THE COMETS OF GOD- New Scientific Evidence for God: Recent archeological, geological and astronomical discoveries that shine new light on the Bible and its prophecies by Goodman Jeffrey

Author:Goodman, Jeffrey [Goodman, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Noah&#8217, host of heaven, eschatology, science and religion, sign of the Son of man in heaven, Revelation, bible study, archaeology and the Bible, s Flood, Star of Bethlehem, Christianity, Burckle Crater, Amarah Crater, end times, Bible prophecy, antichrist, Megiddo, Tower of Babel, Armageddon, apocalypse, Gog and Magog
Publisher: Archeological Research Books, LLC
Published: 2010-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

Genesis 11: 1 Translation

Coincidentally, additional confirmation for this clearer translation of Genesis 11:1 comes from a Babylonian document that used the same type of idiom that was used in the Bible's story of the Tower of Babel. This document tells how Sargon, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, conquered a number of countries. Then it literally says, “He made its (the land's) mouth be one,” which has been translated by a leading expert in the language as “He established there a central government.”9 In this case, the idiom “mouth be one” was used to refer to “central government,” which is another way to convey the concept of “empire.”*

Even if one doesn't know that “one lip” is an ancient idiom meaning “one government,” there is another way to determine that this is a story about the destruction of an empire and not a universal language. The Hebrew word that literally means “lip” (saw-faw #8193 in Strong's Concordance) that is traditionally translated as “language” or “speech” in the Tower story (Genesis 11:1, 6, 7 and 9) can also be taken to be a Hebrew word that means “gathering” (saw-fakh #5596 in Strong's Concordance), where “one gathering” is consistent with “one government” under one commander as in empire.* This is possible because the three Hebrew consonants used for the Hebrew word meaning “lip” (#8193 in Strong's Concordance) are the same Hebrew consonants used for the Hebrew word meaning “gathering” (#5596 Strong's Concordance), the only difference being in the vowel signs.

It is important to understand that the writing of ancient Hebrew only used consonants. Consonants were written down, vowels were not written down. It was not until about 600 AD that a complete system of vowel signs was added to the text of the Old Testament by the scribes of the Massoretes (“transmitters”). So aside from context, it is impossible to distinguish between certain ancient Hebrew words that contain the same set of consonants as in the case with words #8193 and #5596 in Strong's Concordance.

Thus, in Genesis 11:1 we can have “one gathering” or “one government” (“one lip”) under “one commander,” where either translation fits the historical context of the Akkadian Empire as begun and commanded by Sargon. This empire brought people of different cultures and languages together into a single politico-religious entity in the land of Shinar. Genesis 10:10 tells how the land of Shinar, that is, the land of Sumer and Akkad, included the Sumerian city of Erech (Uruk) and the Akkadian cities of Akkad and Babylon. The lesson here is that translations of the Biblical manuscript should neither be done in a historical vacuum, nor manipulated to fit one's theological preconceptions. We can't have Biblical translations that ignore historical context, nor translations based on fabricated events that are inconsistent with the course of real historical events. When the Tower story is correctly translated and interpreted, the Bible should be credited with accurately telling the story of the collapse of the historical Akkadian Empire.

In defense of the traditional translation of the

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