Tracing the nations back to Babel (Creation Magazine LIVE! 3-12)

How and when did different
nations and cultures arise? Today on Creation Magazine LIVE! Well
talk about the origin of the nations. Creation Ministries
International Creation
Magazine LIVE! Hi. My name is
Calvin Smith. And I am Richard
Fangrad.

Welcome to Creation
Magazine LIVE! This week were going to talk
about the origin of cultures and nations according
to biblical history. Now in one of the episodes in
Season 2 of Creation Magazine LIVE! We dealt with when
God created, right? And if you missed it you can watch it
at our website at creation.Com/cml2-04. So Creation Magazine LIVE!
Season 2, Episode 4. And in that episode we summarised key
evidences all supporting a recent creation.

God created about
6,000 years ago, etc. Right. Yep. Now for this weeks program we
move forward in biblical history to the event of the
world-destroying Flood.

And if we want to put
dates on these things  were going to talk about history
so thats a good thing to do  That was about 2350 BC,
somewhere right around there. Right. Now obviously all nations  if were
talking about the origin of nations here  the nations must have
started after that. You had 8 people at the time of the
Flood; who survived the Flood.

And then the nations
came from there. The question is  Are there secular records that
confirm that biblical timescale. Right. And the answer
is, yes, there are lots of
secular records.

Now a key event in all of
this was the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 10:25 we read
about the birth of Peleg. In his days the
earth was divided we read there in
Genesis 10:25. Now recently some
have suggested that this refers to the breakup
of the physical earth.

Right. But that would have
been so catastrophic it would essentially have
been another global flood. Or as destructive as a
global flood anyway. Yes, very destructive.

So the word earth   when were looking at Scripture we need
to be careful how were looking at this  The word earth (erets
in the original Hebrew) can have different
meanings, like most words, and just like the
English word earth. Now the traditional
interpretation  and of course this is
supported from other verses   were going to
look at those  is that this refers to the breakup
of the people of the earth, by language. And of course at the Tower of
Babel God confused the languages, people groups couldnt
speak to each other, and then separated out
all over the earth. Thats why God actually
confused the languages: because he told people to
spread out over the earth.

So lets look at some
of these verses. Genesis 11:1 Now the whole earth
had one language Well obviously were not
talking about the earth, were talking about the
world, the people on it. Genesis 11:9 Therefore its name
was called Babel, because there the LORD confused
the language of all the earth. So when we hear that the earth
of that day was broken up were not talking about
the actual dirt, were talking about the
peoples of the earth.

It refers to the breakup there in Pelegs
day as the Tower of Babel event. Right. Now according to biblical chronology
as deducted by Archbishop Ussher the Flood occurred
2349/2348 BC. Again, somewhere
in that timeframe.

Peleg was born, according to
Archbishop Ussher, in 2247 BC, about 100 years later. Is there any confirmation of these
dates from ancient writers? Absolutely! And well get to
that in 60 seconds. According to skeptics, one of the characteristics
of pseudoscientific theory is that it contradicts a
known scientific law. For instance in biology, we
have the Law of Biogenesis, which states that life
only comes from life.

Ironically though, many self-professed
skeptics ignore this scientific law when it comes to the
origin of life. According to
evolutionary theory all life on earth can be traced
back to a single-celled organism which itself arose from
non-living chemicals. But this is a clear contradiction
of the Law of Biogenesis. And not surprisingly, so far scientists
have been unable to validate this belief.

Even Francis Crick, who won the Nobel Prize
for co-discovering the structure of DNA. Admitted, An honest man, armed with
all the knowledge available to us now, could only state
that in some sense the origin of life appears at the
moment to be almost a miracle. Well, maybe it
was a miracle. To find out more from Creation
Ministries International, visit our website,
creation.Com.

If youve just tuned in were
talking about the origin of nations and the founding of those
nations; when they started. Obviously it started with
people after the breakup, the dispersion from Babel after
God confused the languages there. Now if we start with the
founding of Babylon Lets start there. The Tower of Babel was likely on the
outskirts of Babylon, that kind of thing.

In 331 BC. After Alexander the Great had
defeated Darius he went to Babylon. There he received 1,903 years of astronomical
observations from the Chaldeans, which they claimed dated back
to the founding of Babylon. Now if this was so, that would place
the founding of Babylon in 2234  2000  2234 BC.

Thats about 13 years
after the birth of Peleg. Great. And so that fits
well with that. That fits very well! And Porphire, an
ancient Greek, an anti-Christian
Greek philosopher  anti-Christian is
what were getting at  Greek philosopher  He also deduced
the same number He lived in the
third century.

