BIBLICAL LITERATURE Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel John T
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JBLcoverwinter:JBLcover2007.qxd 11/18/2008 9:36 PM Page 1 127 4 2008 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL New from BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS LITERATURE The Apocryphal Acts WINTER 2008 VOLUME 127, NO. 4 of the Apostles An Introduction Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Theodore Hiebert’s Hans-Josef Klauck JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel John T. Strong 625–634 $39.95 | 6 x 9, 310 pages Paper | ISBN 978-1-60258-159-3 The Manumission Laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy: The Jeremiah Connection Mark Leuchter 635–653 The “Root of Jesse” in Isaiah 11:10: Postexilic Judah, Words Well Spoken or Postexilic Davidic King? George Kennedy’s Rhetoric Jacob Stromberg 655–669 of the New Testament The Interpretation of Isaiah 56:1–9: Comfort or Criticism? Studies in Rhetoric & Religion 8 Raymond de Hoop 671–695 C. Clifton Black and Were Joshua, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah Contemporaries? A Response to Diana Edelman’s Proposed Late Date Duane F. Watson, editors for the Second Temple $39.95 | 6 x 9, 255 pages Ralph W. Klein 697–701 Cloth | ISBN 978-1-60258-064-0 Who Constitutes Society? Yehud’s Self-understanding in the Late Persian Era as Reflected in the Books of Chronicles Louis Jonker 703–724 Simply Irresistible: Augustus, Herod, and the Empire Byron R. McCane 725–735 Luke 16:16: The Good News of God’s Kingdom Is Proclaimed and Everyone Is Forced into It baylorpress.com 1.800.537.5487 Ilaria L. E. Ramelli 737–758 Transformed “from Glory to Glory”: Paul’s Appeal to the Experience of His Readers in 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul B. Duff 759–780 “I Left You in Crete”: Narrative Deception and Social Hierarchy in the Letter to Titus John W. Marshall 781–803 Us or You? Persuasion and Identity in 1 John Judith M. Lieu 805–819 US ISSN 0021-9231 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (Constituent Member of the American Council of Learned Societies) EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL General Editor: JAMES C. VANDERKAM, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 EDITORIAL BOARD Term Expiring 2008: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR DANIEL MARGUERAT, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, University of Durham, Durham, England, DH1 3RS, United Kingdom PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205 2009: DAVID L. BARR, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 ELIZABETH STRUTHERS MALBON, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 LOUIS STULMAN, University of Findlay, Findlay, OH 45840 2010: BRIAN BRITT, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 MICHAEL FOX, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 STEVEN FRAADE, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8287 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 CATHERINE MURPHY, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada “Here Brevard Childs offers his clearest statement of the continuities and RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 differences between his canonical approach and historical criticism. 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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA JBL 127, no. 4 (2008): 625–634 Shattering the Image of God: A Response to Theodore Hiebert’s Interpretation of the Story of the Tower of Babel john t. strong [email protected] Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65897 It was with rapt attention that I read Theodore Hiebert’s recent article “The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures,”1 for he made an important argument that has been missed heretofore in the study of Genesis 11 and presented a thesis that is both essentially correct and much needed. It is with this fundamen- tal appreciation that I respond in this brief note with a “yes . , but . .” I. Hiebert’s Understanding of Genesis 11:1–9 as the Dispersion of the Nations Hiebert’s thesis, positively stated, is that the story of the tower of Babel found in Gen 11:1–9 presents an explanation for why nations were scattered all over the earth and were separated by space and language. To put the matter negatively, he seeks to counter the traditional argument that the story depicts God’s punishment of human hybris. He states that “the story of Babel in Gen 11:1–9 is exclusively about the origins of cultural difference and not about pride and punishment at all.”2 Quite on point, Hiebert notes that the story really does not focus on the tower (but rather on the city), explaining that the description of the tower, with “its top in the 1 Theodore Hiebert, “The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures,” JBL 126 (2007): 29–58. 2 Ibid., 31. 625 626 Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 4 (2008) sky” (Mym#b w#)r) is just a common idiom for an impressively tall tower, an idiom used of other tall structures.3 This observation takes away the common basis for commentators’ ascribing the motive of this passage to human pride. The real focus is on the unity of humankind, emphasized by expressions such as “one language and the same words” (NRSV; Mydx) Myrbdw tx) hp# [Gen 11:1; also 11:6]), “one people” (dx) M( [11:6]), and “all the earth” (Cr)h-lk [11:1, 4, 8, and 9]).4 Nor does Hiebert understand God’s actions to be punishment. Instead, Hiebert states that “God is reacting not to pride, defiance, or imperial power, but to the cultural uni- formity of humanity, and that God’s response is not an act of punishment or judg- ment, but an intervention to introduce cultural difference.”5 Hiebert argues that God’s evaluation of the humans’ activities is not judgmental but merely descrip- tive, observing that humanity is one people (meaning a single kinship society with common ancestry and culture) with one language. He actually paraphrases God’s comment in this way: “‘From what they have accomplished already, it looks like their plans to remain one people with one language in one place will succeed.’”6 Also of interest is how Hiebert places the tower of Babel story within the broader context of both the Yahwist and the Priestly writer, arguing that for both, the val- ley in the land of Shinar (v. 2) was “the cradle of civilization,” out of which both sources depict Israel’s ancestor Abraham migrating westward into Canaan.7 And so, yes, Hiebert has made very significant clarification regarding Genesis 11. Indeed, the focus of the story is the dispersion of the nations across the earth, and he has appropriately raised the question of the connection of this story to the larger tex- tual context.