Interpretation A JOURNAL J. OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Fall 1998 Volume 26 Number 1

3 Cameron Wybrow The Significance of the City in Genesis 1-11

21 Robert D. Sacks The Book of Job: Translation and Commentary on Chapters 39-42

65 Andrew Reece Drama, Narrative, and Socratic Eros in Plato's Charmides

77 Mark Kremer Liberty and Revolution in Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol

99 Steven Berg Interpreting the Twofold Presentation of the Will to Power Doctrine in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Review Essays

121 Frank Schalow Heidegger, the Polity, and National Socialism

137 Bruce W. Ballard Whose Pluralism? Interpretation

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Inquiries: (Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. 11367-1597, U.S.A. (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565 E Mail: [email protected] The Significance of the City in Genesis 1-11

Cameron Wybrow McMaster Divinity College

The city is mentioned in three episodes in Genesis 1-11: in Genesis 4, where it is said that Cain (or possibly his son Enoch) built the first city; in Genesis 10, where it is stated that Nimrod ruled over (and possibly built) cities; and in Genesis 1 1, in which the unified human race attempts to build Babel, the city and tower with its top in the heavens. Traditional exegesis of these stories, Jewish and Christian, was often sur prisingly antiurban, antitechnical, and antipolitical. Why was this? One finds in the traditional commentaries a number of overlapping themes. First, the city is associated with those who are supposed to be impious in their intentions: Cain, Nimrod, the Babel-builders. Second, the city is connected with land ownership, and thus opposed to an allegedly purer form of life, that of the nomadic herds man. Third, the city is associated with the complexity and sophistication of a number of arts, few of which are necessary for survival and many of which are superfluous and possibly morally dangerous. Finally, the city is associated with improper aspirations toward human greatness or even human divinization, with the pride or hubris which desires to compete with, or even defy, the Lord God. In this paper I wish to make three arguments. The first is that much of the traditional pious exegesis of Genesis 1-11 fails in its very reasonable task the elaboration of a moral or political theory of urban life because, in its urge to moralize about the lives and motives of the early city-builders, it makes funda mental interpretive errors. It improperly fuses the characters and accomplish ments of Cain, Nimrod, and the Babel-builders, not paying enough attention to the different contexts in which these characters appear, and it prejudges the motives of the characters in all three cases, failing to note that in each instance there are redeeming features, or at least reasonable excuses, for the actions of those characters. The second thing I wish to argue is that the failure to read the text carefully does damage to the one major point on which the traditional interpreters seem to be correct: the unacceptability of the Babel project. For, as I will argue, although the Babel-builders are not evil in intent, the effort they are making is indeed condemned from the political-theological perspective of the Biblical narrator. Finally, I wish to argue that, in light of the Babel project, Nimrod's kingdom of cities is not to be understood as a tyranny but as a per fectly reasonable attempt to establish a political ordering among men at a time when law, divine or conventional, has not yet made inroads into the human heart.

interpretation. Fall 1998, Vol. 26, No. 1 4 Interpretation

I will proceed in the following manner. First, I will present the political themes which can be gleaned from the discussion of Cain, Nimrod and the

Babel-builders in some representative premodern commentaries. Next, I will show the inadequacy of the handling of the political themes by comparing the interpreters' traditional remarks with the fine details of the Biblical text. Fi

nally, I will propose my own tentative account of the Bible's moral-political evaluation of the city.

A. THE CRITIQUE OF THE CITY IN TRADITIONAL EXEGESIS

The traditional commentaries on Genesis are legion, and I have consulted only enough to reveal some representative tendencies. Specifically, I have used Genesis Rabbah, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, Abravanel's Commentary on the Pen tateuch, Augustine's City of God, and Calvin's Commentary on Genesis. Out of these I have constructed a kind of composite account of the antiurban, anti- technical, antipolitical tendencies of the Jewish and Christian traditions. In fus ing different commentaries I am not trying to blur the differences between them (they are all properly distinguished in the text and notes), but merely trying to establish some general tendencies of interpretation, against which I can set my

own.

1. Traditional Hostility Toward Cain and His Line

One must begin with Cain. Cain, who is traditionally credited with founding the first city, has had abuse heaped upon him by scores of Jewish and Christian

millennia.1 interpreters for at least two His motives and his spiritual character, and the spiritual character of his descendants, have all been impugned, often

with little basis in the text. This negative portrayal of Cain colors the event with which he is associated, that is, the founding of the city, and establishes among interpreters an antiurban, antipolitical atmosphere, in which those city-builders recorded later in Genesis 1-11 (especially Nimrod and the Babel-builders) will find it hard to get a fair hearing. Cain's very birth is suspect, according to some of the rabbis. Noting that Cain, unlike his Genesis 5 counterpart Seth, is not said to have been born after Adam's (hence God's) image, they conclude that he is actually the offspring of Eve and the angel of death Sammael. This is why he becomes a murderer and Abel.2 kills the son truly in God's image, With this rather unauspicious head start in life, Cain cannot be expected to produce much good. Thus, his religious performance is faulty. When he sacri fices to the Lord (Gen. 4.3-5), he offers (according to some of the rabbis) the

refuse,3 most inferior samples of his produce, the or, if the quality is acceptable, The City in Genesis 5 he gives only a paltry amount after finishing most of it off himself (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 153). Those interpreters, such as Augustine and Calvin, who are not willing to supplement the Genesis story quite so blatantly regarding the nature of Cain's offerings, supplement it equally regarding Cain's motives. Cal vin declares that there was nothing wrong with Cain's grain, but with his hy pocrisy; Cain practised a purely external religion and did not really serve God in his heart. Augustine, finding nothing wrong with Cain's sacrifice, declares that Cain's other activities (unmentioned in the Biblical text) must have been evil.4

