The Migdal Bavel Backstory

A new approach to the Torah-Science controversy

I haven’t been blogging much, as I have been focusing on my chumash shiurim (still ongoing, email me ashssubstacks@gmail.com for a link) and anyways, I thought maybe חוקר is right: Everything on this subject that can possibly have been said already has been.

Then I came across this: A theory so stupendous, so mindblowing, so insane, that I had never seen it before anywhere else! As a Torah-Science netizen, this is very unusual for me! It’s buried in an obscure r/judaism subthread, by the aptly usernamed “CheddarCheeses”.
The thread was started by the following question:

Archeologists have found neolithic settlements dating back to approximately 6,000 bce or older in China most notably in Jiahu and Damaidi that contain an early form of pictographs that later evolved into modern Chinese characters.How can this newfound evidence be reconciled with torah chronology? How is it possible for the same pictographic system to have been created prior to the mabul and have been revived and expounded on subsequent to it?

A good question, no? Happygolucky and co will probably say something about how unreliable the science is compared to the Mesorah, or very begrudgingly, push back the dating of the mabul.

But, don’t worry! CheddarCheeses has the answer!

It’s part of the Migdal Bavel backstory.

If Hashem wants to split up humanity and spread them throughout the world and give everyone separate languages, they need to have touchstones for those new identities. Where do their words come from? Why are they different? If they are to be 70 distinct nations, they need to have 70 different identities and backgrounds.

As for the timing, Hashem made the world in a way where science needs to be able to rationalize things without Hashem's existence, so things can't seemingly spring into existence ex nihilo, there has to be an evolution period.

A beautiful unimpeachable answer!!

(A slight pity it’s contradicted by the perek immediately preceding Migdal Bavel, which tells us explicitly where those 70 nations come from. Perhaps CheddarCheeses holds they come from two separate documents?)