Haerenga Tuarima - Part 2 - Binary Code, Babel and Automated Mansplaining

Over the past few years, we have been working through the stories at the start of the Bible to try and make sense of how they speak to our modern world.

In the last season, we discussed the story about Noah and the flood and God's covenant with all of creation and the humans spreading out and resettling the earth.

So when we turn to Genesis 11, it's a bit of a shock to realize that instead of spreading out, that people have now all gathered together in one place.

You almost

end Genesis 10 with a sense of optimism that the humans might get it.

The humans might step into the vocation that they've been given and then you turn the page and you get to the start of Genesis 11 and it says this.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

Do you want to read the Te Reo Māori?

Nā, kotahi tonu te reo o te whenua katoa.

Rite tonu anō ngā kōrero.

A ia rātou haere ana whaka te rāwhiti.

Nā, ka kite rātou i tētahi mānia i te whenua o Hīnara.

A noho ana rātou i reira.

So it's only a couple of sentences.

It's a couple of verses.

This is one of those things that I love about the Bible, but it's already packed with so many things, right? Like it starts by saying now the whole earth had one language and the same words,

right?

Do you think that's an intentionally ambiguous statement? Like are we meant to read that and be like, oh, how cool is that? Or are we meant to read that and be like, man, that's not great.

And how do we read that off the back of Genesis 10, which has just said that all these people have these languages.

Like when you read.

Yeah.

Especially as someone who is attempting to teach as many people a second

language.

When you read now, the whole earth had one language and the same words.