Talk:Confusion of tongues
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The article mentioned that there was a contradiction between the Babel story and Genesis 10:5. There is no contradiction there, and I will tell you why. Genesis 10, or the "Table of Nations" lists the descendants of each son of Noah, but the basis of the alleged contradiction is that the text verbatim is written in chronological order, or so it seems.
- That is not true. First of all, the text does not say that Javan's son's lived before Babel. Second, if you look closely you can see that Javan, whose sons were cast asunder by the splitting of the tongues, is removed from his ancestor by the same number of generations that Nimrod, the commissioner of the Tower of Babel, is from his ancestor. I am not sure that Javan and Nimrod were alive at the same time, (For all I know they may have been), but it certainly was not before the confusion of the tongues.
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- the text said "apparent contradiction". I have no doubt that there is any number of ways to find ways around it (otherwise, there couldn't be any Biblical literalists, could there?). You seem to claim that Babel must have been before Noah's grandsons had children. That's interesting, all of Babel was one big family enterprise then :) But the point is that the discussion of the question of this apparent or alleged contradiction is notable, and has bugged theologians through the ages. Feel free to suggest a better way of phrasing it, preferably adding more detail. If you have some literalist explanation you can quote, by all means add it, the more the merrier. dab (ᛏ) 20:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
