I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOsM9ss1wCA



The covenants really begin.

I know.  Noah.  I really think of that as a simple promise: No more worldwide flood. Noah didn't have to do anything else, keep any vows, not eat from a tree or not get drunk.  The honesty of that scene about him and the bad moment with vintage grape juice bespeaks the humanity of our ancestors in the Bible.  Tells us the truth is likely being told because the heroes  show up as human.  They may have Samson's strength or Ruth's beauty or David's eye with a sling but they are full of human frailty.  They weren't facing the demand of perfection put on by false ideals of human perfection, demands that people somehow be godlike instead of human, demands that your enemy be perfect, or the idea that your hero is less evil than the other person.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out from your country and from your family and from your father's house, into the land to which I will be your guide:
 2 And I will make of you a great nation, blessing you and making your name great; and you will be a blessing:
 3 To them who are good to you will I give blessing, and on him who does you wrong will I put my curse: and you will become a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.
 4 So Abram went as the Lord had said to him, and Lot went with him: Abram was seventy-five years old when he went away from Haran.
 5 And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their goods and the servants which they had got in Haran, and they went out to go to the land of Canaan.
 6 And Abram went through the land till he came to Shechem, to the holy tree of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were still living in the land.
 7 And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.
 8 And moving on from there to the mountain on the east of Beth-el, he put up his tent, having Beth-el on the west and Ai on the east: and there he made an altar and gave worship to the name of the Lord.
 (BBE)


I mention Noah (and could have added Adam)  because we have this kind of human disconnect where we see a vulnerable human being placed in charge or in our lineage and we go overboard. We see a Noah who got drunk a few years after the ark and we think:"See, we don't have to believe in him."  Which was the Ham reaction. Or we overcompensate.  We call them the greatest of their kind. Abram became the father of two great "peoples" and three world religions and some call him "father" who have no blood ties and some claim blood ties that can't be documented since one of his sons was a nomad, but we see both "lines" blessed by God by a promise to bless all Abram's descendants, a promise made long before he was renamed Abraham.

Concerning  the name, this is greatly detailed beyond most sources still I include it here:

There are two ways to go about the name Abram. Traditionally this name is interpreted as אב (ab), meaning father, plus an expression of the verb רום (rum), meaning to be high. Hence both BDB Theological Dictionary and NOBSE Study Bible Name List translate this name as Exalted Father, and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads Father Of Elevation.

Reading Abram as אב plus רם works fine in an absolute sense, but in its structural contexts it falls short. The name Abram relates to Abraham the way Sarai relates to Sarah; the latter two names are basically variations of the same word, and we would expect a similar mild variation to mark the difference between Abram and Abraham as well. If we then assume that the name Abram and thus Abraham starts with the element אב ('ab), meaning father, the rest of the name Abraham would be רהם (rhm) and that is not a word in Biblical Hebrew. Of course it's possible that רהם (rhm) was indeed a word but simply one that wasn't used by any of the Biblical authors, but that would mean that Exalted Father Abram promoted to Abraham: the father of something so unimportant that nobody ever mentions it.

Since all that is quite unlikely, it's much more probable that neither of the names Abram and Abraham begins with אב ('ab), and that neither are verbally related to God's promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations (a phrase which in Hebrew is אב המון גוים, 'ab hamon goyim, which is clearly quite unlike either of our names).

Much more plausible is that both our names consist of אבר plus הם (meaning they or them) in case of Abraham and just ם (meaning their) in case of Abram. That means that Abram and Abraham basically mean the same: Abar Of Them, for Abraham and Their Abar for Abram (and read our article on the name Abraham for a possible explanation of the difference)

The core of both names comes from the root אבר ('br), meaning to be strong or to protect.

We also might have a case where God is saying Abraham would be the father of them meaning two peoples. but it would not explain the change in Sarai's name. Perhaps the change was like that of Saul to Paul, a notion of a new birth, an alignment with God's will. 

But let's return focus to the Genesis verses above.

We have the faith moment that confronts us all at one time or another,  Ur was filled with idols, the conflicts of the goddess and the hunter god, combined in the male god Nanna:

Abraham was born and raised in Ur of the Chaldees, which is in modern Iraq, near Nasiriyah in the southeastern part of the country. Joshua 24:2 says that Abraham and his father worshiped idols. We can make some educated guesses about their religion by looking at the history and religious artifacts from that period.

Ur of the Chaldees was an ancient city that flourished until about 300 BC. The great ziggurat of Ur was built by Ur-Nammu around 2100 BC and was dedicated to Nanna, the moon god. The moon was worshiped as the power that controlled the heavens and the life cycle on earth. To the Chaldeans, the phases of the moon represented the natural cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death and also set the measurement of their yearly calendar. Among the pantheon of Mesopotamian gods, Nanna was supreme, because he was the source of fertility for crops, herds, and families. Prayers and offerings were offered to the moon to invoke its blessing.

We can go on and on about the name Nanna relating Nanny or Nannah as related to women and their care of the family or we could mention that most moon related deities are goddesses. We see here the merger of the two cultures under one god in an urban environment.  We could also mention the idea that President Obama was once said to have more feminine sensitivity than Mrs. Clinton when they ran against each other.  I reiterate our ongoing themes throughout our blogs: myths have gone on since the start and they continue under our noses and we get seduced by it unlike the man who walked away from bring raised in it.  When the author of Hebrews listed him as a faith hero we now have a very good idea of his faith,  Abraham left his TV set and his internet and his recliner took everything mobile with him and trooped his way to the place God promised him.  Never trying to take it from those there,  Waiting for it to be given in the way God chose.  Trusting in the promise of a special place, of a place of milk and honey, of a home.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjZ01FcK0yk

While this is the start of the covenant, we send time on its beginning especially;

Adam Clarke's Commentary:

CHAPTER XII  

   God calls Abram to leave Haran and go into Canaan, 1; 
  promises to bless him, and through him all the families of 
   the earth, 2, 3. 
  Abram, Sarai, Lot, and all their household, depart from Canaan, 4, 5; 
  pass through Sichem, 6. 
  God appears to him, and renews the promise, 7. 
  His journey described, 8, 9. 
  On account of a famine in the land he is obliged to go into Egypt, 10. 
  Fearing lest, on account of the beauty of his wife, the Egyptians 
   should kill him, he desires her not to acknowledge that she is his 
   wife, but only his sister, 11-13. 
  Sarai, because of her beauty, is taken into the palace of Pharaoh, 
   king of Egypt, who is very liberal to Abram on her account, 14-16. 
  God afflicts Pharaoh and his household with grievous plagues on 
   account of Sarai, 17. 
  Pharaoh, on finding that Sarai was Abram's wife, restores her 
   honourably, and dismisses the patriarch with his family and their 
   property, 18-20.

