The Tower of Babel

That is why it is called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Genesis 11:9

I find the story of the Tower of Babel fascinating because of my love for languages - etymology and philology - I took History of the English Language as an upper level elective in college, just for fun. Being a bit of a rebel at a conservative Christian school, I wrote my culminating research paper on the history, usage and etymology of curse words. The paper was called "Dirty Word, Dirty Word, Cursing Fit" because that is what one of my friends in high school used to say in place of obscenity. George Carlin would have been proud. But I digress . . .

God's reasons for muddling the languages are odd - but what I would give to see that! What did that first language sound like? Was this Indo-European root language one of the ones created at the Tower?

Babel of course lends it's name to Babel Fish, the online language translator, and even more famously to Babylon. Yes, Babel became Babylon, the evil empire - still relevant today, as ancient Babylon is very near modern Baghdad in Iraq.

Oh, and here they come again - more begats! But this time we are begatting someone who is very important to the rest of the book of Genesis, and indeed to the rest of the bible - because it is at the end of this long list of begats that we are introduced to Abraham. Yes, Abraham. As in Father Abraham (he of many sons . . . if you ever went to Sunday School or VBS at an evangelical church then you probably know exactly what I'm talking about). Only, this descendant of Shem is, at the moment, still going by his bisyllabic "Abram".

Abram, his father Terah, and his brothers Nahor and Haran (father of Lot) call Ur of the Chaldeans home. (Not to be confused with Caledonia, which is part of Scotland). It seems that Terah too escaped the age limit restrictions of chapter 6, as he survived to 205 years old. He died in Haran, which I'm guess was named for his son at a later date, since that is where his family settled, and which I am also guessing is somewhere between Ur and Canaan, as it was to Canaan that the family (including Abram and his wife Sarai) were headed.

This chapter doesn't raise many questions for me, it's more just a straight history . . . so it is in Haran where we will pick up on the story of Abram in our next installment of As The World Turns . . . I mean, um, A Chapter A Day.

The Nations

This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japeth, Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.

Genesis 10:1

If you don't have any appreciation for genealogy, then the Bible, and Genesis in particular will kill you stone dead. The Jews love them some family history. This is the second chapter chock full of begats and it is only the 10th in the book. One fifth of this book so far has been genealogy. The producers of Who Do You Think You Are? would be at once proud and put to shame by this.

My favorite part of this chapter, Nimrod. He was a mighty warrior and hunter, and of course gave his name to a mid-90s Green Day album.

And that's really about all that is exciting about this chapter. Next up Chapter 11, Oooo, now we're getting to the good stuff!

Covenant

I establish my covenant with you: Never again will life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Genesis 9:11

I remember this chapter from Sunday School as the chapter about rainbows. They represent God's promise to not destroy the world in a flood ever again. Guess he felt bad about how things went down, or at least, decided it was not worth doing a second time - once was enough.

But the second part of the chapter might be more culturally important - because it establishes the enmity that the nation of Israel would later feel towards the Canaanites.

You see Ham, father of Canaan, stumbled upon his daddy, Noah, drunk and naked . . . and then proceeded to go giggle about it with his brothers. His brothers, on the other hand, decided the prudent thing to do was not make fun of their dad, but to sneak into his tent and cover him up to help him avoid any more embarrassment. For this, Noah curses Canaan. Why did he curse Canaan when it was really Ham that did the pointing and laughing? Why didn't Noah curse himself when it was his own dumb fault that he got wasted and passed out in the buff? I haven't the foggiest of notions.

Nevertheless, Canaan is cursed and Israel has an enemy - before Israel even existed as a separate nation! (Seeing as how Israel doesn't really hit the scene as a tribe until Jacob and by then Canaan is already well established and not really hurtin' despite ole Noah's pox upon them.)

Passages like this seem to have been thrown in by Moses (if he did in fact right the first 5 books of the Bible) to justify the Israelites sack of Canaan and taking over the promised land as their own. It is funny the way we justify wars . . . and I'm a firm believer that some wars need to be fought, sometimes you just don't have any other options left . . . I just think it odd that we have used the same tactics for eons - it appears the human race will never learn.

The Mountain

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease

Genesis 8:22

Before I begin this post, I must confess I am a slacker. I started this project as something to keep me accountable to finish - I thought if I was putting my thoughts out there for others to read that I would be compelled to follow through on my mission to read the Bible through, cover to cover, a chapter a day.


Now this is a long project. I did the math.


There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament
There are 260 chapters in the New Testament


There are 1189 chapters in the whole Bible (Thank heavens I'm not including the Apocrypha!)


Which means that reading a chapter a day it will still take me just over 3.25 years to finish the book. I can't let myself slack like that! In the same amount of time I also hope to finish grad school and, God willing, get married - this might be a tremendous undertaking in terms of time span - but reading just one chapter a day is not a big deal, so I have no excuse for being a slacker about it.


And with that . . . Genesis, Chapter 8:


 . . . . . . .

But God "remembered" Noah? Had he forgotten Noah? I thought God was omniscient - all knowing, how could he forget that he put an old man, his whole family, and several thousand species of animals adrift on a boat for 40 days and 40 nights? I guess, maybe I shouldn't feel so bad when I feel like God has forgotten me, because apparently he forgot the only humans left on the planet for a time! Though it does blow holes in the omniscient idea - and what good is God if he isn't above everything, all powerful and all knowing?

