Tower of Babble (a bunch of baseless babble)

I'm basically replying to the 1st post by quicksink, so bear with me:"Why did they want to build a tower and waste a tremendous amount of resources to peek into the living room of a god they didn't even believe in?"This was soon after the flood. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were still alive. The Bible only mentions one of these that was considered righteous, so aside from Noah, we're unsure of the rest of the population's belief system. Nimrod (from the Hebrew verb, "nimrodh", which means, "let us revolt") had a few reasons for wanting to get the tower built:
a. unite the city-states (Babel, Erech, Accad, Calneh, [Shinar/Sumer] - Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, & Resen [Assyria]) against God, whom he detested in light of God's judgment at the flood.
b. provide a means of escape, paranoid that God would flood the earth again.
c. intentionally go against God's command to replenish the earth (Gen. 9:1)
d. simply power hungryGoing back to the belief system of the people, they probably were partly persuaded to believing in polytheism due to stories handed down of events before the flood, in relation to the Nephilim. So why did the people go through all that trouble?
a. Not all the people were followers of Nimrod. As believers of God, (pre-Jews aka pre-Abrahamites), they were most likely taken in as slaves as he united the city-states. If Nimrod is so bad, considering being known as the "mighty hunter before the lord", it would only be safe to assume that he was a mighty hunter in three aspects:
a1. hated God
b2. hated and hunted down those who followed God
c3. simply a hunter of animals (the Babylonian word for Nimrod is split up as thus: "leopard" = "nimr" / "rod" = "to subdue".
b. The others were merely brainwashed by Nimrod to follow him to their graves.Yet a part of the question assumes that the people were trying to reach the spirit realm of Heaven to which God resides. This is not the case. They followed the lead of Nimrod, uniting together under one banner, with the possible slogan of, "If we put our mind to it, we can accomplish anything". (Back to the Future, anyone?)...continued...

Next question:Let's rephrase: "Why didn't God laugh the whole Tower of Babel thing off and continue with whatever He was doing beforehand? Why doesn't He react the same to modern skyscrapers and other such endeavors?"A lot more was going on than what has already been mentioned. One individual who is not mentioned in the Bible at all (though not directly) is Nimrod's wife, Semiramis (aka Semiramide, Shamiram, Sumuramat, Shairam, etc.) Though I'm still trying eagerly to piece together the events, this is what I've gotten so far: Semiramis and Nimrod become romantically involved, with Semiramis as Queen and Nimrod as king. Semiramis and Nimrod somehow reinstitute a new religious system amongst the masses in order to get them to believe in him as the promised Messiah of Gen. 3:15. Part of the tactic used is corrupting the original Zodiac and calendar system and reinterpreting it for their cause thereby creating astrology. As this is going on, Semiramis goes behind Nimrod's back and hook's up with a guy named, Ara Geghetsik. Nimrod dies (not too sure how yet, though speculating Semiramis probably had him bumped off one way or another). With Nimrod dead, Semiramis proposes marriage to Ara, but Ara backs off since he is already married. So Semiramis kills off Ara as well. Going back to the public, Semiramis now has to explain Nimrod's death, considering that they see him as the Messiah... and that she is now pregnant with Ara's baby. Having already established herself as "Queen of Heaven", Semiramis now says that Nimrod's spirit ascended to a star in Heaven and that the child she will soon give birth to will be Nimrod reborn into the world. (This pregnancy puts Semiramis into fertility goddess mode, hence Venus of Willendorf and Ashteroth for example)... Now this is where it gets sketchy, especially trying to figure when and how Nimrod died, because it's uncertain when the languages split up and how they correlate with which of the 2 Nimrod's is being talked about when a reference mentions how he/they died (Juansher's
Concise History of the Georgians, The 2 Babylons by Alexander Hislop, etc.)... With the split of the languages, the various religious worldviews and achievements as a people split as well, which is why many of the ancient people's had plenty of similarities (compare Sumerian and Egyptian beard, bows and arrows around the world, earliest 2D art and relation to alphabet, burial customs, etc.)...So why didn't God just laugh the whole thing off? Why doesn't he go haywire in regards to modern skyscrapers? I'll leave the answer up to the reader...The final question asks why the Chinese did not mention the collapse of the Tower of Babel in their chronicles. Somes sites that I've kept tabs on in relation to this, though haven't done any extensive research about, are:
Huang Ti Chinese Writing and the Postflood Settlement of China
- v07n4p24.htm - Huang Ti Chinese Writing and the Postflood Settlement of China
Chinese Pictograph Characters - http://www.creationism.org/chinese2.jpg
There's another article from a link that is gone out of date called, "Genesis According To The Maio People", which does chronicle the flood, tower of babel, and history of the people from thenceforth. If I can remember (going to bed soon), I'll retype and post it up on a Geocities link.
Finally there are the writings of Dr. Ethel Nelson, who is considered an expert on this subject.

