Tower of Babel

[ChristBearer]

I've been reading and a question just came up and I was wondering if any of you guys could help me with it.

We all know the story about the Tower of Babel, my question is did they start to make it to reach God? Was that really their intention? Or is there more to their motive? Or maybe a different reason they built it altogether?

 

[localz]

I see no reason to believe that. The Bible says clearly that their motivation for building the tower was so that they would not be scattered over the face of the earth.

 

[ChristBearer]

I was listening to Henry Morris and he said the same thing. Here are my questions though;Why did the people making the tower of babel want to be united? Was there a reason God found it to be wrong?

 

[localz]

Well, God did tell everyone to go forth and multiply. Subdue the earth, all that stuff. I guess these guys were too scared/too lazy to spread out, so they just sat in one place and made a tower.

 

[LoG]

If memory serves correctly, according to the Book of Jasher the Tower served two purposes: 1. The leader, Nimrod wished to keep all the people under him by building it. Give them a common purpose. 2. Build an edifice high enough so a future flood would not wipe them out.

 

[keyarch]

I've been reading and a question just came up and I was wondering if any of you guys could help me with it.

We all know the story about the Tower of Babel, my question is did they start to make it to reach God? Was that really their intention? Or is there more to their motive? Or maybe a different reason they built it altogether?

KJV
Genesis 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.

They were building it so the top would reach up into the sky. I don't think they were trying to go into the upper heavens. They must have known their limits of construction. It was probably a monument that could be seen from a great distance as a symbol of unification. What I am wondering after thinking about your question is: Could there be any remnants of this tower? There should be some history behind where it was and so forth. If found, maybe we could figure out how tall it actually was.

 

[ChristBearer]

They were building it so the top would reach up into the sky. I don't think they were trying to go into the upper heavens. They must have known their limits of construction. It was probably a monument that could be seen from a great distance as a symbol of unification. What I am wondering after thinking about your question is: Could there be any remnants of this tower? There should be some history behind where it was and so forth. If found, maybe we could figure out how tall it actually was.

I believe Dr. Henry Morris mentioned some area where at first glance looked like rubble but it turned out to be the remains of an advanced huge building.

I still don't see why these people would defy God and not spread, what was the point of building a huge building? It seems pointless to me. But if that's the plain and simple truth what can I do but just accept it.

 

[Graham4C]

the people simply wanted to stick together. Im not familiar with the "book of Jasher" but those sound like two likely reasons for sticking together as well.

Another interesting point:

Genesis tells us that God seperated the people by language. People kept with people who had the same language as them. This is to be expected. BUT what if God also at this point split people into different RACES. So this would be where various languages and races came from today. what do you think?

 

[keyarch]

the people simply wanted to stick together. Im not familiar with the "book of Jasher" but those sound like two likely reasons for sticking together as well.

Another interesting point:

Genesis tells us that God seperated the people by language. People kept with people who had the same language as them. This is to be expected. BUT what if God also at this point split people into different RACES. So this would be where various languages and races came from today. what do you think?

I think it could be characterized as "tribes" of which there may already have been some different physical features that we consider part of a race. But, we are all of one blood and part of the human race.
I found it interesting in a study done: http://tinyurl.com/2r78xs in which they figure that we all spoke one language until about 8,700 years ago.
When I posed the following question to the author (Dr. Russell Gray):

Dear Dr. Gray, Is there any ‘physical evidence’ that would rule out the following scenario?
There was one common language until about 4600 years ago, and then all the different root languages emerged ‘suddenly’ within different tribes who then dispersed to live in different parts of the world."

I got the following reply:

Yes there is lots of physical evidence that people, and therefore their languages, do not just suddenly spring into existence 4,600 years ago. If the people didn't why do you think the languages might of? Cheers, Russell.

So, even though there a relatively sudden emergence of different languages fairly recently in human history, the science community holds to an evolutionary background for how it happened, and don't even consider miraculous intervention.

Just a note: When I gave him a Biblical reason/response, I never heard back from him.

 

[FallingWaters]

Gen 11:1-9
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 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.
4 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 dispersed over the face of the whole earth."
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
6 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.
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech."
8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
English Standard Bible

From John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible we gain some insight into the story and also this eyewitness account:

An eyewitness in the late 1600's describes what was believed to be the remains of the Tower of Babel:
"``now at this day, that which remaineth is called the remnant of the tower of Babel; there standing as much as is a quarter of a mile in compass, and as high as the stone work of Paul's steeple in London--the bricks are three quarters of a yard in length, and a quarter in thickness, and between every course of bricks there lieth a course of mats, made of canes and palm tree leaves, so fresh as if they had been laid within one year.''"
Cartwright's Preacher's Travels, p. 99, 100.
http://eword.gospelcom.net/comments/genesis/gill/genesis11.htm

(The height from the pavement, to the cross on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral steeple is 365 feet.)
(A 1/4 mile circumference would make it approx. 420 feet across! That’s 140 yards; a football field is 100 yards.)

There are other accounts and comments.
Just click on the link and scroll down to verse 4,
second paragraph.

 

[FallingWaters]

the people simply wanted to stick together. Im not familiar with the "book of Jasher" but those sound like two likely reasons for sticking together as well.

Another interesting point:

Genesis tells us that God seperated the people by language. People kept with people who had the same language as them. This is to be expected. BUT what if God also at this point split people into different RACES. So this would be where various languages and races came from today. what do you think?

Yes, many Creationists believe that the races began to come about at Babel because of the splitting up of the gene pool at this time.

How did all the different ‘races’ arise (from Noah’s family)?