In any case, I can't help but wonder the following things about the story, as told in Genesis 11...
- 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?
- Did they have elevators and escalators? If not, that would be a LOT of climbing.
- What did they do with all their pee and poop when they were on, like, floor 732? Throw it out the window? yuck
- 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.
- Did God really think they were going to reach him? Isn't he like waaaaaay up there? Was he really nervous about it all?
- 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!
- Is this when God invented the 5 "love languages?"
- 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?
- Is having the same language really the thing that makes a people invincible?
- Is this when men and women stopped understanding each other?
- 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!!
Doug, you have way too much time on your hands. Many assume, incorrectly, that God scattered and confused the languages of the people because they were trying to get to heaven (my step-son believes God punished him personally by creating the foreign language requirement for graduation). Genesis 11:1-9 never says that they were even trying to get heaven. It only says that the tower reached into the heavens. In other words it was a very tall building(the phrase we use today is skyscraper).
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind that the story is probably a parable, there are two features to this story that give God cause to do what he did. 1)In Genesis 9:1, God commanded them to "fill the earth." Instead they built a city. 2) The nature of the people's rebellion can be found in the words, "Let us make a name for ourselves." The tower was the feature of the city that would have drawn attention to them.
The building project that was halted by the scattering of the builders, and never resumed because of the confounding of tongues, was the building of a city that would stand in the way of man's calling and glorify man rather than God. I will resist the urge hear to include a joke about "social climbing."
ECL...I agree!The cool part, though, is that the Anti-Babel was yet to come!
ReplyDeleteIn Acts chapter 2, God allowed people from all different nations/languages to understand each other so they could hear the gospel. He allowed this so all people could be unified and brought back to Himself to build something far better than a tower...the CHURCH! This time it is HIS kingdom, not Babel, that is being established and we are the building project that God is working on for HIS glory. Unlike the tower, the church is not a physical building. WE are the church, “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” As such we are again commanded to scatter and fill the Earth so the Earth can be filled with HIS glory. This time, however, we scatter speaking one language...God’s language...THE GOSPEL!
A side thought....I suppose the Egyptians had the same bathroom issues as they built the pyramids!
BJM,
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to learn at some point that Acts 2 did not describe a miracle of being able to speak in other languages; rather, it describes a miracle of hearing. Know what I mean?
ECL,
ReplyDeleteI am MORTIFIED that I didn't reread the story before I wondered out loud about it. Dang. Thanks for correcting me. I have now learned that I need to read something before pronouncing my inerrant opinions about it, lol.
Now that I HAVE read it again, I've got more things I'm wondering...
12. Did the LORD need to "come down" to see the city and the tower? Was he not able to see it from "heaven?"
13. The people were worried about being scattered over the earth; that's why they built the city/tower. Why were they worried about that? And how did a city/tower help?
14. It seems to me that "make a name for ourselves" was less about being proud/arrogant, and more about establishing an identity that they could coalesce around. (See 13).
15. Why was God bothered by them becoming too successful? He seems kind of worried that they will compete with his power?
16. Who is "us," as in, "let us go down and confuse their language?
You bring up an interesting point about their desire to clump together may have been seen as a contradiction of the command to fill the earth, although this story doesn't indicate that was what God was bothered by.
By the way, what did you mean by "it's probably a parable?" As in, there never was a real city or real tower and God never really scattered people all over the earth? I'm not sure what you mean.