Continuing from my last post where I said, "There's another article from a link that is gone out of date called, 'Genesis According To The Maio People;, which does chronicle the flood, tower of babel, and history of the people from thenceforth. If I can remember (going to bed soon), I'll retype and post it up on a Geocities link"......It turned out that the article wasn't dead at all, but that the mother site had simply changed the link to the article, which happens from time to time (and makes my internet research quite troublesome)... So here you go:The Institute for Creation ResearchContinuing on to the latest post by Brennakimi... If I'm to take your post literally, what motive would the Jews have for making fun of the Babylonians? Curious...This message has been edited by bibbo, 12-04-2005 09:06 PM

Until we get some more thoughts on the subject at hand, let's bring up another another question posed by quicksink:"How high would such a tower have to be?"As mentioned earlier, the motive, not the height, was the key behind the tower. Bob Brier mentions the dimensions and whatnot of what he thinks the tower would have looked like in his Learning Channel special, "Pyramids, Mummies, and Tombs":He starts out by showing a muddy hill with tall dead grass, "The tower doesn't exist anymore. Alexander the Great tore it down 2000 years ago... This is all that's left of the original tower of Babel, a muddy moat and the base of the tower, but at least it gives us an idea of size and shape at the bottom. For the upper levels, let's go 100 miles south to the ancient site of Ur. Here, in the center of one of the world's oldest cities, the people built a great pyramid, or zigurat as they would have called it. It's the best preserved of all Iraqi zigurats. It's only half the supposed height of the tower of babel, which gives us an idea of just how huge that might have been. So, it's the zigurat of Ur that gives us the best clues of our own reconstruction. Well, let's start building! From the ancient base and muddy moat, we know that the base was about 7 acres. And from the rubble, we know that the tower was made of bricks. From our zigurat at Ur, we know that it was stepped, and given the size of the base, the tower would have had 7 steps and soared 300 feet into the sky. At the very top was the whole purpose of the pyramid, a temple near to the gods. The walls were covered with blue glaze tiles, and then the icing on the cake, huge bronze bulls horns on the four corners of the temple. It was a massive building, with a ramp and steps up to the top. The walls gleaned with a thick coating of white plaster. Brilliant blue tiles formed parapets on the tops of the walls, so it looked like a huge towering fortress." shortened the link to some shopping network or suchMultimedia: Pyramidology - Archaeology Magazine ArchiveThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 12-07-2005 01:24 PM

When I talk about the "tower of Babel", I am making mention of only one certain tower since, though there were most likely other buildings around at the time, though not of the same intensity and splendor, the tower of babel would have been a precursor to all the of the similar towers around the world, such as the Egyptian pyramids, Mesoamerican pyramids, Indian step temples (ex: Meenakshi Temple in Tamil Nadu), etc...The mention of the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis needed only be mentioned for at least 3 primary reasons:
1. Give an brief overview of the diversification of peoples and languages...
2. ...make sense as to why Abraham later on is leaving the Ur of the Chaldees...
3. ...and narrow everything down to viewing history thenforth from the viewpoint of the Hebrews (Habiru) toward the nations they continue to come in contact with from there on out.For this simple reason, the other pyramids are not mentioned. For the various biblical writers, the topic just isn't as relevant anymore. Now from the viewpoint of you or I who eagerly try to piece together the ancient past and make sense of it all, it's now suddenly extremely important.

