Lesson 24. Pandemonium of Babylon. Mixture of languages. Letter Fita

Tasks:

· the child learns that the word “ham” is borrowed from the Greek language, where it is the proper name of Ham, the son of Noah; and is used in the sense of a rude, arrogant person;

· will come to the conclusion that the cause of the confusion of languages ​​was human pride;

· get acquainted with eyewitness accounts claiming that the ark is located on Mount Great Ararat, in the ice of a mountain lake at the very top of the mountain .

I. Old Slavonic alphabet. Lesson 16

II. Checking the dz.

The guys read out the definitions they found.

The teacher reads out the definition of the word “boorish” from an etymological dictionary : “As a common noun meaning “rude man”, “serf man.” It arose on the basis of the Church Slavonic KHAM, borrowed from the Greek language, where it is the proper name of the biblical Ham, who mocked the nakedness of his father Noah.”

In the encyclopedic dictionary such a definition: “Ham is one of the three sons of Noah, from whom “the whole earth was populated” after the Flood. Cursed by Noah, in the person of his son Canaan, for mocking his father's nakedness.

In a figurative sense, the name Ham is used to designate a person from the “common people,” uneducated, rude; later it became a common noun, meaning a rude, arrogant person.”

And in the dictionary of Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl we can read that boors are vile people.

That is why people who are arrogant, rude, and disrespectful towards other people are called boors.

· Remember how it turned out that righteous Noah got drunk (mf 01. Righteous Noah) ? (He did not yet know the properties of wine).

According to Saint John Chrysostom, it was Noah who invented the art of cultivating grapes. The Bible says that Bog gave wine to people to maintain health, that is, wine is a kind of medicine.

· What do you think will happen to a person if he drinks a whole package, even of the best medicine?

That's right, he can get severe poisoning or even die.

Noah was the first to know the properties of wine. And it is no coincidence that the Bible tells us what happened to Noah: excessive consumption of wine made him seem dead, defenseless. Through this, the Lord seems to be telling us: “Wine is medicine, be careful with it!”

Before opening the wine to a person, the Lord showed what could happen if this medicine is used carelessly. There is even such an expression as “to abuse wine.”

· How do you understand it? (Using wine for evil, i.e. when it brings harm rather than benefit).

Open your notebooks to page 50 and read the topic of the lesson.

Noah lived 950 years; He was the last to reach such a great old age. After him, human strength began to weaken, and people could only live up to 400 years. But even with such a still long life, people quickly multiplied. At first they lived together as one large family, not far from the Ararat mountains, in one country, which was called the Chaldean country, and spoke the same language.

Over time, the first post-Flood states began to emerge. The Bible tells that the founder of the first Babylonian kingdom was Nimrod from the descendants of Ham... He was a “strong hunter” and in character resembled the first city builder - Cain. Nimrod founded a city (Babylon), which quickly grew into a large, proud capital, at the head of a large population with a number of other cities. Such success filled Nimrod and his descendants with extraordinary pride. They began to dream of establishing a worldwide kingdom in which the descendants of Ham would occupy a dominant position. Their pride reached the point that they, having drawn up a council, decided, as a sign of their power and obvious fight against God, to build a “tower as high as the heavens.” (m-f 02/video. Start of tower construction: 1 min 21 s).

· Why do you think their idea can be called criminal and dangerous?

Criminal because it stemmed from pride, which turned into apostasy and fight against God, and dangerous because it came from among the Hamites, who had already distinguished themselves by their wickedness (MF 03/video. Tower of Babel: 27 s)

And so the work began to boil. People began to burn bricks and prepare earth resin. Having prepared building materials, people began to build a tower ( mf 04. Tower of Babel). “And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do; Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth." .

People, not understanding each other's language, stopped building the city and the tower and dispersed in different directions, settling on free lands and creating their own culture there. The city they built together with the tower they called Babylon, which means mixing (MF 05/video. Mixing languages: 28 s).

The dispersion of nations throughout the earth had positive value. Firstly, people did not fall under the rule of such despots as Nimrod, and, secondly, humanity, settled throughout the earth in the form of separate tribes and peoples, had complete freedom to develop their national abilities, as well as to arrange their lives in accordance with the conditions residence and historical features (m-f 06. Settlement of peoples: 1 min 05 s).

There are people who doubt the reality of the events described in the Bible, and that, they say, the story of Noah is nothing more than a myth.

But oddly enough, scientists found the first confirmation of the story of Noah precisely in mythology.

