Smoky Mountain Bible Institute
Lesson #48
Break out your maps and histories as we travel in a time
machine of sorts to examine History & Geography through a biblical world
view. So let’s look at some of the
things that start to appear in the historical record of different civilizations
between 2343BC and 2000BC. We start to see some of the earliest archeological
and geopolitical evidence of literature, religion, arts, music, technology, and
family life of many world civilizations during these few centuries. Some are; Aramean,
Semitic and Canaanite tribes in Palestine, the Yao & Shun Dynasties in
China, Babylonian, as well as early Indian and Scandinavian cultures found in Neolithic
or primitive stages of development.
A special note on the Egyptian chronology: I will mention
the commonly held dates for the Egyptian chronology as we go through these ancient
events. However I would like to point out that there are some weaknesses in the
commonly held Egyptian chronology. The main weakness in the current system is
its heavy dependence on two faulty sources, Manetho's king list and Sothic
dating. The ancient kings list, written by Manetho an Egyptian priest around
300 BC, has some significant holes. Its greatest weakness though is that it
does not account for overlaps and co-regencies for which there is strong
evidence. By the mid-second millennium BC it is off by a couple of hundred
years. This will become important when we get to the Exodus. The Sothic cycle, which is a 1461 year cycle
associated with the Dog Star Sirius, is also an important bench mark to the
current chronology. The problem is where to drop the anchor. We can, with great accuracy, track the Dog
Star but where we plug it into the chronology when it is mentioned in ancient
Egyptian inscriptions is a whole different question. If this topic peeks your
interest I suggest you read three books; "Centuries of Darkness" by
Peter James, "A test of Time" by David Rohl, and "The Riddle of
the Exodus" by James D. Long (which also has a DVD). While these three resources do not answer all
of the questions in the mismatch between the biblical chronology and the
commonly held Egyptian chronology, they do clear up a lot of inconsistencies and
give one greater scholastic confidence in the divine record over and above its
conflicting counterparts.
Some of the other events occurring during this time
period: the first Egyptian libraries starting to collect the new technology of
writings on papyrus; potters wheels; maps; and the bow and arrow, are becoming
a part of the human story in many regions. There is even a carving on a rock in
Norway that depicts skiing.
Let’s look a little at Chapter 10 & 11 of Genesis. Most
of these two chapters are genealogy, commonly referred to as the ‘begats’ (so
and so begat so and so, and so on and so forth). What we get here are the
descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They all seem to have settled in the
Land of Shinar, that would be the plains south of the mountains of Arrant and
just north of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).
After God divides their languages, Ham’s descendants migrated to the
region southwest of the land of Shiner to the Sinai Peninsula and North Africa. Japheth's descendants went to the northwest, to
modern day Turkey, Greece and Europe. And Shem's descendants took the region
from modern day Israel and Palestine and all points east. Descendants of Shem
are called Semites. All Jewish and Arabic peoples are his descendants. We can
deduce a general time frame for the Tower of Babel event by looking at a few
key notes in the genealogy. If we look at 10:25 we find ...Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided.
His name means ‘divided’ because the earth was divided in his lifetime. This
could well be a reference to the Babel event. Peleg was probably born around
2247BC around 100 years after the flood giving 8 people ample time to heavily
populate the plain at Shinar. Because each or the three sons of Noah's
descendant list ends with the phrase "these are the sons of ---, by
their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations." it
is safe to assume that when God divided them by language He did so along family
lines. Peleg lived for 239 years but the Tower event probably happened in His
youth or even just before his birth since he was named ‘division’. Over the
next 100 years large tribes descending from Noah's three sons migrated to their
respective regions and over the next 80 years some of the descendants of Peleg
migrated to the land of Ur just northwest of modern day Kuwait on the Euphrates
River. One of those descendants was Abram born around 2166BC, and that will be
a good place for us to close this lesson. Enjoy the rest of your summer in
Christ Pastor Portier