The traditional commentators are a little lighter on Cain in one respect: they do not unanimously condemn Cain's choice of occupation as a tiller of the ground (4.2). Calvin grants that this occupation can be laudable and holy, and that it in fact can be interpreted as commanded by God in Genesis 1 and 2 (Calvin, p. 192). Augustine says nothing negative, and Rabbi Eliezer allows Cain's choice. The Genesis Rabbah, however, says bluntly of Cain's occupa tion: "Cain, Noah, and Uzziah lusted after the ground, and no good came of leper" them. One became a murderer, another a drunkard, another a (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, p. 29). Abravanel sheds light on the rabbinic hostility to Cain's farming career, explaining that "Cain also chose to engage in artful things and

ground," therefore became a tiller of the whereas Abel was satisfied with the

"natural" simpler, more life of a shepherd. Abel, says Abravanel, was the proto type of all the great prophets and leaders of Israel, who were themselves shep David.5 herds: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Cain's desire to settle down into a sophisticated, technical occupation represents the perennial human ten dency to run away from the simple, nonluxurious life of sufficiency and obe dience for which God intended us. Contrasting Abravanel and the Genesis Rabbah on one hand with Rabbi Eliezer, Augustine, and Calvin on the other, we see a fundamental difference over the worth of settled agricultural life. This fundamental difference allows room for a more positive view of Cain's activ ities and intentions, to which I will return later. "wicked" About Cain's building of a city, some rabbis say that he, like other "house" people, hoped to have immortality through a (presumably, his city and his son Enoch) which would live forever (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1, p. 255). Augustine sees the city which Cain builds as an allegory of the City of Man, that human society which seeks only earthly felicity and denies our supernatural end (City of God, XV. 1, 5, 8, 17, 21). Augustine takes great pleasure in repeat edly noting that the line which originated the earthly city began and ended with murderers, that is, with Cain and Lamech (City of God, XV.5, 8, 21). The commentators are ruthless regarding Cain's descendants, and do not hesitate to invent facts in order to condemn them. The names of Irad, Mehujael, Metusael, and Lamech are all said (without etymological argument) to mean

"rebellion" (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1, p. 256). The details of Lamech's sexual mistreatment of his wives, absent from the Biblical text, are supplied by the 6 Interpretation rabbis (ibid.). Tubal-Cain is noted for his forging of weapons (which are not specifically mentioned as the metal implements of Genesis 4.22), thus provid ing a way for his ancestor Cain's crime to be perpetrated more efficiently (ibid.). Naamah, Tubal-Cain's sister (about whom absolutely no details are given in Genesis), sang and played in honor of idols (ibid.) (which, as far as we can tell from Genesis 4, did not yet exist). In general, Cain's generation were sinners and rebels who thought they did not need God (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 159). They went about stark naked, like beasts, and flagrantly violated the rules concerning incest (p. 160). Cain's daughters went about naked with painted eyes, tempting the angels to fall; these unions produced the wicked giants who were wiped out in the Flood (pp. 160-62).

In a more analytical vein, Abravanel argues that the violence and destruction which prevailed before the Flood were directly linked to the acquisitiveness which Cain bequeathed to his descendants (Abravanel, p. 257). Taking the op posite view, Calvin refuses to condemn the Cain line on such grounds; for him the arts are goods, and gifts from God (Calvin, pp. 217-22). Like the rabbis, however, Calvin notes the wickedness of the atmosphere in which the arts arise; he affirms the vileness of Lamech's polygamy and waxes eloquent about Lamech's cruelty and inhumanity (ibid.). Cain's line is uniformly contrasted unfavorably with Seth's line, the latter God" being the "sons of who lived more virtuously, the former being, if not completely evil, at least more carnal in their interests. In Calvin these "sons of God" are virtually self-conscious that they are the Church (Calvin, p. 238). In

men" Augustine and Calvin the Cainite women are the "daughters of who se duced Seth's line into waywardness, creating the universal degeneration which lines' justified both being wiped out by the Flood (City of God, XV.22; Calvin, pp. 237-40).

In sum, it can be said that Cain does not have a very good public image. His birth is suspect, his offering to God was shoddy and/or insincere, his taking up of farming is judged ambivalently, his founding of a city is an act of vainglory or even of defiance of God, his male descendants increased the level of vio lence in the world, either by the introduction of weapons or by their desire for superfluous wealth, his female descendants seduced the only godly people into sin. He and his line have few if any redeeming features, and because of this, the city which he founded, and all its connections (with the arts, with human law making, with political life) fall under a dark shadow. Such is the picture which traditional exegesis of Genesis 4 tends to yield.

2. Traditional Hostility Toward Nimrod

Nimrod fares only slightly better than Cain in traditional accounts. He liter "beginning" ally cannot even make a onto the Biblical stage without his actions The City in Genesis 7 being condemned. Genesis 10.8 reads: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to

earth." begin" be a mighty one in the Genesis Rabbah interprets the verb "to

profane" (halal), here found in the hiphil form, as the-verb "to (halal), which is the normal meaning of the piel form of the same root. From the sense "pro fane," the rabbis feel justified in deriving all wicked things, and thus they can

'rebelled' earth" liberally translate: "Nimrod when he was a mighty one in the (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, p. 260). In case anyone should think the rabbis are stretching the meaning too much, they supply other examples of wicked people "began" "rebelling." who things, and hence were actually They mention the "begin" degenerating people of Genesis 4, who in 4.26 are said, not to calling "rebel" upon the name of the Lord, but rather, to in their calling upon the name of the Lord, and they mention the evil men of pre-Flood days, who, instead of "beginning" "rebelled" to multiply upon the earth, to multiply upon the earth (ibid.). Obviously, in such evil company as the Cainites and the pre-Flood gi "beginning" ants and their offspring, Nimrod, whose is announced with the same verb, must be evil, too. There is other evidence that Nimrod the city-builder is evil. Nimrod, being a mighty hunter, is reminiscent of the other hunter in Genesis, Esau. Esau, of course, is bad for two reasons. First, he was the foe of his brother Jacob, the ancestor of Israel. Second, in later Jewish literature (Neusner tells us) he sym bolizes the oppressive power of Rome (Jacob Neusner, in Genesis Rabbah, vol.

