The Tower of Babel Story Discredits Inspiration

Moral Orel said:

I like how some movies start with "Inspired by true events". It doesn't mean anything in the movie actually happened, it was just inspired by things that actually happened. "Hey Orel, did you hear about that lady that drove her van into the river with her kids inside and they all drowned?" "Yes I did, and that inspired me to write a story about a gorilla!"

I used to steal Mitch Hedberg jokes. I mean I still do, but I used to too.

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...Whaah! And here I was getting all excited and weepy because I was kind of blown away while watching Bohemian Rhapsody last night, a movie directed by a biased gay-Christian. I should have known there wasn't anything to it ... talk about a Tower of Babel.

R.Miller said:

C'mon man. That's not a response. Why post at all?

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I guess you didn't read my entire post.

R.Miller said:

Yes, it was probably a Ziggurat. But everyone know that. I'm focused on the parts of the story which conflicts with what we know about the modern world ie, one world language, a single act of linguistic change, and the concentration of all of those language in one geographic location. Isn't that a problem for the truth claims of the text? Doesn't the text make truth claims relating to linguistic history?

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We determine truth according to Greek epistemology. Greek epistemology is not physical law. There is more than one way to assert truth. Greeks have their epistemology Indians have have their epistemology, Chinese have their epistemology, and so did the people of the ancient middle east.

R.Miller said:

I speaking to the argument that claims this is Historical Narrative.

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In that case, I'll step out of the discussion, since that's not a claim I would make for the early stories in Genesis.

I think that @2PhiloVoid 's post #98 is very good, and it represents my position well.

R.Miller said:

Th

That's not the problem. The problem is that world languages clearly evolved and share common cognates. Proto Indo European for example, contribute to many of the Western Languages. The Story in Genesis is a mythical attempt to explain HOW and WHY people speak different languages but, it is inaccurate.

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The story is a moral lesson. People to this day attempt to build their own towers of Babel, thinking they can storm the gates of heaven and demand entry by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps instead of trusting fully in God and Christ for their salvation.

I actually use the moral lesson of these passages from Genesis quite often.

That said, there is no proof it's not also historical in some fashion. It's a moral lesson to us in this day, but just like I use my own life experiences to teach youth, so too God often uses actual events for us to gain knowledge and understanding from.

Before you can say this is not an historical fact or is an historical fact, you must have proof of your standing.

I of course have no standing to say it is possible for this to also have been a historical reality, other than some measure of knowledge of God, at least to my own capacity at this moment, and a good bit of common sense.

It doesn't matter to me whether historical or no, truly. The moral lesson of it is more than a little beneficial to our Christian lives and walk, but if we someday find historical proofs through study of archeology etc. then it's always a happy day..

R.Miller said:

Genesis presents the dispersion of human language as historical narrative. Since Genesis 11: 1-9 is not a representation of historical fact, the doctrine of inspiration (as well as inerrancy) is untenable.

Disclaimer: Premise one assumes Genesis 11 is Historical Narrative, since that is the claim I am refuting,
P1 holds.

P1. Geneses 11 claims God directly caused linguistic diversity in the Mesopotamian region around the 3rd and 2nd Century BCE.

P2. Modern Linguists identify the evolution of multiple languages through Mesopotamia predating the #rd and 2nd centuries BCE.

C. The Genesis account of linguistic variation contradicts known facts and is not a trustworthy source.

Please feel free to object to my claim and discuss. I had to start the conversation somewhere. A clear reading of the text seems to indicate historical narrative as opposed to Hebraic Poetry or other literary devices; if you disagree let me know what literary device you think is more likely.

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If we look beyond languages in the Genesis story, the emphasis is on God being scared of humans actually achieving what they were set to do - build a tower and reach the dwelling place of God. So the multitude of languages and wide geographic dispersion of humans was God's way to keep humans separated, not united, unable to achieve anything great.

So the languages and ethnicities creation is a secondary detail of the whole story, I think. Of course it's not literal history. But the figurative idea of the tower is very true - many languages and separated nations do impede human progress.

Temirlan said:

If we look beyond languages in the Genesis story, the emphasis is on God being scared of humans actually achieving what they were set to do - build a tower and reach the dwelling place of God. So the multitude of languages and wide geographic dispersion of humans was God's way to keep humans separated, not united, unable to achieve anything great.

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This can't be emphasized enough -- everywhere else in the Bible, free will is the rule. That is to say, literally every other time humanity is about to do something God doesn't like, God lets them do it first, then punishes them after the fact. This time, He saw the need to head them off at the pass.

When someone acts out of character, it raises questions. When an eternal and unchanging God acts out of character, those questions become even more important.