The Tower of Babel

[Jenny A]

I'll be brief because I don't have time to go into much detail.

In our recent history, we have gone from horse and buggy to the moon, in less than 100 years. Think of what America, Britain, Russia and Germany could of achieved had there been no world war, no language barrier, and they all pooled their resources into one big space program...

Heaven is not up in the sky, it is in another dimension.

Those people lived 600 years+ all spoke the same language, and were able to cooperate, in other words they were very, very smart, in so much that they were able to build a device to travel inter-dimensionally.

The word "Babel" means "gate of God".....

Do you really mean what it sounds like you mean? This god you've invented really is both all powerful and afraid of us? So afraid it needs to divide us by war? Rather sick and paranoid if you ask me. Especially sick if it's necessary to punish us for the resulting strife.

What it sounds like to me is the myths about other less mighty gods who might have some reason to fear people. It also sounds like a just so story to explain different languages.

The funny thing is that we know that languages naturally change over time and that any separation between groups means separation in language. No god required. Due to the printing press followed by ever increasing mass communication the differences between languages are shrinking rather than growing. Odd that god doesn’t appear to be afraid now. Or that he didn't murder the press, the radio, TV, or the Internet.

Might it be just a myth like the dome holding back the waters over our heads or Adam and Eve, or The Flood?

[Huggy Bear]

No, they weren't making an interdemintional gate. Heaven was originally thought to be up in the sky. That's why the sky was also called the heavens, and why heaven is often depicted with clouds. This whole "it's in another dimension" came about because we started flying through the air, and made skyscrapers rise above the clouds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven

Traditionally, Christianity has taught that Heaven is the location of the throne of God as well as the holy angels, although this is in varying degrees considered metaphorical. In traditional Christianity, it is considered a state or condition of existence (rather than a particular place somewhere in the cosmos) of the supreme fulfillment of theosis in the beatific vision of the Godhead. In most forms of Christianity, heaven is also understood as the abode for the righteous dead in the afterlife, usually a temporary stage before the resurrection of the dead and the saints' return to the New Earth.

2 Corinthians 12:2
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows.

Pray tell what exactly this 3rd heaven is then....

---

Do you really mean what it sounds like you mean?  This god you've invented really is both all powerful and afraid of us?  So afraid it needs to divide us by war?  Rather sick and paranoid if you ask me.  Especially sick if it's necessary to punish us for the resulting strife.

I was just using ww2 as an illustration.....

[Chad32]

Some christians believe heaven was up in the clouds, and he had a throne that sits on the dme of the world. Hence artistic interpretations including clouds, and a drawing of the world involving a dome. How far back does this traditional christianity go, where they had to remove a more literal belief and substitute a more spiritual place?

[Minimalist]

Sadly, just more shit stolen from the ancient Mesopotamians.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-leg...bel-001751

Following his translation of Gilgamesh, Smith was sent to the site of Nineveh where he was to continue excavations in the hopes of unearthing additional inscriptions that paralleled or showed some relation to the Old Testament. Archaeology at the time was a new science, founded on validating the writings of the Bible. Smith was fortunate, in that the excavation did yield additional tablets (from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal) and upon further research, he did discover a story likely to have inspired the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel. Catalogued and hidden in the inventory vaults of the British Museum, the fragmentary piece of text reads as follows:
[…] them? The father […]
Of him, his heart was evil,
[…] against the father of all the gods was wicked,
[…] of him, his heart was evil,
[…] Babylon brought to subjection,
[small] and great he confounded their speech.
[…] Babylon brought to subjection,
[small] and great he confounded their speech.
Their strong place (tower) all the day they founded;
to their strong place in the night
entirely he made an end.
In his anger also word thus he poured out:
[to] scatter abroad he set his face
he gave this? command, their counsel was confused
[…] the course he broke
[…] fixed the sanctuary

Read more: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/gateway-heavens-assyrian-account-tower-babel-001751#ixzz3qOFSloET
Follow us: @ancientorigins on Twitter | ancientoriginsweb on Facebook

Damn jews never wrote an original line.... except when they told the people how much of a temple tax they had to pay.  Bastards got that part all by themselves!

[Huggy Bear]

Sadly, just more shit stolen from the ancient Mesopotamians.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-leg...bel-001751

Following his translation of Gilgamesh, Smith was sent to the site of Nineveh where he was to continue excavations in the hopes of unearthing additional inscriptions that paralleled or showed some relation to the Old Testament. Archaeology at the time was a new science, founded on validating the writings of the Bible. Smith was fortunate, in that the excavation did yield additional tablets (from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal) and upon further research, he did discover a story likely to have inspired the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel. Catalogued and hidden in the inventory vaults of the British Museum, the fragmentary piece of text reads as follows:
[…] them? The father […]
Of him, his heart was evil,
[…] against the father of all the gods was wicked,
[…] of him, his heart was evil,
[…] Babylon brought to subjection,
[small] and great he confounded their speech.
[…] Babylon brought to subjection,
[small] and great he confounded their speech.
Their strong place (tower) all the day they founded;
to their strong place in the night
entirely he made an end.
In his anger also word thus he poured out:
[to] scatter abroad he set his face
he gave this? command, their counsel was confused
[…] the course he broke
[…] fixed the sanctuary

Read more: http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/gateway-heavens-assyrian-account-tower-babel-001751#ixzz3qOFSloET
Follow us: @ancientorigins on Twitter | ancientoriginsweb on Facebook

Damn jews never wrote an original line.... except when they told the people how much of a temple tax they had to pay.  Bastards got that part all by themselves!