 NOTES ON CHAP. XII 

Verse 1.  Get thee out of thy country]  There is great dissension between commentators concerning the call of Abram; some supposing he had two distinct calls, others that he had but one. At the conclusion of the preceding chapter, Ge 11:31, we find Terah and all his family leaving Ur of the Chaldees, in order to go to Canaan. This was, no doubt, in consequence of some Divine admonition.  While resting at Haran, on their road to Canaan, Terah died, Ge 11:32; and then God repeats his call to Abram, and orders him to proceed to Canaan, Ge 12:1. 

Dr. Hales, in his Chronology, contends for two calls: "The first," says he, "is omitted in the Old Testament, but is particularly recorded in the New, Ac 7:2-4: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was (at Ur of the Chaldees) in Mesopotamia, BEFORE HE DWELT IN CHARRAN; and said unto him, Depart from thy land, and from thy kindred, and come into the land (ghn, a land) which I will show thee. Hence it is evident that God had called Abram before he came to Haran or Charran."  The SECOND CALL is recorded only in this chapter: "The Lord said (not HAD said) unto Abram, Depart from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto THE LAND, Urah HA-arets, (Septuagint, GHN ghn,) which I will show thee."  "The difference of the two calls," says Dr. Hales, "more carefully translated from the originals, is obvious: in the former the land is indefinite, which was designed only for a temporary residence; in the latter it is definite, intimating his abode.  A third condition is also annexed to the latter, that Abram shall now separate himself from his father's house, or leave his brother Nahor's family behind at Charran.  This call Abram obeyed, still not knowing whither he was going, but trusting implicitly to the Divine guidance." 

  Thy  kindred]  Nahor and the different branches of the family of Terah, Abram and Lot excepted.  That Nahor went with Terah and Abram as far as Padan-Aram, in Mesopotamia, and settled there, so that it was afterwards called Nahor's city, is sufficiently evident from the ensuing history, see Ge 25:20; Ge 24:10,15; and that the same land was Haran, see Ge 28:2,10, and there were Abram's kindred and country here spoken of, Ge 24:4. 

  Thy father's house]  Terah being now dead, it is very probable that the family were determined to go no farther, but to settle at Charran; and as Abram might have felt inclined to stop with them in this place, hence the ground and necessity of the second call recorded here, and which is introduced in a very remarkable manner; kl kl lech lecha, GO FOR THYSELF.  If none of the family will accompany thee, yet go for thyself unto THAT LAND which I will show thee.  God does not tell him what land it is, that he may still cause him to walk by faith and not by sight.  This seems to be particularly alluded to by Isaiah, Isa 41:2: Who raised up the righteous man (Abram) from the east, and called him to his foot; that is, to follow implicitly the Divine direction.  The apostle assures us that in all this Abram had spiritual views; he looked for a better country, and considered the land of promise only as typical of the heavenly inheritance.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

    Ge 12:1-20. CALL TO ABRAM. 

    1. Now the Lord had said unto Abram--It pleased God, who has often been found of them who sought Him not, to reveal Himself to Abraham perhaps by a miracle; and the conversion of Abraham is one of the most remarkable in Bible history. 

    Get thee out of thy country--His being brought to the knowledge and worship of the true God had probably been a considerable time before.  This call included two promises: the first, showing the land of his future posterity; and the second, that in his posterity all the earth was to be blessed (Ge 12:2). Abraham obeyed, and it is frequently mentioned in the New Testament as a striking instance of his faith (Heb 11:8).

Spurgeon:

Genesis 12:3 Ge 12:3


God had elected Abram, and therefore in due time he called him, and so separated him unto himself.  All the chosen seed must in this be conformed to the father of the faithful.


But, nestled in this selection of verses lies a truth that gets missed even ignored:

7 And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.

No one has seen God and lived.  Many have seen Jesus and think ahead. Abraham will lay a tenth of his fortune at the feet of Melchizedek, seemingly at first sight. No explanation other than the kingship of Mel.   Mel is universally recognized as an appearance of Jesus in the NT.  Only Abraham who has already seen God, sees who Mel is.  The physical manifestation of Christ permeated Genesis.

Please always keep these promises in mind when  you hear of discussions of peace in Israel  Recall they produce an incredible amount of food that keeps Europe going.  Recall that God will later issue a proclamation to a much larger area of the ME than just the sliver that is  now Israel including the area's added in the Six Day War (https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War).  He gave a vaster area to Israel than it currently occupies.   

And no one who has come against it since it's restoration has won.  Many prosper from money but their countries have fallen into tough times.  Even those powered by oil fortunes are wracked with war.  Countries that welcome the Palestinians  have constant conflict and their governments get toppled.  Oil prices have floundered, overproduction to finance war against Isis and Isis' use of all its capture oil territories to finance wars plus  their sale of idols and relics captured in conflict has testified to their aim to destroy anything not their type of Muslim and to God using them as a weapon against Israel's enemies as he used unbelievers over the centuries.  In fact, their actions such as against Iran and Turkey, would sometimes  make one think they were an ally of the Jews even as they spew hatred of them. 

Remember how the promise has gone on being fulfilled even as time has passed, how God has kept that word to Israel.  

                                                           PreLaw: Second Semester

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEPr9T8OXRk

A summary of the previous posts:

One can sum up the complete relationship of man and God til this point with humanity saying one sentence: "I want it NOW!!!!"

