In a message dated 4/30/2006 10:56:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
dickfischer@verizon.net writes:
It appears the builders at Babylon were caught up in a ziggurat building
competition with their neighbors. To show their faith and allegiance to their one
true God they tried to outbuild the other cities. Not impressed with having
a mound of mudbricks a few cubits higher than the one dedicated to the
moon-god Nanna, God confused their speech. And the Semites in Babylon abruptly
terminated construction and scattered, but their basic language was unaltered.
Genesis 11:1 refers to the primary topic of conversation of the day which was
about building mud brick platforms, adorning them with temples of worship,
and devoting them to the various gods. The people in the land were all talking
about the same thing, they were of “one lip.”
Are these other ziggurat builders mentioned in genesis?
The tower of babel is there to show that a heterogenous society is weak and a
homogenous society is strong.
The Assyrians who conquered the northern kingdom of Israel deported its upper
classes and imported foreigners. This strategy was specifically employed to
- disperse - what became the "lost tribes."
Dispersion is a punishment and the Assyrian war tactic that caused the "10
northern tribes" to be lost.
“You will become a horror, a byword, an object lesson to all the peoples
amongst whom the Lord disperses you.”
Deuteronomy 28:37
The tower of babel story is not dated and it is stuck between the genealogies
(to explain the development of languages, but also to make a statement about
societal strength).
rich faussette
Received on Mon May 1 12:34:16 2006
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