Backwards from Babel: Gn. 1—11 as anti-imperial narrative
Babylon: the word is, literally, in the context of Gn.
1—11[1],
the stuff of legend. If Genesis was indeed
composed and/or redacted around the time when the Judahites were exiled by the
neo-Babylonian empire of the 6th century[2], it
clearly demonstrates just how long a shadow “Babylon” cast over the totality of
Hebrew Scripture.[3] “Babylon” was, in the Israelite imagination,
a cipher for (pagan) empire.[4] Indeed, with the (western) exceptions of the
ancient Roman republic (6th—1st centuries) and 5th-century
Athens, the almost universal approach to “politics” in the ancient world was
that of empire. The people of God, for
their part, were almost always on the receiving end of imperial power. Indeed, the story of Israel as a nation is
told as beginning with the departure of Terah and his son Abram from the
general vicinity of Babylon to journey westward toward Canaan (Gn.
11.31-32). The redactor of Genesis seems
to be encouraging his readers to follow in the footsteps of the patriarch; i.e.
to take up Cyrus’ offer, and to leave Babylon and head back westwards to rebuild
Jerusalem and once again dwell in the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
there to once again chart a new course for humanity (cf. Ezra 1.1-4; Ex. 19.5-6).
Indeed, it
seems that the vocation of the people of God was to be a counter-imperial sign
among the empires of the ancient world[5]. The implicit message of the Hebrew Scriptures
seems to be that “empire” is the quintessential collective expression of
humanity’s rebellion against the Creator.
In lieu of worshipping God, i.e. seeking to reflect the divine
image into the world, ancient human society (for all intents and purposes)
organized itself around god-kings[6]
and their ever-expanding realms of influence.
Indeed, the Israelites would experience the dynamics of such an
idolatrous model of power in the persons of the Pharaohs who enslaved them for
four centuries. Empires require slaves; in
the ancient world, the majority of imperial subjects were conscripted to
construct monuments that testified to the glory of the god-kings.[7]
Gn. 1—11
deconstructs the worldview/ideology that underpinned ancient empire. It is telling that the Israelites had a very
different notion of time compared to that of their Ancient Near Eastern
neighbours. Abram’s departure from “Babylonian”
civilization, where time was understood to be eternally cyclical, to chart a
course into the unknown, all the while conceiving of time in a linear manner –
i.e. believing that “the future” could be different from “the past” – was a
revolution.[8] Babylonia, like all other ancient cultures,
not only had a cyclical view of time, but also reasoned in circles – this is
the way things are because this is the way the gods ordained them to be[9]
because things have always been this way because, obviously, this is how the
gods have ordained them… Of course, such
a worldview could only be maintained so long as the culture was stable and so
long as the ruling dynasty was able to hang on to power (which they did through
tyrannical means). And thus, we uncover
the logic of ancient empire – a self-sustaining ideology of submission and
conformity to the powers that be, those powers being legitimated by appeal to
the divine will (it is impossible to get even a razor’s edge between religion
and politics in the Bible and its world).
In the enchanted world of antiquity, queens and kings all ruled by
divine right, and their subjects were expected to “manage their expectations”
in terms of what would serve the interests of the ruler (i.e. the will of the
gods)[10]. Gn. 1 presents a very “egalitarian” view
(vis-à-vis empire) of male and female together as the divine “image”, having
dominion over the “precincts” of a cosmic “temple” (i.e. as royal priests; cf.
Ex. 19.5-6), thus deconstructing all pagan pretensions to rule the world
(alone) from a fixed point[11],
whether on behalf of the gods or as a god.