We had Eden,  Everything we could need.  Meeting every every need.  Maslow's Hierarchy of needs from the bottom of the pyramid right to the top. Wanting for nothing and therefore psychologically perfect.

God said not the eat of one tree. It must have been there for some reason besides temptation. It seemed like God would eventually say, "Yes."  To humanity,  it was something we wanted right now.

God said one woman for one man.  Some began to take two.  Later, even religions calling themselves Christian would claim a right to multiple wives. Why wait for one woman to be in the mood or physically available or to have a baby?  Get what you want now.

God told us we were nomads.  We settled in cities  God would eventually offer one city of His blessing.  We wanted it now.  We still build cites that go to rack and ruin, burned in wars, overgrown when economies crumble.  But we have them now.

Zoologist  Desmond Morris wrote The Human Zoo in 1969:

This study concerns the city dweller. Morris finds remarkable similarities with captive zoo animals and looks closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living.  from Goodreads.com

In fact, what Morris found was that our aberrant behaviors all seem to match those of caged apes, forced into a situation unnatural to them, trapped in a misshapen prison.  The result is crime, aggression, sexual deviation.  The book gets attacked today because the social sciences have come to call what he refers to as "deviation" as "normal".  Never suggesting that their view of normal may derive from their own immersion in the human zoo or their own involvement with sin.  

God said we were going to die,  We couldn't wait for our neighbors to die so we invented murder. We couldn't wait to die ourselves so we invented every possible form of sin that could speed it along: smoking, drinking, sex with strangers, strange sex,  overeating, undereating, eating anything that moved or grew, swam, ran, flew.  

All of it rotating around Satan's curse: "You will become like God."

We earlier mentioned the Venus figurines, the earliest idols discovered thus far,  Further discussion:

A Venus figurine is any Upper Paleolithic statuette portraying a woman,^[1] although the fewer images depicting men or figures of uncertain gender,^[2] and those in relief or engraved on rock or stones are often discussed together.^[3] Most have been unearthed inEurope, but others have been found as far away as Siberia, extending their distribution across much of Eurasia, although with many gaps, such as the Mediterranean outside Italy.^[4]

Most of them date from the Gravettian period (26,000–21,000 years ago),^[3] but examples exist as early as the Venus of Hohle Fels, which dates back at least 35,000 years to the Aurignacian, and as late as the Venus of Monruz, from about 11,000 years ago in theMagdalenian. These figurines were carved from soft stone (such as steatite, calcite or limestone), bone or ivory, or formed of clay and fired. The latter are among the oldest ceramics known. In total, some 144 such figurines are known;^[5] virtually all of modest size, between 3 cm and 40 cm or more in height.^[1] They are some of the earliest works of prehistoric art.

Most of them have small heads, wide hips, and legs that taper to a point. Various figurines exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts, thighs, or vulva, although many do not, and the concentration in popular accounts on those that do reflects modern preoccupations rather than the range of actual artefacts. In contrast, arms and feet are often absent, and the head is usually small and faceless. Depictions of hairstyles can be detailed, and especially in Siberian examples, clothing or tattoos may be indicated.^[6]

The original cultural meaning and purpose of these artifacts is not known. It has frequently been suggested that they may have served a ritual or symbolic function. There are widely varying and speculative interpretations of their use or meaning: they have been seen as religious figures,^[7] as erotic art or sex aids,^[8] or alternatively as self-depictions by female artists.^[9]

Latest evaluation of the goddesses says, because they were depictions of large bodied women, they were salutes to older women, seeing them as goddesses because of their maturity, fertility and mother leadership.

Recall they were viewed as being in contrast to the hunter culture male gods.

Now what do we have going on today?

We have an older women with deep commitment to family, even to  staying with her less than loyal husband.  One who constantly raises her commitment to helping children, to being the mother figure of the nation. One whose decision making is under question over two incidents despite the mountain high pile of mistakes from her opponent.

We have another, a man who clearly either believes he is a god or want us to believe it.  One who says he has all the answers and has And has followers who's devotion defies any logic except that of men trying to retain their own image of personal godhood which feels  threatened. like their love of their guns, weapons used for hunting men and animals,  hiding behind the idea of men as the only ones fit for leadership even as he raises eyebrows on a weekly basis (now, was daily before he had a woman handing his campaign).

TV has been pushing female leadership for decades, witness Homer Simpson and almost any male figure in a sitcom.

Twitter and the internet has become the hiding ground if sexually threatened male children who lash out at things like a female oriented version of Ghostbusters.

We have the old conflict of the hunter god versus the goddess each one vying for worship.  One loudly, the other with more dignity.  Both representing a conflict that has been going on in idolatrous  cultures since the beginning of fallen flesh.

Since Noah's time.

Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the day of the Son of man.
 27 They were feasting and taking wives and getting married, till the day of the overflowing of the waters, when Noah went into the ark, and they all came to destruction.
 28 In the same way, in the days of Lot; they were feasting and trading, they were planting and building;
 29 But on the day when Lot went out of Sodom, fire came down from heaven and destruction came on them all.
 30 So will it be in the day of the revelation of the Son of man.
31 On that day, if anyone is on the roof of the house, and his goods are in the house, let him not go down to take them away; and let him who is in the field not go back to his house.
 32 Keep in mind Lot's wife.
 33 If anyone makes an attempt to keep his life, it will be taken from him, but if anyone gives up his life, he will keep it.
 (BBE)

Peter speaks even more cogently here:

2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets among the people, as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly put forward wrong teachings for your destruction, even turning away from the Lord who gave himself for them; whose destruction will come quickly, and they themselves will be the cause of it.

Imagine then one false teacher on each side and the choice telling everyone that any leadership right now will fall short one way or the other.

 2 And a great number will go with them in their evil ways, through whom the true way will have a bad name.
 3 And in their desire for profit they will come to you with words of deceit, like traders doing business in souls: whose punishment has been ready for a long time and their destruction is watching for them.


