Monday, June 13, 2011

I was wondering about the Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is an intriguing and fascinating story. The purported aim is to explain why we have a lot of different languages in the world. If we all came from Adam and Eve, shouldn't we all speak the same language, "Garden-of-Eden-ese?"

In any case, I can't help but wonder the following things about the story, as told in Genesis 11...

  1. Did they really think they were going to get to heaven? How high were they going to have to go? 50 stories? 500 stories? 5,000?
  2. Did they have elevators and escalators? If not, that would be a LOT of climbing. 
  3. What did they do with all their pee and poop when they were on, like, floor 732? Throw it out the window? yuck
  4. How high did they get before God thwarted their plans? Did they get to 30 stories? That would have been really high in those days.
  5. Did God really think they were going to reach him? Isn't he like waaaaaay up there? Was he really nervous about it all?
  6. What if they were building on the wrong side of the earth, thereby building further and further away from heaven? I would have been pissed to find that out!
  7. Is this when God invented the 5 "love languages?"
  8. Our skyscrapers today have probably gone a lot higher than the tower of Babel. And our spaceships have gone waaaaay past that. Is God really realllllly worried now?
  9. Is having the same language really the thing that makes a people invincible?
  10. Is this when men and women stopped understanding each other?
  11. In God's omniscience and foreknowledge, did he know that someday far in the future someone would have the bright idea to invent babel fish?
OK. you're turn. Comment and tell me what your thoughts are about the Tower of Babel!

And, by all means, share this on Facebook! If you don't I will confuse your language. Asdfojl ewruionsd sdko!!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Were Adam and Eve literal?

The Bible/evolution debate has raged for over a century.

One way to rectify the conflict has been to say that humans did descend from more primitive forms, but it was at one particular point in the process when two specific individuals (Adam and Eve) made the important leap to the homo sapien species, from whom we all descended.

Recent genetic evidence, however, seems to point to a pool of several thousand primates who made this evolutionary progress together. This makes it difficult to see Adam and Eve as two literal human beings as described in Genesis.

Understandably, this has caused a stir in evangelicalism. If Adam and Eve were not literal, is it possible to salvage basic Biblical theology, especially Pauline, which posits that because of the one man's sin (Adam) all died, and because of one man's obedience (Jesus) all can live? Can you have a redemption if there wasn't a Fall?

Christianity Today did an article on this dilemma which you can read here: The Search for the Historical Adam.

So, what do you think? Were Adam and Eve two literal beings from whom all homo sapiens descended? Does it matter?

Please share and comment as you are led.

Woody Allen and Billy Graham

If you had too much sausage pizza and dreamed that Woody Allen interviewed Billy Graham, it might have gone something like this...