Right. So heres great evidence that fits
perfectly with the biblical chronology. With extra-biblical
sources Thats right. Concerning the
founding of Egypt, the Byzantine historian
Manasses wrote that the Egyptian state
lasted 1663 years.

If correct, then counting backwards
from 526 BC when Egypt was conquered, it gives us the year of 2188
BC for the founding of Egypt, which is about 60 years
after the birth of Peleg. About this time, Mizraim, the son
of Ham, led his colony into Egypt, hence the Hebrew word
for Egypt is Mizraim. So here again, 60 years after Peleg,
this completely makes sense  They move outwards from the Tower of Babel
and they start establishing things and it fits in with the
chronology perfectly. And so the dates line up to
after the birth of Peleg.

Right  from these
extra-biblical sources. Yep. The dates are lining up. Theyre
supporting the biblical timeframe.

If we look at the founding of
Greece, another ancient nation, we have records about
the founding of Greece. According to the 4th century bishop
and historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the king of the Greek city
of Sicyon, west of Corinth, began his reign 1313 years
before the 1st Olympiad, which was in 776 BC. That would mean that that king
started to rule in 2089 BC. Correct.

And thats about 160 years
after the birth of Peleg. So again, its after the birth of
Peleg, the timescale is right  Yep. This is all confirming
the biblical record. All these dates go back to
just after the birth of Peleg.

From some of the
major civilizations. Yes, all those ancient
civilizations. It just confirms the
accuracy of the Bible. Right.

And of course
theres more. Note that Babylon, Egypt and Greece
each spoke a different language. Now these ancient
historians have really kind of unwittingly confirmed that the
Tower of Babel, which was the origin
of languages, must have occurred before the
founding of these kingdoms, right? We had to have different
languages at the Tower of Babel And so the different
kingdoms had them and they all take place
very shortly after Peleg. Well that means
Right? We had to get those
languages somewhere.

It all fits
beautifully. Yep. And so Babylon, being in
the same region as the Tower, would have been one of
the earliest kingdoms. And the dates
fit this.

And if you want more details on
what weve talked about so far you can just look up the article In the
days of Peleg at creation.Com/peleg Right. More confirmation that all the
nations began after Babel comes from a study of the
origin of languages. Secular linguists
are puzzled by the existence of about 20
or so language families in the world today. The languages
within each family and the people
who speak them are shown to be
genetically related.

But there are few links between
the language families. Right. And this also supports what
we see there in Babel. This is a problem for
secular linguists though.

Because if
speech evolved,  you know, you start with grunts,
and you go up the ladder and so on  If speech evolved from
a common language, then you would expect that
there would be links,  Genetically
genetically, links between all of
the languages today; that you could kind of
trace the root words back to some sort of primitive proto
language that all languages came from. Thats not
what we see. But if God supernaturally gave different
people groups different languages then of course within
that people group thats where youre going to see
that similarity, in genetics. Um.

Okay. You know this is really
remarkable when you think about it This is exactly what we would expect to find if
various languages were supernaturally given, right? The dates from
linguists we look at the establishment
of the different  um  you know cultures, kingdoms I
guess you could say from secular writings Were looking at the Bible and putting dates on those
events based on biblical chronology and so on. Then we look at ancient writers,
and they confirm those dates. Thats right.

And we hear a lot, from people
trying to criticize the Bible. Sometimes, well you know
the Bible, its just it just, you know, it doesnt  its not
supported by anything outside of the Bible. And of course we want
to start with the Bible and its got the
ultimate authority. Theres no book on the planet that
has more authority than the Bible in your eyes, or
CMIs eyes, etc.

But this claim that the Bible is
'just sitting on its own somewhere, its just out
in La-La Land doesnt connect to real history, archaeology,
science', all those types of things  it just doesnt hold. The Bibles got great support, not only
internally but externally as well. And the way you
said it was good. I mean we start with the Bible.
Its our authority.

Right. But we dont
end there. I mean its  What we believe is  We want to be sure that what were
believing isnt some fairy tale some cunningly-devised
fable as Peter says. Right.

But its supported
by other things. And thats what weve just done
here, in these first few minutes. Were looking at
ancient writings, and archaeology and so
on also confirms that, and it supports what
the Bible says. Our faith as Christians
is not a blind faith.

Yeah. Were not bubble people
sitting out there saying, you know  I mean theres a lot of
faith systems out there, e.G. You know if you wanted to say well
I believe in reincarnation, say. Okay, is there any evidence from
history, from archaeology, science  How would I test that? Yeah.