And the need then becomes the asking now of who is in it for profit alone.  Who has always, all his life, only been in it for the money. Like a bad evangelist who hawks holy water to cure you or the pursuit of your own dreams over God's dreams for you. So we ask:  who is described most closely by verse 3?  


 4 For if God did not have pity for the angels who did evil, but sent them down into hell, to be kept in chains of eternal night till they were judged;
 5 And did not have mercy on the world which then was, but only kept safe Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he let loose the waters over the world of the evil-doers;
 6 And sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, burning them up with fire as an example to those whose way of life might in the future be unpleasing to him;
 7 And kept safe Lot, the upright man, who was deeply troubled by the unclean life of the evil-doers
 8 (Because the soul of that upright man living among them was pained from day to day by seeing and hearing their crimes):

We get back to Lot and the Twins of Sin, Sodom and Gomorrah.  Making our second  post after the next a bit obvious.


 9 The Lord is able to keep the upright safe in the time of testing, and to keep evil-doers under punishment till the day of judging;

Keep always in mind that deliverance for the Saved always awaits.

 10 But specially those who go after the unclean desires of the flesh, and make sport of authority. Ready to take chances, uncontrolled, they have no fear of saying evil of those in high places:
 11 Though the angels, who are greater in strength and power, do not make use of violent language against them before the Lord.
 12 But these men, like beasts without reason, whose natural use is to be taken and put to death, crying out against things of which they have no knowledge, will undergo that same destruction which they are designing for others;
 13 For the evil which overtakes them is the reward of their evil-doing: such men take their pleasure in the delights of the flesh even in the daytime; they are like the marks of a disease, like poisoned wounds among you, feasting together with you in joy;
 14 Having eyes full of evil desire, never having enough of sin; turning feeble souls out of the true way; they are children of cursing, whose hearts are well used to bitter envy;

Please listen to this description of the false leaders in the church when you listen to or decide to give to false leaders in general when you vote.

 15 Turning out of the true way, they have gone wandering in error, after the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was pleased to take payment for wrongdoing;
 16 But his wrongdoing was pointed out to him: an ass, talking with a man's voice, put a stop to the error of the prophet.
 17 These are fountains without water, and mists before a driving storm; for whom the eternal night is kept in store.
 (BBE)

And I find myself pointing out errors and thinking what God must think of me.

But it underlines the one thing we keeping searching for and demanding: We want God now!

Or, more precisely: We want a god who we can understand who gives us everything we want and we've got the Santa suit already and pressed and everything.

While God, obstinate being that he is, keeps insisting on us accepting Him as the one in charge.

In an earlier post,  I mentioned the Dispensations, the notion that God deals with humanity in different ways at different time. The notion is that, during history, God has dealt differently with humanity, first with a law to keep about eating the fruit and then with individuals and then with Israel and then with the Church.

Except that every covenant was and is always individual.  God gave the rule on the tree and individuals failed.  God was readily available to the pre-Flood people and only certain individuals like Enoch and Noah listened. He gave the Law to Israel but it was individuals like the prophets or King David who kept it. who sought relationships with God.  He gave Christ to take sin from us all but it is the individual who must accept the sacrifice and be saved.  It has always been a one-to-one relationship with god.  never a guy on a pedestal, but the reality of a person who wants to know each of us personally. like Enoch, like Noah.   It has always been human beings who create the gulf, the wall, the distance of pleasing ourselves at the cost of others.

https://multiplymovement.com/Material/251


Though we are still at the beginning of the Biblical story line, a pattern has already developed: People sin, people face the consequences, God redeems. People sin, people face the consequences, God redeems.

As we saw in the previous session, when Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the earth and then told Eve that her descendant would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15)—a promise that Jesus will one day destroy Satan and his works (Rom. 16:20). Only a few chapters later, we find people sinning continually, to the point that God destroyed all but eight humans by flooding the earth. But as soon as the waters subsided, God made a covenant with Noah, promising, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done” (Gen. 8:21). People sin, people face the consequences, God redeems.

Once again, in Genesis 11, the human race gathered at Babel in defiance of God in order to “make a name for themselves.” God’s response was to confuse their speech and divide them. But just when we think that humanity has no hope, God launched a plan of redemption that was global: to create a people for Himself who would embody and spread His salvation to every group of people on the planet. After cursing and scattering humanity, God made a promise to bless all of the nations. And God set this plan in motion by calling one man living in the middle of an idol-worshiping nation away from everything he once knew. And He promised to change the course of history through this man and his offspring.


God’s plan to rescue the world from sin started very quietly. God chose one man, Abraham, and said:

Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen. 12:1–3)

It may not sound like much, but with these words God put into motion a plan that would lead Paul to cry out in amazement about “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. 11:33). This plan would eventually reach its climax in Jesus’s incarnation, death, and resurrection—events that took place at “the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). In other words, human history was working toward this moment, the central point in God’s plan of righting what went wrong with the fall.

As soon as sin entered the world, God began to reveal His plan to reverse the effects of the Fall. He would restore us and the world around us to what He originally created—and more. God made a promise to Adam and Eve, then to Noah, and here God made a covenant with Abram. At a few key points in his life (Gen. 12:1–9; 15:1–21; 17:1–14), God spoke with Abra(ha)m and revealed more about His plan. But the basics are clear from the beginning: God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, to make his name great, and to bless him so that he would be a blessing to “every family of the earth.”

Next,  we'll discuss the founding of Israel which sets everything else up, the  Law and prophets and Christ.  Then the constant attempt of Satanic influenced humanity to crash the plan..

                                                                              XI.

                                                      When God Smoked a Ziggurat 


Ge 11:1 And all the earth had one language and one tongue.
 2 And it came about that in their wandering from the east, they came to a stretch of flat country in the land of Shinar, and there they made their living-place.
 3 And they said one to another, Come, let us make bricks, burning them well. And they had bricks for stone, putting them together with sticky earth.
 4 And they said, Come, let us make a town, and a tower whose top will go up as high as heaven; and let us make a great name for ourselves, so that we may not be wanderers over the face of the earth.
 5 And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.
 6 And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.
 7 Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another.
 8 So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town.
 9 So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.

