Now, maybe I am mixing stuff up, but isn't there proof of distinct and different languages/writings as far back as 5-6 thousand BC ??
Bible says God confused peoples languages at Babel....is this childish nonsense?
by Witness 007 66 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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exwhyzee
Wasn't the point, of all that has gone on with mankind since Adam and Eve, to prove to Satan and the spirit realm once and for all, God's right to rule? Wasn't the challenge that Satan made, that he could turn all mankind against God and so God allowed a certain amount of time for this to be proven? What does it really prove if everytime man made some gain in his ability to get organized or makesany progress, God hobbles them, so to speak, so that they suffer a significant set back. It would seem to all onlookers, that God was altering the experiment to get the result he wanted, rather than letting the outcome happen on it's own. Wouldn't it, on some level, be showing that God was afraid that man could get along with out him.
On the otherhand, mankind has made some giant strides in recent years that seem much more significant than building a tower to the heavens and it doesn't seem like God has hindered their progress.
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PSacramento
exwhyzee,
IF God is omniscient ( all knowing) , that means he KNOWS the result of ANY bet, which means he knows how this will end, which means that unless Satan is unaware of God's omnisience, then he is one dim light bulb !
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Leolaia
Now, maybe I am mixing stuff up, but isn't there proof of distinct and different languages/writings as far back as 5-6 thousand BC ??
There was an early precusor of writing in a token system of accounting that goes back to 8000 BC, but these consisted of ideograms rather than specific linguistic representation. But we have definite examples of phonetic writing going back to 3200 BC in Egypt and 3100 BC in Mesopotamia, attesting the existence of Egyptian and Sumerian as distinct languages in the fourth millennium BC.
Wasn't the point, of all that has gone on with mankind since Adam and Eve, to prove to Satan and the spirit realm once and for all, God's right to rule? Wasn't the challenge that Satan made, that he could turn all mankind against God and so God allowed a certain amount of time for this to be proven? What does it really prove if everytime man made some gain in his ability to get organized or makesany progress, God hobbles them, so to speak, so that they suffer a significant set back. It would seem to all onlookers, that God was altering the experiment to get the result he wanted, rather than letting the outcome happen on it's own. Wouldn't it, on some level, be showing that God was afraid that man could get along with out him.
That's a flaw in the Rutherfordian doctrine of theodicy, which has little to do with the Babel story or the Bible itself.
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PSacramento
Ah, thanks as always Leo ;)
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exwhyzee
I should have prefaced my comment with :According to the WTBTS....Wasn't the point, of all that has gone on with mankind since Adam and Eve, to prove to Satan and the spirit realm once and for all, God's right to rule? Wasn't the challenge that Satan made, that he could turn all mankind against God and so God allowed a certain amount of time for this to be proven? If that is true, what does it really prove if everytime man made some gain in his ability to get organized or makesany progress, God hobbles them, so to speak, so that they suffer a significant set back. It would seem to all onlookers, that God was altering the experiment to get the result he wanted, rather than letting the outcome happen on it's own. Wouldn't it, on some level, be showing that God was afraid that man could get along with out him.
On the otherhand, we have seen that mankind has made some giant strides in recent years that seem much more significant than building a tower to the heavens and it doesn't seem like God has hindered their progress.
exwhyzee,
IF God is omniscient ( all knowing) , that means he KNOWS the result of ANY bet, which means he knows how this will end, which means that unless Satan is unaware of God's omnisience, then he is one dim light bulb !
Good point, but again, wasn't the WTBTS thinking that God is capable of knowing in advance the outcome of events but gives us free will to choose which route we take? Otherwise everything we did would be predetermined and it wouldn't matter what we did because the outcome would be the same.
