The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World's Cultures

The tower of Babel, standing unfinished, has become a cultural icon, symbolizing the preposterous pride of its builders and the divine punishment for all such acts of arrogance. It has cast its long shadow over the entire history of interpretation of the biblical narrative in Gen 11:1-9 in which it...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Biblical literature 2007-03, Vol.126 (1), p.29-58
Main Author: Hiebert, Theodore
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bible
Bible and literature
Bible as literature
Cities
Cultural diversity
Culture
Divinity
History
Humanity
Humans
Milton, John (1608-1674)
Narratives
Narrators
Reinforcement
Religious history
Semiotics
Theme
Towers
Verbs
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The tower of Babel, standing unfinished, has become a cultural icon, symbolizing the preposterous pride of its builders and the divine punishment for all such acts of arrogance. It has cast its long shadow over the entire history of interpretation of the biblical narrative in Gen 11:1-9 in which it is found. In this interpretive history, the "tower with its top in the heavens" (11:4 NRSV) has been adopted as the key to the story's theme: the human attempt to assert autonomy, attack heaven, and challenge God. The division of languages and dispersion of peoples-that is, the origin of the worlds cultures-that concludes the story of Babel is inseparably linked to this iconic symbol. Differentiating the world's peoples is the sign of God's displeasure with the tower; it is both the penalty for human pride and the means to restrain further assertions of it.
ISSN:0021-9231
1934-3876
DOI:10.2307/27638419