Tower of Babel

[lftc]

26 minutes ago, Justin Adams said:

It has been reversed at Pentecost. In Obediah God rants on about Edom and how He will get them. But the apostles repurpose that and show that Edom is regathered just like the other nations that were scattered. Pentecost saw to that and is still working. The apostle says "all Israel will be saved" This is a theological statement meaning all the seed of Abraham, the believers will be Israel. And be saved by the Lord..

I see that your insight is focused on the gathering of the nations, which is truly part of the Babel issue - the forced dispersion of the nations as a result of the inability to communicate. 

Which means I was not clear (as usual).  I am isolating the language issue, and asking about that.

[Justin Adams]

Just now, lftc said:

I see that your insight is focused on the gathering of the nations, which is truly part of the Babel issue - the forced dispersion of the nations as a result of the inability to communicate. 

Which means I was not clear (as usual).  I am isolating the language issue, and asking about that.

No problem. At Pentecost they all heard stuff in their own tongues...  so God had it all under control even back then.

And you are correct, their language was a major issue and we see that the various groups would then have migrated into different areas.

[lftc]

22 minutes ago, Justin Adams said:

No problem. At Pentecost they all heard stuff in their own tongues...  so God had it all under control even back then.

And you are correct, their language was a major issue and we see that the various groups would then have migrated into different areas.

Yes, at the Pentecost event in Acts, a multi-national crowd gathered and each heard in their native tongue.  That clearly supernatual "sign" event was a gift to the church as described in 1Cor. - TO ALL: PLEASE NO POSTS IN THIS THREAD DEBATING TONGUES, that is not the topic.

But such events, even if they happened a lot today (again, please no posts about the gift of tongues) are not effective in the world at large.  For example, in the event in Israel that we were just dicsussing in another thread, they are inviting the nations to join in.  Just in the last couple of years that has become possible without hiring an army of translators.

Now it is possible for most people in the world to communicate without assistance from God.  Such new abilities for individuals from most places in the world to communicate WILL make a difference in the online world.  Already has in commerce.  What about this environment, this forum?

I feel it makes a difference in how each of us needs to communicate.  There will be, and probably already are many, people that do not speak english that are coming to forums like this looking for the family God.  With Anti-Babel happening, they can read the words.  Some may be literally risking their lives to read. But am I communicating things in a way that will be worth the risks?

Not sure how to answer my own question.  But some questions exist like cattle prods - not an anwer in themselves but gets the bull moving.

[Justin Adams]

1 minute ago, lftc said:

But some questions exist like cattle prods -

Rhetorical is a good word... hey tree. Why are you there so I can hit you? Rhetorical question as trees do not often answer...

[Alive]

IMO--when the Lord chooses to open an individual's mind to the Gospel--they will understand.

That sounds simplistic, and it is.

The Lord speaks to the heart in a still small or booming voice and the hearer hears.

What follows after this, in the life of a believer unfortunately can be very confusing...the Lord knows this also.

[JTC]

Hey Iftc,  did you really want to discuss languages in this thread, somehow I think not. What happened at Babel and why. Man was supposed to spread out over the earth and multiply. Mankind was always supposed to have done that. But since Babel happened not too long after Noah's flood God was once again telling man to be fruitful and multiply. They didn't do that. Instead they tried to build a tower that could reach heaven bc that was a common idea in ancient times. In a sense man was committing the same sin he did in the garden of Eden. Man was trying to be like God rather than to obey God. So God broke men up into different nations and gave each nation their own language. God, that is Yahweh, also gave each nation a lesser god who was supposed to rule them with justice and fairness as Yahweh Himself would have done. But these other gods didn't do that. They made the earth a bigger mess than it already was. Now this has to be reversed and the key to turning it around is in the Lord Jesus. I think this is what you wanted the thread to be about Iftc. I apologize if I'm wrong.

   My problem is I'm not quite sure how we reverse the mess we're in. The reason for that is bc until I get eye surgery I can't read very much, certainly not an entire book. If I'm understanding you correctly Iftc, you must have read 1 or more Michael Heiser books bc he's the one who uses the word "reversing".

   What I do know is people have to start by accepting Jesus as their Lord & Savior, but that's only step 1. Accepting Jesus means obeying Him in all things that we possibly can. It's not easy and it may take decades although some people claim they saw many changes in themselves almost overnight. I wasn't one of them but I have finally made major changes.

   Does anyone know exactly how Heiser says we go about reversing the harm done to this world?

[HisFirst]

On 9/14/2019 at 6:47 AM, lftc said:

 

What does that mean for end times?  I don't know, but it seems significant.

Hello,

I've come in late I know but are you alluding to the Gospel reaching all corners of the world before Christ's return?

On 9/14/2019 at 6:47 AM, lftc said:

What does that mean for Worthy Forum members? 

Good question. The answer can go in a myriad of directions.....

 

Spoken  language is an interesting form of communication. It's sounds.

Take the tongue clicking language of the Kalahari Bushmen. Fascinating.

