Nations, Nimrod, and the Tower of Babel - Genesis 10–11:9

Where did the nations come from? Why are there so many languages? Who was Nimrod, and what was the purpose of the Tower of Babel?

In Episode 27 of Understanding the Light, Jess Chou explores Genesis 10–11:9, examining the Table of Nations, Noah's prophetic blessing over his sons, the rise of Nimrod, and God's judgment at Babel. We also discuss traditional historical identifications of the descendants of Noah, archaeological evidence from Mesopotamia, and modern young-earth creationist perspectives on genetics, human migration, and the spread of civilization after the Flood.

Most importantly, this episode points us to God's greater redemptive plan—a plan that begins with the scattering at Babel and culminates in Christ sending the Gospel to every nation, tribe, people, and language.

Genesis 9:27 — "May Japheth Dwell in the Tents of Shem"

One of the most debated verses following the Flood is Noah's blessing:

"May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem..." (Genesis 9:27)

Three major interpretations have been suggested throughout church history:

Spiritual Blessing

Many Christian commentators understand this as the future inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant blessings that would come through Shem's descendants, culminating in Jesus Christ.

However, this should never be understood to exclude Ham's descendants from salvation.

The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes God's desire to save people from every nation.

Examples include:

• John 3:17
• Matthew 28:19–20
• Revelation 7:9

Acts also records the conversion of the Ethiopian official (Acts 8:26–39), demonstrating that God's salvation extends beyond Israel.

Political or Physical Blessing

Historically, many interpreters associate Japheth's descendants with many of the peoples of Europe, including the Greeks and Romans, who later became the Gentile nations most closely connected with Israel during the time of Jesus.

Literal Sharing

Some young-earth creationist writers suggest that "dwelling in the tents of Shem" could also describe centuries of migration, conquest, and intermarriage in which descendants traditionally associated with Japheth became genetically and culturally integrated among the descendants of Shem.

Because Scripture does not explain Noah's blessing further, Christians have held differing interpretations throughout history.

Genesis 10 — The Table of Nations

The chapter divides humanity according to Noah's three sons.

Descendants of Japheth

Traditional historical identifications include:

• Gomer
  • Ashkenaz — often connected with early Germanic or Scythian peoples
  • Riphath — sometimes associated with Celtic peoples
  • Togarmah — Armenia and Anatolia
• Magog — peoples north of the Black Sea
• Madai — Medes (Iran)
• Javan — Greeks (Ionians)
• Meshech — Anatolia (later traditions associated this with regions near Moscow, though this is widely disputed)
• Tubal — Anatolia and the Caucasus
• Tiras — Aegean and maritime peoples

Descendants of Ham

• Cush — Nubia, Sudan, Ethiopia
• Nimrod — Babylon, Erech (Uruk), Nineveh
• Mizraim — Egypt
• Put — Libya and portions of North Africa
• Canaan — Canaanite peoples inhabiting the Promised Land

Descendants of Shem

• Elam — southwestern Iran
• Ashur — Assyria
• Arphaxad — ancestor of Eber
• Lud — Lydia
• Aram — Arameans (Syria)

Genetics, Human Diversity, and Population Growth

One modern young-earth creationist proposal comes from Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson in Traced and Replacing Darwin.

Topics discussed include:

• Human population growth after the Flood
• Rapid diversification of human populations
• Genetic explanations for skin tone variation
• Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA studies
• Migration patterns following Babel

Supporters argue that:

• Humanity shares recent common ancestry.
• Noah's family could have possessed sufficient genetic diversity to produce modern human variation.
• Population growth appears compatible with a relatively recent origin of humanity.

These conclusions differ significantly from the current scientific consensus but represent one attempt to integrate biblical chronology with genetic research.

Migration, Mixing, and Biblical History

Scripture records extensive migration and intermarriage throughout biblical history.

Examples include:

• Genesis 12 — Abram travels to Egypt.
• Genesis 41 — Joseph administers Egypt during a worldwide famine.
• Exodus 12 — Israel leaves Egypt.
• Numbers 25 — Israel mixes with Moab.
• Judges 1 — Israelites and Canaanites live among one another.
• 1 Kings 11 — Solomon marries women from numerous surrounding nations.
• 2 Kings 17 & 25 — Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.
• New Testament period — interaction with Greek and Roman peoples.

These events illustrate that biblical populations were continually moving, interacting, and intermarrying.

Nimrod — The Mighty Hunter

Genesis 10:8–12 introduces Nimrod.

His kingdom included:

• Babel
• Erech (Uruk)
• Accad
• Calneh

"Nimrod" is commonly associated with rebellion.

Genesis describes him as "a mighty hunter before the LORD."

Some Hebrew scholars suggest the phrase implies defiance or opposition "before" or "against" God.

Jewish historian Josephus proposed that Nimrod led humanity into rebellion and encouraged construction of the Tower of Babel to prevent another judgment by flood.

Some scholars have also suggested similarities between Nimrod and Gilgamesh, though the identification remains speculative.

The Tower of Babel

Humanity gathered in Shinar and declared:

"Let us make a name for ourselves."

Their goal directly opposed God's command in Genesis 9:1 to fill the earth.

Most archaeologists believe the tower was probably a Mesopotamian ziggurat.

Candidates include:

• Eridu
• Etemenanki (Babylon)

Rather than destroying humanity, God confused their language.

Unable to communicate effectively, people naturally divided into language groups and spread throughout the earth.

Human Language

Genesis presents language as part of God's design.

Modern linguists recognize approximately 140–150 major language families worldwide.

Regardless of one's view of their origin, every known human language demonstrates extraordinary complexity, including grammar, symbolism, storytelling, abstract reasoning, and cultural expression.

The Babel account explains this diversity theologically, emphasizing both God's judgment on human pride and His sovereign direction of human history.

Peleg and the Division of the Earth

Genesis 10:25 states:

"In his days the earth was divided."

Many interpreters connect this division with the dispersion at Babel.

Peleg's very name means "division."

Babel and Pentecost

The story of Babel does not end in Genesis.

Acts 2 records God's answer to Babel.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit enabled Jesus' disciples to proclaim the Gospel in many different languages.

Rather than removing language diversity, God used those languages to unite people through Christ.

What was once a barrier became the means by which the Gospel reached every nation.

This fulfills Jesus' Great Commission:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19)

And anticipates John's vision:

"A great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages..." (Revelation 7:9)

Recommended Reading

Ancient Sources

• Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book I
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Sumerian King List

Archaeology

• Andrew R. George, House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia
• Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians

Young-Earth Creationist Resources

• Nathaniel T. Jeanson, Traced
• Nathaniel T. Jeanson, Replacing Darwin
• John Baumgardner, papers on Catastrophic Plate Tectonics
• Pangaea
• Answers in Genesis
  • Where Is the Tower of Babel?
  • Walum Olum
• Institute for Creation Research

