RnLL: I don't get why you say that simple pshat says all of<br>mankind was resident in Mesopotamia. Simple pshat always includes<br>context. And it's clear from the context that there were people<br>living in Eretz Yisrael (the cities of the plain) and Egypt, at the
<br>very least. Simple pshat might be that Shinar was the world capitol,<br>but that's about all.<br><br>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.
<br><br>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.
<br><br>- Ilana<br>