The beginning of the world, The Great Flood, and the Beginning of Nations and Languages.

(In the chapters 1-11 we learn all about the very beginning of the world that we live in. We learn all about the beginning of people, nations, and languages. All of the events that take place in Genesis are setting the stage for what God plans to do through the nation of Israel.)

Chapters 1,2: God creates the heaven and the earth and all that is in them.

Chapter 3: Sin is introduced to our world when Adam and Eve sinned. They sinned against God by not obeying his command.

Chapter 4: A terrible event takes place in chapter 4. Adam’s son named Cain kills his brother Abel.

Chapter 5: Chapter 5 tells us how Adam’s family is growing and populating the newly created world. It is in chapter 5 that we are introduced to Noah. Did you know that Noah was 500 years old before he became a father to Shem, Ham, and Japeth.

Chapters 6-8: In chapter 6, the people living in the world were not obeying God. God decided to destroy the whole world with a great flood. He told Noah to build an ark. The great flood came and only Noah and his family and the animals were kept safe inside the ark.

Chapter 9: God made a promise to Noah after the flood. He promised Noah that NEVER again would he send a flood that would destroy ALL life. God put a rainbow in the sky as a reminder to all people of his promise to Noah.

Chapter 10: In chapter 10 of Genesis, we learn all about the families of Noah’s sons.

Chapter 11: The people living in the world in chapter 11 were very “proud” people. They wanted to build a tower that would reach all the way to Heaven. God decided to give the people different langauges so that they would not be able to communicate and understand each other. By giving the people different languages, God prevented the people from completing their tower and the people scattered to different parts of the world.

Visit here:

world regions timeline 8,000 – 2,000 B.C.

Genesis 10:1-11:4

The Tower of Babel

Babel:

The Tower of Babel is a structure featured in chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis, an enormous tower intended as the crowning achievement of the city of Babilu. It was the first city to be built after the Great Flood and the people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it’s top reached into the heavens.

So what happened that made God so upset?

Some say it was because Nimrod, who sprang from the branch of Noah’s family on which rested the “curse” and (Gen?), began to struggle for preeminence and by mere force of his will on the people, obtained it (Gen 10:8). “The earth also (in the days of Noah) was corrupt before God,” the impression conveyed is that this “Rebel” pursued his own impious and ambitious designs in brazen and open defiance of the Almighty. As we shall see, the contents of Genesis eleven confirm this interpretation. An excerpt from Nimrod and the Tower of Babel:

The Catholic youth Bible says blames it on the people’s unwillingness to fill the earth.

“The people ignore God’s command to “fill the earth” (Gen 1.28). Instead, they gather in one place to try to build a tower reaching to heaven, a sin of pride and arrogance. “

All seem to agree that the sin of pride and arrogance, where the building of the tower became more important than the caring of Babylon’s people, was what had upset God.

My personal experience has been that if we put materialistic value above humanistic value, then we make God very sad and we lose touch with God’s love.

There are several thoughts on if the Tower existed, and if so, where did it exist.

See this site and See this site

The ruins of Babylon:

View The ruins of Babylon in a larger map

Tower of Babel in Iraq:

View Larger Map

Borsippa, Iraq:

View Larger Map

Discussion:

Wether you believe:

• The story is a parable (a fictional account with a lesson to be learned)
• An actual place and event
• God would have caused the destruction because of man’s boastful pride
• or chalk it up to ‘karma’

Or not –

Let’s discuss these questions:

1. Do you think these passages represent what could happen in our lives now? If so, How? If not, Why?
2. Has the internet helped to bring people together, seperate them?
3. Do you think building a tall tower is a bad thing or a good thing?
4. What was the real sin the people committed?
5. Even in an age when people could understand eachother, do they try to, not try to, why do you think that is?
6. Can you name some of the different languages spoken around the world?
7. What Language will you pick to learn?

Think and Do:

Draw a picture of what you think the Tower of Babel look like. Make it 3″x3″. Cut it out and paste it into your timeline journals.
The estimated date range for the Tower of Babel according to Theologians is:

Also, you need to double check that you have placed Noah your books:

16,000 to 20,000 BCE (if using the formula earlier for archaeological time)
abt. 3,000 – 3,100 B.C. If using biblical time below) 1

Next we will be learning about cuneiforms and looking at some artifacts at the Cuneiform Library at Cornell University. as well as others at http://cdli.ucla.edu/

The Ashmolean, Museum of Art and Archaeology

Timeline Artwork:

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Additional References:

1:
Formula:
+ Biblical time span from Adam to Noah is about 2000 biblical years and the average man life time during that biblical period was around 960 biblical years as mentioned in Genesis book chapter 5.
+ From (Ge 6:3) we read that GOD shortened man’s life time to be 120 biblical years starting approximately from Noah era.
+ The above two facts lead us to consider time scale of 960/120 = 8 when we correlate between Biblical chronology and its equivalent Archaeological chronology for that period.

From this point of view we can roughly conclude that the 2000 Biblical year period from Adam to Noah should be compared with around 16000 to 20000 of archaeological years.

An excellent scholarly resource is here as well: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Hill.html *saved local copy