How would I test that I used
to be, you know, a woman  ah  1000 years ago in Greece or something.
You know what I mean? Its just how  What kind of
test could you put to that? What were showing is that, look you
can put the Scripture to the test and guess what  It fits perfectly with
the past, what we see. Well be back with
more in a second. Genesis Verse-by-Verse is a Bible study
tool available on CMIs website, designed to help pastors,
students and laymen alike, study the book of Genesis
like never before. And its
completely free.

Simply look up any
verse in Genesis 111 or just scroll
down the page. The centre column provides links to articles that
answer common questions pertaining to that verse and the topics that
naturally arise from them. Visit creation.Com
to use it today. Okay.

In this weeks episode were
talking about ancient history the founding of the
oldest nations and the historical data that
supports what the Bible says. Right. Secular history gives a lot
of evidence to show that the survivors
of Noahs Flood they were real
historic figures This isnt just names that somebody has scrolled
down in some kind of fairy tale somewhere. And actually these
historical figures, they were a big part
of the ancient world So if you have a Bible you
can open it to Genesis 10, chapter  what most people call
the Table of Nations, right? And most Bibles
also include a map.

It will kind of look
something like this. And, ah  the map shows the areas where most of the 16 grandsons
of Noah moved in the years following Babel. So several things
happened here, right? Yes. And we can look at some
things that happened there.

People in various areas called themselves by the
name of the man who was their common ancestor. We see that happening
over and over again. They called their land, and often their
major city, or major river, by his name. You can see that
happening as well.

Sometimes the various nations
fell off into ancestor worship and when that happened it was natural for them to name their
god after the man who was the ancestor of all of them or to claim that their long-living
ancestor is their god. Right. So we see those kinds
of things there. And  What all of that
means is that the evidence has been preserved in
a way that can never be erased.

Its recorded
in history. Right. Ancient names of these different lands
and the cities and rivers and so on  we still have
those today, or derivations
of those today. Right.

So we can look at a
few examples here. Weve already mentioned
one, Mizraim. Yes. Its the Hebrew
word for Egypt.

Right? And the name Egypt appears hundreds
of times in the Old Testament and with one exception is always a
translation of the word Mizraim. Example: At the burial of Jacob, the Canaanites
observed the mourning of the Egyptians and so called the
place Abel Mizraim. And you can see that
in Genesis 50:11. And Canaan is also a
familiar name isnt it? Many of course if youre familiar with your
Bible you will recognise the name Canaan.

Its the Hebrew name for the region
later called by the Romans Palestine. Its modern day
Israel and Jordan. Now, from Canaan came Sidon, the founder of
that ancient city that still bears that name. Its an exact  its still the
name Sidon.

And, ah thats an example of where it bears exactly the
same name as one of the descendants of Noah. Now in other cases a nation or region will be a variation
on one of the names of Noah. For example Heth was one of the
sons of Canaan so a grandson of Noah and, ah  and was the patriarch
of the Hittite nation. So you have Heth
and the Hittites.

Certainly that can be
traced back to Heth. Right. Linguists can follow that back to
Noah ultimately. Meshech is the ancient
name for Moscow.

Yes. And to this day one section,
the Meshchera Lowlands, still carries the
name of Meshech virtually unchanged
since it originated. In other cases history
records the name changes or you know we get
translations into other languages but here in this case
its a perfect match. Yes.

And we can look at an
example of exactly that where a translation
has changed the name. One of Noahs great-grandsons
is Ashkenaz. Hes the son of Gomer which is a
grandson of Noah. Right.

And the translation of Askenash or
Ashkenaz into German is Germany. Right. So Ashkenaz translated
into German is Germany. So again, theres these names that have
been imprinted on the ancient world and just testify to
the extreme accuracy of the Table of Nations that you see
there in your Bibles in Genesis 10.

Right. And we have
that there. Its just wonderful to
have that confirmation from these  looking
at ancient nations the names of
things and so on and seeing that just line up beautifully
with what the Bible says in Genesis. You know we understand not everybody is going
to trust the Scripture like we do etc.

You know and then they need to spend some
time investigating things and stuff. But, you know, to be honest,
from some, you know, very, what I would consider low-level
critics of the Bible, atheists, etc. Sometimes you go on youtube
and you see these people  These are nice names right,
low-level critics?  Ranting and stuff. You just hear
ridiculous things like Oh, the Bibles just a fairytale, its
just a made up book and blah blah blah.

