THE FLOOD, BABEL &

THE SPREAD OF NATIONS

Readings for Session 5, From Creation to Captivity

After reading this material, you should be able to:

• Cite several developments in the arts, sciences, and law before Noah’s
Flood
• Describe the reasons for the decline of the world’s major civilizations
• State key differences between the ante-deluvian world and ours today
• Defend your theory of the “sons of God and daughters of men”
• Defend a worldwide flood
• List the elements of the Noahic covenant
• Demonstrate on a world map the migration of the descendants of Noah

Read the material below and the handout that we will review in class.
Memorise Genesis 9:6

BEFORE RECORDED HISTORY

In this session, we’ll cover more time than any other session – Genesis 5-11
covers more than 1,800 years (from +5,000 BC to 3,200 BC). These were
the years of the ancient “antedeluvian” world (ante means before; deluvian
means the deluge or flood).

Archaeological research and excavation did not begin in earnest in the

Middle East until the 1870s. Before then, Bible cultures and characters
were mysterious and detached – now we have a lot of information to fill in
details of the world in which they lived. Archaeologists divide Old
Testament history into five basic ages: 1) Prehistoric (+3000 B.C.), 2) Early
Bronze Age (3000-2200 B.C.), 3) Middle Bronze Age (2200-1550 B.C.), 4)
Late Bronze (1550-1200 B.C.), and the 5) Iron Age (1200-900 B.C.).
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 2

LIFE BEFORE THE FLOOD – GENESIS 4-6

The Two Clans: Genesis 4:16-24 tells us about the descendants of Cain,
and Genesis 4:25-5:32 tells us a little about the descendants of Seth, who
was born after Abel had been murdered. Cain began an ungodly line; Seth
began the godly line (not that everyone in one clan was good, nor everyone
in the other bad).

CAIN
THE UNGODLY LINE
Location Nod (meaning “wandering”) in what is
now the mountainous area of Iran and
down to the Persian Gulf (Genesis 4:16)
Notables Lamech – first recorded polygamist;
murdered someone who injured him
SETH
THE GODLY LINE
Mesopotamia - civilizations of Seth were
located between the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers – likely why Noah and family returned
there after the Flood
Enosh - Men “began to call on the name of the
Lord” (Genesis 4:26)

Tubal-Cain – bronze and iron forging
Jubal – string and woodwind
instruments
Enoch (Genesis 5:22-24) “walked with God”
and then was “translated” - caught up to
heaven without dying (see Hebrews 11:5). He
prophesied that God would one day come to
judge the earth with many thousands of His
saints (Jude 14).

The Problem Of Nailing Down Dates: It is difficult to be certain of a

biblical timeline since God was more interested in teaching us lessons from
the ancient historical happenings than in giving us a linear history. Many
good, conservative scholars say that the genealogies in Genesis 5, and and
particularly those in Genesis 11, are “representative” and not
comprehensive – they are missing a lot of generations. The problem with
this view is that, in each genealogy, the author gives the age of the fathers
when each firstborn son is born – it’s a very tidy package.

According to the Genesis 5 genealogies, the flood took place just after/as
Methuselah and Lamech died, which would be about 1,655 years after Adam
was created (if you add up the age of each father and how old they were
when their first son was born – see the chart below). Based on a creation
date of around 5,000 BC, the Flood would have taken place about 3,350 BC.

Ancient writings from Egypt, Akkadia, and India begin around 3,000 BC
according to scientific “carbon dating,” which is somewhat inaccurate going
back that far. It is possible that these civilizations began before the Flood –
archaeologists say that the damage to the Sphinx was caused by water, and
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 3

there is salt crusted on the inside walls of the Pyramids at Giza – evidence
that all of these were submerged under a sea at some point. Ryrie places
Egypt’s beginnings at 3100 BC, Babel at 4800 BC, the Flood at 5,000 BC,
and Creation at 6500 BC. So we can’t be sure of early dates between
Creation and the Flood. Almost all Bible scholars place Abraham’s birth at
about 2165 BC, so don’t be dogmatic about any dates before Abraham.

