middlemonk

“Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

— Genesis 11:7.

Before I read the Bible I would have sworn the story of Babel took up a hundred pages, but here it is in only one paragraph. I’m amazed at the Bible’s ability to condense time and space, but I constantly long for further detail. Every verse demands elaboration.

…and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

— Genesis 11:9.

I wonder at what point God considered the Earth “complete”. Was it after the first seven days? Or after the flood? Or now, when He scattered all His final people across the earth? This God strikes me as something of a perfectionist, always writing and rewriting until it’s perfect.

If I was to start keeping a list of unanswered questions from the Bible, my first would be: when did God’s people become a people of their own? There must have been a point when God finally allowed them their free will (again); when He stopped creating and started caretaking.

(Then again, maybe he’s still at it.)