I need help understanding this passage about the tower of babel?

Question

The passage i am refering to is when the Lord came down from Heavan and saw what man did by working together, He decided that nothing would be restrained from us so He scattered man and gave us different languages. I don't understand why He would do this. Isn't it a good thing that man was working together and getting along? I know i am completely missing the point so if someone could please explain it to me i would appreciate it.
Thanks

Answer 1

The point of the story, if I recall, was that mankind felt that building the tower was more important than the people. When a man fell to his death, they mourned the loss of the bricks that he was carrying, and not the man.

Answer 2

Some of the answers you received are very good. But you also asked why would God confuse the languages. Yes, it would be good for man to work together and get along. But only if man obeyed God when they did that. The problem was represented in their quest to build the tower. Their desire was to be like gods. Remember who else had that problem? Satan. Now think of it. God said spread out, they wanted to go up. Also, their pride and self-reliance rose up in direct opposition of Gods desire.

What divides men more today than anything else? Language. And today we are now seeing that barrier fall. We also are seeing men rise up and considering themselves equal to God. Examples include man thinking he can control the earth's environment, save the planet from an asteroid, control reproduction and on and on it goes. Evidently it has not yet reached a level to where God will move against it but you can count on that happening sooner or later. The tower story is a great example of where we are moving today. I've never seen a time in my life where more men shake their fist at God. God sure has more patience than me.

Answer 3

The Thought of A One World Government,Wasn"t time Yet.
Nothing Separates People like having many Languages.
Man has Great Creative ability, By His Speach and Actions
He is able to do Whatever He Want"s,This wasn"t what God had said.

Today We are headed for One World Government & an Umbrella for all Religions.One Thing We will not tolerate Jesus as the Door,It Divides People they get Mad when a Believer Mentions that Name/

Answer 4

the purpose of the Tower advance into for people to place themselves on the point of The writer. of their solidarity and skill, they felt they deserved to be "gods" via fact of what they could build. area exploration and sky scrapers are monuments to the form of humanity, yet all of them paintings upon the concepts instituted via The writer. If guy have been ever that unified returned, and declared as one that area exploration advance into an attempt to invade The writer's realm with the intention to take over, you are able to see sucha a piece returned. finding at in the present day's newspapers, the golfing international can't agree on something, no longer to show the full international.

Answer 5

The tower of Babel was a tower built specifically to better view the stars. This was to enable their pagan worship of the stars and the celestial realm. You could say it was an early form of Astrology. This is against God's plan of worship. God knew that there would be no end to the madness after that.

Answer 6

actually, I think that it more of a metaphor, the world could not possibly have spoken the same language, geographically that would have been impossible as each group developed language at a different rate than the next, and before someone says that I am a non-believer, not so, I just know that the Bible cannot always be translated literally, especially since it has been translated by mankind from different cultures over and over again

Answer 7

God had commanded to the people, after the Great Flood, to spread across the earth and refill it and control it. Instead they were all together in one place, when he wanted them spread.

Plus, what they were building was intended as a tower for studying the stars and advancing astrology, which is forbidden by God. They were beginning to look to the creation instead of teh Creator for guidance The king who ruled there (Nimrod) was known for his human sacrifices also. So religiously and morally it was a bad situation.

So God had to split things up by confusing their language.

Answer 8

The point is really simple when you take into consideration that the bible is actually a collection of ancient myths that originated with the Polytheistic Sumerians. the originals are documented in the ancient cuneiform writings. The stories were passed on verbally for thousands of years (changing as they are told), until the Jews adapted them, changed them to monpolythiestic and put them down in the bible.

In the original version, there were many gods, including a leader god, who was called the lord of the gods, and a separate creator god. The creator god (Enki) loved man, his creation. He was told to create man as a slave race to work for or serve the gods. His brother the lord of gods (Enlil), was very upset that Enki made man able to procreate and think (smart or able to know the difference between good and evil). This started the famous fight between the brothers in the garden of the ED.IN (as the Sumerians called it). Enlil was the lord of the gods and he was afraid that humans would multiply and become Knowledgeable, he thought that they might try to become like gods instead of slaves so he cast Adam and Eve (or the Adapa), out of the garden and sent them back to Africa with the rest of the men they created to till the ground and work in the gold mines. In the story Enki was turned into a snake,(and sometimes a winged serpant), this was originally his symbol which stood for wisdom and medicine,

Later in the Sumerian texts it tells of how Enlil complained that the sound of the humans copulating was keeping him awake at night. then when he found out that some of the "Sons of God" were taking human women as wives and having children with them, therefore polluting the godly bloodline he sent the flood to kill them with the exception of one man who was perfect in his generations (bloodline KJV). But he was actually saved by Enki not Enlil (who sent the flood), and he was perfect in his generations because he was Enki's son, (from an affair with Noah's mother, also supported by the Book of Enoch).

Well, now back to the tower of Babel, Enlil, lord of the gods became upset because he was afraid (again) that humans would try to become like gods, so he told the other gods "Let US go down and confuse their language". Because the people had been told (prior to building the tower) that they would be split up and scattered about thw earth. this was so that each god could have his own protion of slaves to serve him. The people were getting smarter and they didn't want to be split up (this was after the flood), so they decided to build a tower to reach up into the sky which is where the most high god Anu lived. He was the father of the 2 brother Enlil and Enki, they expected to reach him and present their case for being kept together to him.

I mean really, this has been documented by many scholars that the stories in the bible originated from the Sumerian stories, along with the myths of many other religions. It makes perfect sense when you understand this. It only got confusing when the Jews tried to take out all of the other gods in the story and change it to one god.

Answer 9

After the Flood, man had again begun to multiply and fill the earth. They all spoke one language and understood one another well. The generations of people before the Flood had been interested only in themselves; they thought of themselves as supermen and lived each one for himself alone; they used violence and force against their weaker neighbors, paying no attention to laws and rules. The new generation of mankind was different. They stressed the opposite code of living. The individual did not count for himself; he counted only as part of the community, and he had to subject his own interests to those of the group. Had they confined themselves to this kind of social life, all might have been well. But they overdid it. The tremendous strength that grew out of their organization and goodwill made them proud, and their pride made them turn against G-d.

They decided to build a tower which was to reach to heaven, to make them equal to G-d, and at the same time, to make it possible for them to stay together. This symbol of their divine strength, as they thought, was to be built in the valley of the Land of Shinear.

Their Punishment

G-d decided to destroy their arrogance by destroying their ability to understand one another. He, therefore, confused the people by splitting them up into seventy different nations and tribes, each with a language of its own, (hence the name Babel, meaning “confusion”).

When this happened, the project of the Tower had to be given up. The various groups migrated in different directions and settled in all parts of the world. The Tower itself was partly burned and partly swallowed by the earth.

Answer 10

Prior to this God commanded that man spead throughout the earth. Instead, man disobeyed God and stayed to build the Tower. God's will will be done...so God confused them, and they were scattered.

God did this because man disobeyed God in the first place. This is not a story of "Wow, look what we can do, if we work together!" It is a story of God's power and how He will ensure His will is accomplished among a sinful people.