The Sons Of God And The Daughters Of Men: One

of the most amazing facts revealed by paleontology (the
study of fossilized remains of creatures that inhabited
the earth in a former age) is that nearly all modern
animals were once represented by larger ancestors.
Mammoths, cave bears, giant cockroaches and
dragonflies, and huge reptiles like the dinosaurs. Along
with them are occasionally found giant human footprints Something wild in the
DNA? Ancient gods
suggesting that giants once walked the earth. It is also are often depicted as
true that ancient writings note the existence of giants humans with snakes
and angel’s wings.
and god-men, such as you find in Greek mythology.

With this in mind, Genesis 6:1-4 is not so puzzling. There

are three views on the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:2 and
4 (in Hebrew - Ben Elohim):
1) They were fallen angels who inter-married with human girls who then
gave birth to giants (nephilim). The rabbis, early church fathers and many
theologians today prefer the first option citing:
• “Sons of God” refers to angels in Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7, Psalm 29:1,
89:6
• “Giants” is used for large people in Numbers 13:32-33; giants
would be an expected offspring of an angel and a human
• The Hebrew word nephilim comes from the word nephal meaning
“fallen”
• Jude 6-7 mentions fallen angels that did not stay in “their proper
domain” and engaged in gross immorality
• 1 Peter 3:19-20 mentions angels in prison who were disobedient in
Noah’s day
• 2 Peter 2:4 again mentions imprisoned angels in the context of
Noah
2) They were descendants of the godly line of Seth who married girls
from the ungodly line of Cain. At times, godly men are called “sons of God”
but the wording in the Hebrew is different than the wording in Genesis 6:2.
3) They were sons of kings who married commoners

The first view does the greatest justice to the passage and to other
Scripture texts, and gives a proper basis for God’s anger in Genesis 6:3.
Hence, it is the most popular view. One problem is that angels don’t marry
(Matt. 22:30), but that does not mean they cannot materialize fully in
human form (as they did with Abraham) or have sexual unions with humans;
remember, the Scripture says they left their proper domain, and they
always materialize as humans in male form. Peter tells us that it was Christ
who was preaching through Noah to the antediluvians by the Holy Spirit (1
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 4

Pet. 3:18–20; 2 Pet. 2:5). They rejected the message and are now
imprisoned.

The problem with views 2 and 3 is that they just don’t seem to lay a
sufficient basis for God’s wrath in wanting to totally destroy all human life
on earth, and start over with those floating in the ark of safety. God could
have “called out” the righteous as He did often, but no, in this case, He had
to wipe the slate clean.
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 5

The Progressive Fall Of Civilizations: We like to think the best of

people. We want to believe that down deep we are really good at heart.
The Bible and the eight major civilizations of human history paint show a
different picture and portray a similar pattern throughout human history.

1. Civilizations start with strong religion and a strict moral code Protect the Society
2. Religion becomes formal, detached and legalistic and eventually and
passé
3. Morality and ethics become relative in part as a response to 2
4. Authority becomes corrupt and justice perverted Protect the
Individual
5. Laws change to encourage immoral practices
6. Individualism leads to group rebellion and then anarchy
7. The civilization is vulnerable to conquest or collapses in
civil strife

Where do you think South Africa is in this process? How about Europe and America and the
cultural West? For more reading check out Arnold Toynbee or Samuel Huntington

God’s Patience Until Judgment: Often, people view “the God of the Old
Testament” as severe and much different from Jesus in the New Testament.
God could be severe with mankind at any and all times and be justified since
we have broken his perfect Law and are guilty of death. But God is
gracious, and at times he gives us undeserved blessings and allows us time
to seek him. We can read Genesis 4-6 in just a few minutes, and we
therefore think that not much time had rolled by … but from Adam to the
Flood was over 16 centuries of wickedness – the same as the time span
between now and the 4th century!

Our God has repeatedly shown incredible patience with civilizations, but if
they don’t turn to Him, judgment will fall because of the way they have
chosen. Sometimes God will use other nations to bring judgment; other
times he uses natural disasters. We don’t know what all the wickedness was
specifically, but what does Genesis 6 state about mankind just before the
flood?
“Every inclination of the thoughts of men’s hearts was only evil
continually . . . and the earth was corrupt before God and filled
with violence.” Genesis 6:5 & 11

God Was Sorry: English translations struggle to convey the meaning of the
Hebrew word in Genesis 6:6 as sorry, repentant, or grieved. The term is an
anthropomorphism – morphing God into human emotions and actions. God
is sovereignly working out His plan for the ages, and yet, as He beholds the
utter awfulness of sin, He is saddened and angered. Rather than destroy
mankind instantly, He started the judgment clock ticking – society had 120
more years to turn around the story. They didn’t.
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 6

THE FLOOD OF NOAH’S DAY – GENESIS 7-8

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah walked with God as did
his great grandfather, Enoch. When Noah was 500 years old (around the
time his three sons were born), God told him that He would send a flood.
Noah built an unheard-of barge on land and was a preacher of righteousness
for over 100 years (2 Peter 2:5), and in the
end had no followers except his family.
Faithfulness does not always produce
positive numeric results.