"hunter," 2, p. 38). Calvin tells us that Nimrod, being a was obviously a furious man, more like a beast than a human being; he was also the originator of tyranny (Calvin, p. 317). Augustine tells us that Nimrod, like all hunters, is a deceiver, oppressor, and destroyer of earth-bom creatures (City of God, XVI.4). He further argues that the statement that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before "against" the Lord (Genesis 10.9) means that Nimrod was a mighty hunter the Lord, that is, a rebel (City of God, XVI.3). And, if it seems bad enough for Nimrod that his hunting is interpreted so negatively, some of the rabbis do not even grant he was a great hunter. They say he fooled people into thinking he could cow fierce beasts, when in fact he did it by wearing the magical coats of animal skin which God had given to Adam and Eve when he put them out of Eden. Thus, his claim to might, which is what persuaded people to let him rule them, was based on a sham (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 175). Another thing which counts against Nimrod is his being a grandson of Ham, who was consigned to slavery by Noah in Genesis 9. Since Nimrod is a slave, it is against the order of things that he should be a king (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, p. 174). Finally, Nimrod is evil because, although it is not mentioned in Scripture, he lived until the time of Abraham, and, as master of the pagan lands out of which Abraham came, tried to kill Abraham when he was young. In this attempt, however, he was miraculously thwarted (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, pp. 420-21; Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, pp. 60-61). 8 Interpretation

Nimrod, in summary, is repudiated by much of the tradition because he was an impious rebel against God and tyrannical over mankind. He represents the cruel godlessness of the pagan empires, the sinfulness of the Ham line, worldly pride and glory set against righteousness. His city, therefore, could hardly have been founded with the right motives. Urban life, associated with him and his kingdom, again, as in the case of Cain, takes on a bad scent.

3. Traditional Hostility Toward the Babel-Builders

Although the Biblical text does not explicitly state that Nimrod had anything to do with the Babel project of Genesis 1 1, he was often assumed to have been its initiator, for two reasons. First, the plain on which Babel was erected was in the land of Shinar, which, according to Genesis 10, was the area of his king dom. Second, it is said in Genesis 10 that Nimrod founded a city called Babel, which is often assumed to be the city discussed in Genesis 1 1 . Thus, the two chapters are intertwined in traditional commentary, and, as one might expect, Nimrod becomes odious due to responsibility for the Babel project, and the Babel project is condemned because it was the brainchild of Nimrod. There is reason to question the connection between Nimrod and Babel, as I will point out later. In any case, the purpose of this section is to discuss the faults of the Babel-builders insofar as they can be discerned without reference to Nimrod. The tradition uniformly condemns the builders at Babel. Both their deeds and their motives are entirely wicked. The Babel-builders, like Nimrod, are "rebels," do," because in Genesis 6 God says: "and this they begin to which, do" translated into rabbinic, means, "this they are rebelling to (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, p. 260). Why is their act a rebellion? They are trying to build a tower with its top in the heavens; they are trying to challenge God, to displace him. They are not satisfied with being given the earth, the lower part of the world; they want the heavens, the upper part, too (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, pp. 49-50). "name" They are filled with the sin of pride, for they want to make a for themselves (Gen. 11.4), which probably signifies also that they made an idol (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1, p. 261, vol. 2, p. 51). Augustine insists on their pride and impiety and their foolishness at thinking that a tower of any height could ever challenge the Lord; Calvin concurs with the others that the story is about God-defying pride, like that of the giants who tried to pile Pelion on Ossa to scale Olympus and dethrone Jove in pagan mythology (City of God, XVI.4; Calvin, p. 324). Babel-builders' There are other flaws in the motives. The rabbis object that

"settle" "Settling" in Genesis 11.2 they decide to in the land of Shinar. is moti vated by Satan (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 2, p. 50); God's people do not rest con "settled," tent in being but are on the move, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In settling and building a city, needless to say, the Babel-builders are reminiscent The City in Genesis 9 of the godless Cain. Abravanel argues, apparently picking up on the language brick," of mutual exhortation in 11.3-4 ("let us make "let us build a city"), that the Babel-builders wanted not only superfluity (his usual objection to urban life) but that they thought that political organization was the highest form of social life. It is their politics as much as their materialism that is at fault. God's people do not need the political life of the city, says Abravanel. Abravanel thus, in criticizing the Babel-builders, manages to slip in the moral that the way of Torah is higher than the way of the Greeks, who defined man as a political animal.

4. Summary of the Traditional Critique of the City

The city-builders of Genesis 1-11 all have unsavory associations. They are fugitives from God or rebels against God; they are murderers, sinners, or idola ters. They wish to build a settled and secure life by purely human means, without God's help or even against God's wishes. They are proud, thinking to build structures which will keep their names alive forever. They are from the wrong lines, Cain being rejected in favor first of Abel, then of Seth, Nimrod being part of the Ham line which Noah subjects to Shem and Japheth. The things which go with the city, the arts, political cooperation, and the rule of some human beings by others, are equally stained by association with the wrong sort of people. The arts come from the children of vengeful bigamist Lamech. Ruling comes from Nimrod, heir of a slave, and is associated with the violence of hunting, which, being Esau's way, is inferior to the way of the patriarchs. Politics, the art of bringing people together to build a decent civil order, is rendered suspect by the fact that the first people to be political cooper ated, not to build a better life, but to conspire against God. More generally, the desire to build cities is unnecessary, and is a desire of human beings who are walking away from God rather than with him. The city cannot provide for security against death; it cannot give one immortal life or even an immortal name; only God can do these things. The city, then, is grounded in folly. At best it is a necessary evil in a fallen world; at worst it is temptation to idolatry, rejection of God, and tyranny over others.

