Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole earth had one language and 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. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
In the previous chapter, full of difficult names to read, there are about 70 nations (or families) listed.
It is important to understand that because it means that when God dispersed the peoples of man and confused their languages there were fewer than 100 languages developed from the Tower of Babel.
What is interesting is that experts in language tell us that of the over 7000 living languages that exist today; they come from only about 136 language families. (Example: spoken Chinese is separated into five main groups of dialects … with over 200 individual dialects.)
I will come back to language, and especially the Chinese language, but I would like to take note of another phenomenon that followed the Tower of Babel: how history was passed down … specifically, the account of the Flood.
What happened after the flood, by virtue of time and different languages, was a worldwide game of telephone started. Remember that game we played as kids where we would whisper into each other’s ears successively and when the last person said aloud what he heard it wasn’t exactly the same as what was first said? Oftentimes, it would be wildly different.
This is what happened with the Biblical account of the flood as it was repeated into all the new languages of the world after Babel. Every culture across the globe had a flood tradition. I want to note a few:
Hindu
Lord Vishnu told Manu that the world would come to an end and asked Manu to build a huge boat to take 7 sages, seeds of all plants, and 1 animal of each type.
Sumerian
The gods decided to wipe out man but the water-god Enki insisted to save mankind. He informed Ziusudra – a pious, god-fearing, and humble king, of the dreadful decision of the gods and advised him to save himself by building a very large boat.
Babylonian
The Babylonian flood story is found in the epic of Gilgamesh. The gods decided to let loose a flood on man, but one god warned Utnapishtim to build a large boat and load it with supplies and animals. After the boat was ready, the storm came. The boat survived the flood and rested on a mountain.
Utnapishtim sent out a dove, and it came back, as did a swallow, but when he released a crow it did not return.
Egyptian
People had become rebellious. The god Atum said he will destroy all he made and return the earth to the Primordial Water (Nun) which was its original state.
Greek
Because people grew so wicked, Jupiter sent a great flood that destroyed them all, except for one good man and one good woman.
These two were preserved as being fit to live. The flood submerged all of the earth except for Mount Olympus, where the gods lived. When the waters abated, the two survivors were told to people the world anew with more worthy inhabitants.
Norse
Another worldwide flood with only two persons, a man, and a woman, surviving by building an ark. They repopulated the earth.
Aztec
In this version, only a man and woman survived by taking refuge in a hollow trunk of a cypress that floated on top of the water and finally banked on a mountain in Culhuacan. They had many children, but none of them could speak. The great spirit took pity on them and sent a dove, which attempted to teach the children how to speak.
Chinese
Chinese tradition speaks about how God created the heavens and the earth, and created man and woman. They also talk about the wickedness of humanity and God sending a flood. Immense flooding covered the entire earth, and only one family, “the family of Fuhi” was saved.
This family consisted of a man, his wife, 3 sons, and 3 daughters, who were all saved alive in a boat. It says that it poured for 40 days, then it flooded and then 45 days of misting and drizzle.
The righteous person who was saved was called Nuah, and he built a boat very wide and vast. His family of 8 survived along with male and female pairs of animals. After the flood had receded, they offered sacrifices to God, and God gave them His good graces.
I would like to stay with the Chinese to demonstrate something amazing from their language … it, at least in part, tells of the Genesis story in its pictograph or character-based language.
First, I would like to note that the Tower of Babel events are generally considered to have happened some 4200 years ago. The reason that is important to our discussion … is because it is generally agreed that the Chinese written language is 4000 to 4500 years old. It may be that Chinese is one of the original languages of man coming from the Tower of Babel event.
Let’s look at a few characters:
Isn’t this remarkable … “boat” or “ship” is directly related to Noah’s Ark. No surprise considering their flood tradition.
Now just a few more that point back to Genesis …
What we see in the Chinese language is the preservation of the very essence of God’s message in Genesis.
Taken together, it is impressive to see that both the language tells the story — and the Chinese Flood tradition is the most accurate to the Bible of all of the others.
We are told in Isaiah 55:11:
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Even if every Bible was destroyed — God’s story is preserved, in part, in the Chinese language.
Praise be to God … or as one Chinese preacher puts it, “can we give God a Hallelujah?”