God said that he would destroy all flesh

under heaven in which was the breath of
life, i.e., all humans and animals worldwide
(6:17 and 7:21-23). This was a worldwide
flood.

Noah’s Ark: The specifications given by

God for the ark were to make a barge-type
craft 138 meters long, 23 meters wide, and
14 meters high. It was made of gopher
wood (like eucalyptus – disease, bug and rot
resistant) and covered inside and out with
pitch or tar. In the pictures at the right, you
get an idea of its size and structure. It did
not need a keel in the front – it was a
directionless vessel. The bottom photo
shows the size of the ark compared to
Ararat today.

Cargo experts say that the ark would carry

about 43,000 tons of cargo and be almost
impossible to capsize in a storm. It had one door, and one window (probably
the length of the ship – thank heavens! – to allow ventilation).

The ark had three decks with roughly 1,400,000 cubic feet of space; 11,000
square meters of deck space. This is equal to about 522 railroad boxcars
(two of every creature today would fit in 154 boxcars). Consulting
One boxcar can hold 240 sheep, so we’re talking about Archaeology
fitting 125,000 sheep on the ark. Some have estimated CUBITS? The
that the animal population would not have exceeded specifications given by
God for the ark were in
35,000 vertebrates with the average size of a sheep, cubits. How long is a
leaving another 2/3 of the ark for food, birds, etc. cubit?
Remember, they could take babies! The ancient royal or
sacred cubit = 20.5
Seven days before the flood, God told Noah to start inches. If they used the
sacred cubit, the ark was
boarding the animals (Genesis 7:1-10). Noah was then 512 feet long, 85 feet
600 years old (Genesis 7:6, 11). wide and 51 feet high.

(Preferred view) The

ancient common cubit =
18 inches. If they used
the common cubit, the
ark would be 450 feet
(140 meters) long, 75
feet (23 meters) wide,
and 45 feet (14 meters)
high. In either case, it
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 7

The contents of the ark when the flood waters came was:
• Noah and his sons and their wives (8 people - 1 Peter 3:20);
• Two of every unclean animal;
• Seven of every clean (sacrificial) animal and birds;
• Food enough for the family and the animals.

The Rains Came Down, And The Floods Came Up: The global flood
came from above and beneath; the “fountains of the great deep were
broken up” and the “windows of heaven were opened.” This has led
scientists/theologians, such as those at the Institute For Creation Research
(www.icr.org), to believe that the firmament of Genesis 1 was a 3,000 meter
thick vapor blanket which enveloped the earth keeping out ultraviolet rays
so man could live longer, and creating a tropical paradise in which the
dinosaurs lived. The “heavens opening” for 40 days was the condensation
of this vapor blanket so that the sun could be seen directly (and the rainbow
afterward).

What caused this? Anything outside the words of Scripture is speculative,

but an asteroid impacting planet earth could make this happen. A large
asteroid hit Texas at one time with an atomic force that could have caused
such a shock to the earth’s atmosphere and brought on the ice age. In
God’s final judgment, asteroids play a part (see Revelation 6:12-14, and 8:7-
11).

Due to recent warming in northern Russia, thousands

of mammoths are now being found and thawed –
these big guys were frozen in a matter of minutes and
still have fresh vegetation in their mouths! Though
their DNA has broken down, the beasts are still intact.
After the flood, most dinosaurs died out, due to
inclement conditions or being hunted into extinction,
and man’s life became dramatically shorter.

The Possibility Of Pangaea: Even brief geologic

study seems to indicate that the continents could and
did fit together at one time forming the mega-
continent known as Pangaea. The continents seem to
fit together along the Atlantic ridge. Artifacts found in
western Africa are identical to those found in eastern
Brazil. There are ancient maps showing an inhabited
Antarctica. The vegetation of Scandinavia and
eastern Canada are the same.

