The Mystery of Languages: Where Did They Come From?

The Bible Has the Answers

What Biblical event has had one of the greatest cultural impacts on our modern world?

After Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago, God instructed Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, to fill the earth, and starting with them the whole earth was populated. The Bible gives the account:

Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated (Genesis 9:18,19).

But the events recorded in Genesis 11 interfered with God’s instructions. We read:

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech… And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” … And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. … Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth (Genesis 11:1,4,6,7-9).

The events at Babel occurred approximately 4,200 years ago, about 100 years or so after the Flood. Noah and Shem were still living, but certainly did not participate in the rebellion of the tower. Genesis 10:5,20,31, clarify that family units still spoke the same language,¹ but everyone else seemed to be speaking nonsense.

As these families scattered from working on the tower of Babel, they eventually grew into the separate nations described in Genesis 11. The language barrier prohibited marriage outside the family, and the small genetic pool quickly developed into specific characteristics like skin color, hair and eye color, eye shape, and height, etc. In this isolation they also developed their own cultures.

Close family marriages were also necessary in Adam and Eve’s family, and were not forbidden until about 2,500 years after creation in Moses’ time according to Leviticus 18 when genetic problems became more prevalent.

The families fleeing Babel were Noah’s close descendants. They were intelligent and resourceful, but moving into unexplored areas proved difficult. It makes sense that some would have found temporary accommodation in caves, and would have likely used stone tools. However, they quickly developed beyond this stage and should not be considered the cavemen from evolution’s idea of a long stone age culture.

Today, there are three to six people groups based on skin color, 150+ nations, and over 3,000 languages. This diversity began at Babel, but God’s original desire was for humans to live in unity. The Bible records: “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).

We are all related to Adam and Eve and Noah’s three sons. They were created with the genetic ability to have children of every skin color, but that changed when families left Babel and became genetically isolated. There is a major pigment in our skin called melanin that determines skin color. The greater the amount of melanin inherited from the parents, the darker the skin color of their children.

Let us consider two scenarios. Upon leaving Babel let’s suppose that dark skinned and light skinned families moved into Africa. The dark-skinned individuals, having large amounts of melanin, would be protected from the intense sunlight. The light-skinned individuals would have excessive harmful UV rays penetrating their skin causing cancer and loss of folic acid which reduces fertility. The dark-skinned families would soon outnumber the light-skinned families. The reverse is true in the cooler, northern climates where the Ice Age was also in effect. More clothing would be worn to keep warm, and dark-skinned people, naturally filtering out sunlight, wouldn’t be able to produce enough vitamin D, causing rickets and reducing fertility.

Neanderthals may have been such a dark-skinned people group who died out in Europe.  Light-skinned individuals were able to absorb enough sunlight to produce vitamin D, and soon outnumbered their dark-skinned neighbors.

Some of the family groups that left Babel to populate the earth became great civilizations, and some did not. However, this event that began at the Tower of Babel changes the history of the world to this present day.