B. CRITICISM OF THE TRADITIONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE CITY

traditionalists' One of the first things that strikes us when we read the assault upon Cain, Nimrod, and the Babel-builders is how much they add to the text. They are quite willing to supply motives which are not stated, and even actions which are not recorded, in order to establish the appropriate moral of each story. This might not be a bad procedure, if the materials they supplied were 10 Interpretation limited to the role of providing plausible explanations for what is recorded. They go far beyond this, however. They attribute Cain's birth to the angel Sammael; they condemn Nimrod for his paganism and his attempt to murder Abraham. When material this far from the text is allowed to shape the inter

characters' pretation of motives and actions, all interpretive control is lost. The text can mean whatever the interpreters want it to mean. We simply have to rule out much of the legendary material if we think our text of Genesis 1-11 can make sense on its own.

interpreters' Another noticeable feature is the Jewish fascination with ety mology and other word play. This again might not be bad in itself, but some of "begin"-"profane" the claims made are simply too far fetched. For example, the resemblance may be significant, but the rabbis stretch it beyond the breaking "begin" point, demanding us to allow not only the rendering of the hiphil as the "profane," "profaning" piel but also the idiosyncratic equation of with "rebel ling." Again, when they assert without philological reasoning that the word "name" "idol," in the Babel story can only mean or that the names of Cain's "rebellion," descendants all mean they ask us to accept too much on faith. I believe, however, that the real problem of the traditional interpreters lies deeper. The addition of legendary material and the use of verbal tricks are not the reasons for the antiurban interpretation; they are merely the justifications. The interpreters have already decided that Cain, Nimrod, and the Babel-builders are evil, and would maintain this even if all the etymologies and legendary material were excluded, for two reasons. First, the evil of Cain and the others is axiomatic in the interpretive tradition in which they have been trained. Sec ond, and more relevant to my present interest, they would argue that there is enough in the Biblical text, even without the extraneous material, to justify their reading. They can indeed appeal to a number of textual details. They can point to the contrast between Cain the farmer and Abel the shepherd, to the parallel be tween Nimrod and Esau the hunters, to the connection between the violence of Cain and Lamech and the rise of urban life and the arts, to the fact that Nimrod

men" is reminiscent of the evil "mighty wiped out in the Flood, to the similarity

name" Babel-builders' between the pre-Flood "men of and the desire for a

name, to the connection between Nimrod, Shinar, and Babel, to the fact that Abraham left the eastern world ruled by Nimrod, to Nimrod's connection with Ham, and so on. There are plenty of loose connections and associations upon which a traditional interpretation can be founded.

Nonetheless, the traditional interpretation is inadequate. Some of the claims are errors, and other facts simply do not fit into the antiurban picture. Among the errors are the following: Augustine's claim that Nimrod was a hunter

God" "against is considered philologically unacceptable by most translators, even by Calvin, who found Nimrod unappealing. Augustine's claim that Cain's line ended with a murderer is also untrue, since Lamech fathers sons who are The City in Genesis 11

rabbis' not murderers but inventors. The claim that Nimrod shares the character of the slave Ham is untrue, since not Ham but Canaan, Ham's son, is cursed to slavery in Genesis 9. Canaan's brother Cush and Cush's son Nimrod are not included in the curse.

Then there are the facts that do not fit. The common interpretation that

Nimrod undertook the Babel project on his own, or that he ordered the people to aid him, runs against the clear sense of the text in Genesis 11, which makes

men," all the "children of that is, the entire race, equally responsible for the project. The interpretation of Abravanel, that the sin of the Babel-builders was essentially the same desire of superfluity that motivated Cain, cannot explain why God took such drastic action at Babel but not in the case of the cities of Cain, Nimrod, and Asshur in Genesis 4 and 10. Further, there is bad reasoning in the traditional constructions. The inter pretation of Augustine and the rabbis that Nimrod must have been unneces sarily violent and tyrannical, because he was a hunter and hunters kill things, is feeble. For shepherds (like Abel) kill things, too their sheep. And settled farmers (like Cain, and the later Israelites) kill their cattle. The way of the hunter is thus no more violent toward animal life than that of the shepherd or the settled farmer. In fact, the hunter is less violent, because he does not keep his prey captive for its entire life before killing it. His victims enjoy God's creation before falling to his arrows. They are not rounded up in pens and castrated, as they are by the farmer. Further, the association of the hunter with the city is peculiar. The hunter is the loner, who lives away from the city hardly the model of the political man. The landed farmer with his rural commu nity, the shepherd who sells his wool and mutton in the marketplace, these are closer in spirit to the city than is the hunter or trapper who is self-sufficient. The association between hunting and city life allegedly intended by Genesis is simply not worked out well by the traditionalists. Then there is the supplementation of the text with uncharitable motives. Calvin claims that Cain's offering is hypocritical, but he does not derive this from textual evidence; rather, he infers it in order to justify God. Augustine infers, in a parallel manner, that Cain had a wicked lifestyle. Yet all the text says is that God did not gaze unto Cain and his sacrifice; no evil motive is imputed to Cain, nor is his sacrifice said to be flawed in either intention or execution. Similarly, Cain is supposed to build his city out of vainglory, out of the desire for a name, or out of the wish to build a worldly city without God. The text would seem to suggest that his motive was fear of being killed, and that the city was to protect him; further, the text says that Cain believes he is hidden from God's face, and God does not contradict Cain on this point. How,