The “fountains of the deep” breaking up has led many

creation scientists to wonder if the mega-continent
was broken apart at this time. The “high mountains”
before the flood may have been only a thousand
meters tall. The water rose for 150 days (7:24, 8:3), and when it receded,
today’s high mountains were likely growing up underneath them. There are
marine fossils at 4-5,000 meters up in the American Rockies. The
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 8

Drakensberg’s famous Amphitheatre was formed under water. The likely

landing point of the ark on the mountains of Ararat in eastern Turkey is
about 4,000 meters up.

And the continents are still moving. The Indian sub-continent, once
attached to southern Africa and Antarctica, traveled the farthest and fastest,
and on colliding with Asia, caused the world’s highest mountains. India is
still moving northward at 20-30 centimeters per year! The Americas swung
to the west piling up the Cascade, Sierra Nevada and Rocky and Andes
mountain ranges near the west coast.

Was This A Local Flood? Several years ago, secular scientists said they
had determined where Noah’s flood had taken place – in the basin of what is
now the Black Sea. Nice try. Despite the discomfort many people have with
a worldwide flood, several things should be noted:
1. Read Genesis 6:17, 7:4, 19-23. Does this sound like a local flood?
2. Read 2 Peter 3:3-7. Will the final judgment be a local fire?
3. Why build an ark? Why not migrate?
4. People were spread over the whole earth – all had to die
5. Every ancient civilization has a universal flood tradition
6. Marine fossils are found on high mountains
7. Worldwide animal fossil graveyards – destruction came in an instant
8. There is geological sedimentary evidence of a drastic rise in sea level
9. For the ark to settle on Ararat at 4,000 meters, the water would cover
earth.

More Than a Year On The Ark: We often think that after 40 days it was
all over and they got out of the ark. Not! At five months, the ark rested on
Ararat; at eight months other mountains could be seen; at eleven months,
the ground seemed dry, and at 371 days, they got out of the ark! Talk
about cabin fever!

Finding Noah’s Ark: People have

supposedly seen the ark on land and from
airplanes over the past 100 years, but no
scientifically documented trips have located
it. Turkey is not thrilled to let creationists
in, and if they do, you must have an
unusually warm summer for the snow and
ice to melt sufficiently. One shepherd said
that on a warm year, he was chasing strays
and saw the end of a building protruding
from the ice and snow. Part of the wall was broken open; he went into it
and found stalls like a massive barn.

Symbolism Of The Ark: The ark is a picture of the mercy of God sparing
the righteous from judgment. Just as Christ is the only way (John 14:6),
there was only one door into the ark. As God shut the door (Gen. 7:16), so
will come the day when God will remove the righteous, take away the
chance for repentance and judge the world for its wickedness.
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 9

THE SPREAD OF NATIONS – GENESIS 9-10

God’s Covenant with Noah:

1. Bow in the Heavens: Noah built an altar, and God promised in 8:21-
22 and 9:11-17 that He would never again destroy the earth by flood, and
as a sign of His covenant, He placed His rainbow in the clouds.
2. Man Is An Omnivore: Up to this point, man had been a vegetarian.
In His covenant, God stated that every animal was given to mankind for
food, but not if the meat contained blood, and that the fear of man would be
put into the hearts of animals (Genesis 9:2-4).
3. Capital Punishment: Although this is the first clear mention of the
death penalty, we know that Cain already sensed that the punishment for
murder was death (Genesis 4:14). In Genesis 9:6, God says that because
each person bears the distinct image of God, any person or animal that
takes a person’s life with malice must be put to death. The wickedness of
the antediluvian earth was caused in part by a lack of the death penalty.
(OK, that last sentence may sound strange, but the lack of a death penalty
is the devaluing of life and the excusing of sin).

Failing to finish Well: The first mention of alcohol in the Bible is a sad
story. Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard. One day he got
drunk and passed out naked in his tent. (It may be grapes didn’t ferment
before the flood). His son, Ham “saw” the nakedness of his father, but
Shem and Japheth went in backward and covered their father. Noah’s curse
of Ham’s son, Canaan, indicates that what Ham did was very bad; some
theologians suggest it was a homosexual act – but we don’t really know.
Canaan obviously was the progenitor of the ungodly nomadic Canaanite
people whom Israel was to wipe out in judgment in another 1,000 years.
Ham was not cursed; there is no racial implication of Noah’s curse on
Canaan.