Scientists ethnologists have discovered 59 legends about the flood among the aborigines of North America, 46 South America, 17 in the Middle East, 23 in Asia, 31 in ancient Europeans and 37 in Australia Oceania.

(At the discretion of the teacher : “Not one of us now living comes from the original race of people, which completely perished. We all take our origin from Deucalion. The people of the first race were arrogant and proud. They did not keep their word, did not give shelter to strangers, were deaf to pleas. "(Greek legend).

“A lot of time has passed since Kumu Humoa, the first man,” says a Hawaiian legend. “The whole earth was mired in sin and the gods stopped being worshiped. One man was righteous. His name was Nuu.”

"Deucalion and his wives disappeared into a huge ship. Boars and horses, lions and snakes and other animals also came there. He accommodated them all." (Greece).

"The old man built a huge ship and put his whole family and many animals in it" (Natives of Cuba.).

"Nuu made a huge canoe. He climbed into it, taking food from plants and animals ".(Hawaiians.)

“Wanting to bring a flood, God warned Noth and his wife Neta, saying: “Hollow out a huge cypress tree. On it you will be saved in Rottotsoti. The waves will be as high as the sky. “So they did, and God closed the door.” (Aztec legend).

"The angry God Mbenga gathered rain clouds and streams of water poured from them onto the burdened earth." (Legend of Fiji).

"The earth suddenly opened its floodgates. A terrible downpour poured down. The rivers overflowed their banks." (Greeks).

"The overflowing rivers flooded the open plains and took with them high crops, graves, herds, people and temples. The bodies of the dead floated like tree trunks. They were like fish eggs in the sea. Cities, hills and mountains slowly sank into the abyss. Now everything has become an ocean "The wolf swims next to the sheep." (Latin poet. Ovid.)

"Every day it rained, every night it rained. The sky collapsed. There was no land. All the animals drowned. There was no land." (Athapaskana Indians).

“The lost bird searched for a long time for land where it could land, but its wings could not stand it and it fell into the sea.” (Ovid)

"God filled the world with water." (Lapland).

“Everyone died except Deucalion, who, thanks to his virtue, was saved. And from him a new race of people arose.” (Greeks)

“A year later, the water began to recede.” (Transylvania)

“A sharp wind blew and dried up the land.” (Persia)

“He released a raven, which at first did not return, and then remained to peck at the dead bodies, but then flew in with a green branch in its beak.” (Mecoaken Indians)

“All those who survived, and there were eight of them, sailed to Mbenga.” (Fiji)

The Egyptians said that the gods cleansed the land with a great flood, after which only a few shepherds were saved. Hindus say that Manu escaped from the flood on a ship that was dragged to the mountain by a fish. The English Druids also spoke of repopulating the earth through a pious patriarch sent to punish people for their great corruption. Greenlandic legend claims that one day

The earth shook and all the people drowned, with the exception of one man and one woman, who repopulated the earth.)

Although all these legends have a number of their own characteristics and are heavily contaminated with pagan layers, they all agree on three main details:

There was a devastating flood;

There was a rescue ship;

The human race was saved in the person of several people (most often one family).

Many legends report that people were saved on a high mountain. Here, obviously, is a memory of the stopping of the ark on the mountains of Ararat.

· Why do you think that different peoples, unrelated to each other, living on different continents, have legends about the flood and the salvation of the chosen people that are very similar in content?

(Children's assumptions).

The descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, scattering throughout the entire earth, took with them the story of Noah and passed it on to their descendants.

The second confirmation of the historicity of the Flood came from modern geology, the science of the structure, composition and history of the earth’s crust, which discovered evidence of a universal catastrophe in the earth’s rocks.

· What find do you think could provide indisputable confirmation of the global flood and the story of Noah?

Of course, the discovery of Noah's Ark!

· Remember what the Bible says about where the ark stopped?

The Bible says that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat ( mf 07. Ararat Mountains). Why is it said about Ararat in plural? Because there is Big Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat (mf 08. Greater Ararat) is a mountain 5165 meters high, i.e. more than 5 km. The top of this mountain is covered with ice for almost a kilometer. And at the very top there is a mountain lake, where the ice cover is much less.

Today science has irrefutable factual data about the legendary ark.

Back in the 3rd century BC. Historians, including Babylonians, wrote that in the Ararat Mountains there lies an ancient ark, and people tear off the resin from it to use it as an antidote or amulets.

And in the 1st century A.D. We find reports that many brought particles of the ark from Ararat.