 

 

[lftc]

11 hours ago, JTC said:

Hey Iftc,  did you really want to discuss languages in this thread, somehow I think not. What happened at Babel and why. Man was supposed to spread out over the earth and multiply. Mankind was always supposed to have done that. But since Babel happened not too long after Noah's flood God was once again telling man to be fruitful and multiply. They didn't do that. Instead they tried to build a tower that could reach heaven bc that was a common idea in ancient times. In a sense man was committing the same sin he did in the garden of Eden. Man was trying to be like God rather than to obey God. So God broke men up into different nations and gave each nation their own language. God, that is Yahweh, also gave each nation a lesser god who was supposed to rule them with justice and fairness as Yahweh Himself would have done. But these other gods didn't do that. They made the earth a bigger mess than it already was. Now this has to be reversed and the key to turning it around is in the Lord Jesus. I think this is what you wanted the thread to be about Iftc. I apologize if I'm wrong.

   My problem is I'm not quite sure how we reverse the mess we're in. The reason for that is bc until I get eye surgery I can't read very much, certainly not an entire book. If I'm understanding you correctly Iftc, you must have read 1 or more Michael Heiser books bc he's the one who uses the word "reversing".

   What I do know is people have to start by accepting Jesus as their Lord & Savior, but that's only step 1. Accepting Jesus means obeying Him in all things that we possibly can. It's not easy and it may take decades although some people claim they saw many changes in themselves almost overnight. I wasn't one of them but I have finally made major changes.

   Does anyone know exactly how Heiser says we go about reversing the harm done to this world?

Thanks for the great comments about the dispersion of nations, JTC.

I actually am focused on languages, only.  Since we are here, in the first era since Babel that common individuals can easily communicate across the nations, we have a unique opportunity.  Our words may/will be read by people that are quite distant from "us" culturally.  People who have never been around a "christian" culture.  How we behave may be their first exposure to christian culture. 

To answer your question about Michael Heiser - no I have not read anything by him.  Never even heard of him until someone mentioned it on this forum a couple days ago. 

I hope your eyes get better!

[lftc]

10 hours ago, HisFirst said:

Hello,

I've come in late I know but are you alluding to the Gospel reaching all corners of the world before Christ's return?

Good question. The answer can go in a myriad of directions.....

 

Spoken  language is an interesting form of communication. It's sounds.

Take the tongue clicking language of the Kalahari Bushmen. Fascinating.

Yes, language is amazing.  Spoken language IS language.  Written language is simply an attempt to be able to communicate the spoken language without being present to speak it.  For english speakers, the problem of written langauge is greatly reduced as inflection or tonal distinctions generally do not change meaning. (But certainly nuance is changed with tone in english).  But some languages, such as Vietnamese, relative pitch (singing, if you will) within a word can completely change the meaning. So whole alternate forms of writing had to be developed to enable what is said to be communicated the next day or year.

At the Tower of Babel, we can learn more about God by learning about languages. But the point I am focused on in my original post, is the fact that this era we live in is the first time since then that common people can easily communicate with other people groups.  Seemingly small changes in the global environment have profound effects.   This removal of language barriers is going to have profound effects.

What I am writing here, the interactions between people on this forum, has always had the audience of many who read but do not post.  Until fairly recently, those have been only people with some level of proficiency in english, say level B2 or above.  It takes a year or two of study for the average individual to get to level B2.  But at B2 they still misunderstand much of what is said as language contains many difficulties such as phrases that are built from individual words, but the meaning of the phrase is not related to the individual words, but rather to the modifications the set of words do to the concept the speaker has in mind.  If that last sentence did not make sense, ignore it.  My point was that even at B2 a reader of this forum will not understand much of what is happening.  So it would take several years of english study before they could make sense of this forum.

But now, with the technological advances that are undoing the language barriers, people that have no english skills can and will look at this forum.  They will look because everyone wants to know a meaning for life and christianity purports to represent that meaning. 

The Anti_Babel technology (such as BabelFish the name of one of the leading technologies) makes them able to make sense of the contents of this forum.  But is there sense to be found here?  That is up to the forum members - make sense.

That is why I posted this.  Just a reminder that we are riding the crest of a wave.  Be aware of it and represent Christ as we discuss the important things of scripture.

[lftc]

4 minutes ago, maryjayne said:

Please translate for this English speaker from the UK what a B2 level is.

I consider sign language to be a language, even though it is not spoken.

Perfect question about what is B2. Your question illustrates the difficulty with communicating.  I used a term that is not understood by all english speakers.  B2 refers to a level of proficiency in a language (ability to communicate) .  As humans we like to create new words and meanings to concisely say more with some hope of precision.  So some people (British, I think) created a set of definitions of levels of ability to communicate.  B2 refers to a level in the CEFRL set of definitions (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

By sign language I assume you mean ASL, American Sign Language.  It is a beautiful and helpful system of communicating english words through symbols and motions made with mostly the hands.  So in that way it resembles written language.  What a gift to the people who cannot hear.  A real world blessing from the people who take the time to master it.

Who I am is totally unimportant. Dust in the wind.