 (BBE)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRwe6gvL-I8

zig·gu·rat

ˈziɡəˌrat/

noun

1. (in ancient Mesopotamia) a rectangular stepped tower, sometimes surmounted by a temple. Ziggurats are first attested in the late 3rd millennium BC and probably inspired the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9).

Years ago, Cornelius Ryan wrote a book about the Battle of the Bulge called "A Bridge Too Far" about how one portion of the Allied Army pushed too far ahead in the fighting in Germany and the Germans started a run with their tanks to cut that portion off from the rest of the forces.  That ended in  failure.

Nimrod's forces or some remnant of that united front forged into the area that would become Babylon, perhaps pursuing Eden which had been in that area but  must have vanished with the Flood.  Instead, they found the muddy wetland. apparently farther than they had gone before.  A land too far and too far past the limit of God's willingness to permit what they proceeded to do.


Matt Henry:


 INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS CHAPTER 11

The old distinction between the sons of God and the sons of men (professors and profane) survived the flood, and now appeared again, when men began to multiply: according to this distinction we have, in this chapter,

 I. The dispersion of the sons of men at Babel, Ge 11:1-9, where we have,

1. Their presumptuous provoking design, which was to build a city and a tower, Ge 11:1-4.

2. The righteous judgment of God upon them in disappointing their design, by confounding their language, and so scattering them, Ge 11:5-9.

 II. The pedigree of the sons of God down to Abraham (Ge 11:10-26), with a general account of his family, and removal out of his native country, Ge 11:27-32.

Ver. 1.

The close of the foregoing chapter tells us that by the sons of Noah, or among the sons of Noah, the nations were divided in the earth after the flood, that is, were distinguished into several tribes or colonies; and, the places having grown too strait for them, it was either appointed by Noah, or agreed upon among his sons, which way each several tribe or colony should steer its course, beginning with the countries that were next them, and designing to proceed further and further, and to remove to a greater distance from each other, as the increase of their several companies should require. Thus was the matter well settled, one hundred years after the flood, about the time of Peleg's birth; but the sons of men, it should seem, were loath to disperse into distant places; they thought the more the merrier and the safer, and therefore they contrived to keep together, and were slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of their fathers had given them (Jos 18:3), thinking themselves wiser than either God or Noah. Now here we have,

 I. The advantages which befriended their design of keeping together,

1. They were all of one language, Ge 11:1. If there were any different languages before the flood, yet Noah's only, which it is likely was the same with Adam's, was preserved through the flood, and continued after it. Now, while they all understood one another, they would be the more likely to love one another, and the more capable of helping one another, and the less inclinable to separate one from another.

2. They found a very convenient commodious place to settle in (Ge 11:2), a plain in the land of Shinar, a spacious plain, able to contain them all, and a fruitful plain, able, according as their present numbers were, to support them all, though perhaps they had not considered what room there would be for them when their numbers should be increased. Note, Inviting accommodations, for the present, often prove too strong temptations to the neglect of both duty and interest, as it respects futurity.

 II. The method they took to bind themselves to one another, and to settle together in one body. Instead of coveting to enlarge their borders by a peaceful departure under the divine protection, they contrived to fortify them, and, as those that were resolved to wage war with Heaven, they put themselves into a posture of defense. Their unanimous resolution is, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower. It is observable that the first builders of cities, both in the old world (Ge 4:17), and in the new world here, were not men of the best character and reputation: tents served God's subjects to dwell in; cities were first built by those that were rebels against him and revolters from him. Observe here,

1. How they excited and encouraged one another to set about this work. They said, Go to, let us make brick (Ge 11:3), and again, (Ge 11:4), Go to, let us build ourselves a city; by mutual excitements they made one another more daring and resolute. Note, Great things may be brought to pass when the undertakers are numerous and unanimous, and stir up one another. Let us learn to provoke one another to love and to good works, as sinners stir up and encourage one another to wicked works. See Ps 122:1; Isa 2:3,5; Jer 50:5.

2. What materials they used in their building. The country, being plain, yielded neither stone nor mortar, yet this did not discourage them from their undertaking, but they made brick to serve instead of stone, and slime or pitch instead of mortar. See here,

(1.) What shift those will make that are resolute in their purposes: were we but zealously affected in a good thing, we should not stop our work so often as we do, under pretence that we want conveniences for carrying it on.

(2.) What a difference there is between men's building and God's; when men build their Babel, brick and slime are their best materials; but, when God builds his Jerusalem, he lays even the foundations of it with sapphires, and all its borders with pleasant stones, Isa 54:11-12; Re 21:19.

3. For what ends they built. Some think they intended hereby to secure themselves against the waters of another flood. God had told them indeed that he would not again drown the world; but they would trust to a tower of their own making, rather than to a promise of God's making or an ark of his appointing. If, however, they had had this in their eye, they would have chosen to build their tower upon a mountain rather than upon a plain, but three things, it seems, they aimed at in building this tower:--

(1.) It seems designed for an affront to God himself; for they would build a tower whose top might reach to heaven, which bespeaks a defiance of God, or at least a rivalry with him. They would be like the Most High, or would come as near him as they could, not in holiness but in height. They forgot their place, and, scorning to creep on the earth, resolved to climb to heaven, not by the door or ladder, but some other way.

(2.) They hoped hereby to make themselves a name; they would do something to be talked of now, and to give posterity to know that there had been such men as they in the world. Rather than die and leave no memorandum behind them, they would leave this monument of their pride, and ambition, and folly. Note,

[1.] Affectation of honor and a name among men commonly inspires with a strange ardor for great and difficult undertakings, and often betrays to that which is evil and offensive to God.

[2.] It is just with God to bury those names in the dust which are raised by sin. These Babel-builders put themselves to a great deal of foolish expense to make themselves a name; but they could not gain even this point, for we do not find in any history the name of so much as one of these Babel-builders. Philo Judaeus says, They engraved every one his name upon a brick, in perpetuam rei memoriam--as a perpetual memorial; yet neither did this serve their purpose. 

(3.) They did it to prevent their dispersion: Lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. 