If this episode encouraged you or sparked your curiosity, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming deep dives into Genesis, the Flood, the Exodus, and more - with scientific and archaeological insight every step of the way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Alright, welcome back. Um, I'm Jess Jo, and uh today we're looking in Genesis 10 through 119. Um, we talked last time about uh some of the activities of Noah after the flood in Genesis um 9, and uh we we had a and the three sons of Noah. And then at the very end there was a blessing that Noah spoke over uh two of his sons, Shem and Japheth. So when I the the Bible that I'm using is the New Living translation, uh and so when I read that, sometimes the um it's easier to understand for sure. However, sometimes it's the um translation, the words aren't quite the the best uh translation to get the true meaning of the words. They're they're they're there to help us understand things, but it is an interpretation. Um so Genesis 9, 26, it says that Noah said, May the Lord the God of Shem be blessed, and may Canaan be his servant. And then verse 27 it says, May God expand the territory of Japheth, may Japheth share the prosperity of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant. That is um, you know, that has a meaning. The specifically talking about Japheth sharing the prosperity of Shem. However, in the King James Version, uh and the um New King James Version would also say this, and a lot of other translations will say this about 927, it says that Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem. So it's not quite the same meaning. Um, you know, in in in the New Living Translation it says that Japheth will share in the prosperity of Shem, so that's a blessing. Um but in other translations it says that Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem. And the reason why I'm bringing this up today is because um we're gonna talk a lot about genealogies and genetics, and we're also gonna talk about archaeology because um chapter 10 is what is called the table of nations, and this is essentially all of the different descendants that come from Shem, Ham, and Japheth um as Noah's uh children and the the six people that literally populate the earth um after the floods because all the other people are gone. And so uh this is kind of um I want to talk there there's a lot of research that has gone into this episode. I've worked very hard on it. There's a lot of um traditional views that that people have carried, um hi uh historical, biblical scholars, archaeological evidence, things like that, um, that that people have carried. And then there's actually um, I have a segment in today's sh episode on some genetics research that's actually very new uh within the last like five or six years, and um just the incredible things that it indicates. So it's gonna be a very interesting uh uh episode. It may be a little bit longer, um, but it's it's so interesting where I don't know, people love to do ancestry.com or my uh 23andme or my DNA and like find where they came from. And so, I mean, inevitably you came from at least one of the three lines from Noah, uh Japheth, Shem, or Ham. And actually, you probably came from a mixture of them, but it's interesting to see where those people ended up going and what they ended up doing and what the Bible says about that as well. And so our jumping board here is gonna be 927. Japheth dwells in the tents of Shem. So this actually could have a number of different meanings, right? It could be a spiritual meaning, it could be a physical meaning, or it could be a literal meaning. Um, Japheth traditionally is the father of the Greeks and the Romans, okay? So the Greeks and the Romans would have been the closest Gentiles to the Jews at the times of Jesus. Um, you know, they they didn't really interact much with the people of Egypt or in Africa or even to the east of um Israel, but they did interact a lot with the people from the north. So think of places like Asia Minor, which is Turkey or Greece, um, you know, Cyprus, uh parts of Italy, uh, Rome. And so those are the inter people that um the Jews interacted with the most, and even during the time of Jesus, the Romans were in charge. Uh the it was the dawn of the, you know, the time of the Roman Empire, and um, they were actually the ones in charge of Israel at the time. And so, um, you know, looking backwards, Japheth traditionally is given the he he is the ancestor of the Greeks and the Roman people. And so, you know, living in very close proximity to each other, also, these were the people that the Jews would have called the Gentiles. Of course, everybody is the Gentiles um around, but they're literal word translations for the word Gentile, Greek and Roman context, right? So the assumption is that, and this is unfortunate because um this is the interpretation due to man, right? Uh the spiritual, a lot of people said the spiritual assumption is that Ham was not a part of the promise of salvation because it wasn't the Gentiles, because the Gentiles were the Greeks and the Romans. And this is a very narrow-minded viewpoint. Um, and when in this case, we can actually kind of throw this out that this blessing was only for the the descendants of Japheth and Shem to be um, you know, redeemed by Jesus' work on the cross. It's almost as if Jesus couldn't save Ham. That doesn't make sense. Um, so but and then we have some scripture to back this up. So John 3.17, this is right after John 3.16, for God so loved the world, he says that the whole world might be saved. Well, obviously, this includes the descendants of Ham. Uh, Matthew 28, 19, Jesus commissions the disciples to go into all nations and to make disciples of all nations. Uh, and then at Revelation 7.9, it says, From every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. So obviously, the Jay Japheth is not just just the the descendants of Japheth are not the only people besides Shem's descendants that were included in this. All of the people in the world were have the ability to be redeemed. And so the spiritual blessing idea here actually can kind of be um tossed away uh that that it's only a spiritual blessing for Japheth and Shem. Uh, because Ham is left out of this blessing. Uh Ham is actually in a neutral territory, as we mentioned in the previous uh episode for this blessing. And then we do have an actual distinct Ethiopian who was an African man, a descendant of Ham, that was miraculously saved in Acts 8. So all of these things are contextual evidence to point to the fact that the spiritual idea of this blessing is actually not what it was meant to. Um could be a physical blessing, uh, very much um a lot of prosperity uh in the European nations. Uh, Greeks and the Romans were very prosperous. Um, Jews, Hebrew people actually not at all that prosperous. They've actually been taken well care of when they follow the Lord, but there's also been a lot of times that they've um obviously been targeted uh even more than other other folks. So physical blessing could be um there's a lot, you know, a lot of time has passed between now and when Noah made this blessing on his children. Um, and then there's you know, there's just a literal sharing of resources that Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem. I mean, let's read the passage as it is and hear what it says. Um, so a literal sharing, and then what we find out actually genetically, while Japheth's, you know, traditionally, and I'm gonna talk about this a little bit more in depth in a minute, but and I'm just using this as kind of a starting point. Um, genetically, Shem's descendants actually far surpass those of Japheth. Japheth's uh genetic line ends up being very small, um, and it actually becomes pretty difficult to discern where Japheth's descendants come from. Again, I'm going to get into that more. Traditionally, Japheth's descendants uh became the original Europeans. So they went north up into the areas that we would call Spain, um, France, you know, Germany, and they they would settle those areas, but because of conquest, um Shem's descendants who went off into Asia and Central Asia, they actually overtake them and mix with them genetically. And this could be the literal meaning of dwelling in the tents of Shem, because you know, these people weren't necessarily wiped out, but there was a lot of genetic mixing that would have taken place. And so there's reasons why, um, which I'll get to in a few minutes of why Shem's descendants actually kind of took over uh the areas of Japheth. All right, so I want to talk about first the literal, like the traditional, not literal, but traditional view according to historical references and biblical scholars. So this is the non non-genetics um idea of where the descendants of the three sons went off into. So the first one, well, the oldest is actually Shem, but we're gonna get to him last. Um so we're gonna hit the middle one first. We got Japheth, okay? So, and um, so guys, I'm reading in um Genesis 10. Well, I'm I'm dealing with Genesis 10 right now. I'm actually gonna jump around a fair amount. Genesis 10, and then we're actually gonna go through 11 9, which is the Tower of Babel, because all of this is really interwoven um with what's going on here. So I'm not gonna read all of the verses out. I I highly recommend that you go and you read um your Bible, maybe in a couple of different gener um translations, uh, and you see what it's saying. But this is a really intricate, important um historical event and like just record keeping of where these people came from. Ultimately, the point of the Bible is to show the line of the Hebrew peoples leading to Jesus. Um, that's one of the points of the Bible. There's many of reasons why the Bible was made, um, why God allowed the Bible to be created. But um, but one of the lines is to uphold the line from Adam all the way to the line of Jesus and and the person of Jesus. And so this this is very important in showing how um he came from Noah and he came from Shem's line. And so we're gonna get to that towards the end. Um, but so um that's where I am. Uh so Japheth. He gives, he has Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javin, Tubal, Meshach, and Tirus. And then it actually lists the descendants of Gomer uh specifically, um, and it lists the descendants of Javan specifically. It doesn't really list the other stu the children descendants specifically. Um, but so Gomer. These this guy was where