Expert: Maria - 7/4/2005

Question
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. (Geneis Chapter 11, Verse 1; King James Version)

My pastor claims Heberw was the original language before the Tower of Babel incident whereby God confounded human language and caused humans to speak diverse languauges and to scatter abroad from one another.

Any truth to this claim?

Answer
Hello,

First of all,  I am an expert in Latin & Ancient Greek Language, not in Hebrew(view my profile).

Anyway I can say that the phrase :” And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech (Genesis Chapter 11, Verse 1; King James Version) is a religious, not historical statement.

We know  in fact that humans spoke different languages
(such as Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian , Semitic in the Middle East , Chinese  in the Far East) before the Tower of Babel incident (about 2000 B.C., according to Biblical chronologies ) in which God made everyone speak in different tongues so they couldn't understand each other, according to the Biblical message.

So, the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis is “a story of human technological pride gone berserk. The people wanted to build a tower that would reach into heaven, to see God, and be as God”, and then the Lord resolved to punish this sin of pride.

To conclude, let me point out that the evolution of human language is not something that took place once and for all at Babel, and moreover HEBREW WAS NOT the original language spoken by humans all over the world, as the tale of the tower of Babel is “an explanatory myth, an early attempt to account for the diversity of language and the diffusion of humanity after the legendary flood of Noah”.


All the best
Maria