"I suspect that the one in Babel was the only one mentioned, not because of 'intensity' or 'splendor' but because that was where the children of Israel were held captive."To which extent, what were the motive of "the children of Israel"? Have you charted much of this out yet?"Are you suggesting that those other 'towers' were somehow influenced by the one in Babel?"Architecturally? Yes. The towers would have collapsed if built straight up (ex: the tilting tower of piza). The original basis of architecture was to build a broad base and have it narrow the taller it went. Not all towers would have been the same as well. One must also account for achievements in design."If memory serves, those other edifices were built for a variety of purposes, not all related to the 'stairway to heaven' concept of the ziggurat."Obviously, as the people split up, they would have learned their lesson, with some being more stubburn than others. I'm not so sure the pure reason for the original tower's full use has been realized yet. If the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel is true, then that would be a sunstantial key to this mystery."And don't some of them predate their alledged 'precursor'?"Well, that all depends on your personal view of history. For example, in regards to the chronology of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, I tend to look toward David Rohl's "new chronology". In other words, just about everything BC in the history books is a jumbled mess that needs to be carefully analyzed, scutinized, and revitalized.

Excuse me if it takes a few days for me to come back and respond. I tend to come back and post when I have a day off from work or just with plenty of spare time between doing whatever.Now, where were we?"The 'the children of Israel' only wrote about themeselves. After all, they were the protagonists of the tale, why would they write about any other big ol' tower?"Are you saying that the "children of Israel" were once Babylonian/ and/or Sumerian/Assyrian/Chaldean (whatever)... Where are you going with this?Plus Jacob (Israel) isn't said to be born until some time later (Genesis 32:28)."That's a silly statement."I didn't realize I was so hilarious... (ahem) "The concept of a load bearing wall evolved independantly in many cultures and regions."I have nothing against that statement. I'm not against the evolution of wall-building, per se', but the order of events in which architectural development occured in relation to the aforementioned "pyramid"."You also seem to assume that meso-americans (whose earliest structures date back to around 300 AD) brought their ideas with them from the middle-east.... tell me.... why did they bring architectural knowledge but no knowledge of their language, history, writing, gods, culture, etc?"1st and foremost, we must remember, for instance, Diego de Landa's destruction of Mayan documents, so to say there have been absolutely no knowledge of language, history, writing, and so forth is preposterous. There's no telling what juicy info might very well have been in those documents.Writing: (May I suggest "Alpha Beta" by John Mann and "The Universal History Of Numbers: From Prehistory To The Invention Of The Computer".)Let's start with your dating of 300 AD. I'm curious as to how you came to that conclusion.Of course, going with the biblical account of the beginning of various languages starting at Babel, it's safe to assume that when the peoples split up, these various languages and pictograph writings thereby evolved independantly with blendings of local peoples as time transgressed.Where history, gods, and culture are concerned, based on my 1st 2 posts on "Tower of Babble (a bunch of baseless babble)", the worldview of the people within the 1st city-states were completely hacked to death by Nimrod and Semiramis, so it wouldn't be all too far-fetched to see, as the people stretched forth upon the face of the Earth, a faint recollection of their origins (bows and arrows, tents, buildings, pictographs, ceremonial sacrifice, burial customs, marriage and courting customs, belief in afterlife, people naming, etc...) Let's try and talk about one cultural aspect as a time, to not make the whole convo overwhelming..."Further, why do their genetics indicate that they are closer in relation to polonesians than middle easterners?"According to the study of "The Table of Nations" (Genesis 10), the Polynesians (as well as the Chinese, Japanese, Eskimos, Pacific Islanders, AmerIndians [North/South America, etc.] are all descendants of Canaan. As each group independantly split up and began to only inter-breed amongst themselves, new and different characterics of a physical nature suddenly took form. At times, people would settle and others continue to migrate, thereby allowing the physical nature to make slight changes for each individual group.It would be rather awkward to assume that the various pyramid construction techniques would be rather altogether similar considering, for example, how long it would have taken the descendants of the Canaanites to reach the Americas and settle down. You could also argue as to why all tents aren't the same as well...

