Confusion over Babel

Questions to ponder…

Did the people ever finish the Tower of Babel at Shinar?
Was Noah still alive during the Babel incident?
How important was Peleg?

Another key foundational truth is the account of Genesis 11, specifically the Tower of Babel. Following the Flood, the command given was to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. Children were born and generations developed, and yet the people, all of a common language, settled in Shinar, and remained localized. As the people grew in number, so did their impression of themselves, and they looked to make a name for themselves, pridefully opposing God. The account is short, and rather straightforward. God confuses their language and forces them to scatter, by language groups.

This is an important event, because it provides for a Biblical defense and explanation of why we have many languages today, and even why we have different and diverse “people groups” (think of the modern concept of races). The languages aspect is clearer and quicker to reconcile.

But why the people groups? As people were separated and isolated somewhat by language, so too would their genetic information eventually become similarly isolated. Take melanin, for example, the pigment in skin cells that regulate our color, or more specifically, our shade. Those with higher levels of melanin have darker skin, and are actually more protected against sun cancer. OK, so there were not oncologists at Babel, but the scattered groups would have likely consisted of various-shaded people, and those who migrated closer to the equator (much more direct and intense sunlight) with fair skin might simply have died younger, reproducing fewer offspring. No genetic information was changed, but those genetically-disposed to darker skin would have more offspring and as the gene pool effectively diminished, you would be left with a population of people in the equatorial region with predominantly darker skin.

And so it goes that each people group resulted from an isolation of genetic material, resulting in common characteristics of those people. All human, actually all of one “race”, all in the image of God, and yet diverse in superficial characteristics. Having a clear Biblical worldview would naturally lend a person to NOT be racist, but rather see the creativity of our Creator in the complexity of the possibilities of human characteristics.

Genesis 1-11 must be held to a literal reading and understanding, as these chapters provide the foundations for the Christian faith today. Creation is vital to our understanding of Christ, the creator, according to Colossians, the diversity of life forms that we see, which is not a result of some evolutionary process over billions/millions of years. The literal Adam and Eve and the resulting Fall are key components to our salvation. The Flood so easily and readily explains what we see today in geology and paleontology, as well as the preservation of those life forms on board the ark. Genealogies support a young earth, and observational science does the same.
Too many today forsake these sections of Scripture, rendering them less meaningful than the Gospel, and yet they are an integral part of that very Gospel message. If we allow Christians to chip away at the very authority of God’s Word in these areas, what’s next?

ANSWERS:
1) Yes, the tower was finished (Gen. 11:5, “The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”) It was done. The city, however, was not, until after the dispersion, and Nimrod took charge. Chapter 10, which in not in chronological order with chapter 11, says of Nimrod, “The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” (v. 10)
2) Yes, Noah was alive at the time of the Babel incident. He lived to be 950, 350 of those years after the Flood, and he was the great-great-great-great grandfather of Peleg. Noah would have been about 940 when Peleg died (at only 240). Peleg would have been born about 100 years after the Flood.
3) Peleg is noted in the genealogy in chapter 10 with this description: “in his days, the earth was divided”, a reference to the language division of Babel. Genealogies might seem boring to read, and God had them written down for a reason.


Holding fast to the name of our Creator, for His glory.