the ancient Sumerians came from. Um though, so if you go and take a world history, like freshman year world history, they're gonna talk about the a the most ancient recorded civilization. So this means that they had writing, they had cities, is the Sumerians. They are they are essentially the original, the OGs, right? And so Gomer is the one that settled in the land of Sumeria, and he he's you know the father of the Sumerians. Um from him we have so and this is in verse 3, we have the Ashkenaz, the Rifath, and the Togarma. So the Ashkenaz, I mean, you can actually look up um DNA tests now, and the Ashkenazi Jews, these are the Jews that were in that are were in Germany, so that they have a Germanic line. Uh, also there's um some thought that the Welsh and the Gaels, the Gauls, um, which the Gauls actually came from France and then moved into Britain and then actually returned back to France. Um, and so there's that Welsh connection. So Ashkenaz is thought to have gone into Germany, Wales, um, eventually Gauls. Uh, there's some idea that Rifath uh is connected to the Celts, so think Ireland. Um, again, that was very ancient people, and they um they ended up a lot of mixing took place in British uh you know history peoples and everything. Uh and then Tergarma um thought to be the Armenians and then possibly the original Scots, but that is again very, very kind of I don't know. I don't know if that's highly connected or not. I I only found one source that said that. But um, so that is the the sons of Gomer and and where they ended up going. Some very important lines here. Um and they they have a they're mentioned a lot in the Bible as well. Okay, so some other sons of Japheth. We've got Magog, um would possibly have become the Russians. They're thought to, they're referred to in other scripts, uh in other parts of scripture as the Russians or the people of the north, you know. Um, then we have Madai or Madai. Um, these are the Medes, the people of the Medes, they're mentioned in Scripture as well. This would be in the um one of the pla parts of Iran, so the Iranians. Okay, Javin, and it actually measures mentions Javan specifically in verse 4. Um the descendants of Javin were Elisha, Tarshis, Kitam, Rodinim, and their descendants became the seafaring peoples that spread out to various lands, each identified by its own language, clan, and national identity. So Javan, known for really spreading out, um, and the this this uh person was the ancestor of the Greeks, so featured a lot in ancient um you know Mesopotamian culture, uh in Jewish writings, and um during the New Testament as well. The Greeks were a large part of you know the missionary journeys of Paul and things like that. Um, and there's a lot of islands and things like that too. So uh Meshach, um, so idea again, Moscow. That's kind of like where that name came from. Tubul uh possibly gone into the Caucasus, which is that kind of area uh to the right of Eastern Europe. And then Tiris, this is a really interesting group. Um, it doesn't mention him under the line of Javin, but Tirus uh were known during Hebrew times as the seafaring raiders of Greece, Turkey, Italy, Troy, and the Aegean Sea. So not necessarily identified with any one specific area, they're kind of like the pirates. So these are um the children of Japheth and where they ended up going according to historical documentation and biblical scholars, if not actual scriptures as well. Okay, so then the next we have is Ham. Um, Ham, so Ham gives gets a lot of information here, and this is from verses 6 through uh 20. A lot of information about Ham's children. We talked a little bit about Canaan already. Um the Canaanites would become the area that the the Hebrews would go into as the promised land, which is the area that we currently think of as Israel now. Um, but his first son was Cush. Um, and so Cush was traditionally thought to have been the ancestor for the Nubians, the Sudanese, and the Ethiopians. Um, out of Cush also we get someone called Nimrod. Uh so Nimrod was a very famous. We're actually gonna talk about Nimrod later as well, in more depth. Um, but Nimrod would have settled in the area of Babylon, which is current-day Iraq. So, like think Baghdad. Uh, also developed cities, lots of different cities. Uh, Nineveh, which you may have heard, remember Nineveh, that's the that's the city in Jonah and the whale. Um, and then Uruk is another uh city. So Nimrod, very famous guy. Again, we're gonna talk about him in a minute. Misraim is the the the Egyptians call themselves, you know, uh from Misraim. So they misraim is very heavily connected to the Egypt Egyptians and Pharaoh uh in scripture, and also the Philistines, which it mentions that specifically in my Bible, um, that that this is also a connection to the Philistines, as a father of the Philistines. Philistines is where Goliath came from. So um that's the you know, David and Goliath. The the Goliath was a giant that was a Philistine. Okay, so the another son of Put, Lubia, and the Somalians. So again, we're filling out those African nations, you know, coming down into the south. Uh Ham kind of he he's the only his descendants are the only ones that really went into Africa, but also stayed in some of the Middle East. So we've got Canaan. Uh so Canaan it that would be the areas of Palestine that we would currently know today, Lebanon, Jordan, and actually very interesting connection. Um the the Sinites, okay, so the Sinites are some of the the sons of Canaan, and the the Chinese actually refer to themselves as being Sinites. So possibly some of the Eastern, more of the Middle Eastern, not Middle Eastern, but like Far East um people um came from the Canaanites. Very interesting. Okay. Um and then Shem. So Shem, as we have, is the last one. He is, he's actually the oldest son, but he is the last that I'm gonna cover today. And it's the last that's covered in the Bible biblical account as well. So now I'm moving on to Genesis 10, 12 through 33, really. Okay. Um, so it's a couple of interesting that come things that come from this. Um, so again, Shem is given the blessing of the spiritual mantle, right? So the the line of the um the line of Jesus, the line of the Hebrews, they actually come through Shem's line. And we think of Shem as being the one that you know took this most seriously. He would have passed down the information from Noah and from Adam about the creation of the world and the flood and the record and why those things happened. He would have been responsible for you know the spiritual mantle uh over the people. And to a certain extent, we actually see this take place. So we have um, you know, he has five sons that are listed here. So we have Elam, um, this is again uh gonna fill out parts of Iran, uh Asher, which is they become the Assyrians, and then we have so we have Lud, which is the Lydians, and then Aram, which are the Arameans. And so actually, when Jesus talks in the Word, he actually actually speaks in Aramenan or Aramaean. And so there's you know, that's the influence that's there. Um, now that doesn't mean that he's from the line of Aram, it's just the cultural language that was there at the time. But the one that I want to, you know, folk, you know, hone in on is Arfaxad. So Arfaxad is one of the sons of Shem, and he's um connected with the Chaldeans. So the Chaldeans are connected to the you know that they're mentioned in scripture. Um, Abraham actually lived in the land of the Chaldeans, and we'll get to Abraham in a couple episodes. But the Chaldeans are feature prominently in the culture of the area. Um, so Aphraxad had actually uh a couple of sons. He had Eber. Um, Eber is from his son Peleg, and Eber is the name where Hebrews come from. So Eber is a is the Hebrews is a derivative. Of the word from the name Eber. And then I do want to talk about Peleg a little bit. So if you look at verse 25 in chapter 11, it says that Eber had two sons. The first was named Peleg, which means division. For during his lifetime, the people of the world were divided into different language groups. Okay, and actually my verse my Bible specifically mentions that. So Peleg gives us a hinge point. Peleg is the time of Peleg is when the Tower of Babel takes place. So up until um the time of Peleg, which is the son of Eber, we get uh, you know, everyone speaks the same language. And then we get the Tower of Babel, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. Um, it is that's when all of the languages were confused and moved around. All right. Then we also have this other son that comes from Eber. That's not the land, like the line from the Hebrews, but this is very interesting. Um this is uh Joctan. And so Joctan, this this he filled the area of Saudi Arabia, but he has a son, and his son is mentioned, which is interesting because his son um Jobab is possibly the person of the book of Job. So there's some I'll put some um connections in the the show note, but it's very interesting that this Jobab is actually um referred to in some of the versions of Job, and this could very likely be the person of Job. Whether it is or isn't doesn't actually matter. Um, it's just kind of one of those interesting connections. And so we can look at um, you know, it is it's widely disputed about who Job was and uh kind of when he lived, but it's it, you know, this there's some good interesting extra scriptural ideas that that Jobab is actually this um Job. And it kind of follows with the line, you know, Jo Job was known to be a righteous man in God's sight. Um, he was also a pretty wealthy guy. Um, and that kind of goes with that whole prosperity and also the from the line of Shem, you know, he honored God, very walked very, you know, this is essentially cousins with the Hebrews. Um, and so so not the Hebrews, but the uh this you know an ancestor of the Hebrews. So there's that um interesting connection there that could possibly be there. All right, so that's the traditional piece for the the table of nations, you know, but based on biblical scholarship. And I've guys, I'm putting a bunch of references in the show notes. If you want to look further into any of this, I'm actually just gonna kind of give you highlights and a brief overview. And if anything sparks your interest, I encourage you to go and look at the stuff that I've put down. Um, because you can take a deep it took me three weeks to build this whole thing because it was so much research. And I'm actually not in school right now, so I had a lot of