Both Shem and Japheth were blessed, but not Ham. In the blessing upon
Shem, Noah blessed “the Lord, the God of Shem.” The Semitics would
always be a religious people. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity – the three
monotheistic religions – are of Semitic origin.

The blessing upon Japheth was that “God shall enlarge Japheth.” Since the
year 536 BC, when Cyrus the Persian (from Japheth) defeated Belshazzar
(from Shem) of Babylon, no Semitic or Hamitic group or nation has ever
succeeded in breaking the world supremacy of the Japhethitic people. The
phrase, “and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem” gives us the great
prophecy that the Gentiles would one day be made part of the Jewish faith
in the Messiah (Romans 11:13-25).

Who Were Their Descendants?

Noah’ Sons Grandkids Ethnic Groups Distinctives

Shem Elam The Semitic peoples settled in Notes: Semitics are passionate people
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 10

Gen. 10:21-32 Asshur Babylonia and then expanded who lived off the land and started the
Middle-eastern Arphaxad westward into Palestine and monotheistic religions of the Jordan.
Lud southward to Arabia.
Aram
Japheth Gomer The Japhethitic peoples settled in Notes: The fair-skinned descendants of
Gen. 10:1-5 Magog Turkey and the Greek islands Meshech crossed the Caucasus
Indo-Europeans Madai first, then went north into Europe Mountains northward into modern
Javan and east into India. This is the Russia. Even today, whites are referred
Tubal Indo-European ethnic group. to as “Caucasian.” These ethnic groups
Meshech were known for philosophy and theory,
Tiras and gaining wealth from underground.
Ham Cush The Hamitic peoples settled in Notes: These dark and yellow-skinned
Gen. 10:6-20 Mizraim Africa and in Asia. Cush is peoples spread the farthest and
Africans & Phut Ethiopia, Mizraim is Egypt, Phut contributed most basic inventions of
Asians Canaan is Libya, and Canaan went to civilization – paper, copper, explosives,
Palestine. electricity, etc.

Noah had three sons who began three basic lines of ethnic descent.
According to creationist Henry Morris, the descendants of Ham were marked
especially for secular service to mankind. All of the earth's 'coloured' races,
- yellow, red, brown, and black – essentially the Afro-Asian group of peoples,
including the American Indians – are Hamitic in origin, as well as the
Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, and Phoenicians of antiquity.

The Hamites have been the great 'servants' of mankind in the following
ways, among many others: (1) they were the original explorers and settlers
of practically all parts of the world, following the dispersion at Babel; (2)
they were the first cultivators of most of the basic food staples of the world,
such as potatoes, corn, beans, cereals, and others, as well as the first ones
to domesticate most animals; (3) they developed most of the basic types of
structural forms and building tools and materials; (4) they were the first to
develop fabrics for clothing and various sewing and weaving devices; (5)
they were the discoverers and inventors of an amazingly wide variety of
medicines, surgical practices and instruments; (6) most of the concepts of
basic mathematics, including algebra, geometry, and trigonometry were
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 11

developed by Hamites; (7) the machinery of commerce and trade – money,

banks, postal systems, etc. – were invented by them; (8) they developed
paper, ink, block printing, movable type, and other accoutrements of writing
and communication. It seems that almost no matter what the particular
device or principle or system may be, if one traces back far enough, he will
find that it originated with the Sumerians or Egyptians or early Chinese or
some other Hamitic people. Truly they have been the greatest helpers of
mankind in a most amazing way.

Yet the prophecy has its downside. Somehow they have only gone so far
and no farther. The Japhethites (European-Indian group) and Semites
(Jewish-Arab group), sooner or later took over their territories and their
inventions, and then developed them and utilized them for their own
enlargement. Often the Hamites, especially the Africans, became actual
personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic
character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they were eventually
displaced during the era of European colonialism by the intellectual and
philosophical intelligence of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the
Semites. Only in the last 50 years have Africans and Asians begun to take
back their lands from colonial powers, reversing a trend of 2,500 years.

