The Tower of Babel and Abram called from Ur

The Tower of Babel and Abram is called from Ur

Genesis 11

The aim of this study is to show that God dispersed the people and confused their language and from this many languages emerged.

Questions

1. What language did the descendants of Noah speak?

2. Why did men want to build the tower?

3. Who did they want to glorify?

4. How does God react to the ambitions of men? Note the use of us!

5. What happened? What two changes did God make among men?

6. Where did men go?

7. This is the first time we meet Abraham. Where is he living?

8. Where is Terah going to take his family? Where does he stop?

The First Language—Edenees

Today a few scholars believe that from Adam to Nimrod the whole world spoke Hebrew. One of the reasons for this is that many of the early names still have meaning in Hebrew but not in other languages. Another argument is that when Noah complied the books written from Adam to Noah he didn’t rewrite them in a different language for example when he made an editorial comment he used the original language like Ephrath and made a comment that that is now Bethlehem. All claims that Hebrew is not the original language are based on the assumption that “men made up language” but so far no one has figured out how someone could have done this.

One Mind, One Language—The Tower of Babel 2247BC

About 100 years after the flood The Tower of Babel was built. Noah would still have been alive.Many believe that the Tower of Babel was commissioned by Nimrod (mentioned in Gen 10:8-12). Nimrod is attributed with founding and building the cities of Babel (Babylon), Erech (close to Ur), Akkad (an early Mesopotamian power) and Calah (named Nimrud after it’s ruler).

The People Dispersed –2247BC (about 650 years after the flood)

The people’s language is now confused and they disperse to the ends of the earth. Linguistic experts (those who study language) have proposed that there are about 70—90 original language families and this is the same number of families named in Genesis 10.

From Shem to Abram

Arphaxed was born when Shem was 102 Shem lived to 600

Salah born when Arphaxed was 35 Arphaxed lived to 438

Eber born when Salah was 30 Salah lived to 433

Peleg was born when Eber was 34 Eber lived to 464

Rue was born when Peleg was 30 Peleg lived 239

Serug was born when Rue was 32 Rue lived to 239

Nahor was born when Serug was 30 Serug lived to 230

Terah was born when Nahor was 29 Nahor lived 148

Abram was born when Terah was 70 Terah died at 205

*Shem was 490 years old when Abraham was born.

• Do you think Abraham and Shem met? Shem didn’t die till Abraham was 110.

• Could Abraham have been given the old books and genealogies to keep safe?

• Did Shem still have Adam’s book or Noah’s book?



The Spade—Archaeology

Sometimes you might read different dates to what the bible says for kingdoms and events. This has made some people struggle with the dates that the bible uses. Recently I read an article on the dating of the Kings of Israel. They had revised Ussher dates and now had other ones. It said the reason for their revision was correct so far as the spade and archaeology has revealed.

Archaeology is a science dating from the 1800’s. It is it is historic in nature and often the findings are more assumptions based on theory rather than repeatable testing to examine a hypothesis. For this reason archaeologist’s findings are often flawed. Take the city of Ninevah as an example. For many years archaeologists claimed that it did not exist until it was discovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1847.

This therefore begs the question—should we be trying to make the bible fit the “truth” of archaeology or the trust the bible!