Chapter x. There are scarcely any of the names contained in this or the preceding or following chapter, until we come to Abraham, which are now used amongst the Jews. Paine says, 'If they (the Jews) affix the same idea of reality to those names as they do to those that follow after, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, etc., would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron.
'In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family would be without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who wished that the days of her son might be long in the land, would call him Methuselah; and all the Jews that might have to traverse the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck and drowning.'
Chapter xi., v. 1. If the whole earth was of one tongue, what do verses 5, 20, and 31 of the preceding chapter mean?
Voltaire says, 'People have wished to know how the children of Noah, after having divided among themselves the islands of the nations, and established themselves in divers lands, with each one his particular language, family, and people, should all find themselves in the plain of Shinaar to build there a tower, saying, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
'The book of Genesis speaks of the states which the sons of Noah founded. It has related how the people of Europe, Africa, and Asia all came to Shinaar, speaking one language only, and purposing the same thing.
'The Vulgate places the deluge in the year of the world 1656, and the construction of the Tower of Babel, 1771; that is to say, one hundred and fifteen years after the destruction of mankind, and even during the life of Noah.
'Men then must have multiplied with prodigious celerity; all the arts revived in a very little time. When we reflect on the great number of trades which must have been employed to raise a tower so high, we are amazed at so stupendous a work.
'It is a pity that there remains not on the earth, among the profane authors, one vestige of the famous Tower of Babel; nothing of this story of the confusion of tongues is found in any book. This memorable adventure was as unknown to the whole universe, as the names of Noah, Methusalem, Cain, and Adam and Eve.'
It seems scarcely probable that a multitude of people, forming so many nations, could be got together in one plain; and if they were, why should they fear being scattered?
Verse 5. 'The Lord came down.' This idea pervades the book—that is, that God resides in heaven, above the earth, and that he leaves heaven occasionally and comes down to earth, and after having finished his business, goes up again to heaven. The writer appears to have had no conception that God could see from heaven to earth, but makes God come down to ascertain whether the tale which had reached him in heaven be true. Unfortunately, even after ignoring the attribute of omnipresence in relation to God, the idea is not a correct one. That which is above me when I look up and pray is not above the New Zealander, if he looks up and prays at the same instant. The powers above to him would be the powers below to me. The verse implies that God could not see the tower until he came down.