Overcoming Babel

Until Babel, all the inhabitants of the earth were “of one language and of one speech” (Gen. 11:1). Linguistically, there was no hindrance to communication, to development of man’s intellectual powers, to progress. To have a common language is to have a means of storing and transmitting knowledge in which all men can share. Education and scientific inquiry can feed upon themselves and grow by leaps and bounds. But this potential for an explosion of knowledge was never realized. The reason was that men chose self-aggrandizement and the perpetuation of geographical unity in defiance of God’s command (“lest we be scattered abroad”—cf. Genesis 9:1, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth”). “The way they are starting to behave,” God noted, “nothing they plan will be impossible for them.” In judgment God confused men’s language so that they could no longer understand one another. Unanimity gave way to confusion, geographical unity to dispersion.

The project on the plains of Shinar ground to a halt, but language diversification has continued ever since. Despite the conservative influence of writing, all living languages change with use. Today four to five thousand different languages are spoken in the world. Africa has 1,000; the South Pacific area includes at least 1,200 more. Still, since Babel God has continued to use language as the medium of his revelation to men. He commanded the prophets and later the apostles to speak and to write, using the language at hand. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek.

Jesus Christ was “a prophet mighty in word” (Luke 24:19). He told his followers that what they heard him say was “not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:24), and he claimed permanence for his statements—“My words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). His utterances were instrumental to salvation—“He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life” (John 5:24). They were also basic to judgment—“He that … receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). Clearly Jesus considered human language adequate to convey God’s thoughts: “I have given them the words thou gavest me” (John 17:8). And to speak God’s words, Jesus used Western Aramaic, the principal language of most of his hearers. In his encounter with Saul on the road to Damascus, Christ used not the language of Paul’s citizenship, Latin, nor that of his higher education, Greek, but the language of his home, Aramaic. And Paul never forgot that; twenty-two years later he included it in his account of his conversion (Acts 26:14).

The world into which Christ sent his disciples to preach the Gospel was a world of many different languages. In the Mediterranean-centered Roman empire, though Greek was the language of commerce and culture and Latin the language of the spreading Roman military power, many other local languages were also in common use (cf. Acts 2:9–11; 14:11; 18:1–6). Beyond the confines of the Roman empire still other languages were spoken.

Before launching out on this formidable sea of languages, the disciples were to receive power from the Holy Spirit. The occasion of his coming was the feast of Pentecost, when Jews of the dispersion and proselytes from east and west of Palestine gathered in Jerusalem. In addition to speaking either Aramaic or Greek, both familiar languages to the bilingual Galilean apostles, the visiting pilgrims spoke as mother tongues a variety of local languages that were also used in praising God during the great festivals in Jerusalem. At Pentecost, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, and Rome, as well as Cretes and Arabians, heard from the disciples the wonderful works of God in their native languages (Acts 2:4–11). This was the divinely ordered and Spirit-directed launching of the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel. The same God who had confused the languages at Babel provided an answer to Babel: The diversified languages of men were to be used to convey God’s truth, even where there was a common trade language.

While the confusion of tongues at Babel hindered men from communicating with one another, it was never intended to limit communication between God and men. If human language is adequate to convey God’s thoughts to men, then it is certainly adequate to express man’s praise to God. In the Book of Revelation, the gift of language, “wherewith we bless God” (Jas. 3:9), fulfills its highest purpose as the redeemed “out of every language” (Rev. 5:7) and “of all tongues” (7:9) acclaim the glories of Jesus Christ. The reappearance in Revelation’s great culminative drama of the multiplied languages of earth is not incidental; as languages have been an integral part of earth’s human scene, so they are an essential element of God’s great victory in Jesus Christ. It seems likely that many languages will actually be heard. Already God is worshiped in hundreds of different languages around the world; the endtime drama will be more, not less, glorious. On that day when spirits are unencumbered and lips unfettered, the language each man uses may well be the language of his birth.

There is nothing to suggest that on that occasion all will speak the same language. Nor is any one language or group of languages singled out for special mention. God, who is no respecter of persons, is also no respecter of languages. Men often judge languages according to social status, national prestige, number of speakers, and international usefulness but discrimination based on language will be out of place in the presence of Jesus Christ, who while on earth spoke a despised dialect of Aramaic. Each language offers facilities for ascribing praise to Jesus Christ that no other language exactly duplicates. Indeed, to describe in any adequate way the glories of our God and of his Christ will require the combined resources of all earth’s languages.

What does all this mean for worldwide proclamation of the Gospel today? Language, whether spoken or written, is still our most effective means of communicating with others. Literature, radio, and television require language and extend its outreach. The witness of a man’s life, unaccompanied by words, may be inadequate or misunderstood.

But language fails if the speaker does not use it in a way that gets his message through to the hearer. “Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood,” Paul wrote, “how shall it be known what is spoken?” (1 Cor. 14:9)? What can the Christian do who shares Paul’s desire “that I may make it clear, as I ought to speak” (Col. 4:3, 4)? Precedent and precept suggest certain principles: The language of the hearer determines the language of communication. The mother tongue has priority, even in multiple-language situations. The responsibility of making the message plain, of using words easy to understand, and, if need be, of learning other languages, rests with Christ’s ambassadors, not with those to whom they go.

Since God has chosen not to give each language community a direct revelation from heaven in its own language, but to send messengers with the original revelation from one center to all the world, translation of the message into each language is necessary. And since all living languages change, translations periodically need revision.

God has given man the ability not only to speak his own language but also to learn to speak others. Not all men have the same ability to learn foreign languages, of course, but God’s promise to Moses—“I will be with thy mouth” (Exod. 4:12)—is still valid. In addition, God has provided specialized help for anyone going anywhere in the world to learn any language spoken by men. Many institutions around the world give courses in linguistics; Wycliffe Bible Translators, for example, and its affiliate, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, offer linguistic training in America, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.

Some would-be missionaries have tried to evade language-learning by writing off some language groups as too small to warrant the effort. Some have suggested teaching everyone else English, a far greater task than learning and using foreign languages. Some have resorted to using interpreters, with all their limitations and disadvantages. Some have settled for a trade language, content with reaching many superficially. But the precedent of God and the teaching of Scripture are quite clear: languages are not to be avoided but to be used for the communication of the Gospel and the glory of God.

If the millions of people speaking one of the more than 2,000 languages still without the Scriptures are not reached in this generation, it will not be for lack of means or methods, but simply for lack of obedience to the divine commission.

George M. Cowan is president of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He helped translate the New Testament for the Mazateco tribe of Mexico. He has the Th.M. (Dallas Seminary) and the M.A. (the University of North Dakota).

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