"It was done" (says Josephus) "in disobedience to that command (Ge 9:1), Replenish the earth." 

God orders them to disperse. 

"No," say they, "we will not, we will live and die together."

In order hereunto, they engage themselves and one another in this vast undertaking. That they might unite in one glorious empire, they resolve to build this city and tower, to be the metropolis of their kingdom and the centre of their unity. It is probable that the band of ambitious Nimrod was in all this. He could not content himself with the command of a particular colony, but aimed at universal monarchy, in order to which, under pretence of uniting for their common safety, he contrives to keep them in one body, that, having them all under his eye, he might not fail to have them under his power. See the daring presumption of these sinners. Here is, 

[1.] A bold opposition to God:

"You shall be scattered," says God.

"But we will not," say they.

 Woe unto him that thus strives with his maker.

[2.] A bold competition with God. It is God's prerogative to be universal monarch, Lord of all, and King of kings; the man that aims at it offers to step into the throne of God, who will not give his glory to another.



Recall we mentioned Nimrod seems to have melded the old gods with the goddess system so both could be worshiped and people could be unified.  That new religion now finds a home in a tower with a temple on top.  The purpose was worship, but also a study of the heavens, where the gods might reside.  Hence astrology began around this time, too.  One god/goddess from that time rings very familiar to us today:

Nanna/Suen/Sin (god)

Mesopotamian moon god. He was called Nanna in Sumerian, and Su'en or Sin in Akkadian. 

Functions

.

The ziggurat TT , or temple tower, of Nanna at Ur. It was built by king Ur-Namma of Ur (r. about 2112-2095 BCE), the founder of the Ur III dynasty. The monumental temple tower is built of solid bricks. © Penn Museum.

The primary symbol of the moon god was as a bull, the result of the horizontal crescent of the waxing moon appearing similar to the horns of that animal. This symbolism led to a consideration of the moon god as a cowherd, which is celebrated most clearly in the composition The Herds of Nanna (ETCSL 4.13.06), the longest section of which enumerates the cattle in Nanna's herd.

The moon god was the tutelary deity of the city of Ur.

(A little further on the Bible tells us that Abram came from Ur.  That "sin" 
was chosen as the name for all evil doings says a lot about the nature of worship for this god. W)

His reach and importance, however, was far greater than just a city god, the moon god is clearly one of the most important deities in the wider pantheon of Mesopotamia. In the Early Dynastic god lists, such as Fara SF 1, the moon god appears immediately after the four leading gods An, Enlil, Inana and Enki (Klein 2001: 290, and this important, albeit slightly junior position, is confirmed in the text Nanna-Suen's Journey to Nippur (ETCSL 1.5.1: 18), when Nanna brings the "first fruit offerings" to Enlil, the head of the early Mesopotamian pantheon (Black et al. 2004: 147)An association with fertility may come from the moon god's connection to cattle, and also, perhaps, from the clear link to the menstrual cycle, roughly similar to the timing of the moon's transformations. The connection with fertility is demonstrated in the Old Babylonian (early second-millennium) birth incantations (Krebernik 1993-98b: 367; Veldhuis 1991). The magical-medical text A Cow of Sin relates the story of the moon god's beautiful and pregnant cow, Geme-Sin. The birthing-pains of Geme-Sin are eased by Sin, and the incantation ends with a 'supplication: "may this woman give birth as easily as Geme-Sin" suggesting this text's role in human child-birth (Veldhuis 1991: 1).

Other literature makes much of the moon as an astronomical feature. The deity is referred to in terms characteristic of the celestial body, e.g., radiant, shining, and much is made of the moon's path and cycle, which were also keenly observed for omens of the future, for example in the first-millennium series šumma Sin ina tāmartišu, "If the moon at its appearance" (Hunger and Pingree 1999: 21 ff.).

The Akkadian literature evokes some of the other functions of the moon god. A prayer to Su'en details his role in divination (Foster 2005: 758-9). No doubt this divinatory role was also connected to the moon god's ability to illuminate darkness (Foster 2005: 760-1). Both the moon god and the sun god are praised together in a further text in which they are associated with issuing laws and verdicts, the determination of destinies, and the announcements of omens (Foster 2005: 762). This judicial role was already obvious in the text of the Early Dynastic 'Stele of the Vultures', where oaths are taken in the presence of Su'en, and in his epithet "diviner of fates", which is used across the Near East (Krebernik 1993-98b: 367).

The earliest attestation of this name dates back to the very beginning of written documentations. In personal names the moon god is attested from the Late Uruk period until the very end of the cuneiform tradition. Not only is he frequently attested in personal names, a testimony to personal piety, he is also frequently invoked in royal names from the earlier to the late periods, for example: Naram-Sin (Old Akkadian); Amar-Su'en, Šu-Sin, Ibbi-Sin (all Ur III) Sin-iddinam (Old Babylonian), Sennacherib (Akkadian: Sin-ahhe-eruba - from the Neo Assyrian period) (Cohen 1996: 9; Krebernik 1993-98b: 360; Hall 1985: 56-91).

The moon god is most frequently represented by his symbol, the crescent moon (Sumerian u₄-sakar, Akkadian u/ašqāru). This iconography is already known form Early Dynastic seals, and continues throughout Mesopotamian history and across the Ancient Near East. The crescent shape had an impact on other symbols which came to be associated with Nanna/Suen, primarily the moon god's association with the bull (Krebernik 1993-98b: 360). Additionally, Nanna/Su'en is often attested in connection with a boat. Other iconographic symbols include a rather enigmatic tripod, and it is now thought that many of the motifs once thought to be solely associated with the sun god - such as rays, gates and a god-figure rising between mountains, might now also be considered iconographic characteristics of the moon god. Such similarities should not be surprising given that the moon provided the light of the night-time, as the sun did for the day (Krebernik 1993-98b: 374-7).

This matters to us for two reasons.

First, our current suggestion that the gods and goddesses were combined.

The Moon Goddess is an important deity in many cultures around the world where they form a central role in mythology. 

