The tower of Babel- full of holes?

by highdose 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  highdose

  i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) Somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel. Even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height. Accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.

  Just why was god so threatened by a building??? it didn't even enter the earths upper atmosphere? in fact at a certain point it would almost have certainly have collasped under its own weight. Why why did god object to them building a tower.... but not object to man landing on the moon??

  and surely if god is all knowing then he would have known that the tower could never have been built into the "heavens" and therefore he had no need to stop the work by confusing their languages??
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  That reminded me of an old thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/202031/1/Tower-of-Babel-built-by-Babies

  The logistics were impossible since there wouldn't have been nearly enough people to build something significant that soon after the flood story. Genesis is just a mess to try to believe literally.
• 

  highdose

  i didn't know that other fact billy, thanks

  has there ever been a book written about the stories in genisis? and how most of them by the looks of things couldn't have happened?
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  This was a fascinating read. I hope the link is still good. If it is, it's worth a bump back up...

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/154236/1/The-Atheists-Book-of-Bible-Stories
• 

  nicolaou

  In 1981 Isaac Asimov published 'In The Beginning - Science Faces God In The Book Of Genesis'. He travels through every verse of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. I highly recommend this book.

  

  You can view some sample pages here; http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/In_the_Beginning.html?id=fW-bBzE7cKoC&redir_esc=y
• 

  Leolaia

  The historial ziggurat at Babylon referenced in the Babel narrative (Etemenanki) stood about 300 feet tall. About the same height as this tower:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgE9S3bV6QM

  The Birj Khalifa in Dubai, in contrast, stands over 2,700 feet. Nine times taller.
• 

  Larsinger58

  They never finished the tower, so just how high it would have been is only speculation -- right?

  At any rate, it would have been impressive for the time. I wonder if it would have rivaled the great pyramid at Giza?

  " The original height of the Pyramid was 146.5m (488ft), but today it is only 137m ( 455ft) .... "

  Impressive, even now, huh?

  At any rate, it would have poloarized the population there for longer than Jehovah intended so the project was cancelled.

  LS
• 

  simon17

  At any rate, it would have poloarized the population there for longer than Jehovah intended so the project was cancelled.

  Wait, hold on... are you suggesting the real reason God disrupted the Tower project is because it might have polarized the population? So he confused the languages and provided the ultimate polarization of population in the history of human kind?????

  Surely this is one of the most ridiculous stories in Genesis (which is saying a lot)

  * Not only does it make no sense that God would be threatened by a tower's height reaching the heavens, but it would be impossible for them to build a tower nearly as high as those built today.

  * Also the reason given is that they must be disrupted because soon "nothing would be impossible" for the builders if they were allowed peaceful under one language. THis is a BLATANT sabotaging of the human race and their potential. Besides being cruel and petty, it also is an entirely unfair handicap to put on humans in God's case for universal sovreignty! If God was trying to show humans couldn't govern themselves, he could NOT have interfered to mess humans up like this and claim this was a fair test. What he introduced (difference due to language) is the #1 cause of humans not being able to get along peacefully through the centuries.
• 

  Sulla

  I find it interesting that so many people here seem to think that the story is intended to be literal history. Thus, finding that it cannot be literal, they think it is false. Very odd.

  Guys, the story is that the founders of the first city engage in a project that is driven by an excess of pride and that this pride is necessarily opposed to God. God disapproves. The story is true beyond any narrow historical reading. Narrow historical readings of the first chapters of Genesis are our own failing, not that of the authors.
• 

  designs

  au contraire' The Torah was written by literal minded folk, it later became revised in the post Babylonian period during the Jewish Renaissance and the development of the various schools like the Pharisees and works like the Midrash and Talmud.

  'The Book Of Jewish Knowledge' by Ausubel