(sigh) hehe Personally, I thought I could get away with it as long as possible. It just seemed a bit easier and less troublesome, but ah well, let's continue, shall we? That sounds welcoming enough. Actually, I'm intrigued by your statement... I'm hoping you would expound on that. What little I've read (ex: books by Samuel Noah Kramer) attribute a few of the biblical writings such as concerning the deluge, babel, or Job to stories from Sumer.(p.s. : sorry my reply has taken so long. With work and the whole "holidays" season thing going on, it can wear out a person, )....Hey, Carico.This message has been edited by bibbo, 12-31-2005 11:17 PM

idontlikeforms, Welcome to the convo. Nice points you made. Have you any points to anything that I or Yaro have discussed thus far?Until Yaro gets back (hoping)... I've been doing some research on both sides of the Mormon belief system and came to an interesting online video, "DNA VS. The Book of Mormon":http//http://www.helpingmormons.org/DNA.htm...that, after giving an intro into Mormonism in general and then about 3/4s into it, deals with where the pre-European and Spaniard colonization of North & South America came about. This debunks the Mormon belief system and shows that the inhabitants of the Americas were not Jews escaping the destruction of Babylon, but are instead of East Asian descent...One site I just now found (browsing as I'm putting this post together) is...Succeed.Net Broadband Internet and VOIP services - SUCCEED.NET"The Phoenicians were a coastal branch of the Canaanites, who, according to Biblical traditions, were the brothers of Kush (Ethiopia) and Mizraim (Kmt)--members of the Hamite ethnic group. In other words, the Bible states that the ancient Canaanites, Ethiopians and Egyptians were all African nations. Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop claimed that 'Phoenician history is therefore incomprehensible only if we ignore the Biblical data, according to which the Phoenicians, in other words, the Canaanites, were originally Negroes, already civilized, with whom nomadic, uncultured white tribes later mixed.' While acknowledging the Biblical data, Diop cautioned that the economic relations shared by the Kamites and Phoenicians should not be minimized in explaining the strong sense of solidarity which generally existed between them. There was frequently a Kamite presence: military, diplomatic, religious or commercial, both in the Canaanite hinterland and the Phoenician city-states themselves, and Diop goes on to state that, 'Even throughout the most troubled periods of great misfortune, Egypt could count on the Phoenicians as one can count more or less on a brother.'The Phoenicians were the great seafarers of their time and dominated the Mediterranean shipping lanes. Phoenician inscriptions have been found as far north as central Turkey and as far west as Tunisia where the famous ancient city of Carthage was founded. It was among the Canaanites that one of the most important and meaningful inventions in human history is attested--the alphabet."As I continue to do my personal research, I intend to figure out the means by which this data is collected. But if it is true, it kind of backs up both of our (Yaro and I) statements, by which Yaro attributed the Indians to African descent and then I figured Asian, though it seems now they might be a mix.I have a personal theory that I've been developing since probably a junior or senior in high school that Mexicans in N. America with large, roundish noses are of descent from S. America (before, though, I'm not sure, though maybe Africa). When I get the chance, I know a guy who has this exact type of nose. I'll get a picture of him, scan it, and then get it posted on this forum, so we'll at least have something substantially visual to go by. When I asked him, he said his family is from Peru...That's all I have for now. If anyone else has any more info to throw in, please do so.This message has been edited by bibbo, 01-05-2006 12:43 AMThis message has been edited by bibbo, 01-05-2006 10:41 AM

That's fine. I'm a patient fellow...

Well, just like what I said to idontlikeforms, I'll be patiently waiting... or at least I'll try to be, hehe...