The moon is associated with the divine feminine as in many tribal societies the feminine cycles were linked to the phases of the moon.

Not all the lunar deities were female Chandra is the God of the moon in Hinduism and Mani the Germanic moon gods are to examples of this. 

The Moon was important in ancient calendars, helping people to measure time and to determine when the best time was for planting and harvesting crops. This fertility aspect of the lunar Goddess is reflected in large numbers of the entries below.

The moon and the stars were also a way that the ancient people navigated the land and seas.

Many of the lunar Goddesses like Hecate and Cerridwen, are also associated with magic and the intuitive nature of women.

The lunar deities are also very important archetypes in the modern pagan movement and Wicca. 

(Note:  This being a new age wiccan site, I won't include a link and will  point out she missed the most obvious male moon deity.  I include an interesting partial list of moon goddesses. W)

Selene (Greek) - A mother Goddess linked to the full moon. She is widely worshipped by Pagans today.

Sina (Polynesian) - This moon Goddess was the sister of the sun God Maui. She was sometimes called Ina.

Teczistecatl (Aztec) - A Goddess of sex, symbolised by the four phases of the moon: dark, waxing, full, and waning.

Trivia (Roman) - She is the equivalent Goddess to Selene in Roman mythology.

Xochhiquetzal (Aztec) - This magical moon Goddess was the deity of flowers, spring, sex, love, and marriage. She was the wife of storm God Tlaloc. She is also the patroness of artisans, prostitutes, pregnant women and birth.

The moon seems to be the "hinge" of the door shutting and opening on goddess worship.  When we see a moon god men seem to have taken over in the hunting tradition and women seem to have lost their voice in the culture.  When the moon is a goddess, the area has become more urban, less masculine dominated, more agrarian, women seem to have a stronger usually sexual role in the society.

The second reason this strikes us is this:

Updated March 11, 2016.

The crescent moon and star is an internationally-recognized symbol of Islam. The symbol is featured on the flags of several Muslim countries, and is even part of the official emblem for theInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The Christians have the cross, the Jews have the star of David, and the Muslims have the crescent moon, right?

Pre-Islamic Symbol

The crescent moon and star symbol actually pre-dates Islam by several thousand years. Information on the origins of the symbol are difficult to confirm, but most sources agree that these ancient celestial symbols were in use by the peoples of Central Asia and Siberia in their worship of sun, moon, and sky gods. There are also reports that the crescent moon and star were used to represent the Carthaginian goddess Tanit or the Greek goddess Diana.

http://islam.about.com/od/history/a/crescent_moon.htm

Robert Morley reports Allah as a mood god while Islam sources claim the moon symbol came about on the flag through the Ottoman empire.  Either way, that crescent shape that was fixed in paganism now has a home in Islam.

Ziggurats themselves have an interesting history most of it known for Herodotus' history:

 According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines have survived.^[1] One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of miles, for example the 1967 flood.^[5] Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways,^[6] a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine on top of the ziggurat, such as initiation rituals such as the Eleusinian mysteries, cooking of sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of sacrificial animals. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built.

According to http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/05/Is-there-Archaeological-Evidence-for-the-Tower-of-Babel.aspx   ziggurats were designed as homes away from home for the gods or the city god.  They were set up with food and resting places for a visiting god as well as access to various other human amenities with the top level reserved for viewing the heavens and providing a gateway to heaven.  Research proves the building materials used were exactly as described in 11;3.  These materials were used for either government or religious buildings which were grouped together in Mesopotamian cities. Again a hint at the mixture of government and religion under the god-king pattern.  Since the Osirus myth suggested Nimrod died and came to visit his wife and impregnate her, this also ushers in the notion of temple prostitutes and Vestal Virgins keeping themselves pure for the gods.    C.J. Gadd suggested "the distinction between city and temple becomes dim" pointing out that the area built as Babel may well have been the public and temple  building with much more temporary dwelling around the structure.  this was only made possible by the centralization of power.  The god-king and his military force gave the temple complete rights in land ownership and power over the people who lived in the city area.

The article cites Jacobsen as noting urbanization went hand-in-hand with the rise of  "humanized" gods.  Genesis implies it in the first urbanization prior to the Flood and then underscores it with Nimrod. 

And with it came the building of statues to those humanized gods.

"The development in Mesopotamian religion that took place with the development of urbanization was that men began to envision their gods in conformity with the image of man.  Man was no longer attempting to be like God, but, more insidiously, was trying to bring deity down to the level of man."

John H. Walton, author of the above article  who also concludes:  "This goes beyond mere idolatry: it degrades the very nature of God."

One other thing may have been associated with these pyramids as it was with the Aztec step pyramids in Mesoamerica:

  Sacrifice was a common theme in Mesoamerican cultures. In the Aztec "Legend of the Five Suns", all the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live. Some years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, a body of Franciscans confronted the remaining Aztec priesthood and demanded, under threat of death, that they desist from this traditional practice. The Aztec priests defended themselves as follows:

Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice they gave us life.... They produce our sustenance... which nourishes life.^[8]

What the Aztec priests were referring to was a central Mesoamerican belief: that a great, continuing sacrifice of the gods sustains the Universe. Everything on earth is tonacayotl - "spiritual flesh-hood". All things—earth, crops, moon, stars and people—springs from the severed or buried bodies, fingers, blood or the heads of the sacrificed gods. Humanity itself is macehualli, "those deserved and brought back to life through penance".^[9] A strong sense of indebtedness was connected with this worldview. Indeed, nextlahualli (debt-payment) was a commonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagún reported, it was said that the victim was someone who "gave his service".

Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panoply of offerings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods. Both Sahagún and Toribio de Benavente (also called "Motolinía") observed that the Aztecs gladly parted with everything: burying, smashing, sinking, slaying vast quantities of quail, rabbits, dogs, feathers, flowers, insects, beans, grains, paper, rubber and treasures as sacrifices. Even the "stage" for human sacrifice, the massive temple-pyramids, was an offering mound: crammed with treasures, grains, soil and human and animal sacrifices that were buried as gifts to the deities. Adorned with the land's finest art, treasure and victims, these temples became buried offerings under new structures every half a century.

