PUBLISHED: 04:49 EST, 22 April 2013 | UPDATED: 02:14 EST, 23 April 2013
...

To boldly go where no man has gone before is quite a challenge.
But to boldly go knowing that you will never return to Earth may be asking a bit too much.
This has not deterred a Dutch-led research institute, however, which today launched a search for volunteers to take part in a one-way mission to Mars... and a TV show to choose them.

Scroll down for video

Read more: Applications open for one-way trip to Mars: Mission calls for couple willing to be cooped up together on 501 day trip | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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[SaintN8]

The book of Jasher tells the history of it.

Jasher is not scripture and, as far as I am aware, all of the books out there that are supposedly the "Jasher" referenced in the Bible are frauds.