People dont even realise the amount
of history they would have to jettison Im talking real history
from historians. Even many Bible critics that
dont believe the Bible say look the Bible is one of the most accurate
and historical books that we have. Its a great
record of history and that we can trust it in
so many different areas. So, ah, really its just great support for Christians to know that
real history backs up the history in the Bible.

And outside of it as well,
that we can trust the Word. What is something that computers
and humans have in common, which constantly needs upgrading
in computers, but not in humans? The answer
is software. You may not have realised
you have software. But inside the nucleus of each of
your cells a program is written in the form of 3
billion DNA letters.

Intelligent programmers
write computer software but what about
living things? Evolutionists tell us that the information in
the first living cell just appeared by itself with no intelligent
input required. But is that possible? The answer is a
resounding No! Even one of Australias best known
scientists Paul Davies conceded that There is no known law of physics able
to create information from nothing. And perhaps thats why in a New
Scientist article he lamented: How did stupid atoms spontaneously
write their own software? Nobody knows. To find out more from Creation
Ministries International, visit our website,
creation.Com.

Welcome back. The
subject today is: How and when did the different
nations and cultures begin. Weve looked at a lot
of history there. Some people are
really into history and if youve enjoyed some of the things
weve been talking about, such as Noahs grandsons and where they
spread out and stuff like that Weve got a great article on the website,
The sixteen grandsons of Noah.

And you can check that out
at creation.Com/grandsons. Its a fascinating
look into that area. Well lets continue. You know if the Bible
is real history, if the Tower of Babel
is a real event, if people groups spread
out from one area, we should have evidence of
that, and actually we do.

It's interesting when you look at
some of the Chinese characters. Right, you know, ah, Obviously the written language
is comprised of symbols Each symbol means
certain things. And if you make combinations of certain
symbols to make larger symbols they often have  different words  Different words, and
different meanings, etc. And were going to show several modern,
ah, Chinese characters that show the ancient Chinese
actually knew the Gospel found in the
book of Genesis.

Its amazing. Yeah! Well, look in this
book Oracle Bones Speak you can see hundreds
of examples like this. The book, you can find it at the
creation.Com, at the resource area. But lets
look at this.

Okay, so were looking
at the word for, um,  Its boat.  Boat here. Okay? Now its made up of three
other separate graphics here. One is a vessel.

One is the number 8. And one is people. The question arises, Why would the word boat be composed
of those other smaller words? Of 8 people on a boat. Why is it, you know,
large boat.

And so we look in
Genesis 6 to 9. It says, you know, 8 people
survived the Flood on this boat. Yeah, why would
that be? That's pretty arbitrary
in a sense, right? Like the history of Genesis is
built in to the word large boat and thats referring to
more of a large boat. Why would the number
8 be there? Well thats Noah, his three
sons and their wives, right? Lets look at this word for
to covet or desire.

Well, here we have the
symbol for two trees plus a woman and that equals to
covet or desire. Again, youve got
to ask the question Why would two trees plus a woman
equal the word to covet? Right. Why isnt it two gold, two diamond
rings plus woman equals covet/desire? Or why isnt it something else?
Why is two trees? Alright? Well, Genesis 3:6 says So when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a
delight to the eyes well she coveted
it right? It was coveted. Yeah, like that.

Okay well lets look
at another one. How about the
word forbidden, to warn. Well here again we
have the two trees which is again See it would be enough of a
coincidence the first time But to have two trees again that
symbolises something in Genesis, and God thats the word for
forbidden or to warn. Well, Genesis
2:1617 says You may surely eat of
every tree of the garden but of the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat
of it you shall surely die.

Its forbidden. Its forbidden, and there
is a warning there. Again, why would two trees
have anything to do with that? Ah, fascinating
information. You can check out an article on our website
called Chinese characters and Genesis.

You can find that at
creation.Com/characters. Another thing we can think about
is Where are all the people? Thats a question
we can ask, Where are all
the people? The current growth rate of the world
population is about 1.1% Per year. In other words, for every
100,000,000 people 1.1 Million are
added every year. Right.

Basic math. So it takes less than 0.5% To get from
the Flood to 7,000,000,000 people. Right. And todays growth
rate is 1.1% We dont have to have
elevated growth rates in this supposedly shortened
timescale from the Flood to now.

Oh, how can we get
7 billion people?! We can get it
quite easily. All you need is half a percent, and
we have more than that right now. Exactly. And there's
more detail  go to creation.Com/people for more of
the math and the calculations on that.