All of the
counter-imperial themes of the narrative of Gn. 1—11 come together in the story
of the Tower of Babel.[12] Firstly, the narrative had “de-mythologized”
the heavens, showing the heavenly bodies to be creatures, not divinities
(chapter 1).[13] Then, in chapters 2—3, we witnessed the
primeval pair opting to discern good and evil for themselves (a divine
prerogative). For Aristotle (stepping
west for a moment), this was part and parcel of ancient urban
civilization. Aristotle’s Politics
describes man as a polis-animal, i.e. an animal that belongs in a city,
a community which creates a lifestyle directed towards the good. Endowed with logos, man has the
ability to distinguish between, among other things, good and bad, just and
unjust. The creatures that aspire to
divinity and to distinguish between good and evil build cities for protection
against the dangers of nature and as an expression of their self-sufficiency.[14] Indeed, humanity left the garden to undertake
the project of civilization, east of Eden.[15]
Finally, we
come to chapter 11. Humanity, still
mindful of the flood (cf. 10.32) and in a fear-induced panic[16],
decides (again) to disobey a divine command – this time, the imperative to “multiply
and abound on the earth” (9.7). They
determine rather to take measures against their “being scattered”, which, in
the event, will lead to them being precisely that[17]
– scattered across the face of the earth (cf. 11.4, 8, 9). The construction of the city and its tower[18] is
the “urban” equivalent to the Edenic eating of the forbidden fruit – i.e. it is
a case of humanity usurping divine prerogatives due to fear (“God knows…”) and
pride (“…that you will be like gods…”). At
Babylon, the builders say, “…let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we
shall be scattered…” (11.4).[19] “To make a name for oneself” means to
(re)create oneself in one’s own image, as it were.[20] Not content to trust the Creator for
provision and protection, the brick-makers[21] set
out to (sub)create “a world within the world”,[22] a
place where they will be safe[23]
from “nature” and where their needs will be met (presumably, through the
agriculture conducted in the fields surrounding the city). One might say that Babylon – the archetypal
“city of Man”[24]
– was designed to be “a garden of brick”.[25]
Humanity’s
seeking after safety and security is not necessarily wrong; it is the means by
which they sought to achieve these (in and of themselves, benign) ends that was
catastrophic. Babylon sought to
establish safety through idolatry – i.e. through the creation of a
totalitarian, ideological order that consolidated power, not in the Creator
(and his selfless viceroys)[26],
but rather in human rulers (albeit ones with divine pretensions). These tyrants[27]
ruled through propaganda and coercion.
Also, human “unity” is something to be prized; however, what is the
source of such unity? At bottom, is it a
unity based on a dynamic of power and fear (of suffering, of death), or is it
based rather on mutual self-giving love?
W. Brueggemann claims that the issue is whether (or not) the world shall
be organized for God’s purposes of joy, delight,
freedom, doxology, and caring. Such
a world must partake of the unity God wills and the scattering God
envisions. Any one-dimensional
understanding of scattering denies God’s vision for unity responsive to
him. Any one-dimensional understanding
of unity denies God’s intent for his world as peopled by his many different
peoples.[28] Connecting the Babel narrative with the
(presumed) historical circumstances that gave rise to its canonical shape – if
the Judahites’ rebellion had brought them to Babylon as exiles, then Yahweh’s
“scattering” of them would bring them back to Jerusalem.
The Babel
story illustrates, as did the narrative of the garden (Gn. 2—3), the potential
dangers of (the misuse of) language. Carrying
only its humanly constructed meanings, language, which was originally a
self-consciously imperfect attempt to mirror and capture being, becomes, when
taken for granted, a hermetically sealed shadow world (cf. Plato’s cave) cut
off from what is real.[29] Thus a purely pragmatic, positivistic use of
language can lead to a loss of meaning and an inability to engage with reality.
In sum, Gn.
1—11 both announces the Creator’s design for his human creatures within his
world and examines the deep flaws in human nature which (temporarily) frustrate
God’s purposes for creation. Thus is the
stage set for the formation of a new humanity (beginning in chapter 12) which
will (ultimately) fulfill the “cultural mandate”[30]
and, once again, God’s purposes for his world: joy, delight, freedom, doxology,
and caring.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox,
1982.
Gottwald, Norman K. “Early Israel as an
Anti-Imperial Community” in Richard A. Horsley, ed. In
the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance,
Louisville: WJK, 2008, pp. 9-24.
Horsley, Richard A., ed. In the Shadow of Empire:
Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, Louisville: WJK,
2008.
[1] I.e.
“Babel”.
[2] Cf.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A discursive
commentary on Genesis 1—11, London & New York: T&T Clark, 2011, pp.
60, 166.
[3] As well as
the post-biblical Jewish imagination; e.g. the book of Revelation.
[4] Along with
Egypt, for reasons that are easily inferred.
Cf. Revelation, where both Egypt and Babylon are used as symbols
of the empire of the time, i.e. Rome; cf. Blenkinsopp,
Joseph, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation, p. 166.
[5] “Early Israel was born as an anti-imperial resistance movement that
broke away from Egyptian and Canaanite domination to become a self-governing
community of free peasants”: Norman K. Gottwald, “Early Israel as an
Anti-Imperial Community” in Horsley, Richard A., ed. In the Shadow of
Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance,
Louisville: WJK, 2008, p. 9.
Gn. 1—11 can be read as an anti-imperial
narrative to the extent that one of the over-arching themes of the (Christian)
Bible is the struggle between the kingdoms of the world and the kingdom of God
(cf. Rev. 11.15). Cf. the dream of
Nebuchadnezzar II (who had destroyed Jerusalem) in Dn. 2, where the statue
representing four pagan empires is destroyed by a rock which becomes a mountain
and fills the whole earth (=the kingdom of God). The “holy ones of the Most-High” stand to
inherit the everlasting kingdom of the Ancient of Days (cf. chapter 7, where
the (same) four empires are represented by beasts which emerge from the
primordial sea). Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis,
Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 101 posits that in contrast to the
self-referential urban reality of the ancient world, “the modeling of an
alternative city of trustful obedience may be the task of the faithful
community” (cf. Is. 19.18-25; Rev. 22.2).
