This morning we continued our reading of the book of Genesis. We read from chapter 11, verses 1 through 9. In these verses we learn of the people after the flood trying to gather together and build a city and a tower in order to make a name for themselves. God ended up coming down and causing their languages to become confused, thus causing them to leave the project undone and making them go off and populate the world.
We talked about whether this story was actually plausable or not. We decided that it is plausable for a few reasons.
1. Linguistacally we know that there are thousands of langauges in the world but that these langauges have similarities that can be traced to common languages that can be traced back further and further, leading us to believe that all human languaged devolped from one common lanuage.
2. There are common designs around the world of these towers/pyramid/zigguarats. One way to explain this is that those people that scattered took this design to the areas they went to.
3. Etemenanki (the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth) is a zigguarate found in Bablyon. It was rebuilt in the 6th century B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar 2. This is what he wrote, "A former king built the temple...but he did not complete its head. Since a romote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time earthquakes and lightning had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps." There is the possiblity that this is the same tower built that was talked about in the story in Genesis.
4. All across the world there are similar stories of a tower being built in order to get to heaven and the builders either dying or being scattered with different languages. Some might say that this shows the bible is myth borrowing from a similar source. Instead I believe it shows that the bible is truth and the others have a memory of what happened in the past but have twisted it into the realms of the fantastic over the years.
The main point of this story this morning was that they built this tower out of pride and because they were disobeying God. One of God's first commands was to fill the whole earth, to spread out,a nd conquer it, yet they were fighting against this command by trying to draw people to one place and then also trying to make a name for themeslves greater than God. We often pick a fight with God, we know what he commands us to do or not do but we deliberately choose to do the wrong thing, even though we know the right thing to do.
We concluded by reading Hebrews 10:26-27 -- "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."
I give this morning: A-
Favorite Moment: The reaction to the dead bird
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