time to just sit and look into this stuff, and it was just really interesting. I I actually really nerded out on it. So, you know, if you get into that sort of thing, um, it's it's pretty cool. Okay, so now I want to talk about the newly, you know, discovered genetics piece. Genetics is actually something that's fairly recent in our technology. Um, I remember in high school when they were first, I was in high school in the nine late 90s, um, and um, you know, my my professor was just literally talking about they were still working on the genome projects. So they're they were still identifying um genes, they were still kind of like weeding through that mess of chromosomes and DNA and all that. And uh it was all brand new, and it was all pretty breathtaking and awesome the stuff they were finding. I remember he was saying things like, because this is obviously I was in public school, he was saying things like, Yeah, in about 20, 20, 30 years, you should be able to walk in to uh a place and say, I want blue-colored eyes and I want curly hair and I want freckles on my baby, and they should be able to just patch it all together for you. Well, obviously that has not taken place, but um, that was the idea of what genetics could do, and uh, you know, we've we now use DNA evidence, um, you know, in crime scenes and things like that. Like it's it's a very strong, interesting science, and there's a lot of nice things about it. Um it's very measurable, and uh one of the things that I'm gonna talk about, so uh I'm I'm talking mostly about um the research from this one person, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson. Um, he is he's got a um PhD from Harvard in molecular biology, you know, very very authoritative figure, and but he's also a young earth creationist, and that might strike you as interesting um because I know a lot of folks might think, well, you can't be a scientist and a creationist at the same time, and the answer to that is heck no, you can. Um, you actually can. Uh and and so his work, you're gonna find that his work is fairly controversial, and that's because mainstream wants to believe that life began over 200,000, human life began over 200,000 years ago, and that number keeps kind of shifting and changing. Um, whereas uh when we go based off of scripture and then we look at the actual data and see what happens, the trends that we see that happen actually fit a much more recent uh basis for humanity. But of course, the mainstream does not want to acknowledge that because it doesn't fit their millions of years idea. So, anyway, um, so the the research I'm giving you is uh from it's controversial, it's from Nathaniel Jeanson from the most part, because there's just not a ton of people that are doing this in this light. Um, some of it's my own takeaways as well and connections, but because it's such a new area of research, uh, there's lots of room for people to come online and do more with this. So if this is something that interests you, especially as a young person, um, I encourage you to to explore this and maybe look into what God has for you as a career path, um, as as far as this goes. But anyway, so so he is looking at the genetics based off of, he looks at two different things. He looks at it based off of mitochondrial DNA, which is DNA that you get from your mother only. And he's looking at it, mostly he looks at it through the Y chromosome, which is the DNA you get from males pass on to males. So uh a short short explanation, uh males are the only ones that have a Y chromosome. Females have all X chromosomes, um, and so we can actually see genetic traits that are transferred male to male each generation because they have that Y chromosome. And as a result, we can look at it. There's a lot of interesting things that take place. Um there's a growth curve based on population growth. This is this is the kind of curve that you see in a lot of different natural uh biological um events. So we we see what is called an exponential growth curve. Well you might look at it and see a hockey stick. And so you get real, you know, you get real slow growth in the beginning, and then all of a sudden it zooms up and it it starts to curve way up very quickly, and that's because the population grows essentially by doubling itself. And so after a while, once you start doubling a million, then you get two million, and then you get four million, like it just gets big very fast on the end of it, but it starts out pretty small, and so this is a it's called an exponential growth curve. It's a it's actually um a natural growth curve because it's seen in so many biological instances um on earth in in our living world. And we see this growth curve actually takes place recently. And you may remember, I remember when I was, I think it was the early 2000s, when we hit six billion people on Earth. And I was like, geez, that's a lot of people, right? Well, then we're well over eight eight billion now. Like that we've we've surpassed that and then some. Do you know how long it takes to get from six billion to eight billion of something? That's a lot of of growth. And so the fact that this exponential aspect to our growth curve takes place so recently really demonstrates that our recent, our past has not been that long. The genetic past for the human race has not been that long, and it's because we would have seen this growth curve much sooner. Because these are natural growth curves. This is literally statistics. There's you can't, math doesn't lie, right? And so um the the growth curve that we see based on the population growth is that our the human race is really less than 5,000 years old. Uh, why do I say 5,000 years old? Because at 5,000 years, we actually can trace back, um, it's very apparent in mitochondrial DNA, and it's it's apparent in the Y chromosome as well. We can actually trace back to three distinct branches. And so think about that for a second. After 5,000 years, but if we go back in time 5,000 years, we can actually trace the genetics, the chromosomes, back to three distinct branches. Um there's three sons of Noah. And for the mitochondria mitochondrial, they had he had three different wives. And so interesting that that all works out like that. Okay, so another thing, let's talk about skin tones, right? So we have some very distinct skin tones on our earth right now. However, I can tell you um we're starting to do a lot of mixing uh in the United States, and it doesn't take more than a generation or two for um, you know, complete skin tones to be completely removed from a population, um, or to for mixed skin tones to develop, you know, higher or lower levels of skin tones. So, for example, I have an aunt and an uncle. Okay, so my aunt is from Barbados, she has she has black skin, she's dark skin. Uh, my uncle is white, blue eyes, right? They had two children. Their children both came out, both of them, which is very interesting, but they both came out with very fair skin, very fair skin, and blue eyes, which was strange. You know, you would not expect that. You'd expect it to be more mixing that took place. Well, my cousin recently had a child, and that child also has light skin. I think she married someone that was a Pacific Islander. Um, and so he had has a little bit of a mixed skin tone, but the child came out with lighter skin. And so where is that, where is that Barbados African skin that my aunt has? It's it's there. The genes are there, it's just the way the genes are mixing together. We get a whole a whole different um look as we go on. My own children, I'm I'm married to an Asian person, our skin tones, um, and my a Pacific Islander. So so he has a uh like a more tan skin tone, uh, not dark, but tan. And we have three children together, and I am you know Scottish, Irish, um, very fair, I burn very easily, I'm very freckly. So our three children actually have different skin tones. My oldest almost mimics him completely, and she has that, she doesn't need suntan, uh sun lotion, you know, sunscreen or anything. She has the darker tannish skin. She tans very well uh in the summertime. And so she completely looks like him. She barely looks like me at all. Um, my my middle child can burn, but also can tan very easily. Uh, and so he's kind of like the mix of both of us. And then my youngest child, um, very fair, very freckly. She's she's all me. And so we have very different skin tones that are mixed up there. So genetically, it would not have taken very long for um different skin tones to either be blended or be refined. So, what I mean by that is if you take people of mixed skin tones and you put them together um with other people, you can end up having multiple variations uh among the children. And then if they marry someone else uh and procreate um with someone of an even more extreme skin tone, they can continue in that line. And so this is where we have the the black skin and we have the brown skin and we have the bare skin um and and all of the different aspects that come out of that. And that's just not you know that not necessarily um limited to skin tone, you know, eye shape, eye color, hair texture, um uh stature, all of those things are an aspect of genetics that we pass on. And so, you know, it doesn't take very long for things to kind of weed out. And uh there he um Dr. Jensen actually does a whole session, uh actually does like five or six episodes on this um in the the new history of the human race, um, and and really goes into this deeply, but it's it's not a difficult concept. You all had this in biology in high school, but um it you may not remember the punnett squares and all that. It's very easy for this to to uh kind of shake out, and it's very interesting. Okay, so let's talk about Native Americans. We have um some historical records from the Native Americans. Uh now this is uh fairly dis um disputed um because, and again, I think it has to do with what's included in it, but there's this thing called the Wallum Olam, um, or the red record. And it's one of the oldest recorded histories we have of a new Native American tribe, and this is the Lenape people. They're in New Jersey, or they were in New Jersey when um, you know, Columbus came. But this includes a creation story similar to the Bible, uh including a snake that brings wickedness to the earth, and then there's a flood as a result of the work of the snake. Does it sound like anything you know? Um, and then the Lenape Turtle people were a people that were derived after the