Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Theodore Hiebert's Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel

Strong, John T.

doi:10.2307/25610146

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…11 This name making is also seen as a rebellion against God because, as John T. Strong contends, such action means replacing the name of God. 12 This argument seems to be corroborated by Gerhard von Rad, who asserts that "namegiving in the ancient Orient was primarily an exercise of sovereignty, of command." 13 Some scholars, however, focus on the dispersion issue instead of the hubris issue.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Centripetal-centrifugal Forces in the Tower of Babel Narrative (Gen 11:1-9)

Putrawan¹,

Noya²,

Negoro³

2022

Old. testam. essays.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article argues that the Tower of Babel's narrative (Gen 11:1-9) serves as a counter narrative against the universalisation of language, territory and peoplehood identity. In addition, it perfectly fits the politics of Israelite identity formation throughout the book of Genesis. The argument is anchored as follows: Firstly, the article surveys the earlier interpretations of scholars. Secondly, it examines the Tower of Babel narrative as a subversive narration for identity formation by analysing the interaction of language, territory and identity in the narrative. Lastly, Gen 11:1 -11 text is read within the larger narrative in the book of Genesis utilising the concept of centripetal and centrifugal forces proposed by Mikhail Bakhtin. In so doing, this article shows that the Tower of Babel narrative employs such a force to subvert the imperial propaganda of unification and advances its own agenda of identity politics.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Centripetal-centrifugal Forces in the Tower of Babel Narrative (Gen 11:1-9)

Putrawan¹,

Noya²,

Negoro³

2022

Old. testam. essays.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The story recounts some of the early struggles between gods and humans, and describes how the creator god is stressed by his own creation. Because it is so interesting, many commentaries on this story have been written over the years (see Kramer 1968;DeWitt 1979;Brueggemann 1982;Derrida 1991;Walton 1995;Seely 2001;Hiebert 2007;James and van der Sluijs 2008;Strong 2008;Kugel 2009;LaCocque 2010;Sherman 2013;Giorgetti 2014;Sherwin 2014;Keating 2016). Within the narrative of Genesis, the story comes just after Yahweh saves only Noah and his family among the humans from destruction in the flood.…”

Section: Introduction: You Can Lead a Horse To Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Heaven and Earth

Laurent¹

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An approach to understanding religion that draws on both humanities and natural science but rejects approaches that employ simple monisms and radical dualisms. In Beyond Heaven and Earth, Gabriel Levy argues that collective religious narratives and beliefs are part of nature; they are the basis for the formation of the narratives and beliefs of individuals. Religion grows out of the universe, but to make sense of it we have to recognize the paradox that the universe is both mental and material (or neither). We need both humanities and natural science approaches to study religion and religious meaning, Levy contends, but we must also recognize the limits of these approaches. First, we must make the dominant metaphysics that undergird the various disciplines of science and humanities more explicit, and second, we must reject those versions of metaphysics that maintain simple monisms and radical dualisms. Bringing Donald Davidson's philosophy—a form of pragmatism known as anomalous monism—to bear on religion, Levy offers a blueprint for one way that the humanities and natural sciences can have a mutually respectful dialogue. Levy argues that in order to understand religions we have to take their semantic content seriously. We need to rethink such basic concepts as narrative fiction, information, agency, creativity, technology, and intimacy. In the course of his argument, Levy considers the relation between two closely related semantics, fiction and religion, and outlines a new approach to information. He then applies his theory to discrete cases: ancient texts, modern media, and intimacy.

show abstract

Tolerating Babel

Runions

2011

RST

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

D.W. Griffith’s 1916 film Intolerance: Love’s Struggle through the Ages, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2006 film Babel both treat the biblical figure of Babylon/Babel positively and negatively. These films are analyzed for their ambivalence toward Babylon, as it dramatizes and facilitates the tensions between unity and diversity, control and mobility, rights and interest, individual discipline and regularization of the population at work in biopolitical U.S. empire. These films wish to rebuild Babel: they propose cinema as a universal language able to bridge communicative divides and remedy the violence and social control of intolerant empire. In imagining a more tolerant world, they ostensibly value diversity. Yet they want to return to the normative sexual relations of the white heteronormative family. Thus, both films mirror an ambivalence, also found in Genesis 11, toward social/political unity and diversity, producing a liberal tolerance discourse wherein the regulation and regularization of populations via biopolitics can be detested and yet pursued.

show abstract

Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Theodore Hiebert's Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Centripetal-centrifugal Forces in the Tower of Babel Narrative (Gen 11:1-9)

Centripetal-centrifugal Forces in the Tower of Babel Narrative (Gen 11:1-9)

Beyond Heaven and Earth

Tolerating Babel

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About