city," then, could we expect Cain to build anything but a "worldly if God will not help him build a heavenly one? Again, the rabbis rage against Cain for

ground," "lusting after the that is, tilling it, but say nothing against Moses who prescribes laws to govern Israel's settled agricultural life. If Israel is not wicked 12 Interpretation for wanting land of its own to till, why is Cain's motive so disreputable? Again, "rebel" the pre-Flood men are said to in multiplying upon the earth, but that is exactly what they were commanded to do in Genesis 1. Why is their attempt at obedience lashed out at as a rebellion? Finally, why is Tubal-Cain's invention of the forge interpreted as motivated by the desire to make swords rather than ploughshares? Certainly, his father was the vengeful Lamech, but one cannot simply impute such emotions to a son. After all, no one else in the Cain line is said to be violent, and Tubal-Cain's siblings all invent useful or pleasant arts, not violent ones.

One has to say, then, that the antiurban trend of thought among the tradi tional interpreters, though not completely without textual foundation, is not clearly justified by a close reading of the details of Genesis 1-11. The motives of the city-builders and their families are not so clearly evil as supposed. There is evidence that Cain is frightened, slighted, and misunderstood rather than evil. Nimrod in Genesis 10 displays no wicked motives or overtly evil actions. The Babel-builders, however wrong their project may be, say nothing at all about defying God. Further, if Nimrod cannot be connected with the Babel project of

Genesis 1 1 , a negative interpretation of Babel would not reflect upon Nimrod.

There is much work, then, to be done if we are to articulate a coherent theo- logico-political teaching about the city as presented in Genesis 1-11.

C. THE TEACHING ABOUT THE CITY IN GENESIS 1-11

The remainder of this essay will be a preliminary attempt to give the outlines of the doctrine of Genesis 1-11 on the place of the city in the political life of mankind. I wish to argue that Genesis 1-11 wants us to see the city, and, more broadly speaking, human political effort, in a much more positive light than the tradition sometimes suggests.

The line of interpretation which I follow here comes, oddly enough, from the body of traditional interpretation, but in its more unorthodox moments. For I am building upon the work of Eugene Combs, Kenneth Post, and Robert Sacks, who themselves are indebted to Midrashic sources such as the Genesis Rabbah.

In the Midrashic writings, one sees hints here and there of a different account of political life, an account which can be brought to light by a less pietistic, more politically acute way of reading Scripture. Combs, Post, and Sacks have devel oped these hints and systematized them to an extent; I wish to pursue their further.6 ideas What I will strive to establish is an interpretation of Genesis against Augustine and Calvin and which, many of the rabbis, sees the earthly city as a legitimate human response to the problem of justice and order, a response which God is willing to work with and, under certain circumstances, bless.

guy" I begin with Cain. The classification of Cain as a "bad is so well The City in Genesis 13 established that it seems impious to question it, but it must be questioned. First, God's refusal to gaze upon Cain's sacrifice is, from Cain's point of view, arbi trary. Cain cannot know why God pays no attention to it, as God does not say. He has worked hard to produce his grain, probably much harder than Abel has worked to raise his sheep. Further, he, more than Abel, tried to obey God's apparent commandments. Did not God tell Adam to subdue the earth (Gen. 1), and to till the garden (Gen. 2)? Did not God tell Adam that upon expulsion from Eden he would work the land for his food (Gen. 3)? One can see why Cain felt slighted. He is, in a way, like the more qualified applicant who loses the job to the boss's nephew, or perhaps to an affirmative action program. As a victim of apparent injustice, his rage is natural. This does not justify the murder which follows, but it at least explains Cain's emotional state, which is not nearly so perverse as Augustine and Calvin make out. Further, the rabbis themselves supply another nonmalicious account of Cain's motives. Cain saw that God preferred a sacrifice of an animal over that of vegetation. Might he not have concluded that the sacrifice of a human being would be even better (Genesis Rabbah, vol. 1, pp. 248-49)? One does not need to presume that Cain killed Abel out of anger or jealousy; one might argue that he killed Abel in a misguided attempt to please God. Even if this rabbinic speculation is discounted, it is not so clear that Cain is "sin," wicked. God warns him about it is true (4.7), but God does not explain what sin is, nor does God ever give Cain any instructions about how to live. In fact, God says nothing to anyone about how to live until after the Flood, in Genesis 9. That is, God seems to be waiting to see if man can rule himself. If Cain can rule his desire, this may be possible. If not, then perhaps the human race will not be able to live without law. The fact that Cain is not punished by God, and that no one else is given any laws before the Flood, suggests that God is waiting to see what people will live like. The violent world presumed by Lamech's speech in Genesis 4, and the utter violence of the pre-Flood genera tion described in Genesis 6, suggests that God's policy of nonpunishment and noninstruction has not proved to be the wisest. Man needs law. We can grant that Cain does a bad deed, but only one, and he seems to be sorry for it afterward. He engages in no more malicious activity and spends his remaining days in nonviolent ways, wandering, building a city, and procreating. In this respect Cain contrasts favorably with his descendant Lamech, who proudly boasts of his killings. Cain says that his sin is too great to be forgiven and expects that everyone will try to kill him; that is, he assumes, with Hobbes, that everyone is a poten tial murderer and that there is no safety in the state of nature. Further, he fears he will be hidden from God's face, and, while God promises to protect Cain from the assaults of other men, he never reassures Cain about his continuing presence. Perhaps God thinks his protective sign implies his continuing pres ence, but Cain clearly does not take it that way. God therefore allows Cain to 14 Interpretation

go out from his presence (4.16) to dwell in the land of Nod ("wandering"). Believing that he is no longer of interest to God, and not trusting in God's mark, is it any wonder that Cain builds a city to protect himself? Is the defen sive arrangement of a city not a natural course for men who believe they are in the state of nature, with no law but that of the strong to protect them? Similarly, it is hard to find blame with Cain's descendants. None of them "Enoch," does anything shameful, except for Lamech. Cain's son which means "inauguration," "Inauguration" lends his name to the first city. does not have bad overtones in Hebrew, as Isaac Friedman has shown against Jacques Ellul; in fact, it has rather good ones (Friedman, n. 1, pp. 11, 49-61). The founding of

