DW,
You wrote: It seems like all mankind not just A&E's offspring were not very global, and God had to force them to expand by confusing their language. .... was mankind somewhat concentrated in a relativily small area on earth did it start to become global only after the confusion of the language?
The Bible's own chronological, historical record indicates that the flood of Noah's day took place in 2350 B.C. Recent scientific tree ring studies point to this same date as being one in which a major climate altering event took place. However, scientists also assure us, for a slew of reasons, that if the Bible's account of Noah's flood is describing an actual historical event, it must be describing a flood that was confined to the land in which Noah lived. They also tell us that in the year 2350 B.C. our earth was very widely populated. For instance, anthropologists are certain that North America has been continually inhabited for 15,000 years and Australia for 30,000 years.
So then, what are we to make of the Bible's story of the tower of Babel and the confusion of languages which there took place shortly after the flood?
Genesis 11:1 tells us "The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech."
I believe that the true confusion of tongues, surpassing the incident at Babel, is the translation of ancient Hebrew into modern English. As I have pointed out in my past comments on Noah's flood, the Hebrew word that is often translated in Genesis as "earth," giving readers the idea that its writer was referring to our entire planet, is much more often translated in the Old Testament as "land." In fact, we find this to be the case in the very next verse (Gen. 11:2) which refers to the "land" of Shinar. I believe that Bible translators who chose to translate the Hebrew word "erets" as "earth" rather than as "land" in the Bible's historical accounts of Noah's flood and the tower of Babel are mainly to blame for many people's misunderstandings of both the Bible and the history of mankind.
The traditional interpretation of the flood and the dispersion at Babel has been that the total population of the entire world was confined to the land of Shinar in the post-flood era. It is said that these people, who supposedly amounted to all people living on earth, all spoke the same language and were all involved in building a tower at Babel. Then it is said that God confounded them, and off they went in all directions muttering Aztec, Mandarin, Swahili, and the like. They crossed oceans and reached far distant continents and changed their skin colors along the way.
This interpretation of Genesis has continued in spite of much extrabiblical evidence that has long been available which proves that this interpretation cannot be correct. All the "fundy" apologists have to do is count the mud brick ziggurats in Mesopotamia. Any number that exceeds one kills their interpretation. The remains of over thirty such "towers" have been found all over the region, in twenty-seven different cities, hundreds of miles apart. Had the entire earth been devoid of humanity except for Noah's descendants who all lived in the land of Shinar where the tower of Babel was built, what would explain all the additional towers?
Those other ziggurats at all those other widely scattered sites could not have all been built at the exact same time as the tower of Babel. Thus they had to have been constructed either before or after the tower of Babel. If they were constructed before Babel, it would mean that Noah's descendants (if everyone then alive were Noah's descendants) had already begun to spread out and settle in widely separated communities, precluding them from all being at one place, which was the case according to Genesis 10. On the other hand, if the many other ziggurats were constructed after Babel, it would mean that after the Lord taught them that He didn't like them building such towers and confused their language so they could not do so, they somehow managed to band together again and build more towers all over the place like nothing had happened. This makes no sense.
What does make sense is to understand that building ziggurats was very much the thing to do in those days. The tower of Babel was simply one of many Mesopotamian worship centers. Clearly, the building of the tower of Babel and the confusion of the participants' languages which then occurred seemed like a gigantic event to those who were there and passed the story down to their descendants. But the fact of the matter is that the tower of Babel was only one such tower among many which then existed. It was probably not even the biggest. And it was almost certainly neither the first nor the last.
So then, what did happen at Babel? Apparently some of Noah's descendants saw some of the fantastic places of worship built by their Sumerian neighbors, which were devoted to pagan gods. They then decided to follow suit and build just such a tower in an effort to reach their God. Due to their ignorance, the God of Noah's descendants tolerated the actions of the worshippers of false gods when they erected such structures in their foolish efforts to reach nonexistent pagan deities. However, God expected His chosen people to exercise better judgment. He was not pleased with their pagan copycat building project. So He put an end to it by confusing their speech. This action on God's part successfully brought an end to the spiritually misguided building project which Noah's descendants had begun and resulted in their being dispersed throughout the land.
As a final note, judging from the writings of Noah's descendants, some of which predate the time of Babel, the confusion of speech which took place at Babel does not appear to have been a permanent one.