Now after 150 days the ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat (in Turkey? Maybe.), but it stays there for another 3 months while the waters continue to recede. And at that time Noah starts sending out birds to look for evidence of other dry land. First a raven, then a dove. On the dove's second trip out it comes back with an olive branch in its mouth - and at that moment becomes a world wide symbol of peace and favorite graphic for holiday cards.

But it doesn't stop there - nope, Noah sends Mr. Dove out a third time and this time he just doesn't come back. Finally, almost a full year after this whole mess started, the Earth has dried up and Noah and his family open up the ark to walk on dry land - and set the animals free to roam and do what animals do. (I think there is a Bloodhound Gang song about that).

The first thing Noah does after everyone is out of the ark is to build an altar to God, then he takes some of the clean animals and birds and sacrifices them. "Thanks for taking the trip with us guys, I know you thought I'd saved your lives, but psyche! I'm gonna sacrifice you and eat you. Thanks again."

But God likes this display of devotion and vows never again to curse the ground because of man, even though humans are incredibly wicked, he will never again destroy all the living creatures. He also takes this time to reestablish the patterns of the seasons.

I don't understand the whole sacrifice thing. It is so vital in primitive societies that there be blood sacrifice, but I don't understand why. It is pretty universal, though the gods receiving the sacrifice are different. Does its universality make it something that is likely a true way to communicate with God? Afterall, I think that the universality of the flood epic story makes it more likely that a major flood did in fact happen in the ancient past.

I feel this exercise often leaves me with more questions than answers.

The Flood

Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:23

Wait? Noah was 600 years old when this happened? Last chapter we learned that humans would no longer live longer than 120 years . . . looks like Noah was grand-fathered in on account of being born before (Chp. 5) that rule took effect.

Moving on . . .

Noah, his family and pairs of animals large and small (except, of course, for unicorns and dinosaurs) board the boat and rains begin, for 40 days and 40 nights, not just rain but also water from within the earth: the ground water, geysers, etc. rises and adds to the deluge.  Every animal with the breath of life dies (I assume this excludes fish) including all the humans but Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives. The water remained at peak flood stage on the surface of the Earth for 150 days.

Growing up I always thought, 40 days and 40 nights, done. Land the boat, hop out, send dove, dove comes back - repopulate. But it actually took almost a whole year to flood and then dry out the land.

Could you imagine the smell? Dead roting corpses of all animal life floating around in the water with Noah and his family? Ewww.

Humans must have been very evil and violent indeed to deserve that fate, especially considering how violent our race has proven to be in the centuries since.

An Ark

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

Genesis 6:17

In Sunday School we learned a song

The Lord told Noah to build him an arky, arky


But I digress. The first part of this chapter is interesting, as it doesn't concern the ark, Noah or the flood at all. It's about how the "sons of God" mated with human women. Were they angels? Does Jesus have heavenly brothers? (Which would be weird, would his brothers also be included in the Trinity?)

It reminds me a lot of the stories of the demigods we read about in Greek mythology, like Hercules and Achilles.

I also find it interesting that at this point, God puts a limit on human years at 120. No more Methuselahs. Still today, with all of our medical advancements and increasing life expectancy - we don't exceed 120 years. I looked it up. The oldest man on record, and his age is disputed, lived to be just over 120 years old. The oldest woman ever, 122.

Here the Bible appears to be spot on, despite the many thousands of years between then and now, and all of our modern technology - man's life is limited to 120 years.

Which, come to think of it, is still really old. The woman who lived to be 122 died when I was in 7th grade, but she was already the age I am now (24) at the turn of the last century. Wow! In 1900 she was my age, and she was still around when I was 12. The things she must have seen . . .

Now on to that Ark.

It seems that man had grown violent, I guess Cain's descendants were doing as much if not more murdering than their forbearers. This makes God sad, so he decides he needs a do over with humans. He picks the lone righteous guy, Noah, and tells him to build an Ark out of cypress. It's several hundred square cubits. Definitely large for anything man made at the time - but big enough to hold all of the animals, in groups no smaller than pairs? Doubtful. Still, he needs that Ark to protect the animals and Noah's family who will have to repopulate the Earth, because he is going to flood it and drown all the rest.

Of course, there are flood stories from all around the ancient near east and some beyond dating back to a similar time period (probably even earlier if there were any reliable way of tracing oral history). So I feel here the Bible is starting to move more from legendary/parable history and in to history that really happened. Was there actually a Noah? Was there actually an Ark? Maybe. It seems fairly certain at least that there was a catastrophic flood in ancient times that left a mark on the collective memory of the people, that got passed down and passed down until it became the flood stories we know today - Noah, Gilgamesh, etc. Much like Paul Bunyan was based on exaggerated stories of real lumberjacks who cleared the land for westward expansion; or the way King Arthur was probably based on one or two real life figures in the history of early Britain.

The Begats

Altogether, Adam lived 930 years and then he died

Genesis 5:5

If you liked the begats at the end of chapter 4, then you'll love chapter 5!

Wow, people lived for a long time back then!

Or years were calculated much differently

Or the years aren't really the age of a person, but more a representation of a dynasty of sorts - like the Chinese or ancient Egyptians.

I think that the later is probably the most likely - dynasties/tribal leadership named after the specific patriarchs which founded them. And when it says they died, it means that line died out and another heir took over. Granted, I have no evidence to support this theory - it's just what makes the most sense to me straight from reading the text.

It seems highly unlikely that these are real ages or that they should be used to calculate the age of the Earth back to Adam, as some people have used them for.