"inauguration" the first city is an of a new way of life, one which may prove to be good. It begins as the act of a fearful murderer, but perhaps it will end in something better. And, indeed, the descendants of Enoch, who invent arts which make life more convenient, suggest that this is the case. Even Calvin, who was hostile to Cain, granted the goodness of the arts described in Genesis 4. The fact that one of the arts invented, that of forging, can yield weapons does not prove the text condemns arts in general; for the text does not even mention weapons, and the other arts which arise at the same time (tentmaking and mu sic) are clearly innocuous. My intent here is not to whitewash Cain or his line. Cain clearly did wrong, and Lamech, who seems to have understood God's forgiveness of Cain in the most perverse possible manner (i.e., God does not punish killers, therefore we have to do unto others before they do it unto us!), appears as an unsavory omen of the violence to come in Genesis 6. So there are dark spots in the Cain story. I would insist, however, that the association of the city with violence, though a genuine theme of Genesis 4, is not put in such a way as to force the conclusion that urban life, in any of its aspects, must be rejected. The city remains ambiguous as a moral and political possibility; neither God nor the narrator judges it.

flesh" This is confirmed in Genesis 6. When "all becomes corrupt upon the earth, much is said of wickedness and violence, but nothing is said of cities or evil taking place in cities. This makes sense, because the people of the Seth line, who are not associated with Cain's eastern city, are condemned along with Cain's line. The wickedness is more general, and not connected with urbanism or political life as such. In fact, it could be contended that it is precisely the absence of political structures and of laws which led to the wickedness. This would seem to be confirmed by the fact that God gave the first laws after the Flood (Genesis 9.1-7), as if to try to avert a repetition of the same wickedness. If we now turn to the cities of Genesis 10, we discover that they emerge in the context of obedience to God's intentions. That context is provided by Gene sis 9.

recall that 1 We in Genesis God ordered Adam to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. In Genesis 9 Noah takes the place of Adam, and is given The City in Genesis 15 similar instructions in language that is very strongly reminiscent of Genesis 1. It is as if we are watching a new creation; the race of Adam is being given a second chance at life. This time, however, something is added: God gives the first laws, those restraining murder and improper diet (9.1-7). The new begin ning, the new creation as it were, will have a legal dimension absent from the old, which relied too much on innate human goodness. In this new creation, we are told, the sons of Noah are obedient in the way "overspread" that the sons of Adam were never said to be: they the whole earth (9.19), that is, they occupy it as they were meant to. Genesis 10 documents this overspreading, family by family, naming the lands and peoples descending from Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Since, in this overspreading, families (mishpahoth) stay together, the earth becomes populated not merely by individuals but by "nations," peoples of common descent speaking a common tongue and occupy ing a traditional land. The familial basis of nations seems to offer the possibility of internal concord within each nation. It also helps maintain concord between nations, since they too are related. Thus, the migrating offspring of Shem, Ham, and Japheth separate without violence, amicably dividing the world among themselves. The peacefulness of the process reminds one of the separation of

Abraham and Lot (Gen. 13), and seems an improvement on the relationship between Cain and Abel. Thus, a world organized by the new political unit, the nation, seems to be an improvement on the world before the Flood, which had no such structure discernible. In this context of obedience to God's command and family solidarity, the city arises. The first cities are in Shinar, in the east; these Nimrod either builds or comes to rule. The next group arises in the east as well, either built by Nimrod in a region called Asshur, or built by Asshur, a son of Shem. Nimrod is "kingdom" said to have begun his in the first cities in Shinar. The word "king dom," occurring in Genesis for the first time, suggests a new political ordering in which one will rule over many. If this automatically suggests ruthless power and tyranny to modem ears, we must remember that such a form of rule was very common in ancient times, and that the Biblical narrator would not auto matically have assumed such a rule to be evil. The Bible acknowledges that good kings can exist, both over Israel and over other nations (cf. Abimelech in Genesis 20). One must not conclude, therefore, that Nimrod's rule was a wicked one. One might even argue that, for the laws of God (Gen. 9.1-7) to be enforced, people need to have some kind of authority set over them, whether of a tribal or monarchical nature. The Bible may be suggesting that kingship arises whenever the tribal or national structures are felt to be inadequate to enforce the Noachide laws, which are the barest minimum for a decent social life. We may now be able to fathom the reason for the Biblical statement that hunter." Nimrod was a "mighty Calvin and Augustine saw this as indicating savagery and oppression. There is another interpretation. Recall that in Genesis 9, which echoed Genesis 1 generally, a slight modification to Genesis 1 was 16 Interpretation

"dominion" made. God does not speak of over the animals any more, but of a dread" human "fear and upon the animals, which are now given up as prey for beings. Genesis 1 implicitly taught that man was to be vegetarian; Genesis 9 allows him to be carnivorous. In this context, how can one fault Nimrod? He is

"hunter," the first person in the text said to be a that is, the first person said to have taken advantage of the new bequest God has given. He may not have been "might" literally the first hunter, but his at hunting makes him the hunter par excellence, and hence the most striking example of the new, God-sanctioned order of creation.