In the 19th century, several reports appeared of those who saw the remains of the ark. The Turks said that they even visited the ship, which had compartments, most of which were filled with ice.

In 1893, Dr. Nouri from Jerusalem went on a journey

(in the upper reaches of the Euphrates). Upon his return, he spoke about the remains of the ship in the eternal ice: “Inside it was all full of snow, the outside side was dark red... The front and rear end... are achievable, and the middle part remains under the ice.”

Having measured the ark, Nouri came to the conclusion that its dimensions were identical to those given in the Bible.

24 years later, in 1916, Russian pilot Vladimir Rostovitsky noticed a frame on the top of Ararat huge ship. Then, by order of Emperor Nicholas II, an expedition was formed, which, arriving at Ararat, found the ark, carrying out all the necessary measurements and photography. However, the revolution that broke out soon buried all the rich material obtained by the expedition. This is how Vladimir Rostovitsky himself, who also participated in the expedition, talks about it: “I made several circles above it. It was the size of a city block, like a modern battle cruiser. He lay on the shore of the lake, a quarter of the way into the water. On one side, its hull was partially disassembled, and on the side there was a square door about six meters wide. This seemed unusual to me. After all, even now ships do not have such large doors... Inside the ark consisted of hundreds of compartments, some were small, but there were also spacious rooms with high ceilings. The wood was coated with a wax-like substance, and the craftsmanship with which the ship was made indicated a high level of craftsmanship. Experts have suggested that the structure is made of oleander, a tree of the cypress family that does not rot..."

A little over 50 years ago, climbers made two attempts to find Noah's Ark, but they ended unsuccessfully due to snow storms.

In cold years, the ark is covered with ice and snow and is not visible, and in hot years in the summer part of it is exposed, but this happens very rarely.

The French climber Fernand Navarre managed to discover the ark in 1955. Navarre found the ark frozen in the ice of that same mountain lake, which is located on the top of the mountain, at an altitude of 5 km, and managed to cut out a piece of the ship's hull. Radioactive analysis carried out in several countries confirmed the age of the building - about five thousand years. Navarre managed to confirm the existence of Noah's Ark with his photographs and scientific research.

After him, several more expeditions climbed Ararat, bringing new evidence and pieces of plating. But about 30 years ago, the Turkish government banned climbing the mountain .

As the Holy Tradition says, when the flood began, Noah took Adam’s skull with him into the ark as a great shrine. Then he gave it to his eldest son Shem. Shem built the city of Joppa, then built an altar under which he placed the head of Adam, and not far from this altar he founded the city of Jerusalem, which means “peace of God,” i.e. the place where humanity must be reconciled with God, the place of the crucifixion of Christ the Savior. Then the descendants of Ham conquered this place, and the place where Adam's head lay fell into desolation. But from memory, the people called this place “Golgotha,” which in Hebrew means “skull, forehead.” According to ancient legend, Christ was crucified over the place where the head of Adam was buried, and the blood flowing from the wounds of Jesus seeped through a crevice in the ground deep into the rock and stained Adam’s skull. This meant that the sins of mankind were washed away by the Blood of Christ the Savior After downloading, the file must be unzipped (RAR archive)

Babel. The Bible tells about the construction by post-Flood people of a tower in Babylon, which, according to the builders, was supposed to reach the sky (Gen. XI, 1-9). According to the biblical story and later Jewish traditions, the culprit of the enterprise was Nimrod. Having founded a strong state, he became proud of his first success and planned to found a world monarchy, contrary to the will of God, which determined the descendants of Ham (to which Nimrod belonged) to be slaves of others. And so, for this purpose, as a sign of their power and as the center of world power, the Hamites decided to build a “tower as high as the heavens.” The enterprise, therefore, was not only insane and impracticable, but also contrary to divine destiny. Therefore, when work began to boil, bricks were fired and earth resin was prepared, the Lord decided to punish the builders. He confused their language so that they ceased to understand each other and were unable to continue building, and then little by little they scattered throughout the entire earth.