It is fascinating to study history from this vantage point:

• Colonialism is almost exclusively a product of the descendants of
Japheth imposing their presence and culture on the sons of Shem and
Ham (except Britain taking India in which case both were from
Japheth)
• Indians are from Japheth; American “Indians” (Eskimos, Apaches,
Mayas, Aztecs, Cherokee, etc.) are from Ham (Hamitic people often
have little or no chest hair or arm hair and have more almond-shaped
eyes)
• Latin Americans are a mix of descendants of Japheth and Ham
• In the last 25 years, the gospel has been poured out on the sons of
Ham in Asia. Since the years following the flood, Asians never had the God’s
Truth … until recently when the Church in China and other Asians countries
has been growing by 10,000-15,000 people per week!

Similarities between Adam and Noah:

• Both were progenitors of the human race
• Both received God’s commands to multiply and rule the earth
• Both had a garden to enjoy as a blessing from God
• Both sinned in connection with the fruit
• Both were naked without shame
• The wrongdoing of both affected generations to follow

Last of The Long Lives: There is nothing anywhere in ancient writings like
the genealogies of Genesis 10 and 11. Noah was the last of the very old
men of pre-historic times. He was 950 when he died (Genesis 9:28-29). But
after Noah, the lives of people got shorter, due perhaps to the ultraviolet
radiation now impacting the human body since the upper firmament was
gone (from Genesis 11:10-26). Notice that the third descendant from Shem
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 12

was Eber, who lived a long life. Scholars believe that the term “Hebrew”
was actually a variation on “Eberew,” the descendants of Eber.

THE TOWER OF BABEL – GENESIS 11

Legendary Nimrod: Nimrod (Genesis 10:8) founded Babylon. He was the

son of Cush, the son of Shem; he was born perhaps 50 years after the flood.
So, the tower of Babel could have been erected 100-200 years after the
Flood, thus, around 3,200 B.C. Again, scholars are fairly certain that
Abraham was born around 2,166 B.C.

Noah’s descendants rediscovered the Euphrates River Valley (Shinar, which

later became known as Babylonia and even later as Chaldea) and settled
there instead of spreading out over the earth as God had commanded.
Nimrod began to be a mighty warrior on the earth, and was a mighty
hunter. In ancient days, kings were hunters and protectors of the people.
The Jewish Talmud (commentary) gives a different spin and says that
Nimrod was a hunter of people – he tried to keep people together, and made
war to combine clans. He was the founder of the biggest of the ancient
cities – Babel and Akkad in the south, and Nineveh in the north.

The Tower: Archaeological digs in Iraq have

revealed that the Sumerian people of this era
built terraced pyramids known as ziggurats
out of brick for their temples some as high as
200 meters. A capstone for one of these
ancient temples contains the twelve signs of
the zodiac and is two meters across. Hence,
Nimrod & Company were not stupidly trying
to build something that would reach the sky,
but whose top “was heaven” – a worship of the heavens, i.e., a combination
of astronomy and astrology.

It seems that the Lord saw the same mentality developing which brought on
His judgment in the Flood (an immoral, self-centered, idolatrous city), so He
“confused” them with different languages - hence, the name “Babel.”
Frustrated, the different language groups left the city and moved away.
Wherever the descendants of Ham went (Egypt, China, South America), they
replicated pyramid structure oriented to the heavens.

Cult of the Mother And Child: Remember Genesis 3:15? The destroyer
of the evil tempter would be the offspring of a woman, but not a man – that
is, the child of a virgin. Even the first constellation in the ancient calendar
was Virgo – the mother and child. After the Flood, it didn’t take long before
leaders attempted to gain earthly honor by claiming to be gods or
spokesmen for the gods.
• Ancient Babylonian Religion - chief god Bel, had a human virgin wife
named Semiramis who gave birth to Nimrod – this is the earliest mention of
what is known as “the cult of mother and child”
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 13

• Ancient Egyptian Religion - the goddess Isis was a virgin who gave
birth to Horus
• Ancient Persian Mithraism – an unknown virgin goddess gave birth to
Mithra (sun god) on 25 December
• Ancient Greek Religion – an unknown virgin goddess gave birth to
Dionysus on 25 December
• Ancient Hindu Religion - the goddess Nari (or Devaki) was a virgin who
gave birth to Krishna
• Ancient Phrygian Religion - The virgin Nana gave birth to Attis on 25
December
• Canaanite Religion - had a “queen of heaven” that the Jews
worshipped (Jeremiah 44:15-25)

