Dmitry Mayorov 2
Today, no one is surprised that the people in the world speak different languages. With hardly understand each other representatives of different countries and nationalities. And those who live in states with similar cultures are not always easy to reach a mutual understanding ... As there have been numerous languages ;;and whether their diversity is good? It's time to think about it before the church-state celebration of the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture .
It's no secret that sometimes have trouble understanding each other are secular and religious , who live in one country. This situation is recognized by some natural scientists who believe that the languages ;;of science and religion are fundamentally different . But it is not. We have the courage to do this in a number of publications on the issues of interaction between science and religion. Methods for the existence of these forms of social consciousness , of course, different, but not completely alien to each other . Moreover, in some areas of life issues of science and religion are so closely intertwined that to get an idea of ;;the problem is possible only under one condition : to look at it from both points of view. These areas include , for example, questions about the origin of life and the human race, man's place in the universe , the purpose of his life. Including - the secret origin of languages.
the biblical witness
... Yes, people speak different languages. And it seems that situation and can not be. However, Scripture indicates that it was not always : "1. And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech . 2 . Journeyed from the east, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 . And they said to one another , let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar . 4 . And they said , let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 . And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower , which the children of men. 6. And the Lord said , Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do , and nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do , 7. Let us go down , and there confound their language, that may not understand one another's speech. 8. And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth: and they left off building the city. 9. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them all over the earth . " (Gen. And , 1-9 ) .
This is the Bible , and not a scientific account of the origin of many dialects. The cause of the language was extreme pride (" let us make a name " on the ground). People have lost unity, so as not to come to an agreement on the greater evil . God divided the people in many dialects , as we breed in different rooms rambunctious children. This idea is more or less present in the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, who wrote a commentary on the first book of the Bible - the book of Genesis in st. Ephrem the Syrian, St.. Filaret ( Drozdov ), and many others. St. John Chrysostom in one of their creations, said that people "not having a language and way of speech, could not live together." "This sentence has been imposed on them as a perpetual memorial that at no time did not forget about it ... Since then, the father had to tell her son about the cause of the difference of language , and the son tried to learn from his father, why so named that place. Babylon is called the place because it means a mixture , a mixture of customs that the Lord God of all the earth , and verbally razseya them from there ... "
For the biblically minded person the existence of one of the ancient language is not surprising and does not cause problems . This is confirmed and proven science of biology and genetic unity of the human race, which owes its origins to the first couple - Adam and Eve. After the Great Flood described in Genesis chapters 6-9 , the children of Noah's family - Shem, Ham, and Japheth - settled on face of the earth , and ancient " table of nations" placed in chapter 10 . The builders of the tower of Babel shows us an example of all infertile cases . One of them - the construction of a utopian society : from Thomas Campanella's City of the Sun to the worldwide empire of the Antichrist. A crowd of people , we often refer to as " pandemonium ", forgetting that the "pillar" in Slavic - a " tower ", and Babel , ie the construction of the tower in Babylon - the case is not pleasing to God .
But the lessons of Bible stories for us to lose any divine edification historical value , if we treat them as events to be unreliable as a myth, a fairy tale.
The variety of theories
People who trust the Scriptures , not just have to listen to criticism of the Biblical account of the confusion of tongues of scientists. For example, a respected professor of Tyumen , Ph.D. confident and often repeats: "The Bible , of course , the great cultural- historical monument , but Babel of languages ;;as a source of formation is not related to reality. Much more believable hypothesis JJ Rousseau from his " Social Contract ". People have come up with languages ;;when there is a need to introduce each other in confusion. This is the unwritten social contract . "
French writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote in a treatise that " no hunger, no thirst , and love , hate , pity and anger in people plucked out the first notes ... To excite the young heart to stop unfair hitter nature dictates man sounds , screams, complaint. It is the oldest of the words and that's why the first languages ;;were melodious and passionate before they became simple and rationally . "
Nothing prevents a believer share and any other point of view. For example, the Marxist understanding of the origin of language gave Engels in his famous work, "The Role of Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man " ( 1876). He wrote that develops communication and language emerges as a necessary consequence of the development of industrial and other public relations work in a team.
In general, the first scientific theory of the origin of languages ;;belong to the ancient thinker Heraclitus , Democritus, Aristotle. In modern times, based on these hypotheses appeared onomatopoeic (interpretation of that language was born in imitation of the sounds of nature) and mezhdometnyh ( language led to the creation of emotional cries of joy , fear , pain ... ) Later, a hypothesis of the social contract (people agreed naming objects in words) , gestural theory (the language is generated randomly and unconsciously through pantomime ) , the hypothesis of spontaneous jump ( language arose immediately with a rich vocabulary ) and many others.
