Tower of Babel
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==The Tower of Babel in the modern world== | ==The Tower of Babel in the modern world== | ||
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what [[Wikipedia|we're]] doing." - Jimbo Wales. | "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what [[Wikipedia|we're]] doing." - Jimbo Wales. | ||
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| + | [[Wikipedia]]'s method of building their modern Tower of Babel is, of course, teh [[Monkey typewriter theory]]. | ||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Revision as of 03:06, 27 April 2008
The Tower of Babel story found in Genesis and is referenced by some biblical literalists to give a pre-scientific explanation for the existence of multiple languages.
Contents |
Origins
The first book of the Bible, Genesis, contains an account of the myth.
“”GE 11:3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
GE 11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "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." GE 11:8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. |
The Tower of Babel as an explanation for the origins of languages is considered absurd by everyone except biblical literalists. Some biblical scholars believe that the tower myth was based on the ziggurats found in Mesopotamia, as seen in the photograph.[1] This is a plausible basis for the physical description of the tower, but modern linguistics has rendered supernatural explanations of linguistic diversity unnecessary. In the absence of stronger evidence, there is no reason to believe that God's wrath over the construction of one of these structures led to the creation of languages.
Arguments for it being unrealistic
Firstly, it assumes that Babylonians, living, remember, ages ago, were able to build a tower higher than any that we can build in modern times. It had to reach even further than rockets and probes that we have sent out, as they don't seem to have reached Heaven yet, since 'God' has not attempted to destroy NASA, and many rockets and probes still survive.
Second, how would they build it when the tower reached the thinner layers of the Earth's atmosphere? If they went out there they would die (These were ancient Babylonians, remember?), since if "Heaven" was within the breathable layers of Earth's atmosphere, it would have been reached quite easily by now.
Some theists respond by saying that Heaven is "outside of space and time", or perhaps that God moved further away. As far as the first response — just because you can string together words in a way that is grammatically correct, it does not make them any less bullshit -- especially when it involves ancient civilizations with universe-transfer technology. The second is hard to maintain while saying that God is benevolent. If he could just move away, why scatter humans as a 'punishment' as well? For that matter, the city they were building seemed almost Utopian, in that they could all understand each other, and according to God, could do anything they put their minds to. Why wouldn't God just tell them to stop, instead of what he did? They probably would stop, and would also live quite happily.
So to sum it up, the two main arguments against the Tower are that it seems to show that ancient Babylonians were superior to us, could breathe outside Earth's atmosphere, and go further than any satellites; and that it contradicts the 'benevolence' of God.
The Bible Speaks in Metaphor and Parable
Of course, a more reasonable approach to the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel, as with many Biblical stories, is that it is not a literal recount of an actual historical event. It is rather:
- A metaphorical account of the importance of language in social interaction and human development
- A warning regarding the dangers of hubris
- A good story to tell arond the campfire in the evening after a day of hunting and gathering
Kierkegaard on the Tower of Babel (Sort Of)
“”Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this. . . . The gods were bored, and so they created man. Adam was bored because he was alone, and so Eve was created. Thus boredom entered the world, and increased in proportion to the increase of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille; then the population of the world increased, and the peoples were bored en masse. To divert themselves they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens. This idea is itself as boring as the tower was high, and constitutes a terrible proof of how boredom gained the upper hand.
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| —Søren Kierkegaard: Either/Or. (1843) |
The Tower of Babel in the modern world
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." - Jimbo Wales.
Wikipedia's method of building their modern Tower of Babel is, of course, teh Monkey typewriter theory.
External links
Etemenanki, at Wikipedia.