What's the deal with tongues? In this article, Jesse Medina recounts his experience in an Assemblies of God church with a high value on speaking in tongues. But what about the weirdness? Can we throw tongues out altogether? Read and Interact
What's Up With Babel?
Posted By Anonymous on/at 8:33 AM
Written by AJ Teaters
What's the deal with Babel? You know you're thinking it, I just have the balls to ask it. Yeah, that was a little over the top but it's true, what's the deal with Babel?
Babel... what came out of Babel? Language. Without Babel the world wouldn't have different languages which means that every other country of the world wouldn't be trying to learn English while America continues to be lazy and apathetic toward learning another country's language. Oops, did I just say American's were lazy and insensitive. And did I insinuate that if there was only one language on Earth it would be English?! Does that qualify me to be a bigot, or just insensitive?
The story of Babel is ONLY 9 BIBLE VERSES! God chose to explain how language was spread throughout the world in only 9 Bible verses? I want to assume that something got left out. I want to assume that there is more of a story there than what is being told. Why do I want to assume that there is more to the story of Babel than what is being told, because it reads like a Cliff Notes; all the facts no story.
They have an idea, they start to build, they were scattered. I have a theory that this wasn't as group thought as the Bible may have us think. Like I said the story isn't being told just the facts.
The story has to start with a single man (notice I said, "man" and not, "person") and this single man got all the other men riled up and excited about his new and awesome idea to build a tower to heaven. “LET'S BUILD A TOWER TO HEAVEN,” What?! Who says that? I'll claim it, a man! Only a man with bigger balls than brains would ever suggest something so ridiculous. This coming from the same gender that I can only imagined gave us milk by saying, “I am going to drink whatever is in that cow!” Luckily they found the utters first.
The Real Story:
Babel is having a town meeting about what is going to help bring more tourism to their city. They begin to throw out ideas about amusement parks, memorials and audience voting capital punishment game shows, until the dumbest of the men decided to shout out the most unintelligent idea ever, “TOWER TO HEAVEN!” Since in those days there were no women allowed at these meetings no one had the foresight... no that's too nice... let's try that again. Since in those days there were no women allowed at these meetings no one had the common sense to say (don't forget to make this sound shrill and condescending), “Really?! You are planning on building a tower to heaven, there is nothing better you can do with your time than BUILD A TOWER TO HEAVEN?”
Come on guys, any and all of you who are in a relationship (married, engaged or other) can hear your significant other saying that to you. It's really doesn't take a large stretch of the imagination to think a woman would try and talk men out of building something completely ridiculous and useless.
Now before I get a bunch of feminists jumping all over me (trust me sounds more fun that it is) the reason behind this idea is because men are stupid. Ask any woman what happens when men get bored and they will tell you one of two things, “They (men) are going to find a way to get into trouble,” or, “They (men) come up with crazy ideas that need to be brought into fruition.”
Notice the parallel:
- “They” equals men because how could anyone besides men come up with this idea?
- They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." 5 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." (Gen. 11:3-7)
- “They” cannot include women because if women were present during the discussion of building a tower to heaven it would have never happened and we would all still be speaking the same language.
- I would even venture to say that “They” is synonymous with “Men” in this passage because of Gen. 11:7 “'Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.'” If we (men) are truthful we can honestly say that we don't understand anything anyone tells us. Men have their own language (mostly grunts and scratching), while women can communicate with each other over long distances without even saying a word.
Why did God choose to use this circumstance to explain language? Was Babel more important than it seems in the Bible? Who's idea do you think the tower really was?