"mighty" It is true that Nimrod, being a hunter, may remind us of the wicked "mighty" men before the Flood, but those men were characterized by neither hunting nor city building. Their sins cannot be imputed to him on the strength of an adjective alone. Thus, from the above discussion, one must conclude that hunting, as such, cannot be evil, and that Nimrod's hunting is not in itself a basis to condemn his cities. I would suggest, in fact, that the rule of a hunter over urban civilization may symbolize the improvements of the new world over the old. The new world contains harsh elements (men killing animals, men ruling men), but it is perhaps less harsh than the pre-Flood world, in which other forms of suffering must have been prevalent (starvation after crop failure, vulnerability to random killing). The new order may not be pretty, but it is less likely to make men hopeless or desperate; it has possibilities for something higher than the pre-Flood world.

Note also that the text does not attribute any motive of vanity to Nimrod. "name" Nimrod does not seek a as did the mighty men of old (6.4) or the builders of Babel (1 1.4). Nimrod does not name any cities after himself or after his son, as did Cain (4.17). Nimrod became famous, and so did his empire, but it is others who note his greatness on the earth (10.8) and before the Lord (10.9). Nimrod does not boast about himself, as did Lamech (4.23-24). In important respects, then, Nimrod and his city compare favorably with the Cain line and its city and the Babel-builders and their city. Finally, we must note that the only version of law and order hitherto obtain ing was Lamech's, which consisted in multiple vengeance driven by unre strained passion. Nimrod's rule (mamlakhah) introduces into the world something more stable and orderly. One can grant that a king may become a but one must also grant tyrant, that a king can establish the rule of law, which prescribes moderate and measured punishments, unlike Lamech's. For these I would reasons, argue, the text is teaching that the rise of Nimrod represents a political possibility which is new and, at least potentially, good. At least some of the nations which legitimately overspread the earth at God's com mand are ruled by kings; kings are one possible source of the rule of law. Kings not be God's recommended may source, at least not for his own chosen people (I Samuel 8), but the text nowhere indicates that kingship is an illegitimate attempt to maintain order and justice in human life. Nimrod, by God's permis- The City in Genesis 17 sion a mighty hunter, turns his prowess toward the ruling of peoples. His proj ect may be ambiguous, like Cain's, but it is not to be so lightly condemned as it is by the rabbis, Calvin, and Augustine. Finally, I turn to the Babel story. Regarding this story, I think, there is a certain justification for the traditional antiurban exegesis. Babel is not exactly a typical city, however. Further, even in the case of Babel there are redeeming features to the motives of the builders which the traditional exegesis does not grant. I will close my discussion by showing exactly in what respects the Babel-builders are condemned by the text, and in what respects their ambitions are legitimate. At this point I will draw heavily upon the work of Eugene Combs and Kenneth Post and attempt to confirm their analysis by comparing the Babel-builders of Genesis 11 with Nimrod and the peoples of Genesis 10.

"scattered" The people of Babel do not wish to be upon the earth (Gen. 11.4). They want to live, all together, speaking one language, in one place, in a kind of super-city with its top in the heavens. This desire runs counter to God's commandments of Genesis 1 and Genesis 9 that they should fill the earth. They want to build upward, settled on one spot; God wants them to move outward, spreading to many spots. They aim heavenward (11.4); God wants them to master the earth (1.28). It is only fitting, then, that at the end of the Babel story "scattered," they are to carry out their true purpose. "overspreading" There is a difference between the of Genesis 10 and the

"scattering" Noah," of Genesis 11. The "sons of perhaps educated by the Flood, obey God, reproducing and nonviolently occupying the earth, as if by a natural

men" process. The "sons of (11.5), that is, the descendants (literally or figu ratively) of Adam, who have not learned the lesson of the Flood, refuse to obey

"scattered," God. They therefore are that is, separated and moved over the earth in a more unnatural and violent manner. The sin of the Babel-builders, if it was a sin, seems to have nothing to do with storming heaven and defying God. Rather, it seems to be a certain un willingness to take on the adventure of human life, the adventure of populating,

Babel-builders' mastering, and enjoying the earth. The fear of being scattered, their cautiousness, their inward-looking attitude, is perhaps reminiscent of Cain's motives. He, too, was afraid of something, and he, too, built a city in the east where he could be safe.

Yet can one condemn the Babel-builders for their desire for social and geo graphic cohesion? Would we not normally call the solidarity of the human race a noble aspiration? Do we not often say that we believe that the world would be better off if there were only one great people, united in brotherly love, instead Babel- of a multitude of warring nations? What is wrong with the wish of the builders? To think this out requires some care. The language of the Babel-builders is, as Combs and Post point out, the language of mutual entreaty, the language of unity and solidarity (Combs and "rules" Post, p. 428). No one among these people (which is why I would con- 18 Interpretation tend Nimrod had nothing to do with the construction of the Babel of Genesis 11); they work together as equal partners toward a goal which is not imposed on them but chosen by themselves. This form of social organization is in con trast to the forms described in Genesis 10. In Genesis 10, the world was orga "nations," nized according to which are essentially families writ large, and "kingdoms" according to connected with powerful cities. The forms of govern

men" ment, then, were tribal and monarchical. In Genesis 11, the "sons of will

"nations," not allow the founding of that is, separate peoples, because they are

speech" of "one and wish to remain that way, and they do not need a monarch to rule over them because they have already imposed a unity of purpose on themselves. Why might the author of Genesis think such a project bad? Why should God scatter a group of people who are working together fraternally for a common end, and seem to be peaceful and nonviolent, so that they can become nations and war with each other? Why not leave the entire human race in one construc tive unity?