flood. So this is, I know this is not genetic, but it actually can connects to what we know about the Native Americans crossing the Bering Strait Land Bridge and coming down into um, you know, Alaska and then the North America and then ultimately down into Central America. Um and it says after the flood, the world was extremely cold and icy. So that's lending itself um to either just being really close to the North Pole, but also the ice age that would have taken place for about 400 years after the flood took place. Um so, and we know, documented that we had an ice age uh at some point, and it and that's in mainstream science and in young earth creation. Uh, it's just a matter of when it happened. Uh, and so this people group actually has a recorded event of an ice age. And then it says that there was an enemy people, the snake people, that went ahead of the Lenape into Amokin. This is where America would be. Um, and then the Lenape followed. Uh, and there was a violent conflict. So there was a lot of war and things like that. So, and then ultimately it goes down to um when it interacts, the Lenape interact with the first white people that arrive. So by now they're on the east coast of America, and this would have been the Dutch people at the time frame. So, in this, why do I bring this up? Because in this uh in this record, we have uh generations, they call them satiums, right? And so that you know, this father produced this father, produced this son, produced this father, right? You know, on so on and so on. And they have a record record for every single generation backwards, and it lines up perfectly with the flood record. So um, you know, there's some people that say that this was uh a hoax, uh, that this was written. However, there's there's a lot of um different groups that actually have this record as part of their um native lore and uh native documentation, and so the fact that it it is out there, you know, kind of do with that what you will, but it lines up with the flood record um from the the sations every every single generation on. So that's very interesting that that kind of like it's like a super supporting text that um is extra from scripture, it's extra from genetics, it's just another one of those documents that's out there that actually is um possibly in agreement with everything that we have. So um let's talk about genetics and mixing. So we have why, you know, we're talking about uh Japith being the original Europeans, but when we look at the genetics, the line of Japheth actually kind of dwindles and it it kind of goes out. We don't really see uh the line of Japheth say strong throughout um the genetic research. But there's a number of reasons why this would have taken place. So let's look at just some some scripture references and uh events that took place in the Bible. In Genesis 12, which is the next chapter, Abram actually goes to Egypt. So this is Shem's descendants going into Egypt. Okay, Egypt is from the line of Mizraim. Um then we have in Genesis 41, we have Joseph going into Egypt as well. So again, there's this uh transfer into Egypt, and there would have been some mixing of folks in Egypt. In Exodus 12, we have the Israelites going out from Egypt. So they were there for 400 years, they were there for a long time. There would have been a lot of intermixing with Egyptians there. Then we have Numbers 25, uh, mixing with the Moabites, and so this took place with the Israelites, the the children of Shem mixing with the Moabites. In Judges 1, we have the Canaanites mixing a lot with the Hebrews. This was actually a big problem uh uh in scripture because essentially God told them not to mix with the the people around them, and the Hebrews did anyway. And then first call first Kings 11, we have Solomon. Solomon has wives from the Hittites, the Moabites, Egyptians, Ammonites, the Edomites, the Sidonians. He has wives from every part of the world that he can get access to. In 2 Kings, uh the northern tribes are carried off into Assyria, and the southern tribes to Babylon, and some also to Egypt. And then after Christ, we have again mixing with the Romans and the Greeks, and that has to do um part of it with just the fact that the Roman Empire was present, but also um, you know, after Christ, we have this whole new uh you know cradle for um relationship with God, which is Christianity, and it's it's fledgling, but it doesn't require you to stay in your family lines anymore, like the law said, you know, the Hebrew um keep it, stay, stay, marry your own people. After Christ, there was a lot of Christians that would mix with the Gentiles because they had the same beliefs now, and so mixing with the Romans and the Greeks. All of this points to a ton of mixing of genetics among Shem's descendants. So Shem's descendants are widespread, they're flung all over the world. Um, we also have you know major things that took place during just I mean, just documented in our own, you know, history. We have the Islamic conquests. They they went through, they came from um, this is long after the time of Christ, but they they they came from, you know, Turkey, Iran, Iraq area, and they spread to the left, uh the left of the globe, west of the globe, all the way to Spain. Um, and the you know, really the whole surrounding the whole Mediterranean area, that was the Islamic conquest. So northern Africa, and we still have the remnants of that, you know, Morocca, Morocco, uh, Egypt, all those places are Islamic now. And then also it was up into Spain, um Portugal, parts of France, and then you know, uh eventually that got pushed out. But those areas were all Islamic for uh a time period based on the um writings of Muhammad and the Islamic conquest. Then we have Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Um, they I mean the Mongol Empire was massive, and it came from Asia, it encompassed all of China, all of Mongolia, lots of Siberia, Russia, uh, and and then actually the Eastern European area. But then in 1400, we have the Black Death, and the Black Death would have wiped out a lot of people, and the Black Death actually. Came from Central Asia. And so the Mongols probably had this immunity to this disease, and they were able to survive because what we see now is actually a strong um Mongolian lineage genetically among the Europeans. And actually, most white Americans have this genetic lineage as well, which is kind of crazy. So the people of Central Asia, um, you know, you had the immunity to survive the Black Death, and the people that were indigenous at that point to Europe, so this would be Japheth's children, uh, you know, the Germans, the Celts, all that, they would have um succumbed. They would have been the one to succumb to this this disease. And and so, and when we look at the American genetic lineage, we actually have the not American, the white American. Um, we actually have this connection to Central Asia genetically, and then that goes back to Shem. And so there's Japheth living in the house of Shem. Um, essentially, his his people groups kind of get lost genetically to the house of Shem. Um in Genesis 41, there was also a famine that affected all lands. Uh in the in says this specifically in the Bible. Um, this was about 600 to 700 years after the flood. Well, a famine means a couple of things. It means that um, first of all, and specifically in in Genesis 41, this famine was the time, the Joseph's famine. So everybody would have come to Egypt. And it says that people came from all lands into Egypt. So, and that was because Joseph had um, you know, he Pharaoh had allowed him to look over all of the storehouses and save up because of the prophecy that there was going to be this famine, and Pharaoh trusted him. And so, you know, we see people again coming from all over and they're intermixing there as well. Also, we would have seen massive die-off take place in places that people could not all travel to Egypt. So not everybody could travel to Egypt. Some people stayed back, and it's really interesting when we look at Stonehenge, uh, lots of people would have had to uproot and travel to Egypt during the famine. Stonehenge, you know, this is this ancient stone circle that's in your um in England right now, it actually shows that it was built in two parts with a mass burial time in between the two parts. So could this have taken place, you know, the beginning taking place during um before the famine, the first part, and then the the famine takes place and just all of this the starvation takes place, and then finally, when you know people come back from Egypt or they start to grow again, they're able to finish uh Stonehenge. And it could take take place after that. We also see state formations. So this is where um we actually start to see governments and empires kind of like start to form. All of them take place after the time of this famine, and they're all near the site of Egypt. So we're you know, think of um the um, oh so there's there's a state formation in India, there's a state formation in Greece, there's a state formation actually not in Greece, in India, um, but then then we have the Sumerians, we have the Egyptians, we have like all of these ancient, like governing bodies actually take place uh uh um near Egypt. So we know that there are humans far flung afield before um the famine took place, and then for some reason we only see the real development of human and civilization take place after this famine and near Egypt. So this is indicative that um, you know, some things took place and caused everyone to be near this Egyptian site. Uh if we also think about um the fact that there was an ice age and Pangea. So Pangea is the supercontinent that would have been present after the flood. Um every all of the lands and the continents would have been much closer together. So so really if you think about it, Pangaea would have been all close together, and the rest of the earth would have been water. The ocean would have been on the other, like the other side of the earth. And so it would have been really easy for people to travel from South America to Egypt, to from uh Europe to Egypt, from Russia to Egypt, from um Australia to Egypt. Like that it would have been easy for people to get from one place to another, a lot easier than it is now, because everything was much closer together, and most of the ocean was on the other side of the earth. Now everything is pretty spread out. Uh, and so we can actually see that um you know the we can actually see the rate