Earth of Genesis 1:9

IF that is what 10:25 says, then a few sentences later the author claims that the earth (land mass) could speak. And for further context we should also add that the Peleg verse is part of a section that begins: "Now these [are] the generations of the sons of Noah" and ends: It would seem your interpretation ignores this context. No. You are also not the first person to try and force this reading into the text. It is so common that several creationist ministries have added this to their lists of "Arguments we think Creationists should not use":

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‘Earth’s division in the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25) refers to catastrophic splitting of the continents.’ Commentators both before and after Lyell and Darwin (including Calvin, Keil and Delitzsch, and Leupold) are almost unanimous that this passage refers to linguistic division at Babel and subsequent territorial division. We should always interpret Scripture with Scripture, and there’s nothing else in Scripture to indicate that this referred to continental division. But only eight verses on (note that chapter and verse divisions were not inspired), the Bible states, ‘Now the whole earth had one language and one speech’ (Gen. 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, ‘the LORD confused the language of all the earth’ (Gen. 11:9). This conclusively proves that the ‘Earth’ that was divided was the same Earth that spoke only one language, i.e. ‘Earth’ refers in this context to the people of the Earth, not Planet Earth.

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Another major problem is the scientific consequences of such splittinganother global flood! This gives us the clue as to when the continents did move apart during Noah’s Flood

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You know an argument is truly catestrophically doomed when, even though it could be used to support YEC, Kent Hovind {almost} disowns it! (emphasis mine)_Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes it does. But if we use your interpretation of 'earth' it doesn't say that. This is therefore a problem with your interpretation. It says, "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." - either this means that the land mass had one language or it means that the inhabitants of the land mass had one language. Which is it? That doesn't change the fact that you ignore the context. The context is clear: the section we are looking at is describing the splitting of the nations via the descendants of Noah. It would be completely random and massively out of context for the authors to start talking about continental drift in the middle of talking about the division of nations. And I'm telling you that you aren't the first person to come to this understanding - but that even many Young Earth Creationists strongly disagree with you...because they think (as do almost all people that have ever read that section ever) that the context of Genesis 10-11 means that this clearly refers to the splitting apart of the nations and the lingual splitting etc and is nothing to do with continental splitting.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Where earth means 'land mass'. So the land mass was of one language? The land mass was of one speech? How does this make any sense? It can only make sense if it is talking about the 'people of earth'. Yes, it means division. The problem is with the context - which is clearly stated at throughout Chapter 10, including the beginning and end as well as the entirety of chapter 11 which sets out what is being divided. And that's what you have to ignore, and that is what you are ignoring. It does not say 'land mass' it says eretz.The whole of Chapter 10 is yelling out for you to understand it is about the division of nations. Are you going to ignore all these other mentions of 'the earth' in this chapter?If you want to, you can like many amateurs since plate tectonics was discovered, translate this single verse to be talking about the breaking up of Pangea. To do it, you have to assume that one and only one sentence, in the middle of a treatise on the origins of different nations and lands and languages was about what should be a huge miracle worthy of at least a chapter in its own right if it was worth mentioning at all.You are not going to convince anybody that your interpretation is in any shape compelling with the kind of argument you are putting forward here. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Of course, it could be that God inspired this holy text so that only people born after the breakup of Pangea was understood and who interpret things in a certain special way (which glory of glories just happens to be ICANTs way) would know what it meant. Or maybe - just maybe - the roots of a word don't necessarily indicate how it is being used? That maybe context might be important? Did you check to see what the root meaning of the English word 'divide' was? It kind of makes your sentence gibberish to think of it in terms of its roots. As best I can make it out it comes from +dis and +videre which means that to 'divide' translates to (excuse my poor Latin) 'taking apart our understanding or observations'.Besides the quote is clearly indicating something coming between them, something like a divider, like a river or waterway.If we were talking about continents spreading out over the globe, why not use פרד - parad - which seems much closer to the idea you are trying to bring into the text since it implies spreading out, scattering abroad, to sunder, to seperate. Rather than just the small division a 'channel' might be imply. The one who controls everything should have no problem. If He can speak everything into existence as He did in Genesis 1:1.They would agree with you because they love finding 'proofs' that the Bible predicted scientific facts before science did! Use the HTML codes:פלג {press peek to see what I did}Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Great, so you agree that the surrounding verses of the one in question are discussing the division of territories and that they use the word 'eretz' in this context. The above being the case (you know the possible problems of just translating languages on a sentence by sentence basis right?), why do you think this one singular sentence refers to some kind of otherwise undescribed breakup of the continents while all the other ones are talking about the division of humanity into territories, nations languages etc using the exact same word (eretz)? That doesn't make sense. Why could there not be a global flood followed a division of continents a few generations later? We're talking about God here, right? We're talking about Young Earth Creationists - it doesn't have to make sense, right?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

So you are interpreting it out of the context that it sits in, then - by your own admission.It has absolutely nothing to do with Genesis 10:24, for example which talks about Arphaxad having a child called Salah and Salah having a child called Eber. And indeed you think it is completely divorced from 10:20-24 which is talking about people having children. Absolutely unrelated to. According to you, these three verses are not related to one another at all!

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And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.
And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one [was] Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name [was] Joktan.
And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah,

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And that line of begating is completely divorced from

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These [are] the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations.
These [are] the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood

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That's fine - you can read it whatever way you want. As long as you are comfortable with nobody else agreeing with you that 10:25 is nothing to do with the verses around it. Its not a problem, though is it? We're talking about God here, the God that created everything with a word. The same God that you think divided the Earth instantly. They would say you had a problem with how the Earth was divided.You would say 'but God can do just about anything' and they would say 'does that include distributing animals around the world?'Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

But all the facts are related to each other, except, you claim, this one single fact. All the other facts are related to the generations of Noah and how they came to form their own nations, lands, languages etc and they came to spread out. Then, for less than a single sentence (you claim) the author decides to tell us that the land mass of the earth was split apart, before the author goes on to resume the discussion of the sons of Shem after their lands after their families after their tongues.Sure thing, ICANT. That is what the author meant to convey. Which is why almost every human that has ever read that section picked up on it. It's the verse right after God instantly divides the landmass of the earth.