1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
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."
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."
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 wor
2007-10-31 22:52:32 · 9 answers · asked by wise MONKEY 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Maybe it has a meaning other than the literal one.
2007-10-31 22:57:41 · answer #1 · answered by Daisy Indigo 6 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Can you say "allegory"? :-) And there probably WAS a time when all people spoke the same language (if they actually SPOKE a language); it's only been as mankind spread out that we developed different ones. Talk to any linguist, and you'll find that all roads lead to Africa when it comes to language.
I don't believe language differentiated as quickly as the story says - but I don't think that a Tower of Babel was all that unlikely, either, or that the story is anything but an allegory for a real, but very time-consuming, event. It's the underlying truth, not the details, that matter in an allegory, after all.
2007-10-31 23:09:14 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Eileen is right - there is much in the Bible to be taken literally as exact truth; and much in metaphorical prose (Revelations, for example) that can only be interpreted with the Spirit of God in your heart.
That is the funny and sometimes frustrating thing about the Word of God - living and active. It is more of a parable for the saved; and less of a textbook for the damned.
2007-10-31 23:06:02 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Why not?
Now, maybe it didn't happen as suddenly as all that (after all, this story was an oral tradition for hundreds, if not thousands of years before it was written down), but I'm sure something like that DID happen.
Every language that exists has one source. That's why there are so many cognates from one language to another.
2007-10-31 23:40:36 · answer #4 · answered by The_Cricket: Thinking Pink! 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Hmmmmm.......I think you will be getting a lot of answers saying it is only a metaphor.Funny that.Pick and choose......pick and choose................I'll believe that bit coz it's nice....don't like that bit,lets call it a metaphor.
2007-10-31 23:02:32 · answer #5 · answered by Mike Oxlong 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Why wouldn't you believe the Word of God?
2007-10-31 23:28:36 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
The Lord is God. He can do anything he wants.
2007-10-31 23:01:25 · answer #7 · answered by dogburgers 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
and they just keep on babel -ing
2007-10-31 23:12:06 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why - have you a better one?
2007-10-31 22:56:25 · answer #9 · answered by cheir 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