The Beginning of Time ~ Part 4

Readers, today’s article is the last article in this series. Beginning next month, I will be discussing Sumer and a little bit of archaeology. But today’s article is covering the blessings God gave to Noah after he and his family got of the ark, the Tower of Babel, and the dispersion of nations. In the last article, I discussed the worldwide Flood along with cultural accounts. In this article, I am continuing the historical account. God blessed Noah and his sons in particular areas:

• The end of verse 9 records God saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” This is just a command to populate the earth. In Genesis 11, we are told that God had commanded the human race to disperse and populate different areas of the earth. I will be discussing that in a later paragraph.
• God also appointed man as the head of all creation; the rest of creation would fear and respect man’s authority.
• God allowed the rest of the human race to eat meat and vegetation. Prior to this time, men were vegetarians.
• God established the first ordinance for humans: capital punishment. In verses 5 and 6, God states that “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” God not only gives the consequence for murder, but He also gives a reason. Every person was created in the image of God (possessing a mind, will, and intellect), and it is a grievous sin to murder one of His most special creations. In Genesis 1 and 2, it is mentioned that God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and Eve from Adam’s rib. This is different from any other of God’s creation which He spoke into existence. Although that is also amazing, God spent the time to form us out of the dust and give us different physical characteristics, talents, personalities, and goals. What a thoughtful Creator God is! This is why human life is so sacred.
• Another portion of the blessing included the rainbow. The rainbow (not the spectrum; I do believe those are very different things scientifically) is a sign of God’s promise to never flood the entire earth again. God will finally destroy the earth with fire at the end of history (At this point, I am randomly reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, “Fire and Ice”). It is a wonder of creation how rainbows appear. A rainbow is caused by the sun’s light streaming through raindrops. For this to be possible the sun must be opposite the rainstorm. The light’s reflection and refraction in the raindrop causes the rainbow to be formed. The reason that a rainbow is curved like an arch is because the raindrops are curved themselves. Rainbow are actually not just an arch; they are actually a full circle with part of the circle blocked by the horizon. So thus, finding the end of the rainbow would be extremely difficult. Spectrums are different and not curved because they are usually formed by the reflection and refraction of light through a mostly object (such as a window or prism). Moonbows also exist, but that would be getting way off topic.

The next chapter in Genesis is a genealogy of Noah’s three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. I listed their names in no particular order. It is believed that Ham is the youngest of the three, but it is unknown whether Shem or Japheth is the older. Regardless of who’s older, one of Shem’s descendants is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Shem’s descendants populated much of the Middle East area and quite possibly, other regions of Asia. Japheth’s descendants mainly populated Europe, and Ham’s descendants included the Canaanites, Israel’s worst enemies, and the people of Africa, including the Ethiopians and Egyptians. Even evolutionist and atheistic scientists believe that all of the ethnicities seen today are from three main people (six if you wanted to include their wives).

In the paragraph above, I discussed the people groups that derived from each son. But the dispersion of the human race didn’t happen until the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11, we are told that the whole world spoke one universal language. Because of the amount of people, the unified language, and man’s sin nature, the people living at that time all decided to build a tower to the heavens. This may not seem like an evil thing on the surface; men have taken on many large building projects in history. But the motive for doing this was wicked. Although they knew that God wanted them to disperse and populate different regions of the earth, they didn’t want to and built this tower in direct disobedience against God’s commands. They decided that if they could complete this building project together, God could never oppose them. Of course, this was all folly. All God had to do was confuse their languages, giving birth to the many languages around the globe today. Those who spoke the same languages journeyed together to different areas. Now the earth was mostly populated, and the Tower of Babel serves as a reminder that only God’s will is truly accomplished at the end.

Before I close the article, I want to state a reminder. The book of Genesis, like all of the Bible, is not a myth. This is an actual historical account written by the Almighty God who wanted to tell us the truth about our beginnings here on earth. Don’t treat the Bible as another fiction story, but as history. The lessons written in the Bible are lessons we can all apply to our own lives. One of my history teachers always told the class to be “a student of history, not a victim.” Victims of history are created by ignorance and mockery of the truth. The truth is out there for you to research and discover if you will take the time.

I enjoyed doing this series, although I would consider these articles only superficial. For further study, read Before Abraham: Creation, Sin, and the Nature of God by John MacArthur. I just completed this book, and it, along with other study guides in the series, provides applications and raises critical questions about how the lessons of creation, the fall of man, and the Flood apply directly to one’s life. For a more historical viewpoint, I would recommend listening to the sermons by John MacArthur on the early chapters of Genesis. Follow the link here to find them: https://www.gty.org/library/resources/sermons-library/scripture/1?book=1&chapter=All. By scrolling down the page, you should be able to see the complete series of sermons. That’s it for today’s article. Come back next week in the start of a new series in geography.