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Leolaia
Interestingly, even Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century understood some basics of genetic relationship between languages, time depth, and the limitations posed by the extinction of languages on the reconstruction of larger level relationships reaching further back into the past:
How many ages have elapsed since the English, Dutch, the Germans, the Swiss, the Norwegians, Danes and Swedes have separated from their common stock? Yet how many more must elapse before the proofs of their common origin, which exist in their several languages, will disappear? It is to be lamented then ... that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke. Were vocabularies formed of all the languages spoken in North and South America, preserving their appellations of the most common objects in nature, of those which must be present to every nation barbarous or civilised, with the inflections of their nouns and verbs, their principles of regimen and concord, and these deposited in all the public libraries, it would furnish opportunities to those skilled in the languages of the old world to compare them with these, now or at a future time, and hence to construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race...
Imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable fact. Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced, and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical languages, so called because, if they were ever the same, they have lost all resemblance to one another. A separation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialects to recede from one another till they have lost all vestiges of their common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not less than many people give to the age of the earth [e.g. Archbishop Ussher's date of creation as 4004 BC]. A greater number of those radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia....
The great diversity of languages appearing radically different, which are spoken by the red men of America, is supposed to authorize a supposition that their settlement is more remote than that of Asia by its red inhabitants; but it must be confessed that the mind finds it difficult to conceive that so many tribes have inhabited it from so remote an antiquity as would be necessary to have divided them into languages so radically different....Perhaps this hypothesis presents less difficulty than that of so many radically distinct languages, preserved by such handfuls of men, from an antiquity so remote that no data we possess will enable us to calculate it.
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debator
Hi leolaia
You have a greater knowledge of the process of language it's complexity and distinctiveness. But none of this stops God being the creator of language. As far as I can see your refutation of the biblical account is on two simple grounds. The Bible timeframe does not go back in time enough and you simply cannot see a Divine intervention explanation for this.
How do you explain the variety of languages that appeared? why would more than one appear? You show yourself that when two groups meet one group tends to either take on the other's language or blending of the two together.
So if language evolved from one human group why would it diversify to more when the opposite is what happens when people are brought together?
Are you saying humans split up and in every single separate group they all evolved the ability to have language separate from each other, in their own groups?
You are right I have a vested interest in believing the Bible account but since Darwinism offers no explanation just a lot of unprovable theories aka "out of africa theory", "candlabra theory" and yes I do call the bible a basic explanation clearly not scientific enough for you but it does show why we have so many languages. Wherever humans exist language exists. Every stone age tribe ever encountered has a language equal to English, Latin, or Greek in terms of its expressive potential and grammatical complexity. Technologies may be complex or simple, but language is always complex.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine intervention (which I agree with), as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of the builders by an angry god. And similar stories are found in other parts of the world. This for me shows a racial memory of the event.
Bible plus the back up of racial memory for me is more accurate than scholar speculation. I appreciate that you have a differing viewpoint on this.
And if we look at language now aren't we looking at the evolving of the entire world into English speaking one language group? now we are connected by the internet and communication and interaction is becoming closely connected?
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cantleave
Ahh debator (IQ = 20) challenges Leolaia (IQ = 200+)
I'm so looking forward to the response - where's the popcorn?
(No pressure leo)
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Leolaia
As far as I can see your refutation of the biblical account is on two simple grounds. The Bible timeframe does not go back in time enough and you simply cannot see a Divine intervention explanation for this.
I am replying to your interpretations and claims about language, which were pretty uninformed if not downright silly. I am not busying myself with giving what you call a "refutation of the biblical account". I am making points sufficient to show that you have misunderstood the nature of the linguistic evidence and methodology involved, particularly to show that you have shifted the burden of proof and your claims that there is linguistic evidence in support of your interpretation of the Babel story are false. The question under discussion here is not whether there could possibly have been any divine intervention, but whether there is any evidence that such intervention occurred and whether the burden of proof should or should not be on the claimant invoking such in an explanation of empirical evidence.
How do you explain the variety of languages that appeared? why would more than one appear?
