My wife watched a documentary on youtube yesterday, nicely produced, forcefully argued, about the building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), and purporting to offer “proof” that the Bible narrative is historically accurate.
Only problem was, the documentary was all wet. They just went on and on about buildings erected by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon thousands of years after the Tower of Babel, with apparently no awareness that they were conflating two totally unrelated stories. Not even a suspicion of it.
I would guess this film cost a lot of money to produce and involved a lot of people in the production. Did nobody know anything at all about the Bible? Did it never occur to anyone involved to at least read the relevant chapters of the Bible before launching into this festival of ignorance? Did nobody ever speak up and say, “Uh, guys, these are two different stories we’re talking about here–and they’re thousands of years apart”?
Well, you know what they say about the Internet as a source of information–sometimes it can be great, but there is no quality control.
Just to make things worse, all the comments following the film pointed out the yawning chasm of error into which it had fallen. Apparently every person who saw it knew the Bible better than the filmmakers. I think we can be thankful for that!
It just makes you wonder why anybody would ever go to the trouble of producing a documentary when they had no idea what they were talking about. Not even the feeblest effort was made to get at the facts. I don’t think the filmmakers even guessed they were dealing in sheer ignorance.
How much else of what we see is pure twaddle?
I’ve watched several “documentaries” on bible topics and, in most cases, they were quite detached from scripture, to the point that I don’t bother with them anymore, in most cases.
A few years ago, I studied a bit about Jewish belief, not with any interest in converting, but just for perspective on how the original bible writers might have been raised and believed. Their take on the Hebrew Scriptures is quite impressive. One piece that I read, I believe by Gerald Schroeder (although I may be remembering in error) looked at Genesis, not as vignettes, but as a narrative of important developments. Mankind was created, sinned and then the human race went into moral decline, culminating in the pre-Flood world of violence and depravity. After the Flood, mankind gathered at Babel, in defiance of God and the Babel episode led directly to Abram leaving his family behind and receiving the promise from God. Joseph, famine, enslavement, exodus and eventual receipt of the Promised Land all followed. It makes for a very tightly woven account which leaves out the extraneous, but includes the things we need to know. Taken out of context, any of these events begin to lose meaning.
The Bible narrative does suggest that civilization rose and fell at least twice, long before we think it began at all. This suggestion is worth taking seriously.
The Bible is, first and foremost, history. It is the history of God’s dealings with mankind and foretells the way it will culminate. It’s, for the most part a very broad history, but focuses quite finely on God’s promise to bring a savior from the line of Abraham and through the royal line of David. I used to sort of think, so what, but not anymore. I think this is very important information which will help us to recognize events as they develop.
“How much else of what we see is pure twaddle?” About 90% if you watch the MSM.
My wife & I are always commenting on movies and shows we watch (or try to watch) saying why do their makers spend so much time, money and creative juices on twaddle? There are so many people, accomplishments and events to make movies & documentaries about but they choose comic books (as a example). Art used to be accepted as a medium to inspire, but now it gets used as propaganda. Instead of the Christian Church preparing for defeat and escape, how about raising up artistic warriors for Christ’s Kingdom & will being done on earth? Did Jesus give the Great Commission and then not give the power to achieve it?