I was told that in Israel, religious schools describe the origin of languages in this way to this day. And so a graduate of such a school enters the university, begins to study linguistics, and is told that in fact Hebrew is just one of the Semitic languages, which has changed greatly in comparison with the proto-language, and that many archaic features have been preserved not in Hebrew, but in... Arabic! And the linguistic material really confirms this thesis.

For example, in the ancient Hebrew language there is a word yom, which is translated as "day". In Semitic languages, the root of a word usually (though not always) consists of three consonant sounds, but here there are only two: й-м. But in Arabic, the same word sounds like yaum. Probably, in the middle of this word there was another root consonant, a non-syllabic u (like the English w), just in the Hebrew yaum was compressed into yom.

Or an example from grammar: in classical Arabic there are cases: ardu — land (nominative), ardi — land (genitive), arda — earth (accusative). In Hebrew, all case meanings are conveyed by prepositions, but the word "earth" does not change and sounds like eretz. But there is a strange adverbial form of arts "on the ground". Very similar to the accusative case... It can be assumed that once in Hebrew there were forms artsu, artsi, artsa, of which only the last one has been preserved, the rest have lost their endings, after which the unpronounceable arts turned into erets.

If we look not only at Arabic, but also at other Semitic languages, our guess will be confirmed: in many of them, the word "day" has three root consonants, and three cases with corresponding endings are also found everywhere. It turns out that the ancient Hebrew language has lost these common Semitic features. And even if we assume that the original language of mankind was not Hebrew, but a proto-Semitic or even Nostratic language, what to do with the gradual changes?

And here the student has a choice: either to accept linguistics as a science, and try to read the text of the Book of Genesis with different eyes, interpreting it not so literally, or completely abandon linguistics. He can say: yes, God created Hebrew on purpose, as if this language had already passed a certain stage in its development, but in fact there was no development, and linguistic diversity arose in one moment, in an inexplicable way. And linguistics is heresy.

In no way would I draw direct parallels between the development of languages and the question of biological evolution: these are too different processes. But I would like to point out just one detail: three thousand years ago, there was no modern linguistics or modern biology, and so it is absurd to expect the Bible to use the appropriate terminology or to expound the scientific theories of the twenty-first century (why not the thirty-first, by the way?).

In fact, no science is omnipotent. Scientists can say absolutely nothing about the origin of language: at the most ancient stage, among the most primitive tribe, it already exists as a complex system. Linguistics can explain how languages develop, but it cannot tell us why humans possess language at all and how it began.

Perhaps we should recognize that the first chapters of Genesis describe "the childhood of mankind" not in the language of modern textbooks, but in the language of poetic tales, which were the only words used to talk about such things thousands of years ago? This does not mean that all these tales are fiction, they are simply arranged somewhat differently than our textbooks. And let science remain science, and faith remains faith, they are not really enemies of each other.

16. The First Tuvan Bible

The Republic of Tuva, or Tuva, as we are more accustomed to say, is also part of Russia, although it is hard to believe when you cross its border from the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Immediately after the Sayan Mountains, the Siberian taiga gradually recedes, the traveler is surrounded by low hills, behind which lies the steppe, as if descended from the Mongolian canvases of Roerich. Although the language of the Tuvans belongs to the Turkic group, Tuva historically belonged to the Mongol civilization. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was part of the Manchu Empire, but after the Chinese revolution, in 1914, it became a protectorate of Russia, and became part of the USSR only in 1944. Their traditional religion combines Lamaist Buddhism and shamanism, while the Tibetan variety of Buddhism came to these parts from Mongolia only a few centuries ago. In the center of the capital of Tuva, the city of Kyzyl (founded in 1914 as Belotsarsk), there are a Buddhist sanctuary-khure, a shamanic yurt for conducting appropriate rituals and... a monument to the Red partisans of the Civil War. A very eloquent combination, but all these religions and ideologies coexist quite peacefully, because they, in fact, have nothing to share on the banks of the Yenisei.

Christianity came to Tuva quite recently. The Orthodox mission in these parts existed at the beginning of the 20th century, but, unfortunately, it did not last long for obvious reasons. However, since 1929 and to this day, the Trinity Church, built by Russian colonists of the "self-governing labor colony", has been operating continuously in Kyzyl. There are several other churches in the republic, but still there are very few of them, although at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Russian settlers appeared here, among whom there were many Old Believers. But they came to the Uriankhai region, as these lands were then called, in search of freedom and a better life, and not at all to educate the local population, with whom the Russians did not mix much. To this day, they are a minority even in the capital of the republic, and in rural areas they are practically non-existent, except in Old Believer villages...

Christian missionaries came to these lands again in the early 1990s: they were Protestants from Russia, Ukraine, America and Korea, who founded several communities. There are also Orthodox Christians among the Tuvans, but they are few and are, for the most part, people who have adopted Russian culture or, at least, are well acquainted with it. Fellow tribesmen, as a rule, look askance at them: they abandoned paternal customs, began to worship the "Russian God", although in general the Tuvans are quite tolerant, there are practically no obvious conflicts on religious grounds here.

It is difficult for us to imagine to what extent the world of the Tuvans is different from ours: a generation or two ago, these people led a nomadic life in yurts, as in the days of Genghis Khan, and some of today's townspeople had just such a childhood, for example, Nikolai Kuular, whom we will talk about later. These people, in fact, face a choice: to keep their traditional culture intact by living in yurts, or to join the world civilization in cities. And the choice, as a rule, has already been made for each of them: a child brought up in a boarding school will not live in tents, as in the time of Abraham, will not make sacrifices to the spirits of mountains and streams... Will he lose his self-identity? This is the main question for many.

This summer, the first complete translation of the Bible into the Tuvan language will be published. It is impossible to overestimate its importance for Christian mission: now any Tuvan, taking this text in his hands, will see how unfair the words about the "Russian God" are. Moreover, reading about the same Abraham, he will be able to make sure that he had much more in common with the Tuvans than with the Russians, which means that it is not shameful for the Tuvans to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But it's not just about the mission. One of the questions that Tuvan society faces now sounds something like this: is Tuvan Christianity possible? Not Russian Christianity, adopted by the Russified Tuvans, but its local version?