Mesopotamia, the tower of Babel, fact or fiction?

by wanderlustguy 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  wanderlustguy

  Of course the area known as Mesopotamia was real, and it looks like there is evidence of a "Tower of Babel". But as for the story of all languages, etc is it where everyone came from?

  When we look at society today, as cultures and people of different races merge together, we see people becoming more like each other, not more distinct. So going purely on what we see, people of different races had to, almost by very definition, come from different origins.

  With that said, how could one region of a particular race...assuming a relatively small population, or even one couple for that matter produce all the races of the world, this isn't even going into the language thing from where God confused the languages so man would spread out.

  When in history has a spanish couple (just for an example) produced an African featured child? The laws of nature seem to make the account of the origin of races and languages we were given impossible.

  Thoughts?
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  Leolaia

  There was a "Tower of Babel" (Entemenaki) in the Neo-Babylonian period (6th century BC) but not at the time the biblical narrative puts it....the city of Babylon may not have even existed in the Early Dynastic period. As far as languages are concerned, it has been linguistically established that there were separate languages much earlier than this, distributed globally. The biblical story is an ancient attempt to explain linguistic and cultural diversity, nothing more.

  When we look at society today, as cultures and people of different races merge together, we see people becoming more like each other, not more distinct. So going purely on what we see, people of different races had to, almost by very definition, come from different origins.

  Race is not a genetically valid concept....in reality, racial differences are due to a very tiny number of genes, and most represent local adaptations to the environment. It has been said that there is more genetic variation within a single village than between abstracted "races". The genetic evidence indicates that the species as a whole had a common origin in Africa fairly recently (i.e. 200,000-150,000 years ago) and whatever changes that have subsequently occurred are more than superficial than otherwise. Skin color for instance is a gradual adaptation that has independently occurred across the globe due to environmental factors; the whitest Australians will become as black as the aborigines in about 10,000 years, barring no technological or social intervention.

  As for the biblical Flood story of repopulation, a group of 8 individuals is just not a viable breeding population. We know too well what happens with endangered species when the breeding stock becomes too small. You correctly note that this population is just too miniscule to account for present-day genetic diversity, especially at a time depth of only 4,400 years.
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  A Paduan

  
  - Stories often have some level of basis in facts, it wouldn't suprise me if there was some big structure built or attempted around there someparts
  

  • When there's a big job on people are contracted in and workers come from everywhere
  • Some jobs go bust or get trimmed back for many reasons (often blamed on poor communication - lack of common ground spoils many endeavours)

  - Some stories of simple nature are told in a manner and are used for spirituality

  • "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language...
  • some people form doctrine, seek zealots, harden and build together to try and be magnificent like God (see jwism)
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  Shazard

  Leo, theory about small breeding group is right in case if the rules apply to them! But you can't say that their gene pool was so much damaged that they could not create children without problems. And you can see evidence - lifetime of Noa and his sons is very long - that means their health and phisical parameters were pretty damn good for breeding. And if you add God's own interests in the breeding...
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  Hellrider

  - Stories often have some level of basis in facts, it wouldn't suprise me if there was some big structure built or attempted around there someparts
  
  

  • When there's a big job on people are contracted in and workers come from everywhere
  • Some jobs go bust or get trimmed back for many reasons (often blamed on poor communication - lack of common ground spoils many endeavours)

  - Some stories of simple nature are told in a manner and are used for spirituality

  • "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language...
  • some people form doctrine, seek zealots, harden and build together to try and be magnificent like God (see jwism)

  And 2500 years later, some people are dumb enough to structure their entire lives on these old stories, which they believed happened literally, the way they were told. Pretty funny, isn`t it.
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  heathen

  Personally I believe the story . Not hard to find monolithic structures all over the world usually in the shape of some type of pyramid . You can also trace all dialects back to a root , like the latin languages .
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  Hellrider

  Heathen:

  Personally I believe the story . Not hard to find monolithic structures all over the world usually in the shape of some type of pyramid . You can also trace all dialects back to a root , like the latin languages

  The idea that there was some original language that is the root of all the languages on the earth, is not something that can be proved. There`s not even anything that would point to that, as far as I know. The comparison with latin isn`t so good either, as latin isn`t the root of even the European languages. Latin is/was a language among many other european languages (such as the old german languages), which all (all the european ones, except for finnish-ugric) developed naturally from what probably was a common indo-european language. For the last two thousand years, the european languages have developed, based on latin (because the Romans were all over Europe) and the germanic languages. Whatever the indoeuropean language was like, is impossible to know. And so it`s impossible to know what the relationship the indoeuropean language had to languages from other parts of the world (Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas etc). So there are no linguistic "proofs" of the belief in an "original" language that was the only language on earth,once upon a time.
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  breeze

  This language issue is what makes me hold on to the Bible. It seems that there is no clear explanation of how many languages came about. It does however make sense that GOD would be involved according to religion, just another way of making things more mysterious.

  If there a way to explain the language issue with out the Tower of Babel story please lead me to it?

  BREEZE
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  heathen

  If there a way to explain the language issue with out the Tower of Babel story please lead me to it?

  I think what evolutionists are saying is that primitive man began to communicate with certain grunts and sounds that meant whatever it was they were trying to describe . Anyway I thought it was the other way around with the latin root being discovered after the languages were already common in order for people to communicate . Just my opinion . I don't think there is anyway to determine these type of things . Science can only guess . The bible tells an interesting story .
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  AlanF

  Breeze, mankind in one form or another has existed for a couple of million years. During that time, language evolved. That time span is extremely long compared with modern human history since the beginning of agriculture some 8,000 years ago. It stands to reason that, just as during historical times, languages evolved drastically during those millions of years. Since there are no written records earlier than a few thousand years ago, and precious few clues of any kind about mankind until the beginning of agriculture, there simply is no way to prove anything about how language came about.

  There is some negative evidence about a claim that languages were created by fiat in Mesopotamia some 4,400 years ago and spread from there all over the world. For one thing, there is no real evidence for such a spread. For another, recent genetic studies indicate that outside of Africa, most humans spread from a location in Central Asia (not sure of the details; I saw an interesting Discovery Channel presentation on this not long ago). For a third, genetic studies of Africans indicates that African genes are much more diverse within Africa than are the genes of all "races" outside the continent, and language studies indicate the same thing, both of which indicate no spreading of African languages or genes from Mesopotamia.

  AlanF