![]() equivalent) of the Akkadian word “Shumer,” which historians today call “Sumer.” Furthermore, as is common in many Hebrew texts, Moses is going back in history to explain how the many different languages originated. In his discussions, Doug noted that the word “Shinar” is the Hebrew cognate (i.e. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (Gen 10:32-11:2) These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. ![]() He finishes this Table of Nations by explaining that: At the end of each son’s lineage, Moses says the different peoples were divided into languages, clans, and nations. After the Flood, Genesis 10 describes the dispersion of different people groups throughout the world as they descended from Noah’s three sons. It’s worth reviewing the context of the Genesis 11 account. As a teacher of ancient languages, however, Doug observes that the Hebrew text of Genesis 11:1-2 does not specifically state the entire population of the earth moved to a single site, just that the entire world spoke the same language. It is believed that all the people in the world were living at Babel before their dispersion. This is an interesting divergence from the view held by many creationists. Doug also pointed out that there were many other sites where communities and villages had been established, often before Eridu was settled. Interestingly, Eridu is universally recognized as the world’s first city. One of those conclusions was that, prior to this dispersion, people moved toward urban living in only one place: southern Sumer. In this extremely interesting way, he reverse engineered the account recorded in Genesis 11 to arrive at his conclusions. He assumed this massive dispersion would be easier to identify archaeologically than a half-finished tower. He therefore worked his way back to the source of the dispersion, then looked for evidence of a large, unfinished building. Instead, he points out Genesis 11 describes a technologically-advanced people who suddenly dispersed throughout the ancient Near East, in distinct and new patterns that could easily be explained by their having been divided into linguistic groups according to their ethnicities. ![]() Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Doug’s approach is that, due to his training as an archaeologist, he does not start with the location of the actual building. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to produce our series Beyond Is Genesis History? We felt we needed to make sure people could hear the entire story of why these scientists thought the way they did. Unfortunately, we had to edit out quite a bit of his arguments. There was an enormous amount of evidence he had amassed for his arguments, much of it never before having been discovered or put together by anyone. ![]() Douglas Petrovich.* When we filmed him at the Oriental Institute of Chicago, he carefully explained how he had surveyed all the relevant archeological data in order to come to the specific conclusion that Eridu was the site of the original Babel. We especially felt that way with archaeologist Dr. It was always a painful process, primarily because we left so much incredible material out of the film. One of the recurring challenges we faced when editing Is Genesis History?was cutting down multi-hour interviews to fit 10 minute segments. ![]()
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