Languages are inherently variable and are constantly changing; new languages form all the time. There are many linguistic explanations on how languages diverge from one another, read some Labov, Hale, or Lehmann if you are interested. But to witness the sheer productivity of linguistic change, one can just ennumerate the number of Romance languages derived from Latin that emerged in the last two thousand years: Lingua Franca, Romanian, Aromanian, Sardinian (with four major dialects), Corsican, Dalmatian, Istriot, Italian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Aragoneze, Mozarabic, Oïl (with several dialects), French (with many dialects), overseas French varieties and creoles like Morisyen and Haitian, Burgundian, Champenois, Gallo, Lorrain, Picard, Walloon, Friulian, Ladin, Romansh, Ligurian, Lombard (with several dialects), Piedmontese, Venetian, Catalan (with seven or more dialects), Occitan (with six major dialects), Spanish (with many major dialects), Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Portuguese, overseas Portuguese creoles like Palenquero and Papiamentu, Galician, Fala, among many others. All this diversity, without a single "Tower of Babel" incident occurring with the Romans.
You show yourself that when two groups meet one group tends to either take on the other's language or blending of the two together.
There is no either/or. Neither is shift and convergence all that happens. Languages very easily diverge, especially via geographical isolation and social group formation, as we can see with Romance or even English in the past two hundred years (English-based languages like Bislama and Tok Pisin are totally incomprensible to an average English speaker).
So if language evolved from one human group why would it diversify to more when the opposite is what happens when people are brought together?
Languages easily diversify when people migrate. Consider how since the time of Christ, the same small population spread throughout Polynesia and produced many new languages including Marquesan, Rapanuian, Maori, Tahitian, Mangarevan, Tuamotuan, Rarotongan, Hawaiian, etc. And languages also diverge when people are brought together in order to maintain or produce social distinctions. Convergence and divergence can either happen, or both, depending on the local circumstances.
Are you saying humans split up and in every single separate group they all evolved the ability to have language separate from each other, in their own groups?
It can potentially happen to any population group. The mutiny on the HMS Bounty occurs, then bang, hundred years later we have two new varieties (Pitkern and Norfuk). Each island in the Caribbean developed its own local creole variety (well, most did), and new varieties developed from Austronesian all throughout the Pacific as people migrated. Language is inherently variable (much like genetics). It is in its nature to spawn off dialects and, eventually, distinct languages; even in the same population we have many registers and forms of language.
since Darwinism offers no explanation just a lot of unprovable theories
Theories can be tested, falsified, confirmed, etc. A "just so" story like that in Genesis is not a theory or an attempt to explain the linguistic evidence. The evidence however can be used to assess whether this story makes any sense of the historical facts (hint: it does not).
Every stone age tribe ever encountered has a language equal to English, Latin, or Greek in terms of its expressive potential and grammatical complexity. Technologies may be complex or simple, but language is always complex.
Well, at least you said something correct.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine intervention (which I agree with), as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the Toltecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of the builders by an angry god. And similar stories are found in other parts of the world. This for me shows a racial memory of the event.
You uncritically take the stories at face value while ignoring their historical context. These stories, like the Cholula story recorded by friar Diego Duran, were written down by missionaries and others who wanted to convert the native peoples and who often believed that the Mesoamerican peoples were descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. The Aztecs and other peoples in contact with the Spanish heard much from the missionaries, and they adapted their own native legends to fit with them. And so Diego Duran, who got the Cholula story from an elderly Indian, related that "another elderly Indian asked what news I had of the departure of Topiltzin (Quetzalcoatl) and began to relate to me Chapter 14 of Exodus...And as I saw that he had read what I had and knowing how the story was going to end, I didn't ask him much so that he wouldn't tell me the whole story of the Exodus, and all about the punishment of the children of Israel and the serpents for murmuring against God and Moses, which I already knew about". The native history written by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl around 1650 similarly adapted pre-Columbian history to the biblical narrative, thereby including stories inspired by the biblical stories of the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the exodus, the sun standing still, David and Goliath, and so forth. It is a naive mistake to view them as purely pre-Columbian legends untouched by Spanish contact; like any other narratives they reflect the sociocultural matrix in which they were written.