The Combs-Post answer, which I think is the correct one, is that it is not good for human beings to be so utterly one that there is no possibility of the arising of different ways of thinking, speaking, and living. The desire to live in a peaceful, unified world-state, however noble it may be, overlooks the risk that the single, unified world-state, validated by the consensus of everyone in it, may be or become dedicated to bad ends. If the only state, and the only people, and the only language that exists should become corrupt, and if every individ ual is so thoroughly committed to the common ends of that state that its evil cannot be perceived even by its own members, the situation will be irreparable. God, having promised never to destroy the world again with a Flood, would be unable to stop the corrupted universal state from retaining all its members in built.7 thrall for eternity. Therefore, God cannot allow it to be The Babel-builders, then, are not malicious. They do not wish to overthrow "name," God. In fact, they do not even mention him. It is true that they wish a and that this may indicate worldly pride, but that does not necessarily imply rebellion against God. Cain may have been proud of his city, but he was not rebelling against God in naming it after his son. It is more likely that the Babel- "name" builders want a for their project to christen the marvellous urban struc

ture they have created, and to give it, as it were, a permanent essence which, they dream, will hold them together in Shinar forever. "name" Further, wanting a is not necessarily an improper desire; God, in as if into account the desire of the fact, taking Babel-builders, will in the very next in the Bible promise story to make great the name of a certain nation, the nation sired by Abraham. Abraham will continue in the tradition of obedience Noah" established by the "sons of of Genesis 10, who accepted the limitations of but he will obtain the nationhood, reward sought by the Babel-builders of "name" Genesis 11. The or reputation his people earn, however, will not be for The City in Genesis 19 martial valor, or for building great towers into the heavens, but for purity, which once achieved will make Israel a blessing and a source of wisdom for all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12.3; Deut. 4.6). Genesis 1-11 would seem to teach, then, that the city is not evil. The mo tives of those who built the first cities were mixed, and not always the best, but these motives were not wicked. Cain was afraid of death; the Babelers were afraid of being scattered. If these people strayed, it was due to not knowing what God wanted, or not trusting enough in God's promises to obey his wishes. And in one case, in Genesis 10, we find that cities are built by a masterly figure, whose claim to leadership might be said to be indirectly authorized by God himself, in the bequest of animal flesh in Genesis 9. Nimrod is not the epitome of evil and rebellion; he is the first to establish explicitly a political order in the new world, the world which is being properly populated by the sons of Noah.

In societies other than Israel, which do not claim the benefit of God's direct rule and teaching, the order represented by Nimrod is essential. Although the political order is less than perfect in that it requires the exercise of force, it is only in some kind of political order that the arts, law, and human decency can "Enoch," coexist for any length of time. Like Cain's city Nimrod's cities are the "inauguration" of something new: a social order in which justice can have a foothold. The traditional pious exegesis of Genesis fails to understand that merely human political orderings, flawed and susceptible to abuse as they are, are the only possible means by which the non-Israelite children of Noah can achieve justice upon the earth.

NOTES

1. There are grammatical and general grounds for arguing that it was Enoch, Cain's son, who built the city. The arguments for this are well summarized in Isaac Friedman's thesis, "Piety and Four" Civilization: An Analysis of the City in Genesis (Hamilton, Ont.: McMaster University, 1979), pp. 44-48. One could use Friedman's results (though he does not) to argue that the evils of Cain can be separated from the city of Enoch, if one wished to put the city in a better light. But I do not require this argument, as I do not believe that Genesis wishes us to understand Cain as funda mentally evil or ungodly. The city is not stained by its association with Cain, because Cain is not so bad as some of the rabbis and Christian commentators make out. 2. Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, trans. Gerald Friedlander (New York: Hermon Press, 1970), pp. 150 51, 158. 3. Genesis Rabbah, trans. Jacob Neusner, 2 vols. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), vol. 1, p. 242. 4. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. Rev. John King (Edinburgh, 1847), pp. 196-98. Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1972), XV.7. (Title henceforth: City of God.) 5. Isaac Abravanel, Commentary on the Pentateuch (selections), trans. Robert Sacks, in Ralph Lemer and Muhsin Mahdi, eds., Medieval Political Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 256. 20 Interpretation

and the 6. Eugene Combs and Kenneth Post, The Foundations of Political Order in Genesis Chandogya Upanisad (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987); Eugene Combs, "Has YHWH 1-5," cursed the Ground? Perplexity of Interpretation in Genesis in Lyle Eslinger and Glen Taylor, eds., Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (Sheffield, MA: JSOT Press, 1988); Robert Sacks, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). As I have been deeply engaged with this material for a number of years, it is no longer possible for me to tell reliably which ideas were originally mine and which theirs; hence, I am going to dispense for the most part with notes, except when I can clearly recall a specific indebtedness. But I give here a very firm acknowledgment that many of my specific sug gestions must have come from them, and that my general line of approach is completely theirs. I add that Combs and Post would probably transfer much credit for their ideas to Sacks, whose 1990 work was available to them in typescript form much earlier, and to Leo Strauss, whose "Jerusalem

Athens" and essay was seminal for them. Sacks in turn acknowledges his immense debt to Leo Strauss, who introduced him to Genesis, and undoubtedly to the rabbinic tradition of interpretation which shows up in Sacks's work. In a general way, I too have been influenced by the various writings of Strauss on the Bible and wish to acknowledge it fully, even though Strauss is not cited in this essay because he does not deal with the specific passages I am working on here. 6. Due to space limitations, I have only scratched the surface of the Combs-Post account of the Babel story. Readers who wish to think about its depths more fully should read the chapter on Genesis 1 1 (pp. 405-39) in the work cited; I know of no other philosophical and exegetical treat ment of the Babel story of comparable length and depth. I add that, in my necessary simplification of the Combs-Post discussion, I have doubtless been influenced by another very rich interpretation of the Babel story which in some respects resembles it, C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength.