[Avodah] tower of bavel

[Lisa Liel]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:27:50 +0200, ilanasober at gmail.com wrote:
>>RnLL: I don't get why you say that simple pshat says all of
>>mankind was resident in Mesopotamia.  Simple pshat always includes
>>context.  And it's clear from the context that there were people
>>living in Eretz Yisrael (the cities of the plain) and Egypt, at the
>>very least.  Simple pshat might be that Shinar was the world
>>capitol, but that's about all.
>
>Simple pshat, i.e., the words of the chumash itself, doesn't say
>anything about migdal bavel being 340 years after the flood. AFAIK, 
>the source for that is Seder Olam Rabbah. Simple pshat with context 
>but without the midrash is "Vayehi KOL HAARETZ safah achat..." One 
>can very easily read the chumash as implying that migdal bavel 
>occurred within a few generations of the flood. The survivors and 
>their descendents remained together, travelled together to Shinar, 
>and built a tower. The post-mabul dispersion of humanity to all over 
>in the world originated with migdal bavel, which took place several 
>hundred years before Avraham Avinu.
>
>So the difficulties raised (how could there be peoples, nations,
>kings, etc well established in Ur Kasdim, Charan, Eretz Knaan, and 
>Mitzrayim within a few decades of the dispersion?) reflect an 
>apparent contradiction between the midrashic chronology and the 
>pshat in chumash, not a contradiction within the "simple pshat" of 
>chumash.

There were too many generations between the Mabul and Peleg.  I think
that pshat in "for in his days the earth was divided" is that it's
referring to Migdal Bavel.  Which places the event centuries after
the Mabul.

Lisa

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