The calendar in Genesis 11 allows us to date the breakup of Pangea at about 200 years after the flood. This correlates with scientific tracking of seismic activity following the initial breakup / all the fountains of the great deep broken up (Genesis 7:11, 8:2)
In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousands of instrumentally detectable aftershocks, which steadily decrease in magnitude and frequency according to a consistent pattern. In some earthquakes the main rupture happens in two or more steps, resulting in multiple main shocks. These are known as doublet earthquakes, and in general can be distinguished from aftershocks in having similar magnitudes and nearly identical seismic waveforms.
“Now these are the 1) generations / genetics / races of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth…2) in their nations:” (Genesis 10:1, 32)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftershock
There are different interpretations of what was actually divided. If we take a straightforward translation from the Hebrew we accept that the physical earth is what is reported here. Interpreting the report of this earth division as being caused by the usual aftershocks of the initial massive tectonic upheavals during the flood, as described in that post, is simply to be expected. Geological science confirms this interpretation.
The breakup of Pangea into continents surrounded by oceans separated humanity into smaller isolates as well. Enforced inbreeding among geographically separated groups rapidly stabilized the genetic makeup of the groups, identifiable as paternal Y-chromosome and maternal mitochondrial haploid groups.
The breakup of one large landmass at this time would also certainly expedite the breakup of one empire into independent nations – socio-political groupings of people, not necessarily composed of people with common ancestry. One’s genetics – their family – is imposed, for better or for worse, and can’t be changed. But’s ones associates – social, political and religious identity – are valued assets often sought to improve one’s lot in life, which is why multitudes of people emigrate to another country where citizenship is a privilege bestowed on those on those deemed worthy of the benefits of belonging to that nation.
Semites is a term for racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians. First used in the 1770s by members of the Göttingen school of history, this biblical terminology for race was derived from Shem, but is now obsolete, and replaced by Mongoloid.
Hamites: now called the Negroid division of the human race, found wherever that Indian Ocean touches land, with dark-skin, strongly developed jaws, relatively long arms and kinky or frizzly hair.
Japhetites, found in ethnological and linguistic writing from the 18th to the 20th century for white people, now called the Caucasian race.
Different from race, a nation is a community of people who share the same language, history, ethnicity, i.e. culture – the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, and habits of that defines and maintains the norms and expectations within a society.
“On the Day of Pentecost there many of these nations present: “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia [Minor], Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes.” (Acts 2:8-10)
Continue reading “SECTION XXI: The Nations”