Two versions, one Tower.

3/9/2008 8:04:04 PM	Two versions, one Tower.
burnkitty Fayetteville, AR age: 32	I was working late last night, as the KJ at a karaoke bar, when three questions continually ran through my mind. This was one... Back in the day and other such clichés, I did the Christian thing. I had been raised in it, and rarely questioned anything. Those questions I did have were merely for clarifications sake. Then there was the one question that showed me how many different ways a statement could be viewed, and I realized not everything was all cut and dry as all that. It was the Tower of Babel. As a young tyke, I had these books with a cassette that told random bible stories, one of them of the Tower. As the children's storybook told it, these people were trying to build this tower to heaven, and god got pissed. He scattered their language and their location so they wouldn't defy god. But upon further inspection, I found this debatable. This is Genesis 11, 1-9. 1.And the whole earth was of one language, and one speech. 2.And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. 3.And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 4.And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5.And the lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6.And the lord said, behold, the people are one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7.Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8.So the lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth; and they left off to build the city. 9.Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. I found myself debating heavily with my prior Sunday school class that the intent could have been to build a tower that would reach the stars, not the literal heaven. And I found myself quoting verse 6 when saying that I believed god's only concern was that we didn't have an early industrial age. Some of the class agreed with me, though everyone had heard the same story I had in my children's book. I turned out not to be the only one who shared this idea. I don't believe a word of this story nowadays. In fact, I feel it is silly that this was the point in the good book that tries to explain the advent of new languages. Still, the story had always intrigued me. So this question is for those of the Christian and Jewish faiths... What are your ideas on these two different versions of the Tower of Babel?
3/10/2008 3:45:47 AM	Two versions, one Tower.
dbsuma Lakewood, OH age: 39	I've got some more maybe. perhaps they always had different languages but this being a massive building project would require workers from all over, distant lands, so this might have been the first time they actually noticed that there were different languages and dialects, not the cause. I'm inclined to to believe that this must have been a pyramid of some sorts rather than a tower, that would not stand to such heights. And oddly enough there was an early pyramid built that you can actually see, before they really knew what they were doing. but with such small bricks that it crumbled in on itself under it's own weight.
3/10/2008 3:59:54 AM	Two versions, one Tower.
dbsuma Lakewood, OH age: 39	Not all pyramids stood up at first, they had to practice a lot till they got it right.
3/10/2008 5:15:09 AM	Two versions, one Tower.
burnkitty Fayetteville, AR age: 32	Intriguing photos. Thank you DBsuma. This has modivated me to do some research on ancient architecture involving the time frame.
3/10/2008 5:35:49 AM	Two versions, one Tower.
adameve Lacombe, LA age: 46	HaHA I will LOOK it up. And not tell you what i think; with out looking what the bible saids!! HAHA IF I write A book and it saids TRue story. Read the book First.
3/10/2008 3:44:30 PM	Two versions, one Tower.
sekhmetvotaress Hemet, CA age: 33	Db: I believe one of those pyramids was actually a "step-pyramid". Step-pyramids did not have the smooth, steep sides as the Great Pyramid; they had, well, steps. These were the among the first designs tried. Somewhere I have the name of the Pharaoh who commissioned the first step-pyramid, if you are interested.
3/10/2008 4:36:43 PM	Two versions, one Tower.
oceans5555 Chevy Chase, MD age: 64	I am guessing that you are talking about the Saqqarah Pyramid, if you are doing some research,shown in one of the above pictures, the one that looks like it has 'steps.' It is further south than the others shown, and built quite differently and at a different time than the others. Oceans
3/11/2008 9:56:42 PM	Two versions, one Tower.
dbsuma Lakewood, OH age: 39	yeah sekhmetvotaress, that is a step pyramid in the background but I was talking about the crumbled pyramid in the foreground. First there was mastabas then step pyramids, which are just mastabas stack on top of each other, then pyramids. So I guess the tower of babel could have very well have been a mastaba that just wasn't built very well. And as so often happens anytime something bad happens it is always blamed on one god or another, when all the time it was probably faulty design and construction. Let me see Shinar is the area also known as Mesopotamia, Babel is said to be Babylon. I think one of the Codes of Hammurabi was that if you built a building and it fell down, then whoever built it should be put to death, so they must have already had a history of lots of buildings falling down by that time. So I'd guess you'd look for a crumbed Mastaba somewhere in Mesopotamia. Chances are that there was not too many buildings larger than one story tall and they were all called towers, for the lack of proper vocabulary. AH, here it is, a Ziggurat. Ziggurats also known as great temple towers. Stairway to heaven. "let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV) AH here we go the ziggurat at Ur made on the outside of baked bricks. Now partially restored below, just the first story of the 7 story tower. during Excavations Construction of the ziggurat was completed in the 21st century BC by King Shulgi, during whose 48-year reign the city of Ur grew to be the capital of an empire controlling much of Mesopotamia. To win the allegiance of the many formerly independent cities he controlled, Shulgi proclaimed himself a god. After Shulgi's time the fortunes of Ur declined. His sons could not hold on to the empire they inherited, and their city was soon sacked by the Elamites. Ur was then ruled by a succession of foreign kings until the 4th century BC, when the Euphrates river changed its course and the city, lacking irrigation, was abandoned. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth" Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV) until 19th-century when archaeologists discovered its remains, all knowledge of it's existence was erased from memory. The phrase Tower of Babel does not actually appear in the Bible; it is always, "the city and its tower" (???-?????? ?????-???????????) or just "the city" (??????). Nor does it say the tower was destroyed, as commonly depicted on modern TV versions of the story, just abandoned. it wasn't till much much later that writings say that it was destroyed without any historical or text to support such claims. As in the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews which dates around 94 AD, so a big gap in time from the tower to Josephus, over 2000 years. Also it says the tower was built by descendants of Noah's son Japheth, but not stating a time period from ark to tower, so no reason to suppose these descendants had gotten their own languages prior to the Tower's construction. As it only says "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." being possessive to only applying to the descendants of Japheth who built the tower. Not claiming that this is the reason that all mankind has different languages, just the cause of these particular people. nor does it state that other people had different or the same language other than the tower builders. "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there." I guess the phrase "And it came to pass" could be two years or two thousands years, from Ark to tower and people who built the tower were specifically descendants of Japheth, from my understanding and there were other people on that Ark who went in different directions eeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggg time is horrible in the bible, I guess cause they have a family tree and decided when all these events took place in time but their time frame was horribly off. That's why everybody in the bible lived for 700 years or so, just to try and stretch things out and make everything fit nicely but it just doesn't work like that, especially when the majority of your religion is made up and the other half is completely confused. But sure, if it was all based on something, this is as good as anything. But I'm sure there are dozens if not hundreds of ziggurat in that area that you could choose from, but this one seems to fit. Babel is the Hebrew equivalent of Akkadian Babilu, Greek Babylon, a cosmopolitan city typified by a confusion of languages. So I think they are most likely combining the tower story of the Ziggurat at Ur with an observation that people from Babylon spoke different languages, because people migrated there and chalked it all up to being gods fault, which is probably news to him.

hookup apps that work

hookups phoenix az