From an archaeological point of view, the biblical story has been the subject of many studies to determine which of the Babylonian ruins most closely resembles the Tower of Nimrod. There are several such ruins near the city of Gilla, located on the site of ancient Babylon. The first serious researcher of the Babylonian ruins, Rawlinson, believed that the remains of the Tower of Babel should be sought in Niffer, about 140 miles southeast of Gilla, where there is a mass of bricks cemented with earthen resin, as the Bible says. But this opinion, which does not find confirmation in the authoritative evidence of ancient writers, was abandoned, and now the opinions of researchers are divided between two other ruins, which have much more rights to be identified with the Tower of Babel. One of these ruins is located north of ancient Babylon and is still known among the local Arabs under the name Babil, and the other is southwest of it, on the right bank of the Euphrates, and is called Birs-Nimrud among the Arabs, i.e. Tower of Nimrod. Both ruins are grandiose and show that an unimaginable amount of labor and millions of bricks went into the construction of these structures. The last one is especially majestic, and since its Arabic name directly coincides with the biblical reference to Nimrod, most researchers are inclined to identify this particular ruin with the Tower of Babel. The same opinion is supported by one wedge-shaped inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, which states that the king, having found the ruins of the tower of the seven luminaries in Borsippa (a suburb of Babylon), restored it. At present, Birs Nimrud is a bare hill 235 feet high. At first glance it appears to be a simple earthen mound, but excavations have revealed that it is the remains of a brick-built building. On the top of the hill, in the shape of a dilapidated castle, stands the remains of a tower, projecting 40 feet above the general mass of ruins. According to the description of Herodotus (I, 181), Birs-Nimrud (the temple of Bel) was based on a stage in width and length (more than 600 feet), and according to Strabo, it was the same in height. According to Rawlinson's rough calculations, such a construction should have required at least 35 million. bricks of the largest size. The enormity of the ruins can be judged by the fact that Alexander the Great, in order to restore the building, used 10,000 people for two months to remove only the rubbish that fell from it in his time.

According to the biblical view, at first all people spoke the same language. This was a great blessing, as it made mutual relations between them unhindered; but they abused this blessing, and as punishment God confused their languages, so that they ceased to understand each other, and from their different dialects, heterogeneous languages ​​were subsequently formed. Diversity of languages, according to the biblical view, is, therefore, a punishment of God imposed on people in order to complicate their relations with each other, since, due to the sinful inclination of the human heart, people primarily use such relations for evil. In connection with the biblical view, there is a New Testament legend that when, in order to spread Christianity, it was necessary to remove the obstacle presented by multilingualism for preaching to different peoples, the apostles were given the gift of tongues, i.e., the ability to understand, which had once been taken away from people, was restored universal human language (Acts II, 2 – 11).

The legend of the Babylonian pandemonium, with the accompanying consequences, was preserved in the traditions of other peoples - and above all among the Babylonians themselves. This could already be judged by the testimony of two Greek writers who drew their information about Babylonia from native sources - Polyhistor and Abydenus, of whom the first conveys the Babylonian tradition in a form very close to the biblical legend. But recently, authentic Babylonian tablets have been discovered, now located in Britain. museum. Although these slabs are badly damaged, the cuneiform writing has been preserved to such an extent that the general meaning of the text can be reproduced. It says that Babylon was inclined to sin, the great and small in it began to build some kind of stronghold, but God in his anger decided to bring fear to them, made their language strange and thus made it difficult for the further success of the work (“Records of the Past” ", VII, 131 and 132). Echoes of the same tradition were preserved among the Egyptians, who attributed the dispersion of peoples to the indignation of wicked people against the gods; among the Greeks, who preserved the legend of the Akkadians, who once had the proud idea of ​​penetrating into the dwelling of the gods through the great tower, and even in the New World - among the Mexicans and various Indian tribes.

Literature. Wed. Lucken, "Traditionen des Menschengeschlechts" (1869); Lenormant, "Origines de l'histoire"; in Russian literature: A. Lopukhin, “ Bible story in the light of the latest research and discoveries” (vol. I, 214 – 230); N. Astafiev, “Babylonian-Assyrian antiquities” (p. 57).

From the Bible. According to legend, one day the peoples of the Babylonian kingdom decided to build high tower(in Church Slavonic “pillar”, respectively “pandemonium” construction, creation of a pillar): “And they said: let us build ourselves a city and a tower, with a height of ... ... Dictionary of popular words and expressions

Cm … Synonym dictionary

Babel- Babylonian pandemonium. Tower of Babel. Painting by P. Bruegel the Elder. 1563. Museum of Art History. Vein. PANDEAL OF BABYLON, in the Bible a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the global flood (Babylon... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

BABEL. see pandemonium. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

PANDEAL OF BABYLON, in the Bible, a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the global flood (Tower of Babel). Angered by the insolence of people, God confused their languages ​​(they ceased to understand each other), scattered them throughout... ... Modern encyclopedia

