Genesis 11

This starts out with the a story of man spreading out, but having one language, which makes sense since they are all directly descended from 6 people! These industrious people decided to build a city.  Ok, that sounds good.

Then they decided to build a tower.  And not just ANY tower, but one that reaches to the heavens. Their reasoning was apparently to “make a name for themselves” and to all stay together.  God seems to think this a bad idea.  He doesn’t want them to actually accomplish what they plan.  So he says to someone else in heaven Gen 11:7 that they should make it impossible to achieve their goals.  He does this by making them all speak different languages and scattered them.

Now, we could assume that He did this by clan, since in Gen 10 it states that each clan had it’s own language. Gen 10:5, Gen 10:20, Gen 10:31.  It doesn’t say so, but it makes sense, despite the narrative being bass-ackward.

This just seems like a little ad-hocary to explain why people have so many different languages.  Not the first, and I doubt the last.

But, wait, there’s more: lineage! *cheering!*

Really, more lineage.  The only significant difference is the mention of both sons AND daughters.  You’ve come a long way, baby!

Shem has Arphaxad who has *snore….

8 generation later we get a little story about Terah.  One of his 3 sons dies, Haran, but had a son.  He takes that grandson, one of his boys, Abram, and Abram’s barren wife to Canaan, but never get there.  Instead they just stopped in Harran and plopped down there.

Oh, and these people are still living hundreds of years.

Note: These people apparently ran out of names for things a lot, because they are naming cites and kids after each other with alarming regularity.  It gets confusing.