Just wanted to point out something that another poster brought up in the thread on the AGM rumours, the writing department included a photo of a cuneiform tablet in their article on the origin of languages with a caption that states it is from 3000 BC. This would pre-date the global flood myth and the fanciful tower of babel story altogether, hah!
Major goof in the Sept 1 WT article on Babel and the origin of languages
by marmot 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
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wallsofjericho
A clay tablet with cuneiform writing, from Mesopotamia, third millennium B.C.E.
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20130901/did-languages-come-from-the-tower-of-babel/
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sir82
Lazy editing. The WTS does it all the time.
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notjustyet
Not sure if this thought is even relevent as I am unaware of the dates the WTBTS says that the global flood happened or the Tower Of Babel was being built but the 3rd millenium would start around 2001 BCE right, not 3000 years as normally thought.
NJY
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AnnOMaly
but the 3rd millenium would start around 2001 BCE right,
Right.
The tablet is dated to 2113-2006 BCE. http://www.lessingimages.com/viewimage.asp?i=08020164+&cr=64&cl=1
Insight, Vol. 2 p. 1212 Writing
According to Bible chronology, the global Flood of Noah’s day occurred in 2370 B.C.E.
No goof ... at least as far consistency within the JW paradigm on this point is concerned.
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Flg8ter
Not lazy.......smart. Make a statement, show any kind of physical evidence and they will believe it! Remember. .......you're not allowed to research outside of the WT......and now you're not supposed to look at old or past WT's or books.....only newest ones for the "brightest light". Its perfect! Believe without question what we say now and disregard anything have said or anything you find!
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marmot
Hadn't thought about the reverse-running date numbers for 3rd millenium BCE, dangit. Still, that's some mighty intellectually dishonest information-mining there. Wikipedia has this to say about cuneiform writing:
"The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing were gradually replaced around 2700-2500 BC by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BC. About 2600 BC cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. From the 26th century BC, this script was adapted to the Akkadian language, and from there to others such as Hurrian and Hittite."
This means that cuneiform definitely predates the deluge and the tower of babel stories, but the WT are brazen enough to point to it as proof for their stupid logic.
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losingit
Just learn REAL history!
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Londo111
Just speculation in regard the revised translation they are doing…the Old Testament Chronology differs depending on if using the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Perhaps they are revising their whole chronology, moving it back by a thousand years.
Personally, toward the end of my stint as a JW, it was getting harder and harder for me to believe in a Global Flood and viewing the Eden story as literal history.
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AnnOMaly
Hmm. On the one hand, the writer is countering the idea that languages developed over time from one 'mother tongue,' but rather exploded on the scene with the Tower of Babel incident. The reason for rejecting the idea that several language groups developed from one original language is, of course, it depends on humans being around for far, far longer than 6000 years.
On the other hand, the article points out that there was an original 'mother tongue' before the Tower of Babel incident. It doesn't say what language it was, but we know from other WTS publications what it's alluding to:
Scripture Inspired p. 306 par. 6 Study Number 5—The Hebrew Text of the Holy Scriptures
What men today call the Hebrew language was, in its original form, the language that Adam spoke in the garden of Eden. For this reason it could be referred to as man’s language. It was the language spoken in Noah’s day, though with a growing vocabulary. In still further expanded form, it was the basic language that survived when Jehovah confused mankind’s speech at the Tower of Babel. (Gen. 11:1, 7-9)
The WTS even accepts that writing was around before the Flood and that tablets have been discovered in Mesopotamia that pre-date the Flood. See w50, 9/1, p. 297, "Writing Before the Flood." I think that the WTS would explain that Hebrew and Sumerian are part of the same Semitic language group so there is no conflict.
