Tower Of Babel (page 2)

only me

They stop using common sense just so they can nip pick at any and everything in the Bible no matter how unfounded the attack is.

It is "nit pick" not "nip pick". ( just a little nit picking of my own)

You're welcome.

Just as Jesus used parables to teach certain principles, I think many of the stories in the Hebrew scriptures (OT) are the same. When I was a JW, I took most of the stories literally. But, now, I don't. I think many of them are allegorical and intended to teach lessons or principles. This story from the Torah about The Tower of Babel is about ambition built on false premises. It was made of the bricks of traditional race-thought and the wrong use of personal will. When man uses his deeper knowledge for evil ends and material ambition, destruction is imminent. It must be torn down and rebuilt upon a foundation of divine purpose and enlightenment. This purification and enlightenment cannot be done overnight. It should not be built with "bricks and bitumen" but rather with "stone and mortar".

quietlyleaving

I agree journey-on, about parables. Also seeing "true" stories as such enables one to contest and challenge prevailing ideologies, assumptions and maginalisations to oxygenate new ideas for greater freedom.

Narkissos

Following on journey-on's post, there are a lot of fascinating and "spiritual" themes in the story in the Genesis context.

City, civilisation, (vertical) building as a result of artificial technique (v. 3, bricks in Mesopotamian fashion vs. Canaanite/Israelite stone building) and coordinated collective effort (the repeated cohortative "let us," v. 3f) as opposed to (horizontal) wandering and scattering (v. 2, 8f); the divine introduction of difference (linguistical and cultural) which puts a limit to the upward movement and reintroduces diversity as an essential dimension of human culture. "Let us make a name for ourselves" vs. "I will make your name great," the promise to Abram (12:2) as he leaves his country and city.

startingover

So Reniaa and Spike have left building, and out of the dust cloud emerges Blue Grass. Thanks for being here BG, this board needs people like you.

Blue Grass

PSacramentos says: "Now, I speak English, French, Portugese, Spanish and a smudge of Japanese and I don't even have a "thing" for languages, but even in those I can see some commonalites."

This isn't revelant to the point I'm trying to make about languages today that show no realation especially since every language you speak belong to the same family. A native speaker of English can become fluent in Spanish, French, or Portugese in only two years because they're all similar. As for your friend I feel you're fabricating a little bit but he's not here to confirm anything you say so it doesn't matter.

OnTheWayOut says: "But it was already pointed out that taking the "Tower of Babel" story literally means taking the tower literally.
How tall was it going to be? Would it really reach the heavens in some way that disturbed God?"

Here's a prime example of people critizing verses they don't understand. God wasn't angry because of the hieght of the tower but because of why the tower was being built and what it symbolized to Nimrod. The Book Of Jasher goes into more detail about why Nimrod was building the tower. Even though I don't endorse the Book Of Jasher as being 100% canonical, it does contain a lot of accurate information.

megs

Again... You have reached a conclusion and are not considering ANY shred of evidence that goes against your pre-determined conclusion. The "point" you seem to want to make is "I'm right, you all are wrong, nah neh nah neh nah nah".

So it is accurate because you SAY it is? There are a lot of different opinions expressed in here, all of them have merit, yet you are not even considering them.

inkling

As for your friend I feel you're fabricating a little bit but he's not here to confirm anything you say so it doesn't matter.

Hey, what a coincidence! That's exactly how I feel about YOUR "friend", the "Creator of The Universe".

[inkling]

Narkissos

Which "Book of Jasher"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_haYashar

P.S. The Nimrod/Babel connection is already developed in Josephus, AJ I,iv, with moralising developments:

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers !

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them divers languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion. The Sibyl also makes mention of this tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus: "When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon." But as to the plan of Shinar, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiaeus mentions it, when he says thus: "Such of the priests as were saved, took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar of Babylonia."

Blue Grass

The Book of Jasher I'm reffering to is the one translated from Hebrew in 1840 by J.H Parry.

Tower Of Babel

Share this