Babbling Day (21 October)

[HenHanna]

"...another day that has come out of the United States without any
obvious origin or reason."
(Various web sites throw out different ideas about why there should be
such a day. None claim responsibility for it.)
To fill up the rest of the page, Crystal talks about "babbling" as a
particular phase of children's language development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbling

i think it was John Ciardi who made a point about...
Babble and Babel are etym. unrelated.

[LionelEdwards]

Post by HenHanna

"...another day that has come out of the United States without any
obvious origin or reason."
(Various web sites throw out different ideas about why there should be
such a day. None claim responsibility for it.)
To fill up the rest of the page, Crystal talks about "babbling" as a
particular phase of children's language development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbling

i think it was John Ciardi who made a point about...
Babble and Babel are etym. unrelated.

Genesis 11
King James Version

11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of
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 thoroughly. 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
us 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 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.

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 all 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.

[Peter Moylan]

Genesis 11 King James Version
11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

[...]

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.

[...]

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all
the earth: and they left off to build the city.

I'd never noticed this detail before: the builders of the tower knew
what their punishment was going to be. How did they know? Had a previous
"no high-rises" law been proclaimed, with scattering abroad as the
punishment for breaking the law?

[Madhu]

Post by Peter Moylan

Genesis 11 King James Version
11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

[...]

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.

[...]

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all
the earth: and they left off to build the city.

I'd never noticed this detail before: the builders of the tower knew
what their punishment was going to be.

Where do you see that? I think the general view is that the sin is
unspecified.

This article offers an atypical answer to this question. The
attempt to "make a name" is reasonably defined by the narrative
in its immediate and OT context, not as attacking God or
avoiding migration, but pride that led to an abuse of
power. [... Ziggurat ...] These Shinarites were guilty of using
violence as had been the case with people God judged since Gen-
esis 4. The sin was that of building a fierce reputation ("a
name") to keep from being scattered by others with similar plans
for cruel conquest.

https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ejt/20-1_029.pdf

W. Creighton Marlowe, "The Sin of Shinar (Genesis 11:4),"
European Journal of Theology 20.1 (2011): 29-39.


There are a few other views I've come across, one is that the "Name" is
everlasting fame through a royal lineage, except not through descendents
of Shem (which was God's will) but through Nimrod whose name is
interpreted as mean "let us rebel". Another (mentioned in the above
article) is that the sin was one of refusing to obey the directive to go
forth (spread) and multiply but aggregating in peace and safety around
the zigguarat that they built.

Post by Peter Moylan
How did they know? Had a previous
"no high-rises" law been proclaimed, with scattering abroad as the
punishment for breaking the law?

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Madhu

Post by Peter Moylan

Genesis 11 King James Version 11 And the whole earth was of one
language, and of one speech.

[...]

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.

[...]

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of
all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

I'd never noticed this detail before: the builders of the tower
knew what their punishment was going to be.

Where do you see that? I think the general view is that the sin is
unspecified.

OK, I think I see it now. They were worried about being scattered abroad
by some rival group, and that's what drove the arms race, or in this
case the property development race. They probably didn't think of the
potential threat from a different direction: being scattered abroad by
someone else's god.

[Ed Cryer]

Post by Peter Moylan

Genesis 11 King James Version
11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

[...]

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.

[...]

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all
the earth: and they left off to build the city.

I'd never noticed this detail before: the builders of the tower knew
what their punishment was going to be. How did they know? Had a previous
"no high-rises" law been proclaimed, with scattering abroad as the
punishment for breaking the law?

Probably not. But if they'd heard or read any of the early Old Testament
books, they'd have lived in constant fear of doing anything out of the norm.
The Greeks called it "hubris", their Olympian gods took vengeance; but
the Jewish Yahweh outdid even them in severity of punishment.

Ed