Question: re. The Flood and Tower of Babel

Scripture doesn't say directly. It is problematic to "count" the ages of the people the generational records. As I understand it, they didn't give an account of everyone in the family tree, just the famous, or infamous, ones.

Every specific answer will be speculation.

peace to youraying:

 

actually you can make a pretty accurate timeline even if there are skipped generations within the genealogy - because the specific age of the father is given at the time of the birth of the next one in the line........"so and so" was 65 years old and begat "so and so". This rules out any concern that the first might have been a grandfather rather than father.........it doesn't matter - either way it was 65 years.

My husband has worked out the timeline - but I cannot remember it right now. It isn't that difficult to calculate though.

 

My bible doesn't give the ages of the fathers. It simply states that they had "sons". There is a more detailed account of the descendants of Shem, but that is not connected to Babel.

Ham, the son of Noah, begats Cush. Cush begats Nimrod. Nimrod has "kingdoms" in the land of Shinar, including Babel. I doubt the meaning of "kingdom" is what we believe "kingdom" means today. It seems the author is simply saying the people of those areas where descendants of Nimrod.

It seems the primary reason for the "Table of nations" is to demonstrate how each region was founded by the descendants of Noah.

peace to youraying:

 

The extra-Biblical book of Jasher (mentioned in Joshua 10:13 and II Samuel 1:18) tells us that Nimrod was the mighty king of Shinar, and basically ruled the world that that time. Nimrod was a contemporary of Abraham, Isaac, through Esau and Jacob. It was during this time that Nimrod's counselors conceived the idea of this enormous tower. The assembled 600,000 men in a valley two days walk from Shinar to build the tower.

Terah, Abram's father, was commander of Nimrod's armies.

And Esau killed Nimrod and two of his mighty men. Jasher relates that Esau fled, chased by Nimrod's men, finally arriving home exhausted and starving. You know the rest of that story.

So, it appears that the Tower of Babel was built during Abraham's lifetime.

One of little story: Jasher reveals that Abram, the son of the pagan Terah, was taught about Jehovah God by Noah and Shem.

Jasher is a fascinating book. It may have been excluded from the canon because of some factual conflicts with the books of the Pentateuch. But the mention of it as a source for the writers of both Joshua and II Samuel lends it some credibility Google Jasher and you'll find it.

 

Roughly, 250-300 years between the Flood and Babel.

 

It was scheduled for 200 years after the flood, but they discovered at the last minute that the blueprints would definitely have put the construction contractors over budget, so they had to redesign it, which took roughly 50-100 years.

True story.

 

Assuming you are talking about the "most credible" version of the book (and not Pseudo-Jasher written in 1751), Jasher is not in the canon because it wasn't even written until the 16th century at the earliest.

Although it may be a faithful rendering of some Jewish stories and recollections from the middle ages or before (as some of the stories are replicated in the Talmud) it has never been considered to be THE Book of Jasher mentioned in Joshua and Samuel by anyone except some LDS apologists and other cults.

A fun read, but nothing that can in anyway be used to corroborate any viewpoint one way or another.

 

Are you familiar with the Books of Adam and the Book of Noah? If so, what do you think about them? They, too, are interesting reading.