I understand what is trying to be said here and it's interesting and I know the author is attempting to show how faith and science can be reconciled in this instance to help those who might be struggling with this or other potential dichotomies in the scriptures particularly the Old Testament but we never should forget that God has all power, confounding the languages all at once while appearing unbelievable or even unreasonable to us is completely possible to God.
DaveFebruary 8, 2018
The story of the Tower of Babel is a difficult one to reconcile with modern day scientific knowledge. Relative to the history of mankind, written language is very modern. Ancient languages were primarily oral based languages and were more susceptible to evolving. This language evolution occurred side-by-side with the evolution of mankind. We know that for a group to separate themselves and take on unique characteristics such as Asian, African or Native American takes hundreds of thousands of years. The most ancient written language we have found dates back 3700 years which is extremely late in the game when considering how long humans have been around. Not to mention that the Old Testament timeline puts Noah living between 3000-2000BC. It is hard to imagine how Plants, Animals and Humans could have evolved to create the diversity we have now in such a short period of time. I am positive Noah couldn't have fit every species on Earth into the Ark.
ReedFebruary 6, 2018
The diversity of languages as you go back in time is explained best by the tower of babel. Languages evolve and merge with time and isolation. To have more diversity as you go back makes sense no other way. To go from one to thousands in one generation is the only explanation of this phenomenon that I have heard that makes sense.
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Corey D.February 4, 2022
I understand what is trying to be said here and it's interesting and I know the author is attempting to show how faith and science can be reconciled in this instance to help those who might be struggling with this or other potential dichotomies in the scriptures particularly the Old Testament but we never should forget that God has all power, confounding the languages all at once while appearing unbelievable or even unreasonable to us is completely possible to God.
DaveFebruary 8, 2018
The story of the Tower of Babel is a difficult one to reconcile with modern day scientific knowledge. Relative to the history of mankind, written language is very modern. Ancient languages were primarily oral based languages and were more susceptible to evolving. This language evolution occurred side-by-side with the evolution of mankind. We know that for a group to separate themselves and take on unique characteristics such as Asian, African or Native American takes hundreds of thousands of years. The most ancient written language we have found dates back 3700 years which is extremely late in the game when considering how long humans have been around. Not to mention that the Old Testament timeline puts Noah living between 3000-2000BC. It is hard to imagine how Plants, Animals and Humans could have evolved to create the diversity we have now in such a short period of time. I am positive Noah couldn't have fit every species on Earth into the Ark.
ReedFebruary 6, 2018
The diversity of languages as you go back in time is explained best by the tower of babel. Languages evolve and merge with time and isolation. To have more diversity as you go back makes sense no other way. To go from one to thousands in one generation is the only explanation of this phenomenon that I have heard that makes sense.
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