With all the disturbing posts I've read on here since the last time I stopped by, I think it would be safe to say I continue off from where skb made his post (pleased to meet you, by-the-way )"I am wondering about what happened immediately after everyone started speaking different languages."Very good question... A puzzling one in fact. One thing I like to do, whether it is studying the pre-flood or the post-flood world is to use outside sources, other than the Bible, like "myths" from other cultures to see the underlying message behind them, perhaps drawing some sort of coherency to the Biblical passage (considering that I'm taking the Bible as fact, since we must have at least some sort of foundation to build upon). Something I found earlier today was a Native American Choctaw legend...The Tower of Babel - A Choctaw Legend...which goes as follows:"Many generations ago Aba, the good spirit above, created many men, all Choctaw, who spoke the language of the Choctaw, and understood one another.These came from the bosom of the earth, being formed of yellow clay, and no men had ever lived before them. One day all came together and, looking upward, wondered what the clouds and the blue expanse above might be. They continued to wonder and talk among themselves and at last determined to endeavor to reach the sky.So they brought many rocks and began building a mound that was to have touched the heavens. That night, however, the wind blew strong from above and the rocks fell from the mound. The second morning they again began work on the mound, but as the men slept that night the rocks were again scattered by the winds.Once more, on the third morning, the builders set to their task. But once more, as the men lay near the mound that night, wrapped in slumber, the winds came with so great force that the rocks were hurled down on them.The men were not killed, but when daylight came and they made their way from beneath the rocks and began to speak to one another, all were astounded as well as alarmed -they spoke various languages and could not understand one another.Some continued thenceforward to speak the original tongue, the language of the Choctaw, and from these sprung the Choctaw tribe. The others, who could not understand this language, began to fight among themselves. Finally they separated.The Choctaw remained the original people; the others scattered, some going north, some east, and others west, and formed various tribes. This explains why there are so many tribes throughout the country at the present time."What we learn from this one passage is:1. The Choctaw think they retained the original language spoken before the Tower of Babel incident. Personally, I believe the original language was Hebrew, but that's just me...http://www.edenics.comIt seems to be that God did something from the very framework of their brains or whatnot, and from each person or group's perspective, each one stayed the same and everyone else's languages changed. (I hope this is making sense)... The reason I have this theory is that each version of this account that I've read so far acts as if their language and culture were preserved.2. Just like the biblical passage in Genesis 2:7 (where Adam is created from either dust, mud, or dirt...depending in the translation you use: sorry to say, I'm not an expert on the Hebrew language, though it is on my list), the Choctaw story says that the 1st man was created from yellow clay.3. It seems to completely skip the flood story, if this is to be taken as from those who traveled from ancient Sumer, and goes straight to a similar Tower of Babel narrative."Did they all scatter to their own areas based solely on language?"No, I don't believe so. According to Genesis 10 and 11 (The Table of Nations) and then a bit of 1st Chronicles, one could show how the peoples thence, at least from the beginning, split up in regards to both language and ethnic group. I've done at least some Asian related study on this..."All of the people who spoke 'Native American' (let's be general as it's hard to define what the actual languages were) ran off, then crossed an ocean or took a land bridge through Alaska and every single one of them settled in the Americas?"Well, that's the Toltec explanation of things:http://members.aol.com/adobebill/E_Flood.html"Found in the histories of the Toltec Indians of ancient Mexico is a story of the first world that lasted 1,716 years and was destroyed by a great flood that covered even the highest mountains. Their story tells of a few men who escaped the destruction in a toptlipetlocali, which means a closed chest. Following the great flood, these men began to multiply and built a very high zacuali, or great tower, to provide a safe place if the world were destroyed again. However, everyone started to speak different languages, and the people became confused, so different language groups wandered to other parts of the world. (Sounds familiar? Maybe like the Tower of Babel?) The Toltecs claim they started as a family of seven friends and their wives who spoke the same language. They crossed great waters, lived in caves, and wandered 104 years until they came to Hue Hue Tlapalan (southern Mexico). The story reports that this was 520 years after the great flood.""There was an argument earlier that all languages should be spoken everywhere today. This argument is completely valid. Wouldn't some groups stay in Babel regardless of their new language and 'tough it out?' Why would everyone who speaks a certain language ALL stick together? Wouldn't they splinter, thus creating pockets of the same language in multiple areas throughout the world?"Imagine if you were in a situation like that. Wouldn't it make sense to huddle near to others that spoke your same language and try to make sense of what is going on around you? But, then again, the biblical passage doesn't refute your statements. There may be more to what your accessing, so I for one will make that one of my top priorities in my research in this matter, "Ask yourself what would happen if the same thing happened today in a given area. I doubt the residents of that area would scatter. Instead, they would likely try to find common ground and it's likely a new 'common' language would be invented. Give humanity some credit for goodness sake. We don't always run away from crisis. Humans actually tend to embrace each other at such times."Let's use the Katrina situation in New Orleans as an example. People will go to wherever they need to feel safe. I live in San Antonio, Texas, for example, and we were and still are considered a safety zone for those that escaped toward safety. From what I can assume, ancient Egypt, though it didn't have a pharaoh and probably wasn't all desert at the time, (I'm assuming from this example alone), was considered one of a few safety zones at it's time through Mizraim (Gen. 10:6 - Mizraim is the Hebrew name for the land of Egypt)"Of course, God could make us do anything. If that's the case, what's the point of living? God's calling the shots, so we're all subject to his whims."That's another topic of discussion, ...Excuse me if I don't use the proper quotation method, since I haven't been here for a while and need to take some time to settle back into the scheme of things...This message has been edited by bibbo, 02-09-2006 08:47 PM