In the Bible there is a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the Flood. Angered by the insolence of the people, God confused their languages ​​so that people ceased to understand each other, and scattered them throughout the entire earth. In a figurative sense, turmoil... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

In the Bible there is a legend about how God, angry at the insolence of people who intended to build a tower to heaven (the Tower of Babel), confused their languages ​​(they stopped understanding each other) and scattered humanity throughout the entire earth... Historical Dictionary

- (foreign language) disorder, confused noisy conversation Wed. I happened to attend some meetings, and what a Babylonian pandemonium I encountered there, it’s hard to believe... It’s as if everyone speaks different languages, no one wants to listen to anyone, or... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary

Babel- Book Disapproved Units only Complete confusion, extreme disorder, disorganization. There are many miracles in this world, but there are even more in our literature. This is a true Babylonian pandemonium, where people... shout in all kinds of languages ​​and dialects, not... Educational phraseological dictionary

Coordinates: 32°32′11″ N. w. 44°25′15″ E. d. / 32.536389° n. w. 44.420833° E. d... Wikipedia

Books

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• Secrets of Babylon, V. A. Belyavsky. What was Babylon like twenty-five centuries ago? Did the Pandemonium of Babel really happen or was it a fiction? What were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and how were they built?

The waters of the flood renewed the face of the earth, but did not change the fallen nature of man. The inclination towards sin remains. Already four generations after the flood (under Peleg, the son of Eber), an event occurred that had great consequences in the history of mankind. We are talking about an attempt to build a tower in the Valley of Shinar sky high(Genesis 11:4), which was called Babylonian. The builders of the tower had two motives, both sinful. First: let's make a name for ourselves(Genesis 11:4), that is, we will become glorified. This desire was caused pride and popularity. These are the very vices that led to the death of antediluvian humanity. The second motive was also ungodly. The builders said: let's build a city and a tower and make a name for ourselves before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth(Genesis 11:4). This showed clear opposition to the will of God, who said: be fruitful and multiply and spread throughout the earth(Genesis 9, 7). In the Holy Scriptures, builders are called sons of men (see: Gen. 11:5). Previously, the descendants of Cain were named this way. In the event described, this expression is applied to the descendants of Ham. Ham was the son of Noah, but he committed a grave sin - he laughed at his father in an extremely disrespectful manner.

Although the initiative came from the Hamites, probably the entire then small human race participated in the attempt to realize this proud and crazy idea, because the punishment (confusion of languages) affected everyone. The Lord said: Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other.(Genesis 11:7). Plural form of verbs (soyd eat and mix eat) indicates the interview of all the Persons of the Divine Trinity.

What should be understood by the expression mixing languages? Origen, a Christian writer of the early 3rd century, believed that the Guardian Angels gave each people their own language and they ceased to understand each other. The only exception concerned the Jewish people, who, being the lot of God Himself, preserved the language given by the Lord to Adam. This opinion was shared by St. Augustine: the Hebrew language was the language of Adam, while the rest of the peoples received new ones as a result of confusion.

God scattered the people throughout the earth, and they stopped building the tower. The city was named Babylon, which means - mixing. This event is not only attested in the inspired Scripture, but was also refracted in a unique way and imprinted in the historical memory of the pagan people. Assyrologian George Smith deciphered and published the Chaldean text in 1876, which tells: “Babylon turned criminally to evil and began to build a great tower. Small and great began to work.<...>But at night the god Anu completely stopped their work. In his anger, he also poured out before the gods his secret advice to scatter them everywhere and turn his face against them; gave the command to make their language alien and to prevent their work” (quoted from: Lopukhin A.P. Biblical history of the Old Testament. Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. 1998. T. 1. P. 219).

In Christian literature The Tower of Babel has become a symbol of theomachism. The city of Babylon, which grew up on the site of the construction of the tower, in the Revelation of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, as a symbol of a corrupt and ungodly world, is contrasted with the prototype of the Holy Church - heavenly Jerusalem.

In the confusion of languages ​​one can see the good care of God's Providence for people. If the human race were united under the rule of one king, which would probably have been Cush’s son Nimrod, a “cruel and proud” man (as St. John Chrysostom writes), then everyone would be under heavy oppression.

The main reason for the confusion of languages ​​was to preserve and not disappear in the emerging paganism true knowledge of God. Confirmation of this idea can be found in the fact that the author of the book of Genesis, the prophet Moses, immediately after the story of the dispersion of the nations, talks about the pious Abraham, who retained faith in the True God.

Babel