What a variety of theories ! But modern scholars believe that none of the many hypotheses about the origin of language " can not be confirmed by the facts vast remoteness of the event in time. They remain hypotheses since they can not be observed , any play in the experiment . "
What do you trust?
If none of the theories can not be considered true , is it worth to give up a solid foundation of faith in the name of the shifting sands of scientific hypotheses ? Another question , does the science of reason to trust the narrative of the Tower of Babel , marking the beginning of the further development of the languages ;;? Given the fact that at the foot of the unfinished tower builders are confused not communicated in modern languages ;;, comparative linguistics and biblical archeology have enough arguments to allow to trust the Bible.
The fact of the unity of human language is the basic problem of linguistics. He was more or less confirmed the success of all the prominent linguists . Related languages ;;and many common roots in the two main branches of the human race - the Semitic and Indo-Germanic - leaves little doubt : the two main types once came from a single source. What was this primitive language of mankind , can be judged only conjectural . But it is certain that the designation of the ancient writers ( Origen , bl. Jerome, Augustine , Diodorus , Eusebius, ...) on the superiority of one of the Semitic languages ;;is not without evidence : one Jewish language finds its primitive names (Adam , Eve , Cain , Seth and etc.) from it conveniently explains the names of many ancient peoples ( Babylonians , Chaldeans , Cushites , etc. ) and, finally , the ancient remains of human culture are clear traces of Cushites - Semitic influence.
Thus, the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel shows that in ancient times, all people spoke the same language. Linguistics end of the XX century , too, argues that "there are words and other language elements that are common to all people - a fact that points to the fact that all of these elements back to a common ancestral language ". Philologists A.Robertson , A.Trobetti , a prominent religious scholar M. Mueller, Otto Jespersen from the University of Copenhagen and many others demonstrate the unity of the human language, which miraculously was given to people by God Himself. "No opening - no old or new - does not refute this fact," - says professor of archeology at Joseph P. Frey .
In the theory of the existence of universal Proto great contribution made ;;by Soviet scientists (eg Assyriologist IMDiyakonov , linguists V. Ilic - Svitych , V.N.Toporov and VVIvanov ) . They managed scientifically to prove kinship large number of languages ;;of the Old World .
Modern archeology gives us interesting facts to support the existence of Babylon. Scientists report that in many ancient cities of Mesopotamia were discovered the ruins of the temples of multi-storey towers . In the Babylonian clay tablets to refer to these structures using the word " ziggurat ". Researchers B. Keller, J. Freeh and G.Morris believe that this is a later imitation of the very first tower of Babel .
The most famous of the surviving towers was described by Herodotus in the 4th century BC. There it is called E- parietal- Anka ("house foundation of heaven and earth "). The Hittites destroyed the building around 1600 BC And King Nebuchadnezzar II ( 6th century BC), it has built up again . Dzhorzhd Smith , an employee of the British Museum , the famous author of the translation of the Babylonian myth of the Deluge ( 1876 ) , published a piece of text on the destruction of some of the ziggurat : " The construction of this temple angered the gods. One night they were razed to the ground that has already been built. People moved to distant lands and brought confusion in their speech . They prevented further construction . " " The similarity of this ancient text with the story of Scripture about building the Tower of Babel amazing! " - Exclaims N. Vasiliadis , a professor of the University of Athens .
The separation is inevitable, but can be overcome
Comparing the two approaches to the theory of the origin of languages ;;- the Bible and science , each person can choose the view that it is more comfortable with. But we must remember that science - a complex phenomenon , patchy . Numerous researchers have proposed as a criticism of religious beliefs and the facts directly confirming the truth of the sacred texts. Many scientific achievements and discoveries make the Christian faith is not just sensible and reasonable , but also reliable .
Well unity in God and fatally unanimity in sin - Scripture teaches us . " Tower of Babel " of human knowledge seems to have ascended to heaven. But it falls apart before our eyes. And this is not only due to the fact that the volume of information in the world doubles every three years. Her "builders" have been unable to agree with each other. They can not find a common language , even those scientists who work in a scientific field .
In the Christian unity of the Church is based on the unity of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Church from the day of Pentecost . And this thought is the best sounds in the Kontakion for the Holy Trinity. His first half tells the story of sad events of Babel , and the second - the joy of the Holy Spirit, the early Christian community in Jerusalem : " When thou snizshed languages ;;merger , razdelyashe languages ;;Vishny , when thou also ognennyya languages ;;razdayashe into a compound called all , and according to glorify the All-Holy Spirit."