When I was studying with the dubs Hislop's book was one of the few non JW books that they wholeheartedly recommended and it's easy to see why, they are deeply into the belief that the early Christian church apostasised and Hislop covers just that subject.
I also think he was playing fast and loose with the facts, it doesn't mean that everything the pagans did was not to be copied because the Jews used many things the pagans were using before them eg altars, burning incense, circumcision, and we use the wedding rings.
As Paul said in his very masculine and masterful approach to paganism their pagan Gods are nothing so we can take and use many pagan things and even eat meat sacrificed to idols without fear.
Thus the Catholic/Orthodox did nothing wrong in integrating some of these in Christianity as long as they didn't contradict its spirit eg Christmas yes but temple prostitution certainly no.
Nimrod; Tower of Babel
by TheListener 45 Replies latest watchtower bible
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greendawn
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greendawn
By the way I found this interesting encounter between Nimrod and Abraham where Nimrod wants to kill him for disrespecting the pagan religion he had set up. Most likely a Jewish fable.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=246612 -
BlessedStar
Tell me what you think of this:
The World Trade Center Towers could certainly be a type and warning to us as a nation that our money and pride has reached into the heavens and it is now brought down by our own sins.
In the Old Testament the other tower that God did not approve of was the Tower of Babel. This is how Babylon got its name.
Nimrod and the men who were building this tower had the wrong motives for doing it, therefore, the Lord confused their languages *so that the work was not completed and the men were scattered abroad on the face of the earth.
* Only God could do something like that. Hence we have so many different languages.
blessedstar
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TheListener
I'd say the Bible tells us that men wanted to build a tower into the heavens to make a name for themselves and for fear that they would be scattered. God saw it and realized that nothing was out of man's reach unless he confused the languages. No mention of Nimrod by the way.
Was building the tower so evil? Was not wanting to be scattered so bad?
How fair is it to be in a universar court case where the judge stacked the deck against you? If you all speak the same language perhaps you could rule yourselves peacefully. So, I will confuse your languages and thus prove Satan a liar!
That's the main reason why the universal sovereignty angle doesn't work for me. To make it a real court case we would need to be given every possible opportunity to succeed yet still fail. God took our opportunity to succeed away when he confused our languages. Therefore we aren't living in the midst of a universal court case.
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darcy
It's probable that he was part of the building.
First, as you mentioned, his kingdom began with "Babel... in the land of Shinar" (Gen 10:10)
Turn over to the actual account in chaper 11. It says that "in their journeying eastward they eventually discovered a valley plain in the land of Shinar, and they took up dwelling there." We don't know if Nimrod was apart of this group. Aparently, next, it was also this same group that decided to build the tower. They did so to "make a celebrated name for [them]selves."
Based on Nimrod's history, and the active part he took in expanding his kingdom, he may well have shared this mentality of wanting to 'make a celebrated name' for himself. In fact, most with the sort of ambition it takes to build a kingdom are after something of a name.
You're right, there's no timeline, or naming names. But it can be inferred that since Nimrod's kingdom began with Babel in Shinar, that he may well have been with those people who built the tower. Or, he could have been another monarch who came along after the tower's completion/confusion of languages, and there started to build his empire.
Good research and good question, btw!
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TheListener
Thanks Darcy, I appreciate your comment.