For example: The Tower of Babel. For the those of you unfamiliar with the story, it's really just an explanation of why there are so many different languages. After all, everyone on earth is descended from the same two people, why would there be many different languages instead of only one? Simple- goddidit because man scared him.
You see, all those people speaking the same language could work together to do marvelous things. The marvelous thing they agreed to do was build a tower tall enough to reach Heaven. God saw this, was afraid, and so scattered the humans all over the earth and made them speak different languages so they couldn't work together. As a child, I saw this as a testament to the power of people working toward a common cause. Working together towards a common goal, people can do anything. They can bring about equality for women, end Jim Crow, scare the piss out of god himself.
Wait, what?
We mortal beings can threaten the omniscient, omnipotent creator of everything? Apparently.
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
Maybe I did get that right as a child. Sure kills the whole "omnipotent" thing, though.
*I switched to chrome because explorer was crashing every 5 minutes, but for some reason I can no longer link the picture itself. annoying.
That's actually a somewhat persistent Old Testament theme - look again at why Adam & Eve got kicked out of the Garden. It wasn't for their sins, it was because now that they had knowledge of good and evil, God was afraid that they would eat of the tree of life and live forever and be like Him.
ReplyDeleteI'm telling you, the snake got a bad rap.
I always thought God sounded like an emo teenager with Superman-like powers. And a massive inferiority complex. I prefer my gods to be a bit more confident, thank you.
ReplyDelete@ Leigh - that begs to be a web comic.
ReplyDeleteThough I suppose Preacher was partly based on that approach.
Huh. When my mother used to read parts of the Bible at bedtime when I was little, I remember her recounting this story as the people actually building some sort of wall or fortress or something, to try and defy God. This thus pissed him off and he therefore gave them all different languages to ruin their efforts. Not sure if I’m actually recalling a different story, but it is rather similar.
ReplyDeleteAlso: the only thing I should berate you more than actually using IE int his day and age, is for not using Firefox. Git wit the program!
Has anyone ever heard a christian explain why the chapter just before this says (three times) that before this story all the tribes spoke different languages ?
ReplyDeleteGod is never afraid of anything...you guys are still misunderstanding the Scripture.
ReplyDeleteJust a little hint on how great and Almighty God is...as big as the universe is, God is infinitely greater & bigger than it! If you don't stand a chance against a so powerful force such as magnetism, how can humans even think they can defy God...so yes they were all split up at Babel as a punishment for their rebellious ways. God is Love...that's why He gave His only begotten Son to save us from sin & the curse of sin which is death...death is the spiritual death, the seperation from God. God is so holy that we can't stand before Him in a sinfulness...that's as far as ill go.......
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