Tower of Babel vs Spread the word of the Gospel

Why are there so many languages around the world and people scattered around the world?

Because originally mankind all spoke the same language, and cooperated with each other to accomplish things such as the building of the Tower.

God didn’t want the Tower built because:

“If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.

Now, because God confounded people’s speech, it made it extremely difficult for people to communicate with each other, and because they were scattered around the world, that made it even more difficult, and apparently none of the scattered people had ever heard that they were supposed to worship God or that they were sinners.

And this is all in Old Testament.

After thousands of years, God decides it’s time to "spread the Good News.

But what makes this more difficult than it has to be is that people have the same language, and that for thousands of years they were ignored by God. (Must have been, otherwise they’d have heard about God. I’m thinking of indigenous peoples of North America, South America, and the Pacific region).

So what was the point of God separating people for thousands of years and ignoring most of 'em, only to have him for the last 2000 years try to get everyone back together under Christianity?

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The story of Babel has to do with the survivors of the Younger Dryas events failing to come together to rebuild after the collapse of civilization.

The name Adam means man. The reason Biblical stories are so powerful is that they are not just the story of one man, but the story of mankind, the world over, and throughout every generation.

  1. A people of one language decided to stay in one large community in a small area rather than spreading out over the earth (as God commands).

  2. There is a desire to appoint themselves (over God) as the power of the people.

  3. The city and its prosperity drew is seventy more tribes, all speaking different dialects or languages–not to mention points of views on how to build the temple, who should make the ultimate decisions, have the ultimate power.

  4. They quarreled. They couldn’t understand each other, therefore would not listen to one another. The temple was “swallowed by the earth”. (Mankind came from the earth and was the cause of the failure of what he had built from the earth, on the earth.)

Shrug. In our day and time America–especially its cities–qualify as the current day Babel. Power gathers in great metropolitan areas. They draw people of many different languages, cultures, beliefs and attitudes. We refuse to listen to or understand each other. Cities (Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis) are being destroyed by people who came from the earth, destroying what had been built from the earth, on the earth.

People ultimately flee Babel–whether the Babel of thousands of years ago, or the Babel in their own time. Some turn back to God.

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What other Biblical lessons have we failed to learn?
And, might we learn them if they were taught in school?

PS: Doesn’t just have to be Biblical stories. They can come from all different sources and the class could be called, “Lessons our Ancestors Taught.”

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God’s request to Adam and Eve when he created them was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

After the flood, God’s request to the remaining people on the earth - Noah, his wife and sons and their wives.

Genesis 9:1 " And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."

Years after the flood, people had multiplied but they were all in a wad in one place. God saw that they were intelligent and able to leave ‘home,’ so he scattered them on the earth. All according to God’s plan for people on the earth he had created for their dwelling place. It’s not a coincident that people who look different, also speak a different language and occupy a different part of the earth.

God did not say that he was displeased with them and the tower they were building. More like he was impressed with their skill.

He did say (from the OP) “then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”

The lordship of the most high God has been a part of all cultures around the world, despite many choosing to worship lesser gods. Where did you get the idea that God has been ignoring most language groups for thousands of years?

What is the archaeological evidence for this assertion?

This strikes me as an allegory to pockets of survivors who were permanently separated from each other during the disaster. Over time, their one language would’ve changed into many.

Personally though, I think the global language was of mathematics and/or cosmology.

What disaster?

This is the simplest answer.

The writer starts the narrative by saying: Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

That is significant.

Genesis 11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

One fell swoop and done.

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What disaster?

It also marks the end of stone building in place of fired ceramics.

Knowledge and history were lost in a big way during some really bad times. Some stone shells remain.

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