Chapter 4: Nations, Languages, and Early Evidence
Study activity, printable worksheet, explained answers, and source references for your chapter.
Printed chapter: pages 23-29. Complete connected chart: pages 98–145. These page references match the reviewed manuscript.
Listen to Chapter 4 · View Chapter 4 on the chart · Download the two-page worksheet
Make an evidence label
Read Genesis 11:1-9 and compare the Rosetta and Mesha explanations. Make three labels: source, what it tells us, and one limit. Younger learners can describe a drawing; older learners should distinguish the event’s date from an object’s manufacture or discovery.
Find the detail on the chart, identify what each number measures, and record the source used for your explanation.
Practice questions and explained answers
Try the worksheet first. Tap a question to reveal its explanation.
1. Does Genesis 11 name Nimrod as the tower project’s leader?
No. Genesis 10 connects Nimrod with Babel in his kingdom; Genesis 11 does not name the project’s leader.
2. Does Genesis describe winds destroying the tower?
No. It describes confusion, scattering, and cessation of building. Adams reports a separate destruction tradition and acknowledges the distinction.
3. Are language and script interchangeable terms?
No. A script is a system used to represent language in writing. Several scripts can represent the same language.
4. Does the Rosetta Stone contain three languages?
No. Its three scripts represent Egyptian and Greek: two languages. Counting scripts as languages gives the wrong result.
5. What does the traditional Chinese number 214 describe?
Dictionary classification radicals. It is not an alphabet or the total inventory of Chinese characters.
6. Why read Mesha’s account critically?
It is a royal statement about success and authority. Compare its claims with other evidence while retaining the king’s viewpoint.
Complete connected chart
Download all four parts and print in order, at actual size (100%). These contain one complete set of 48 numbered chart tiles, divided into four downloads. Follow the tile labels to connect the chart. Use the chapter enlargements for small lettering.
- Chart part 1 of 4 — tiles 1–12
- Chart part 2 of 4 — tiles 13–24
- Chart part 3 of 4 — tiles 25–36
- Chart part 4 of 4 — tiles 37–48
Sources to consult
These are the chapter’s source references, not quotations from those works. Use the named title, institution, record number, or passage to locate the source. Some external sources may have access restrictions.
- Genesis 10-11 and 2 Kings 3:4-5, King James Version.
- ORACC, Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online, proper-name glossary, Eurmeiminanki (x000001440), identifies the ziggurat of Nabu at Borsippa; compare Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Marduk. This supports distinguishing Borsippa from Babylon, not identifying the biblical Tower of Babel archaeologically.
- University College London, Digital Egypt for Universities: The System of Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing; Cuneiform.
- Elizabeth Knott, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alphabet Origins: From Kipling to Sinai, 22 December 2014. MIT OpenCourseWare, Chinese I (Streamlined), Fall 2014, Lesson 2 character notes, discussion of dictionary radicals.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inscribed brick, object 59.41.86, Neo-Sumerian, about 2112-2095 BC, Nippur.
- British Museum, The Rosetta Stone, institutional exhibition hosted by Google Arts & Culture.
- Louvre, Stèle de Mesha, AO 5066.
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Moabite Stone, or Mesha Stele, cast, USNM A130117-0, record nmnhanthropology_8010378. Used for the original’s discovery in 1868. The Smithsonian object is a later cast, not the ancient monument itself.
- British Museum, Rosetta Stone, object EA24, institutional object record hosted by Google Arts & Culture: material granodiorite. The historical caption’s black-basalt identification is not retained as the modern identification.
- Ministry of Education, Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants, Summary List of 214 Chinese Radicals with Various Forms, appendix 7. The 214 entries classify characters; they are not the total number of Chinese characters.
Use the printed chapter for its selected enlargements and the qualifications around each explanation. No account or personal information is required on this resource page. Downloaded files can be kept for offline study.