Genesis 11:9 - The Tower of Babel - Young Earth Interpretation Supports an Old Earth (Part 2)
As we discussed in Genesis 11:9 - The Tower of Babel - Young Earth Interpretation Supports an Old Earth (Part 1), Genesis 11:9 uses the word eretz two times. According to a Young Earth interpretation of the verse, the first usage of eretz is a reference to all of the people in the world, who were all in Shinar. The second usage refers to the world beyond Shinar.Â
 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
An Old Earther would agree that “whole world” refers to the people of Shinar, but does this usage really mean there are no other people on the earth? That might be a Young Earther’s answer. However, as we saw, the scope of “world” is defined by the word used for language in verse 1, which implies a region extending only to the edge of a given group. In this case, whether Egypt had people or not, or China, or India, the word eretz would not be referring to them in verse 1. The context is therefore the people of Shinar, and that context carries through to verse 9, where God “confused the language of the whole world”. Both Young Earther and Old should agree on this point. The difference is that a Young Earther would believe that this is the only population on Earth, and an Old Earther might believe that the “common language” was Sumerian. However, my hope is that this passage can reveal some common ground.
The second use of eretz in verse 9, (face of the “whole earth”) is a little easier. It is where God scattered the “whole world” (eretz) to, though Christians generally agree that that initial scattering was limited to the Middle East, and not yet over the entire planet. It would seem then that the meaning of eretz is context-specific, and could mean anything from a local region to a larger region, to the whole planet, and both Old and Young Earthers should agree. It makes one wonder how far we could take this before Old and Young Earther diverge. More specifically, how well can we map these verses to actual science and history before one Creationist view must yield to other?
The Old Earther believes that if the Tower of Babel occurred, then there is most likely some archaeological evidence to back it up; the Young Earther believes that, too. Let’s look at one Young Earther’s (Larry Pierce) historical perspective on the Tower of Babel…
After Alexander the Great had defeated Darius at Gaugmela near Arbela, he journeyed to Babylon. Here he received 1903 years of astronomical observations from the Chaldeans, which they claimed dated back to the founding of Babylon.
Pierce then goes on to demonstrate the founding of Babylon was followed by Egypt, then Greece, which is what you would expect if Babel was in Babylon and the ordering of this founding was a result of the scattering, and the logical order in which these lands would be settled.  As Pierce states…
Note that Babylon, Egypt, and Greece each spoke a different language. These ancient historians have unwittingly confirmed the extreme accuracy of the biblical genealogies as found in the Hebrew scriptures. The Tower of Babel would have had to have occurred before the founding of these other kingdoms. Babel (Babylon), being in the same region as the Tower, would have been one of the earliest kingdoms, of course.Â
This is a very reasonable hypothesis. There are some problems however. One is that the Chaldeans dating was less accurate in their earlier years of record keeping. Here is some information on Chaldean Astronomers from Wikipedia…
Neo-Babylonian astronomy refers to the astronomy developed by Chaldean astronomers during the Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian periods of Mesopotamian history. A significant increase in the quality and frequency of Babylonian observations appeared during the reign of Nabonassar (747–734 BC), who founded the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Â
It seems that they Chaldeans were keen to observe, but did not understand everything they were seeing, which effected the accuracy of what they recorded. This makes the sequence of their observations reasonable to accept, but the time frame (as applied by Pierce)Â would appear to be off.
When you consider that Babylon was founded by Akkadians, you see that their language overtook the dominant language that preceded it… Sumerian. This is certainly consistent with the founding of a city after the Tower of Babel. In fact, their language overtook the Sumerian language a few hundred years before Babylon was founded. The problem however is that Pierce places the founding of Babylon 13 years after the birth of Peleg, in whose days “the earth divided”. Given the apparent attempt at founding a kingdom with the Tower of Babel, this suggests that the conquering Akkadians are the ones who attempted to build it. It was then their ancestors who founded Egypt, and later Greece. The problem however is that historically, Akkadians did not initially replace Sumerian. Instead, their appearance led to widespread bilingualism, which is recorded in non-biblical myths as the result of their god confusing the people through language.
If you look a bit further back in history, what you actually see is a time when everyone in Shinar spoke Sumerian… bilingualism may have existed here and there, but it was not widespread. This occurred around 2500BC, about 300 years before Pierce concludes. This also seems to be when baked bricks, held together by bitumen (a kind of asphalt) started being used to build large structures. Perhaps Pierce would have seen this, had the Chaldeans kept better records, and those records had led Pierce to this time in history. On the other hand, the individual histories of Babylon and Egypt go back much further than the formal founding of them as named nations. It seems that this may be where Old and Young Earther diverge! As Pierce himself says…
Although secular historians ignore the events of Babel and the Flood, they assume civilization started in the Middle East, likely near Babylon, and spread out slowly from there. However, they use a time frame much earlier than the time deduced from the biblical chronologies.
The reason Pierce is so insistent is part due to the birth of Peleg. He places Peleg at around 2247 BC. However, this is in part because he uses Archbishop Ussher’s date for the flood of 2349 BC. However, Archbishop Ussher had no idea that there were myths in the world quite similar to the Bible’s historical records, and that they dated to an earlier time than he computed. Nor did he have access to scientific records of a meteor impact in 2807 BC that coincided with a scientifically verifiable eclipse, which are also recorded in these other myths. Otherwise, he might have caught his errors, or at least realized some of the re-editing of dates that the King’s Calendar strongly suggests took place in the Old Testament before Christ was born. After all, he acknowledges the extra years added by the Septuagint writers of before.
As it turns out if the Flood was in 2807 BC, then Peleg was born 199 years later, in 2608 BC. He then lived another 209 years. If King’s Calendar conversions are used, then the years are slightly earlier, but not much (born 183 years after the flood, and lived 192 years). This brings us comfortably close to the time frame of 2500 BC, when archaeology strongly suggests the Tower of Babel took place.
Pierce takes the lining up of history with scripture quite seriously. As do I. I respectfully suggest that he re-examine the evidence.