of the mif m uh the movements. Um, so and there's actually some interesting thoughts about this too. So we can actually see the rate of the continents moving. I I remember hearing in college that it was the rate that your fingernails grow. So fairly slow, right? Um and it's been thought up until recently that the continents actually spread at about the same pace. However, uh a Yale researcher, not a young Earth creationist, but a Yale researcher, his name is Ross Mitchell, he actually looked into the rate of seafloor spreading and magnetic reversals, and he found that the rate had to have been at least three times faster than it is in the past. And this is this has to do with the magnetic reversals. It's it's very technical. Um anyway, he he just came up, he he knows what he's talking about. He just came up with, I'll I'll link his research if you want to look at it, but it's very hefty geological research. Um, so but he actually determined that even with the earth being um the age that it is, the or well Pangea, it would have had to have been three times faster in the past for everything to be where it is. So even then, they don't have enough time um to have things where they are. Well, Dr. John Baumgartner, um, he's a leader in computational modeling of Earth's mantle dynamics, and his um his Tara uh software is used extensively among geologists uh that he developed specifically, and he's also a young earth creationist. So he actually looks at geology through the lens of scripture, and he can actually show that the rates actually fit into the timeline for a biblical FUD being 4,500 years ago. So, you know, this guy over at Yale, who is not in the in the creation uh realm um in the young earth realm, actually determined that the rate at of Pangea has been much faster in the path, past, and then Dr. John Don John Baumgartner, actually, who is also extended, you know, expert in the field of geology and a young earth creationist, actually can say, well, um, he he can actually show mathematically that the rates fit with the timeline uh of 4,500 years ago. So if Pangaea was much closer together and there was an ice age that dried up a lot of this water, we know, we already know from our history books that the Native Americans walked from the Bering Strait from Siberia into Alaska and then filtered down to the Americas. So it would have also been just as easy for people to travel across to Africa into South America and down into Australia. We know the animals did this. Um and so why wouldn't the people have been able to do this as well? And now I'm actually gonna link also a map of Pangea with the countries that that are um assigned to it based off of fossil evidence and uh mountain formations and just the the puzzle fittedness of the continents, so you can actually kind of look at it and see where um you know the birthplace of civilization was, think like Egypt area, and then like where these places were and how close together they actually were. It's kind of really cool to look at it. The Pangea part is my own little thing that I threw in. Dr. Jensen does not talk about Pangea, which I'm kind of surprised because um it's a huge part of this. Um, but he really just sticks to the genetics and then looking at things statistically to see what um would have been around. So I also want to jump back to those um those statistics. So during the time of the flood, so the t you know, during the time of the flood, after the flood, there were eight people on earth, right? There was no and his wife, and then his three sons and their wives. Well, you know, based on population statistics, around the time of Babel, okay, so Babel is thought to have taken place uh scripturally between 100 and 150 years after the flood took place. There would have been about a thousand people on earth at that time. So I'm just gonna let that sink in for a minute. It's not like there were billions of people around. There was really only about a thousand people on earth at the time of Babylon. Um, and they're you know, we'll get into the Tower of Babel in a minute. But this is so this is you gotta think about this in these numbers and what that means. Um, you know, everybody, it's not really hard to pretty much have known everybody at that point in time. They definitely would have known who each other's he who each other was. When it talks about Nimrod, they all would have known who Nimrod was. Nimrod is actually the one that is responsible for Babel, um, and coming up with that. And so it's not really difficult to imagine that they were all working together, or at least a big group of them were working together on this project, and then it wouldn't have been very hard for God to confuse the language of a thousand people at that time. But that's it. There was pretty much only a thousand people. Okay, so fast forward to the time of Abraham. There would have been around 50,000 to 300,000 people on earth at the time of Abraham. That's still a very small amount of people. Um, not that you would know everybody, but there wouldn't have been a lot of crazy development. Um, and and you know what these city-states that we have, you know, we we know from ancient history developed after the f the famine in Egypt. So, you know, it's just the the numbers are very small um at this point in time. Okay. Um, and then about 500 years after the flood, so this would be the time of the famine of Egypt, there's really only at the most maybe 20 million people on earth. Okay. Now, when you think about that, that sounds like a lot of people. However, when you New York City, which is actually not the largest city on earth, um, New York City has about 22 million people in it right now. So imagine all of the people in New York City, and they're spread around the globe, around on every continent of Earth. And that is the people that were present at the time of the famine of Egypt. So I don't know if your head is making sense of those numbers. There just wasn't a ton of people around. Uh, and it we and it it's very interesting. We think about this today. Um, you know, when you so you're a young, if you're a young person and and you're out on the um on the prowl for a mate, right? You're looking out there. Uh, one of the complaints among young people is just there's not you can't find anybody that um, you know, you don't meet people, you don't you don't find anybody that you uh really want to connect with. And so you get online, right? And you join like a dating app or things like that. And I've I've known a lot of people who have had good success with the dating app um idea. And and um, you know, it comes up with a whole ton of people that that you fill in your little profile and and they match with you, right? And um and and we find people that way. How hard was it for these people to find people to marry? Uh depend I mean, we have eight billion people to choose from. We really have like what four billion people. We have half of the population is um, you know, one of the other sexes. And so we have uh a bunch of people to choose from, and uh yet how much harder would it have been for these people in ancient history? Um I mean, even you know, even 200 years ago, there would have been far, far less people on Earth than we have right now. Uh, and so it's just crazy to me that um that we we we think that there's such a hardship in finding people now and how much harder it must have been for our ancestors. Also, when you think about the genetics of that, okay, so obviously now we're not gonna go and marry our cousin or our sister or a brother um or even our second cousins. However, there wasn't a lot of choice for that um in the ancient past. And so people marrying among their own people groups would have been much more common, and so the genetic lines would have been kept kind of solid throughout um most of the past of history. Also, genetically, the the the genes would not have been as degraded. Um one of the reasons we have we can't marry our close relatives is because we've passed on so many mutations at this point, we've accumulated mutations over time, over um, you know, our genetic history and our ancestors, that you're more than likely to pass that on to um someone else, your your offspring. Uh so one of the best things you can do is marry someone who is from a completely different culture and people group, if you want to have excessively healthy children, uh, just because you're just going to introduce a lot of new genetics into that. So maybe, you know, get out of town and look for other people. But in the past, that wasn't an option, but genetically it also was not as much of a problem because they had not passed on as many mutations that had time, did they just didn't have time to develop over over time. So that's you know, that's a genetics conversation. You're welcome to look into that more. Um, but just to give you an idea of the people that were around. Um, okay, so uh in the Y chromosome data, we also three see three distinct people groups. Um, so it's very interesting. And then this is uh agreed among um mainstream genetics geneticists as well, that um essentially all human human genetic information has come from three distinct branches, both on the mother side and on the father's side. Uh, and you may have heard of like mitochondrial Eve. Um, that is kind of mainstream science's way of taking the Eve from the Bible, but she was supposed to have lived, you know, 200,000 years ago and um had ape-like features, so she's definitely not the eight the Eve of the Bible that you're familiar with. But that genetically we can link all of our genetics to one major line that breaks branches off into three major lines. Okay, so that's my genetics talk. Um, that is a lot that we've talked about. Now we're gonna kind of wrap up um and and I'm gonna talk about Nimrod a little bit because he features here, um, he's extremely famous in the um in ancient history, and it actually gives him a blurb here in Genesis 10. So Genesis 10, 8, Cush was also the ancestor of Nimrod, who was the first heroic warrior on earth. Since he was the greatest hunter in the world, his name became proverbial. People would say this man is like Nimrod, the greatest hunter in the world. He built his kingdom in the land of Babylonia with the cities of Babylon, Erik, Akkad, and Kalne. From there he expanded his territory to Assyria, building the cities of Nineveh, Rehobathir, Calais, and Rezin, the great city located between Nineveh and Calais. Okay, so this is Nimrod. And