Our Generation's "Tower of Babel"

[Matthew Umbarger]

13 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

Augustine invented, along with Julius Africanus, the 'sons of seth' idea to remove any vestiges of the Gen 6 account and the Watchers as being divine beings. His Manichean history put paid to his former regard of 1st Enoch. 

Trying to ignore most of the comments about the Catholic Church ....

Truthfully, I completely disagree with Augustine on this particular point. The evidence from Enoch and other second Temple literature is pretty good testimony to the "angelic beings" interpretation of the "sons of God." And the New Testament seems to attest to it, as well, as you mention.

But Augustine didn't invent it. Very similar ideas show up in rabbinic literature. (Maybe you tried to say something about that. I couldn't understand everything that you wrote about "the Rabbis"). But, already in Targum Onkelos, which is at least as old as the second century AD, you get "beney ravravaya" as the translation for the "beney Elohim." That translates to "the sons of the lordly ones." So, obviously not a reference to God, because it is in the plural.

Even though I have to disagree with Augustine and the others about this, I appreciate what they were trying to do. They have a quandary. Jesus said that angels do not marry nor are they taken in marriage. But here you have a story about angels that seem to do just that. So, Augustine is simply trying to harmonize two difficult passages. Even if he is wrong, his motivation is a conviction that the Scriptures are true, which I admire.

13 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

Here again, the RCC typically wants to detract and distort this event and presume it to be a papish thing.

I wonder what you think the Catholic Church's motive for doing this could be? What does it mean to "presume it to be a papish thing"?

Though Augustine's view on the "sons of God" is dominant in the Catholic Church today, it has never been defined as dogma, and I don't suppose that it ever will be.

[hdtwice]

21 hours ago, other one said:

we are told to be nice to strangers for we don't know that they might be angels. 

I am aware that we should be nice to strangers.. In Matthew Jesus points out how how even tax collectors and sinners greet each other so no big deal but greeting those we don't know, or don't agree with is important however where in scripture does it say be kind because you may be talking to an Angel? 

Thanks. 

[Matthew Umbarger]

16 minutes ago, hdtwice said:

I am aware that we should be nice to strangers.. In Matthew Jesus points out how how even tax collectors and sinners greet each other so no big deal but greeting those we don't know, or don't agree with is important however where in scripture does it say be kind because you may be talking to an Angel? 

Thanks. 

Hebrews 13:2:

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

[other one]

4 hours ago, DeighAnn said:

I just put it into 'seen and unseen dimensions' coexisting in time and space and it all seems to work out with me not knowing nothing.  BUT if I do find myself stuck,  I am going to come a knocking...

An no, I don't seem able to do much past Gods Word.  

Well, if you can handle the math, the Word will tell you what God can do and M String Physics how it's possible.

[teddyv]

I can't quite see a current strong analogy to the Tower of Babel. Babel was likely a ziggurat and had a religious connection in being able to meet the gods (or something along those lines). 

The internet is probably the most unifying feature currently on earth at the moment.

[Michael37]

13 minutes ago, teddyv said:

I can't quite see a current strong analogy to the Tower of Babel. Babel was likely a ziggurat and had a religious connection in being able to meet the gods (or something along those lines). 

The internet is probably the most unifying feature currently on earth at the moment.

Yes, @teddyv The Tower of Babel is history, but history does lend itself to analogising, wherein similar activities with the same or similar motives are so described.

I was part of a large fellowship in which the leader publicly announced its corporate aim was to make a name for itself and become known as the best assembly in our country.

Not long after that a prophecy came out in one meeting to the effect that if the fellowship strived like the builders of the Tower of Babel to make a name for itself,  and to be known as the best assembly in the country the LORD would take its name away . . .and that is exactly what happened. The former Senior Pastor who also served as National Superintendent of the particular denomination, confessed by letter to multiple adulteries during his terms of office, and when he wouldn't front in person to be held accountable, and the International Oversight of the denomination let it slide, the congregation ceded from them and became Independent with a name change.  

Gen 11:4  And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Gen 11:5  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Gen 11:6  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.

The Lesson of Babel:

It is the LORD's prerogative to make His People's name great, not man's.

Gen 12:1-2  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get you out of thy country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show thee:  (2)  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing:

Zep 3:20  At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, says the LORD.

[teddyv]

Fair en

2 minutes ago, Michael37 said:

Yes, @teddyv The Tower of Babel is history, but history does lend itself to analogising, wherein similar activities with the same or similar motives are so described.

I was part of a large fellowship in which the leader publicly announced its corporate aim was to make a name for itself and become known as the best assembly in our country.

Not long after that a prophecy came out in one meeting to the effect that if the fellowship strived like the builders of the Tower of Babel to make a name for itself,  and to be known as the best assembly in the country the LORD would take its name away . . .and that is exactly what happened. The former Senior Pastor who also served as National Superintendent of the particular denomination, confessed by letter to multiple adulteries during his terms of office, and when he wouldn't front in person to be held accountable, and the International Oversight of the denomination let it slide, the congregation ceded from them and became Independent with a name change.  

Gen 11:4  And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Gen 11:5  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Gen 11:6  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.

The Lesson of Babel:

It is the LORD's prerogative to make His People's name great, not man's.

Gen 12:1-2  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get you out of thy country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show thee:  (2)  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing:

Zep 3:20  At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, says the LORD.

Fair enough, but that is a very localized event, which I would have no knowledge about (and I don't disagree with the analogy in this example).

I got the sense from the OP they were looking for a much larger scale of unifying humanity.

[Matthew Umbarger]

33 minutes ago, teddyv said:

Fair enough, but that is a very localized event, which I would have no knowledge about (and I don't disagree with the analogy in this example).

I got the sense from the OP they were looking for a much larger scale of unifying humanity.

I am open to all kinds of things. Michael37's example is certainly very Babel-ly. The ambitions that drove the construction of the Tower of Babel are still very much a part of our human drives. They manifest themselves in personal ways, but I suspect there must be national and even globalist examples, as well. And I do think that the coming of the Man of Sin looks to be a recapitulation of the Babel event. However, I would not hazard a guess as to how close we are to that. (But the enemy is always attempting to move towards this, I think).

[DeighAnn]

2 hours ago, other one said:

Well, if you can handle the math, the Word will tell you what God can do and M String Physics how it's possible.

Only if you have a simple version that comes with sentences that explain along the way.  Every thing of God is run with an order and follows laws, even the random stuff. 

For me it has more to do with the vibration of light and how the physical body sees less than the spiritual one, one of the needs for the change to incorruption.  

So I went and looked at an article and what I came away with,  was that when the atomic and subatomic particles are vibrated at a high rate they form little strings by that motion.  Don't think that is right because I can't put those two things together.      

[Justin Adams]

11 hours ago, Matthew Umbarger said:

I wonder what you think the Catholic Church's motive for doing this could be? What does it mean to "presume it to be a papish thing"?

The 'on this rock' thing. It totally detracts from the soberness of the situation and presumes Peter is pope. On this rock - THERE IS A HUG ROCK right there at the foot of Mt Hermon. That is the rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Ground zero for Yeshua's church is right there at the entrance to the cosmological abys.

The place is where the Zeus, Pan and other deity worship altars are seen.