Those who study ancient religious history say that Christianity must have
borrowed its virgin-birth ideas from these ancient religions. Some of these
virgin-born men or gods, supposedly existing hundreds of years before
Jesus, were born in mangers on 25 December, attended by shepherds,
claimed to be saviors, had a band of disciples, claimed to be “the way, the
truth and the light,” were killed in March-April, allegedly rose again on the
third day, etc. It is amazing to see what Satan has done in counterfeiting.
The fables of these “god-men” are now championed by neo-pagans on the
internet who, with very little historical data, are trying to discredit
Christianity. Just dig a little to see that they haven’t done their homework.*

Christians see these ancient religions as attempts to counterfeit what God

said He would do in Genesis 3:15. If God’s Word had stopped at Genesis 3,
any one of those religions could be the right one, but God kept revealing the
plan for His great promise when He chose Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob
and so on.

Revelation 17-18 reveals that the great false religions of the earth, known
as “mystery Babylon,” will kill many followers of Jesus, but in the end be
destroyed.

*Ed’s note – In truth traditional mythology doesn’t have a lot of this, much
of it is “revisionist,” that is it has been created in the last decades with a
specifically anti-Christian purpose.

From Where Did All Our Languages Come? At Babel, God confused the
people by giving them different languages. We don’t know what language
people spoke prior to Babel, and we don’t know exactly what they spoke
after Babel, but it is safe to conclude that God gave the people of
Mesopotamia at least 4, and as many as 20 different languages. Linguists
(people who study languages) say that most of the ancient languages, and
their names, are gone, but due to word similarities, they are able to
construct about 20 languages families for the more than 6,000 different
languages in use today. Maps like the one below are normally posters!
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 14

The Ten Major Language Families: Here are the ten major language
families, and as the map above shows you, there are another 10 minor
families.
1. The Indo-European Family: The most widely studied family of
languages, containing 150 languages, and the family with the largest
number of speakers (3 billion). Languages include Hindi and Urdu (400
million), Bengali (200 million), Spanish (300 million), Portuguese (200
million), French (100 million), German (100 million), Russian (300 million),
and English (400 million) and the classical languages of Latin, Sanskrit, and
Persian. With English, one can reach about one billion people in the world.
2. The Uralic Family: A family found in Europe (Hungarian, Finnish) and
Siberia (Mordvin) with complex noun structures.
3. The Altaic Family: A family spread from Europe (Turkish) through
Central Asia (Uzbek), Mongolia (Mongolian), to the Far East (Korean,
Japanese). These languages have the interesting property of vowel
harmony.
4. The Sino-Tibetan Family: An important Asian family of languages
that includes the world's most spoken language, Mandarin. These languages
are monosyllabic and tonal.
5. The Malayo-Polynesian Family: A family consisting of over 1000
languages spread throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well South
East Asia. Languages include Malay, Indonesian, Maori and Hawaiian.
6. The Afro-Asiatic Family: This family contains languages of northern
Africa and the Middle East. The dominant languages are Arabic and Hebrew.
7. The Caucasian Family: A family based around the Caucasus
Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Georgian and
Chechen are the main languages. They are known for their large number of
consonants.
8. The Dravidian Family: The languages of southern India (in contrast
to the Indo-European languages of northern India). Tamil is the best known
of these languages.
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 15

9. Austro-Asiatic Family: This family is a scattered group of languages

in Asia. They are found from eastern India to Vietnam. Languages include
Vietnamese and Khmer.
10. Niger-Congo Family: This family features the many languages of
Africa south of the Sahara. The large number of languages includes Swahili,
Shona, Xhosa and Zulu.

How Languages Morph and Split: All languages change with time. A
comparison of Chaucer's English, Shakespeare's English, and Modern
English shows how a language can change over several hundred years.
Britain, North America, and Australia use different words and grammar,
though all speaking English.

If two groups of people

speaking the same
language are separated, in
time their languages will
change along different
paths. First they develop
different accents; next,
some of the vocabulary will
change (either due to
influences of other
languages or by natural
processes). When this
happens a different dialect
is created; the two groups can still understand each other. If the dialects
continue to diverge there will come a time when they are mutually
unintelligible. At this stage the people are speaking different languages.