Yep. Ah, Egyptian history? It
fits biblical history, but for years the popular media has
mocked the biblical accounts of Joseph and Moses, and the Passover,
and the Exodus and  you know, thats completely
incompatible with Egyptian chronology, but year after year weve been told these
events in the books of Genesis and Exodus well, theyre nice legends, but theyre devoid of
any historical or archaeological context, right? Of course thats
changing. Scholars of diverse backgrounds are calling for
a drastic reduction in the Egyptian chronology as there's substantial amounts of
evidence from modern scholars to show now that actually lines up
with what the Bible says. So there's great evidence
that you can trust the Bible.

And well be
back shortly. Creation Ministries International
edifies the body of Christ by providing more than 30 years of
Bible-supporting scientific research delivered through speaking engagements,
books, magazines and a variety of media, much of which is archived on
our website, creation.Com. Did you know that if you read three
articles on creation.Com each day, it would take over 7
years to read them all. Such a wealth of information
didnt arrive by chance, however.

We do this through the faithful
prayers and gifts of our supporters. Which also fund
ongoing research. Support the building
up of the church by partnering
with CMI. Donate today, at
creation.Com/donate.

Welcome back. Were going to look at some
feedback that we receive every now and then. And this is from
a Christian and um the article was called Handling
aggressive atheists. You can check that out for the
full blow-by-blow account.

But we just want to
go over this here. I think this is a great
topic to cover with people. Well a lot of Christians are having to
deal with aggressive atheists nowadays  Right!  And getting
beaten down. So heres some
encouragement for you.

Yeah. So he said as a Christian I find
sharing the Gospel very difficult, not in that I
dont know how but in how do you respond to atheists
who angrily attack Christianity. Im finding no-one can
have a normal discussion Maybe you can
touch on this or point to an article
that addresses this. Um.

I just want to make one
comment before we go here. I dont find in person I find a lot of
angry, you know, aggressive atheists. Yes. In person, youre looking at the
persons eyes.

Theyre looking at you. You can see the
body language Ive very rarely had someone
just go nuclear on me. Even if Im out presenting
or something like that, because you, you know. But I find its kind of
like being in your car.

Youre driving
down the 401. Somehow people think that because
theyre in their little bubble world, they can be rude and throw gestures
at you and all this kind of stuff. And then you both pull into the same
gas station and you both step out and all of a sudden
[scared face!] And I find the Internets
very much like that. The Internet seems to bring out
the worst in people doesnt it.

Yes. And people arent
seeing people face-to-face. Its dehumanising
in a sense. And so thats usually where you
find that some  Well anyway  Yeah.

So one of our new speakers,
Keaton Haley, responded to this. He gives, he lists
five points here. And we can just read these as he
wrote them. He did a good job.

#1 Consider yourself last and rejoice
that you are enduring hardship even if it is a minor hardship, as
being mocked for Christs sake. And if you want to look
at 1 Peter 4:1314 Your reward
is in heaven. In Matthew 5:1112 it talks about laying
up for yourselves treasures in heaven Right. And in that 1 Peter passage it says that
if youre attacked for sharing Christ you are storing up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, so rejoice.

So you might want to ask
them to do it some more. Yep. Ha ha. Maybe not.
No, maybe not.

Point #2: Dont respond in kind since we are
not to return evil for evil, 1 Peter 3:9, but to keep a clear
conscience, 1 Peter 3:16. We should not answer a foolish
person by adopting his bad behaviour or wrong way of thinking,
Proverbs 26:4. And see the article creation.Com/answering-folly.
Itll give you more information on that. Ah, sometimes you need directness,
you need strong words.

But remember that a soft answer
turns away wrath, Proverbs 15:1. That doesnt mean you dont stand up for
yourself, and dont take heat in a sense, but dont be mean and aggressive back.
Its not what were called to do. Know how to respond. And #3.

If you can tell that
youre wasting your breath on somebody whos only interested in mocking
rather than pursuing truth, move on. Yeah. And have a look at
Matthew 7:6 for that. You might explain to your critic that there
is no point in continuing the discussion unless hes willing to
dial back the emotions and really listen and that when its your turn to
speak, they really listen, etc.; That if youre linking to articles on creation.Com,
that you insist that they actually read them before coming back and
commenting again.

I just found it an
interesting phenomenon that therere some people out
there that seem to have a massive amount of free time to
just sit there and mock Christians. Do they have jobs
or anything? Be prepared to gently and respectfully
defend your Christian convictions Yeah. I mean you have to
know your Bible, right? Dont say the
wrong thing. Know the common objections,
things like that.

Yes. Basic advice. And #5: Remember that it isnt your
job to convert atheists. Thats Gods job.

Right. Come on back next week, same time, same
channel, for more of Creation Magazine LIVE! Creation
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