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Was There A Civilization X?
Does civilization exist as a Recurring Cycle?
Prior to the birth of civilization, which occurred simultaneously sometime around 3000 BC in Mesopotamia,
the Indus, and the Nile Valleys, as well as Caral, in Peru, mankind lived the life of a primitive hunter, void of
what we call civilization. Ours is the first. Right? Well, that's what we were taught in grade school
anyway, although, no one knows for sure. Or, at least, there is no evidence to suggest such a thought.
Or is there?
With that in mind, a fresh look at the biblical story of the Tower of Babel offers an interesting point of view, that is, if we take it with a little bit of seriousness. On its surface, it is just another fable where God forces his 'will' upon the world because he doesn't like what mankind has been up to. This time it is a tower reaching up to the heavens. Whether the tower existed or not is not the point. What is, is that the story was wide-spread during ancient times and important enough to be included in first book of Moses. Its description of civilization is very interesting:
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Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why
it was called Babel [c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the
LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
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According to ancient texts, we know without a doubt that when civilization was born (3000 BC) there was no single language, and that there existed a variety of languages and cultures. So what could the Tower of Babel story be referring to? Of course it can be written-off as just another fable, but it seems feeble minded to do so just because we haven't a context for the story, or a clue as to why they were telling in the story. Could it be a part of their collective memory, their history?
In the insurance business there is a clause that protects the insured from what they call 'Acts of God.' These 'acts' are nothing more than natural disasters. Five thousand years ago people also blamed God for natural disasters, just as much as they do today. So, what likely happened in the Tower of Babel story is that a natural disaster of immense proportions occurred. The civilization that existed was decimated; leaving only isolated pockets of survivors. Over many generations these survivors struggled back onto the road of civilization, but because of their isolation unique languages developed in various regions.
If it did happen, it could happen again. Most recently, scientists talk about the comet or asteroid that rendered the dinosaurs extinct, and that it will certainly happen again. It's just a question of when. If it did, and 70% or more of the world's population were destroyed what would happen to mankind? Within the next four generations after the cataclysm everything we know of today - ours cars, houses, phones, computers - would be a dim memory.
By the tenth generation who would care?