“May thy kingdom come…”
[6] Gn. 1—11
is a polemic against this manifestation of power and human society: Kass, Leon
R. The beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 228, n.9.
Certain ancient kings were believed to bear the/a divine image. However, this was a strictly royal endowment,
and definitely did not apply to slaves.
[7] Such as the Tower of Babel in honour of Nimrod (cf. Gn.
10.8-12)? Even if it wasn’t a question
of slavery akin to that of the Hebrews in Egypt, up to 98% of the populace of
ancient empires was composed of peasant-farmers who had to give up large
amounts of their crops and herds, not only to the imperial “tax-collectors”,
but also to their native leaders: Norman K. Gottwald, “Early Israel as an
Anti-Imperial Community”, pp. 9-10.
[8] Cf. Cahill,
Thomas, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads changed the way
Everyone Thinks and Feels, New York: Doubleday, 1998, pp. 53-90.
[9] Cf. Peter A. Brunt (1978): “What was most novel in the Roman
attitude to their empire was the belief that it was universal and willed by the
gods”, quoted by John Dominic Crossan, “Roman Imperial
Theology” in Horsley, Richard A., ed. In the Shadow of Empire, Louisville:
WJK, 2008, p. 59.
[10] Cf. Norman
K. Gottwald, “Early Israel as an Anti-Imperial Community”, p. 11.
[11] Though it
is interesting to consider how Revelation’s New Jerusalem fits/doesn’t
fit with this outlook; cf. Hebrews chapter 11 (“a city whose builder is God”);
cf. Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, pp. 99-100 who affirms that the
“scattering” in the Babel story is willed by God as a means of achieving the
kind of unity that God desires, i.e. a unity that involves all parts of
humanity responding to the Creator’s will that all parts of creation be
stewarded by his viceregents.
[12] Cf. Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis,
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 217-18.
[13] Cf.
Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, p. 104 who draws a contrast between the
Babel story and the (first) creation story: “[in Gn. 1] there was faithful
speech and obedient hearing”.
[14] Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom:
Reading Genesis, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 227-28.
[15] Ibid. p.
232, n.11.
[17] “Out of
the frying pan into the fire” is a common scriptural motif; cf. Jer. 39—44.
[18] I.e. ziggurat temple. The
fact that Gn. 1 presents the creation of the cosmos as the construction of a
temple is telling in this regard. Among
the Israelites, there was much ambivalence towards building a permanent
structure for Yahweh to dwell in; cf. 1 Kings 8.27. Then again, there were many things about
Solomon’s reign that were ambiguous… the “Etemenanki” (ziggurat temple tower)
of Babylon was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar: Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation,
Un-Creation, Re-Creation, pp. 166-67.
Cp. However, Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, p. 98, who relegates
the implicit critique of Babylonian worship to an earlier stage in the
narrative’s (oral/literary) history.
[19] Cf.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation, p. 168.
[20] Peterson, Jordan B. We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the
Divine, U.S.A.: Portfolio / Penguin, 2024, pp. 219-22; cf. Kass, Leon R. The
beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press, 2003, p. 231.
[21] According
to the Enuma Elish, itself a divine activity: cf. Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation,
Un-Creation, Re-Creation, p. 166.
[22] Cf. Ibid.
p. 168.
[23] Cf.
Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, p. 100: “the narrative is a protest
against every effort at oneness derived from human self-sufficiency and
autonomy”.
[24] Babel is the
city, the paradigmatic or universal city, representing a certain universal
human aspiration: Kass, Leon R. The beginning of Wisdom, p. 223.
[25] One often
comes across the idea that Eden was a walled garden. Some prophets spoke of Jerusalem becoming a
garden (cf. Ez. 36.35; Is. 51.3); cf. Blenkinsopp, Creation,
Un-Creation, Re-Creation, p. 62.
[26] Cf. Gn.
1.26-31 (an idealistic interpretation, to be sure).
[27] E.g. Nimrod: Gn. 10.8-12; cf. Blenkinsopp, Joseph, Creation,
Un-Creation, Re-Creation, pp. 160ff.
[28]
Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis, Atlanta: John Knox, 1982, p. 101.
[29] Cf. Kass, Leon R. The
beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 235-36.
[30] Gn. 1.26-31. Though this way
of putting it strikes me as being somewhat reductionistic. The “mandate” is to reflect the Creator’s
glory and wisdom into the cosmos, thus ensuring the flourishing of both the
non-human order as well as that of image-bearing humanity. Call that “culture” if you like!
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