There are several examples in Western history:

1. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire, which collapsed in 476
AD. All the Latin speakers in different parts of Europe (Italian Peninsula,
Gaul, Iberian Peninsula, Carpathia) became isolated from each other. Their
languages evolved along independent paths to give us the modern
languages of Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian.
2. The Sanskrit spoken in North India changed into the modern
languages of Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and others.
3. Ancient Persian has evolved into Farsi, Kurdish and Pashto.

In time, with enough migrations, a single language can evolve into an entire
family of languages. Each of the ten language families described below is a
group of related languages with a common ancestor. Languages in the same
branch are “sister languages” that diverged within the last 1000 to 2000
years (Latin, for example, gave rise to the Latin Branch languages in the
Indo-European Family).

Languages in different branches of the same family can be referred to as

“cousin languages.” Dutch and German would be considered cousins;
Afrikaans at one time was a dialect of Dutch, but is now considered a
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 16

different language, although maybe just a sister language. Languages in

the same family share many common grammatical features, and many of
the key words, especially older words, show their common origin. For
instance, check out the word for “month” in several Indo-European
languages:

English month Hindi mahina

Dutch maand Italian mese
German Monat Polish miesiac
Swedish månad Russian myesyat
s
Welsh mis Lithuania menuo
n
Gaelic mí Albanian muaj
French mois Greek minas
Spanish mes Farsi mâh
Portugues mês
e

These can be compared with the word for “month” in several languages
that belong to other (non Indo-European) language families.

Arabic (Afro-Asiatic Family) shahr Zulu (Niger-Congo Family) inyanga

Finnish (Uralic Family) kuukausi Mandarin (Sino-Tibetan Family) yue
Basque (Independent) hilabethe Kannada (Dravidian Family) timgalu
Turkish (Altaic Family) ay Vietnamese (Austro-Asiatic thang
Family)
Malay (Polynesian Family) bulan Cherokee (Iroquoian Family) iyanvda

Political “Differences” In Language Groupings: The difference between

a language and a dialect can be political rather than linguistic.
• For example, linguistically, Croatian and Serbian are closely related
dialects of the same language. However, they are written in different scripts
and are spoken by people of different religions living in Catholic Croatia and
Orthodox Serbia respectively. They are considered different languages for
political reasons.
• Macedonian is considered by Bulgarians as a dialect of their language
while Macedonians themselves consider it a separate language. Since
Bulgaria has long claimed Macedonia as part of its territory, the reasons for
each view are obvious!
• Low German (spoken in Northern Germany) and Dutch (Netherlands)
linguistically are dialects, but politically they are separate languages. Low
German and Swiss German are mutually unintelligible but are both
considered to be German. There are more differences between Italian
spoken in different cities in Italy than between Danish, Norwegian and
Swedish.
• The main language of Iraq (in the Middle East) and Morocco (in North
Africa) are both called Arabic, but they differ greatly.
• The Mandarin speaking government of China considers China's other
languages (like Cantonese and Wu) to be dialects whereas they are often
very different.
From Creation To Captivity, Session 5 – CMI Student Reading 17

The Japhethites who colonized South Africa spoke several Indo-European

languages – Dutch, English, German, and French. As they expanded inland,
they first met up with Hamites speaking the Koisan languages, and then
battled more with the Hamites speaking the Niger-Congo languages.

Today’s Languages: Estimates of the number of languages spoken in the

world today vary depending on where the dividing line between language
and dialect is drawn. For instance, linguists disagree over whether Chinese
should be considered a single language because of its speakers' shared
cultural and literary tradition, or whether it should be considered several
different languages because of the mutual unintelligibility of, for example,
the Mandarin spoken in Beijing and the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong.

If mutual intelligibility is the basic criterion, current estimates indicate that

there are about 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. However, many
languages with a smaller number of speakers are in danger of being
replaced by languages with large numbers of speakers. In fact, some
scholars believe that perhaps 90 percent of the languages spoken in the
1990s will be extinct or doomed to extinction by the end of the 21st century
(Afrikaans is one of them).

The 10 most widely spoken languages, with approximate numbers of native

speakers, are as follows: Chinese, 1.2 billion; Arabic, 422 million; Hindi, 366
million; English, 341 million; Spanish, 338 million; Bengali, 207 million;
Portuguese, 176 million; Russian, 167 million; Japanese, 125 million;
German, 100 million.