That's what you would call corroborating testimony.

The account in the Bible was written some 1500 - 2000 years after the fact, not to mention Abraham was from the city of Ur, which WAS in ancient Mesopotamia, who was probably the source of the biblical account.

[Cecelia]

Corroborating testimony? Why don't other cultures tell the same story then? Why don't we see the story of the City of Babel in China? Why do other cultures have their own origins stories, when everyone supposedly originated from Noah on the ark? Why did the Greeks decide to go with Pandora's Box instead of a great flood? And surely the Native Americans would have kept these traditions.

Why did so many cultures worship fake gods, when God had flooded the world and everyone descended from Noah? Why did the Jews worship false idols when God had clearly sent the plagues? Why would Egyptians do the same? Why would Egyptians leave the ten plagues out of their history? These events would have had a profound impact on their lives. First born sons, losing their livestock. Remember the time Americans were embarrassed about the Great Depression and decided to leave it out? Neither do I!

God was so upset that people were building a tower... and now we've been to outer space. We've seen Pluto. If the people of that time were so advanced they could build an inter-dimensional gate, then we'd see at least one culture with significantly advanced technology. Those scientists would have had at least some knowledge of what they were doing. That knowledge and technology would not have been easily lost -- at least not all of it. And surely there would be mention of all the great technological advancements that were lost. Supposedly because people weren't able to figure out how to translate language or anything. You know, like we do today--and we're still not capable of building a gate that opens up another dimension. We're not even capable of determining if there IS another dimension such as heaven. Knowledge of the tools they'd had to have had to build such a tower as tall as it allegedly was would alone have advanced humanity greatly. And surely someone would have thought to take those tools with them, and continue using them.

Also those people never decided to try to learn to communicate with each other. Instead deciding to set off on their own.

Babel is just another story. One that doesn't really fit into history.

[Minimalist]

The account in the Bible was written some 1500 - 2000 years after the fact, not to mention Abraham was from the city of Ur, which WAS in ancient Mesopotamia, who was probably the source of the biblical account.

Goodness, I HATE having to correct you clowns on your bullshit all the time.  Your silly bible specifies that Abram was from Ur of the Chaldeans ( Gen 11, 31)  The antiquity of Ur and the rest of Sumeria was unknown.

The Chaldeans did not arrive in the region until sometime after 1,000 BC.  In this particular case, your book is actually giving better information than you would like.  Ironic, isn't it?

Anyway, we don't need your bible to learn the history of the region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea

Chaldaea, was a small Semitic nation that emerged between the late 10th and early 9th century BC, surviving until the mid 6th century BC, after which it disappeared as the Chaldean tribes were absorbed into the native population of Babylonia.[2] It was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia, and briefly came to rule Babylon.

Want to try again?

[robvalue]

Trust God to ruin a nice friendly game of Jenga.

[Cinjin]

Want to try again?

Why bother with him?  The self-proclaimed sheep cannot be taught.  More to the point -- they won't be taught.

[Huggy Bear]

The account in the Bible was written some 1500 - 2000 years after the fact, not to mention Abraham was from the city of Ur, which WAS in ancient Mesopotamia, who was probably the source of the biblical account.

Goodness, I HATE having to correct you clowns on your bullshit all the time.  Your silly bible specifies that Abram was from Ur of the Chaldeans ( Gen 11, 31)  The antiquity of Ur and the rest of Sumeria was unknown.

The Chaldeans did not arrive in the region until sometime after 1,000 BC.  In this particular case, your book is actually giving better information than you would like.  Ironic, isn't it?

Anyway, we don't need your bible to learn the history of the region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea

Chaldaea, was a small Semitic nation that emerged between the late 10th and early 9th century BC, surviving until the mid 6th century BC, after which it disappeared as the Chaldean tribes were absorbed into the native population of Babylonia.[2] It was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia, and briefly came to rule Babylon.

What part of what I wrote didn't you understand?
http://www.ancient.eu/ur/

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, in what is modern-day Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded the first settlement there, Ur, though this has been disputed. The city’s other biblical link is to the patriarch Abraham who left Ur to settle in the land of Canaan. This claim has also been contested by scholars who believe that Abraham’s home was further north in Mesopotamia in a place called Ura, near the city of Harran, and that the writers of the biblical narrative in the Book of Genesis confused the two. Whatever its biblical connections may have been, Ur was a significant port city on the Persian Gulf which began, most likely, as a small village in the Ubaid Period of Mesopotamian history (5000-4100 BCE) and was an established city by 3800 BCE continually inhabited until 450 BCE.