We don't know that human sacrifice was made on the Tower of Babel. but that would also have been the ultimate destruction of the image of God: man.  And that would have pleased the serpent as  much as it would have angered God.  

Many commentaries, like Henry's,  see the resistance to God's command to scatter as the cause for His anger, but the nature of the temple itself seems a logical reason.  Some blend of both may have played a roles, though we have to recall the very first Commandment is "You shall have  no other gods before me" and the second, "You shall make no idols.  No craven image."  

In The Origin of Consciousness in The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,  Julian Jaynes who was listed with an English degree when I first read the book twenty years ago, a degree which influenced his theory since he noted the story telling style vastly differed between the Iliad, more dreamy with the gods and goddesses everywhere, and the Odyssey, with Ulysses always the logical man fighting the influence of gods and men influenced by them,  but is now listed as a psychologist, wrote a book on the following premise:

At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but is a learned process brought into being out of an earlier hallucinatory mentality by cataclysm and catastrophe only 3000 years ago and still developing. The implications of this new scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion - and indeed, our future. In the words of one reviewer, it is "a humbling text, the kind that reminds most of us who make our livings through thinking, how much thinking there is left to do."

*    *    *

Presents a theory of the bicameral mind which holds that ancient peoples could not "think" as we do today and were therefore "unconscious," a result of the domination of the right hemisphere; only catastrophe forced mankind to "learn" consciousness, a product of human history and culture and one that issues from the brain's left hemisphere. Three forms of human awareness, the bicameral or god-run man; the modern or problem-solving man; and contemporary forms of throwbacks to bicamerality (e.g., religious frenzy, hypnotism, and schizophrenia) are examined in terms of the physiology of the brain and how it applies to human psychology, culture, and history.

*    *    *

— excerpt from the Introduction to The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Jaynes notes a marked change in literature, in the recorded human view of gods,  once actively talking to humanity, they suddenly vanish into humanized forms that never seem to ha ve  uch to do with humanity except by disasters and monsters created for the gods and goddesses to get their way.  .  They become a thing of the past, recalled vaguely.  Worshiped because of coincidence: someone prays to a specific god for something to happen.  It does and so the god has power for a time.  

For his disaster, Jaynes even suggested an Atlantis scenario for Crete nd nearby civilizations due to the Thera explosion:

The Minoan eruption of Thera, also referred to as the Thera eruption or Santorini eruption, was a major catastrophic volcaniceruption with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6 or 7 and a dense-rock equivalent (DRE) of 60 km³ (14 cu mi),^[1][2] Dated to the mid-second millennium BCE,^[3] the eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on Earth in recorded history.^[4][5][6] It devastated the island of Thera (now called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri and communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with a related earthquake or tsunami.

There are no clear ancient records of the eruption, which may have inspired certain Greek myths,^[7] caused turmoil in Egypt^[8][9] and be alluded to in a Chinese chronicle.

Or, if you're of a mind may have resulted in a monumental localized flooding.  But about jaynes theory:

Myth: The Thera explosion and resulting tsunamis around 1600 B.C. could not have caused the mass migrations and social disruption in the Mediterranean Jaynes describes.

Fact: Recent investigations have revealed that the Thera explosion and resulting tsunamis had a much more devastating impact on the Mediterranean than was previously known, wiping out coastal communities and causing a period of widespread unrest. The Thera explosion is now believed to be ten times more powerful than the Krakatoa eruption in 1883, which killed 36,000 in Indonesia from the initial eruption and resulting tsunamis. "The destructive force was incomprehensible. ... A search turns up Theran ash 500 miles away in the Black Sea. ... We really are talking about the largest volcanic event in human history in Europe" ("Sinking Atlantis," PBS Home Video, 2008).

Sea floor deposits found inland and high above sea level along with building damage patterns suggest a massive tsunami triggered by the Thera explosion hit Crete and nearly wiped out the coastal Minoan civilization. The initial wave that hit Crete was at least thirty miles wide and followed by several other waves at intervals of 30–45 minutes. See "Sinking Atlantis" (Secrets of the Dead Series), PBS Home Video, 2008.

The series of tsunamis that hit Sumatra, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other countries in December 2004 provide a modern example of the devastating impact of large tsunamis. The tsunamis, triggered by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake in the Indian Ocean, killed more than 225,000 people in 11 countries. Coastal communities were hit with waves up to 100 feet high. It is believed the tsunami following the Thera explosion was of a similar magnitude.

A related misconception is that Jaynes argues the Thera explosion somehow "caused" the emergence of consciousness. Jaynes argues the shift to consciousness was the result of a number of factors including complex metaphorical language and writing. The mass migrations and social disruption following the Thera explosion may have contributed to the process in the Mediterranean. Different cultures developed consciousness at different times in other parts of the world.

Having read the book, I can say Jaynes heavily emphasizes the explosion as the point of emergence.  But the point he makes is based on the change in language, suggesting language change alters  consciousness whereas consciousness supposedly alters  language in current reasoning.

All if this seems so much gibberish until we deduce what Jaynes actually may have detected was proof of Babel.  We;ve seen major traumas throughout history and certainly ones effected mankind BEFORE Thera.  But if God blew up Thera to destroy the Tower and the nearby civilizations even as He changed language,  then there would be a positive association between the two events and an unsaved mind would logically deduce the one event caused the other, Eruption=language change, whereas they were merely both events that occurred at the same time related by God's wrath.  Jaynes may well have found the only kind of evidence of the change that can be found and, since 1976 and the publication of the book, that evidence has laid open to the public wrapped in misinterpretation.   

At the least, it attests to a much later change in character of language than was and has been noted as fact.

From here, we go to a summation, then the post-law phase of our Fallen Flesh.

(Note:  since an earlier blog, I have changed my idea concerning the origin of the nephilim  and am going back to edit that posting.  Then I am working on getting my blog Your True Life Now translated into several other languages after I reedit.  I will restart this blog in four weeks,  Thnaks for reading and hope you return,  W)