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June 13, 2005 According to the Book of Genesis, Noah fathered Ham, Ham fathered Cush, and Cush fathered Nimrod, the founder of Babylon. At some time during this period, we are told in Genesis 10:5, the Gentiles spoke a number of languages. "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." However, shortly thereafter, the whole earth was of one language, we are told contradictorily in Genesis 11:1-9, which relates the famous confusion of tongues that God visited upon the earth os a punishment for the building of the ziggurat in Babylon. "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. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is 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. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 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." In the quotation above, I have capitalized the words BABEL and CONFOUND, which translate the words BAVEL and BALAL in the corresponding Hebrew sentence, which I have tranliterated meticulously into English letters below. "Al-ken kara' shmah BAVEL, ki sham BALAL Yhovah safat kol haaretz." The spelling of BAVEL in Hebrew is actually BABEL, as in the King James Version quoted above, but intervocalic B is pronounced V in Hebrew, hence the transliteration I have used. BABEL is actually a rendering of BAB-EL (Gate of God). The suffix EL is used in Semitic languages, including Hebrew and probably Babylonian, with the meaning "God". This appears in such Hebrew words as "Yisrael", "Bethel" and "Nathaniel". BAB is a common Semitic word meaning "gate" or "door". Compare Hebrew "bavah", Aramaic "baba?", and Arabic "bab". Here is a comment from a Christian apologist on Babylon: "With all the effrontery of our modern apostates, they called their city and tower Bab-El, the gate of God; but it was soon changed by divine judgment into Babel, Confusion." The only trouble with this statement is that BABEL (or BAVEL) does not mean "confusion" in Hebrew, except by someone making an allusion to the passage from Genesis. In fact, the word BABEL is an extremely unlikely word in Hebrew, which, like Arabic and other Semitic languages, uses triconsonantal roots. A typical Hebrew root, like KELEV (dog) or SEFER (book), has three consonants, which may be referred to as C1, C2 and C3, that is, K-L-V of S-F-R. Words with C2 and C3 the same are common: BALAL (to mix, confound, involve, embroil); SOVEV (revolving, spinning); KOMEM (rising). But words with C1 and C2 the same are very unusual. BAB can probably be explained as having lost a medial W. This can be seen in the Arabic word BAWABA (great gate) as against BAB (gate). The "confusion" seemed to be in the mind of the author of that passage in Genesis. The words BABEL (BAVEL) and BALAL are totally unrelated. Confounding them was what is known as a "folk etymology". Compare the English words "crayfish" and "crawfish". These come from Middle English "crevice" or "crevisse", from Old French "crevice" or "escrevisse", which correspond to Modern French "écrevisse", ultimately from Old High German "crebiz". The idea that the word "fish" was involved, though erroneous, accounts for our modern English versions. A similar folk etymology, equally false, confounded the two Hebrew words, and apparently the story of the confusion of tongues was invented to explicate the folk etymology. The contradiction mentioned above and the speciousness of the folk etymology only serve to underscore the absurdity and implausibility of the whole myth. With a Universe measured in billions of light-years, why would God, if there had been a God, have supposed that the Babylonians were trying to reach him. I give the Babylonians credit for more intelligence than thinking they could reach Heaven would imply they had. I'm not so sure about the intelligence of the author(s) of Genesis. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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