For a time after the Flood, most of Noah’s descendants lived together in the Mesopotamian plain south of the mountains of Ararat, where the ark had landed. This settlement, in itself, was contrary to the will of God, who had commanded them to “Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth” (Gen. 9:1). He had also entrusted to men the responsibility of governing themselves, in stable social units, even with the prerogative of capital punishment if the crime should so warrant (Gen. 9:6).
However, rather than obeying God’s command to scatter and fill the earth, their rebellious leader Nimrod persuaded most of the people (no doubt Noah and Shem, who apparently were still living, did not participate in Nimrod’s scheme, and this may have been true of others, too) to remain in one place, at Babel, and there to build a great tower dedicated to the heavens, to pagan gods of the sky.
The events are described in Genesis 11:1–9, and the leadership of Nimrod in Genesis 10:8–12. It is probable that there were approximately 70 family clans at Babel, as indicated by the 70 original tribes listed in Genesis 10:1–32. These included Semites and Japhethites, as well as Hamites.
Rather than moving out to “fill the earth,” as God had commanded, they all prepared to unite together in the form of a great city, in which they could “make us a name” (Gen. 11:4). This decision involved a direct rebellion against God’s command, and thus indicated that at least their leaders, especially Nimrod, no longer feared God.
They seemingly had been convinced, perhaps by some form of occult communication with demonic spirits, that they could successfully follow Satan in his continuing rebellion and thus be free from God’s restraint. They built the first great temple “tower, whose top [was to be] unto heaven” (Gen. 11:4), as the central headquarters of this rebellion. They probably emblazoned the various astrological emblems in the shrine at the top, thus dedicating the tower “unto heaven” — that is, to the worship of the host of heaven. The stars were identified with the host of satanic angels. This primeval astrological system is the fountainhead of all occultism, polytheism, and false religion in general. Babylon was the “mother of harlots and abominations” (Rev. 17:5). That is, Babel was the primeval source of all spiritual adultery and idolatry in the world’s false religions.
In any case, it was from Babel that God forcibly dispersed the rebels, by a mighty miracle. “The Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 11:9).
The skeptic may question this record, but let him devise a better explanation for the origin of human languages! The languages of even the most “primitive” tribes are extremely complex and are removed by a great gulf from the chatterings of the most “advanced” apes, as well as other animals. There is neither any evidence nor any explanation for any assumed naturalistic evolution of human language.
The attribute of language — the ability to articulate and communicate even abstract concepts — is the most basic aspect of any human culture. Physiological distinctives such as skin color are of minor importance compared to language as the cause of divisions among the nations and tribes of mankind. When God decided to enforce a separation and scattering of the people, He did so by the most effective way possible, confusing their tongues. After they were separated into distinct tribal units, then it was possible for distinctive physiological characteristics, hitherto inhibited by the intermarrying at Babel, to become fixed genetically, by tribal inbreeding. Thus, the different physical characteristics of different national groups were indirectly the result of the confusion of tongues.
The 70 original nations, as listed in Genesis 10, have proliferated into more than 3,000 tribes and languages. Since this primeval dispersion there have been many attempts by strong leaders to unite all nations under their rule, as well as efforts by politicians to establish voluntary unions of all nations, but every one has failed. This is because “the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam” (Deut. 32:8). God has “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).
It is well to recognize that, while the Scriptures place high importance on the distinctiveness of nations and tribes as such, they never once mention the concept of race. Biblically there is only one race of men: the human race. There is only one kind of man: that is, mankind. “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”
The idea of race is strictly a category of evolutionary biology, not of Scripture at all. The threefold division of mankind into Japhethites, Semites, and Hamites is not a racial division, but, rather of three different streams of nations. The biological entity known as “race,” on the other hand, is supposed to be a sub-species in the process of evolving into a new species, with a long evolutionary history of its own. Modern racism has always found its strongest and most vicious expression among doctrinaire evolutionists, men such as Karl Marx, Adolph Hitler, and other such advocates of group struggle and survival of the fittest.
A real understanding of man in relation to his world will never be attained, nor solutions to his problems ever achieved, as long as our educational and political leaders persist in thinking of them in evolutionary categories. Man is not an evolved animal, and his cultures and institutions have not been developed from the herd-instincts of animals. Rather, he is a unique creation, made in the image of God, and his tribes and nations represent divisions established by God for man’s own good and for the ultimate accomplishment of His divine will on the earth, not through man’s own devices but by His power and grace.
Summary of the Biblical Model of Creation
In summary, the biblical model of earth history focuses on three great worldwide events: (1) a period of six days of special creation and formation of all things, the completion and permanence of which are now manifest in the law of conservation of energy; (2) the rebellion of man and the resultant curse of God on all man’s dominion, formalized now in the law of increasing entropy; and (3) the world-destroying flood in the days of Noah, leaving the new world largely under the domain of natural uniformity.
This framework does not, of course, preclude the occurrence of later events of worldwide implications, especially the confusion of tongues at Babel. The Flood itself occupied only a year, but the aftereffects were felt all over the world for many centuries.
The main key, however, to the true interpretation of the physical data relating to earth history, must lie in full recognition of the effects of creation, the curse, and the Flood. The evolutionary system, on the other hand, has tried to correlate all these data in a completely naturalistic framework that either rejects or ignores the significance of these events. It implicitly, if not explicitly, denies God as Creator, Redeemer and Judge.
Tragically, many Christians seek, by one means or another, to compromise Scripture with the assumed evolutionary history of the earth and man. These placating theories must be examined critically. As it is done, there is no intent to criticize or judge individual advocates of such theories. Good Christian men have at one time or another, no doubt with excellent motives, promoted these various ideas. It is not the proponents, but the theories, that will be criticized. The Word of God must take first priority, and secondly, the observed facts of science, rather than the reputations of men. Each of these various compromising theories will be shown in subsequent chapters as unacceptable on biblical, theological, and scientific grounds. The only truly satisfactory model is the simple, literal, historical view of Genesis and science that is supported in this book.
1 See Henry M. Morris’s commentary, The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1979), p. 105–132, for a more complete discussion of these topics.
Chapter 3