he's mentioned here, and again, my translation does not really do this justice. Um he is actually mentioned as a hunter in the face of God or in front of God. And what this means is that he acted out of pride and arrogance, and he was actually in rebellion to God. So it was offensive to God the way he acted. The way the what my Bible doesn't portray this meaning, but actually, this is not a nice thing that they are saying about Nimrod. Um, the literal translation of the word Nimrod means to rebel. And Nimrod is the one who is responsible for the Tower of Babel and Babylon. And so Babylon features a lot in scripture uh later on, but Nimrod would have been an arrogant person. Uh, it talked about him being a hunter. If you remember, uh, up until the flood, nobody ate meat. And so in this case, um he's he's a hunter. Um, he hunted maybe for sport. It wasn't like he was out there serving everybody. He probably hunted uh just just to you know put those notches on his belt. Um it's also entirely likely that he hunted men as well as beasts because there's a lot of evidence of violence and murder in some of these ancient texts that when they speak of um the person who is connected to Nimrod. Uh Josephus, who is an ancient scholar, he actually suggests that the Tower of Babel was actually built as a way of escaping future floods, because if we build the tower tall enough, we won't have to worry about the rising flood water so that God can't punish us. So they were thinking backwards from the flood, and how can we do without God? Um, so uh the Sumerian city of Kish, uh, take take this name from Cush. It actually appears often in clay tablets from the area. So Nimrod is actually a son of Cush. And then we have this ancient figure. He shows up in a lot of texts, and his name is Gilgamesh. He is the king of Uruk. Well, Nimrod also developed the city of Uruk. Uh, and he Gilgamesh is written about as being part man, part god, a builder and a warrior. Um, he was a powerful ruler, and he is connected, he is really thought to be the Nimrod of the Bible. Uh, he was around 2000 BC, so the timing is right. Um, he's a prominent figure in many Mesopotamian texts, and he was actually very arrogant, very ruthless, and the epic of Gilgamesh is actually very indecent in a lot of the the tellings of things that he did. So, not a great guy, definitely a problem um in in the in light of what God has commanded. And when we get to the Tower of Babel, so now I'm jumping to chapter 11, right? It doesn't specifically mention Nimrod, but it does say that this was in the the land of Babylonia, which is the area that Nimrod would have settled. Again, not too many generations have taken place. This would have been a thousand people on earth. Um, Noah would have been still alive. This is about 100-150 years after the flood. Noah lived 350 years after the flood. So he would have been aware and seen or at least known that this was taking place. Um, how sad would that have been to know that you literally had to go through the flood, and all of your family, except for your immediate sons and daughter, daughters, were killed because of their wickedness, and then almost like almost immediately, like 150 years later, again the the rebellion is happening again. I just I can't imagine what that would have been like for Noah. But anyway, um in verse 4, they want to build a great city and tower and stay together, which is in direct opposition of God's requirement of them in Genesis 9 1, which is to go forth and spread across all the earth. No, the one thing that God said to them was go spread into the earth. And and instead, this group is saying, Let's all stay together and build this great city and tower and become like gods. Uh, they were making themselves famous, right? And that's pride in idolatry. Actually, becoming famous is not something we should desire because that's putting our focus and the world's focus on us instead of on who we should be focusing on, which is God. So 11 2, the the some translations call this the area of Shinar. Um, this is this is the area that's thought to be near Babylon. Um, the people of the time knew exactly where Shinnar was uh when the the Bible this part of the Bible was being um recorded. Um we aren't sure of where that area. Is now there's a couple of different thought processes of where the Tower of Babel is, and there's two leading um ideas for this. One and and so most likely the Tower of Babel was a ziggurat. So you guys are familiar with ziggurats, these are the things that essentially became the pyramids, or if you think of Machu Picchu, uh you know, or Tanaktitlan, the the ancient um South American like big uh stair-step palaces on top of these hillsides. There are actually 30 ziggurats that have been discovered in the area of Mesopotamia, and they're all dedicated to some kind of a god. So this is a temple of worship. There's a temple on top, and this is the same that's in South America, which makes us think, you know, these people probably knew each other when um people from South America probably came from the area of Mesopotamia as well, and they brought this technology uh to build these things with them. So the two possible locations that are for the Tower of Babel, um, there's one that's in southern Iraq, it's called Eridu. It's dedicated to the god Enki. This is the oldest known ziggurat that we have that we've discovered. It's very ancient. And there are a couple of interesting things that were written about this particular ziggurat. Um, when all lands were sea when Eridu was made. So, again, that's remnants of the flood and the flood waters uh that um would have been very recent history for these people. Also, this ziggurat was never finished. It was almost like um everyone just stopped working. And the reason why is because they literally find just tools lying around, um, bricks halfway being made, uh, and and it was not at a point of like completion. It was it may it was finished a little bit later in a different style, but it was not um it was dedicated to a god, but it never actually became a place that was used. And that's very interesting because if the languages were confused at this point, once they started building this tower, and then everyone had to stop working because they couldn't understand each other, they would not have been able to finish this tower. And so this is a very, very interesting thought process. Um the location's a little bit off, based on some scholars. Uh, it's a little bit too far to the south based on where um the ark would have been, because it literally says that they go out from the east, I believe it says. Uh from the oh yeah, it says in verse 2, as the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. So based on where the ark would be in Armenia, the mountains of Armenia, and where the um tower should be, it should be more to the east in northern Iraq, um, than in the south. But that's just kind of, I mean, again, based on Pangaea and the rotation and how things, you know, where things may have been in that time frame, it could have easily been in the same location. But the second location that has been um proposed is Etimenanki. This is more in the northern part of Iraq, and this was dedicated to the god Marduk. Um, ancient people, so the reason why this one was uh connected is has to do with Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is um king of Babylon. He actually would have um, you know, been very familiar with uh Nimrod and with Gilgamesh and with the historical um significance of the temples around him. And when he plum when he pum um you know goes through Jerusalem and and gets you know pilfers there, he actually takes it to this particular tower as Ziggurat and dedicates um it to the god Marduk. So there's that um as well. And we we've no we found this uh among Nebuchadnezzar's um palaces, and this was in the north of Iraq. Alright, so let's also talk about something interesting. If we look in verse three, they began saying to each other, let's make bricks and harden them with fire. In this brick region, bricks were used instead of stone and tar, was used for mortar. All right, so ancient peoples had technology that to make bricks and therefore cities. They did not have to like develop this over many centuries. They actually knew how to do this. And we assume that people were only primitive and developed as time goes on, yet we have multiple examples of highly advanced ancient civilizations, such as this, that have been lost in history. It's actually more likely that we have lost information than continuously improved over time. So this is something that kind of flies in the face of that whole evolutionary timeline that man developed from apes, and we, you know, caveman and then Neanderthals, and then um, you know, just this primitive idea that we didn't know things, and as time's gone on, we learned things. Actually, what we find is ancient civilizations had extensive technology. It just didn't look exactly like ours. They didn't walk around with iPhones, but they had extensive technology and ways to build and develop and to um entertain themselves as well. All right, so 11.6. God sees that all the people have one language and are choosing to use it as a way to rebel against him. So God doesn't actually do anything violent this time. He knows their hearts, he knows that they are still trying to put themselves above him. But instead of like with the flood, where he literally wipes everything out, now again, they were given plenty of warning for the flood, um, near to a hundred years, at least fifty years, and probably closer to eighty years, in warning about the flood. But this time around, he doesn't he doesn't do anything to hurt them, he just makes them all speak different languages. So as a result, these people group up with different people that they can understand and they move into different parts of the world. So not only that, he didn't give them all each a specific language so that they couldn't understand anybody, he just mixes them up so that the they can't uh understand more than like five or ten other people, right? There's only a thousand people around at this time, and um it says that we have about a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty primary language families now. Assume that some of those may some language families maybe have been lost as time has gone on. And so, you know, he doesn't do extreme um anything, he just separates them into people groups essentially. And as a result, the people group up and they go off with the people that are um speaking the same language they are. So when we look at some linguistic studies, uh, it's very interesting because we actually, you know, we know that there are multiple language families, and I said there's 140, 150 primarish language primary language families across the globe, yet every one of them has depth and complexity. Uh, we have the depth of complexity is what causes us humans to stand out against animals. So again, this also flies in the face of the fact, you know, the idea that we came from apes and then developed into grunt grunting cavemen and then Neanderthals. No, actually, our languages, even the clique people of Africa or the um the character uh languages from Asia, all of them have unique depth and complexity. And they did in an ancient way. So we're thinking about kineiform, um, which is the ancient uh writing or Sanskrit um from um the Middle East. So so all of this depth and complexity makes us really stand out as humans. Sure, there are lots of intelligent animals that can can communicate, like whales will communicate um, you know, through their uh groanings. However, they're not writing essays or sentence structures, right? They are literally just communicating in ways about feeding grounds, um, being aware of something or communicating with their young. They're not like that's the extent of it. It's they're not writing it down, they're not having sentences with each other, but human language is developed and complex. So if evolution is true, and so think about this. We have all these different language groups that are uniquely complex, right? So if evolution were true and we all came from one or two humans, right, to the point of using complex language, why, how could there possibly be this many different families of languages across the globe that are unique from each other? So they didn't build from each other, they are distinctly different from each other, and yet we have so many. There's so much smaller chances that there are specific, I mean, it's it's hard enough for evolution to explain one or two humans developing. And first of all, you need two humans because you need a male and you need a female in order to procreate. And so evolution had to come up with that, right? Now, because of linguistics, evolution has to come up with 140 at least or 150 male-female pairs that speak different languages that develop over across the globe. Do you see the problem with that? The the the just non-logical expla uh assumptions that have to happen there. Our language is uh my language did not come out of Chinese. Chinese is a completely different language. Um philosophy, language communication, it's it's more meaning and context than distinct letters and characters. Uh that's only you know, pinion has only been developed in the last, you know, a hundred years or so. Instead, they have characters that convey meaning instead of letters that have sound and that that we use to make words. They don't really have words, they have pictures. Uh and so these it's just amazing to me that people can can choke down evolution without really thinking about that. Um, whereas if the scripture is true, this is completely understandable. You it fits perfectly with what we see and takes place in scripture. So, all right, so God confuses the language, and um, my God is not the author of confusion. So, what was the purpose of Babel? Well, the purpose of Babel is actually not a form of punishment. A lot of people read this and they think, oh, um, this was how everybody was punished. However, God actually does us away of protecting people. Um, because God needs to protect us from the fact that we can kind of shoot ourselves in the foot. So this rebellion was going to put them away from uh the only survival and saving that they could they could have. They thought that they were strong enough to take care of themselves. Um, however, because God is actually stronger than them and he knows more about the future than them, you know, we we often can go our own way and find ourselves at a dead end in our lives. And God can actually take um, he can see what's coming ahead of us and he can prepare for us. Um, and if we trust him, then we actually are walking as close to the way that is going to be the safest for us that we can. And so by confusing the languages, he actually provides a way for people to trust him more, to to rely on him more, because they can't rely on each other anymore. Uh, and they can't communicate with each other anymore. Um, so oh, I'm I'm I'm looking at my notes. I got a little ahead of myself. Uh I'm I'm getting towards the end here. Um so Peleg in in chapter 10, 25, this is it says the division during his life, the world divided. In some scriptures, it just says the world divided, and some people think this to mean that the continent started shifting. However, this it doesn't line up, and um, I'm not sure if I don't know if you can feel that your continent moving right now. Um, but yeah, you can't feel it. So, how would they have even known that the continents were moving? Um, I think it's interesting that people think that when they don't actually think about the reality of the situation. I can't feel my continent moving. So this was definitely more um during the time of Babel. This is a this is an anchor point in the history of when Babel took place and the world was divided by the language groups. Okay, now some people ask, well, Hebrew, right? Hebrew must have been the traditional language, and actually, Hebrew people themselves believe that their language is the original language that descended from the Garden of Eden. Um, as most likely, Shem would not have been a part of the Tower of Babel and thus would not have had his language changed. And this is their thought process, is that Hebrew is the distinct language that was spoken in the Garden of Eden. Well, let's actually dive into this a little bit and just look at what the scripture says, okay, and what we know to be uh taking place. Shem would have been, he actually lived to be a contemporary of Abraham. So Abraham comes further on. He's the father of uh both the um Ishmaelites, which are the Islam, and then the the Israelites, the Hebrews, right? Um, so what do we know about Abraham? This is hard to determine because this is five generations between Peleg, who we can assume spoke the same language as Shem, and Abraham, leaving a lot of room for mixing and local language permeating the generations. I also previously mentioned that Abraham's father was actually living in the land of the Chaldeans, uh, which was a cousin through Shem's son, Arphaxad. But when we look at um the Talmud about uh Abraham's father, Terah, um, he actually was a seller or a worshiper of idols. So, problem there, right? Uh, and obviously, so just because Peleg may not have been involved in um the Tower of Babel does not mean that his descendants were not. And it's entirely likely that different languages would have been spoken um among these later people groups. And so Abraham easily could have spoken whatever they spoke in Chalde, you know, the Chaldeans spoke. Uh, but also because we know that Abraham's father, or we we suspect that Abraham's father was a worshiper of idols, because the story is that Abraham actually goes in and smashes all the idols, and this is in the Talmud, it's in the book of Jasher. Definitely those lines could have easily been a part of the language disruption that took place. So, is Hebrew the language that was spoken in the Garden of Eden? Probably not. Um, uh, just based on the time frame that takes place and also the events that take place. Okay, so Tower of Babel. This is God taking care of the people by confusing the languages so that they actually go forth and populate the earth. God didn't just tell them to do this because he wanted it done. He actually told them to do this to help them uh not end up using too much resources in one specific location when there's plenty of other resources to go around on the face of the earth. So he gave this command to them to go out into the face of the earth to actually help them, and they decided to rebel because as soon as someone tells you to do something, you want to do the opposite. I mean, anybody have kids that that like to do those things? Uh I I have my young kids used to do that. Now, now not so much, which is good because they see the benefit, but um, yeah, it just it's just human nature to want to go against what we're told to do. But let's fast forward to Acts 2. So Acts 2 takes place, this is in the New Testament, takes place after the resurrection and commission of Jesus to his disciples to make disciples of all nations, right? So now what God actually wants to happen is there to be a connection between all of the nations. And how are they going to do that if they're all speaking different languages? Well, in Acts 2, he gives them a gift, and the gift is speaking in languages so that all other tongues can understand the language of the disciples, the gospel. So the different languages could be construed as punishment, however, or as persp it was very protective. If God had allowed them to continue in the way they were going at the Tower of Babel, they would have continued to be lost in their rebellion. By mixing languages, God required humans to once again rely on him for their well-being. Not every people followed this way, but some of them did. Before you begin to think that the people didn't want to worship, please remember that other gods were worshipped dramatically. It's not like they didn't want to take, like have sing songs and worship something. There was a lot of idolatry that was taking place and going on. Ultimately, humankind needed a savior from their sins. And the confusion of languages obviously was not the saving that took place, but Jesus is the savior that was brought into the New Testament that actually is the ultimate savior from the line of Shem. So God gives the gift of understanding languages to his followers so that they can bring understanding of who God is and what he has done for them as their ultimate salvation. So it only demonstrates, it not only demonstrates his ultimate power, but also his grace and his love for us.

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I know I'm always amazed at all of the new and interesting things that I find every time I open the Bible. Until next time, grow deep in God's word as you find the light.