Chiroptera, do you have a theory or motive as to why the Choctaw in particular would want to borrow a story such as this from the Europeans?I mean, if truly it was borrowed, then I'd expect more than a mere similarity in stories... For example, in this version, we see that it mentions "a man called A'taam and a woman called Iim", obviously Adam and Eve. If this story was borrowed, then wouldn't it follow that the names be exactly the same?Example:http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floods.htm"Fitzroy River area, Western Australian:
During the Dreamtime flood, woramba, the Ark Gumana carrying Noah, Aborigines, and animals, drifted south and came to rest in the flood plain of Djilinbadu (about 70 km south of Noonkanbah Station, just south of the Barbwire Range and east of the Worral Range), where it can still be seen today. The white man's claim that it landed in the Middle East was a lie to keep Aborigines in subservience. [Kolig, pp. 242-245]"It would not seem fit here to say that Noah's name would be used. Noah of course is a Hebrew name and the aborigines, well, soOoOoOoooo... Well, you get the idea. I can only figure 2 ideas from this story:1. It was borrowed.
or
2. The aborigines already had a flood story and figured "the white man" changed it around a bit.My 2 bits...

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Are you skeptical about the well-established phenomenon of people sharing stories and borrowing them from the other cultures with whom they are in contact? It is well known that people borrow stories from other cultures and adapt them fit into their own society.

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No. I'm not skeptical at all. In fact, I partially agree with you. A good example is Catholocism. In order to gain converts, it added on certain holidays and traditions to make their position look a bit more appealing to the "pagan" masses.

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Interesting. Why would you expect that?

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The Aborigine version, for example, used Noah's name directly. But when the languages changed, and taking into account the expanse of time and that it was not going by use of scrolls, papyrus, stone, or whatnot as used by the ancients, names of people, places, things, etc. would be changed as well. Plus also the entire worldview of people at this ancient Sumerian backdrop was taking a turn as well, so it would not be uncommon to see a story with a turtle talking to a man and telling him to escape a coming flood (goofy example, but I hope you get the idea as to where I am going with this)...This message has been edited by bibbo, 02-10-2006 10:19 PM

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Not really, since the question is why you doubt that the Choctaw "Babel" story is a result of contact with the European version.

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Because I would then be surpressing the Choctaw, not to mention the ancient world as a whole, as a people and thereby not give them the benefit of the doubt. As far as I'm concerned, their innocent 'til proven guilty. I find the ancient world as one massive, bent, out-of-shape puzzle, and modern Western society is too quick to judge them as heathonous, superstitious numbskulls.I just want to make sense out of it all...