Origins of Language and of Race

Even those who consider themselves at some level "Biblical scholars" learn something new - I was about to say, " now and then," but it seems to happen more and more, lately. Did you know that the Bible never refers to "race"? It refers to ethnos, nations, tribes, peoples, languages, religions, genders (only 2), and, for descriptive purposes only, skin color. However, it never divides people up along the lines of race, as we do today. In a way, I have taught this, but never realized how deeply true it was until I read the below reprint of a devotional from ICR (Institute for Creation Research).

What Stalin said was true (I think it was he): Tell a lie enough and it becomes the truth. We have had race so deeply embedded into our psyches in the past few centuries that it is difficult to imagine essentially non-racist cultures that have pre-dated us. Think of the well-integrated early Egyptians, the Roman world or the Asiatic cultures. I may be a bit off by making generalities, but it seems we have more of a race problem than ever - so much for the evolution of the human mind. Why is it that we think we are the last of many to deal with the issue, as if it has been a worse problem before us and that we are conquering it in our time? My supposition is that the only thing that has evolved in mankind is our arrogance, namely in our thinking that we are so much smarter, so much more advanced, so much less given to error, than any of our predecessors.

Here, then, is a very unique, and Scriptural, view of the origins of language and race:

Origin of the Races
December 21, 2010
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." (Genesis 10:32)

This is the concluding verse of the tenth chapter of Genesis, known as "The Table of Nations." It tells us that all the original nations of the world were formed from the descendants of Noah. The basis of this worldwide division was their dispersion at Babel (Genesis 11:9), "every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations" (Genesis 10:5; see also 10:20 and 10:31). Lest anyone think this list of original nations is simply folklore, he should remember that William F. Albright, probably the greatest archaeologist of the twentieth century, called it "an astonishingly accurate document." Many ethnologists still speak of Japhetic, Hamitic, and Semitic peoples and languages.

But what about the origin of races? One searches the Bible in vain for this information, for neither the word nor the concept of "race" appears in the Bible at all! There is no such thing as a race--except the human race! Skin color and other supposed racial characteristics are mere recombinations of innate genetic factors, originally created in Adam and Eve to permit development of different family characteristics as the human race was commanded to multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28; 9:1).

"Race" is strictly an evolutionary concept used by Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and the other nineteenth-century evolutionists to rationalize their white racism. But from the beginning it was not so! "God that made the world and all things therein; . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:24, 26). "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?" (Malachi 2:10). HMM

End Devo. Interesting, isn't it? Have you ever heard of Darwin taught as a racist? I bet you never heard of Margaret Sanger's racism either. She is the founder of Planned Parenthood, and a supporter of ethnic cleansing, as well as of breeding a "race of thoroughbreds." I bet you didn't know PP was created to advance eugenics, the extermination of "lesser" breeds of humans, such as the poor, immigrants and minorities.

It's amazing how we'll listen to a lie. No, we didn't listen to the lie itself, only its derivatives. We listened to those who would teach Darwin and Sanger...not the racists themselves. Neither would we permit them to continue to be taught at all, should we know the truth - for that would set us free. I will close, then, with the ominous human blasphemy of Darwin himself, so that you may know it exists, and is found in his The Descent of Man:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

Ah, to the lie. Now who is it that is teaching the philosophies of these fine citizens lately? From whom are we receiving our "truths?" Who will stand and defend these upstanding, moral examples of humanism? Why, just about all of modern scientists, educators and politicians are fluently espousing the virtues of both Darwin and Sanger, as well as their acolytes. Is it any wonder that ours is perhaps the most racist of all ages? Ideas have consequences, my friends. We have been told the lies often, and they permeate our understanding of reality. Christians, re-evaluate what you permit into your theology. Thinking people, re-evaluate the spirit of your sources. A lie well told is still a lie, no matter how many educated and articulate voices repeat it. After all, Stalin was seminary educated.