Pentecost 2024: Gen 11 and Acts 2---Coerced Uniformity versus Unity in Diversity

 The people who came together to build the "tower of Babel" in Genesis 11:1-9 were a united group that did not want to be separated.  God's negative reaction to their project implies that they were in rebellion against God.  However, the text of Genesis 11 does not explicitly say what the problem was.  

One explanation, based on Ancient Near Eastern background, is that this group was building a ziggurat in order to try to control and manipulate God.  

Another explanation, one with a long tradition, is that this group was trying to launch an attack on heaven itself, saying like the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:13, "I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God; I will set my throne on high."  If this was their purpose, then they were sadly mistaken.  God and his divine council had to "go down" (verse 7) in order to examine their puny efforts.  

A third explanation, due to the nineteenth century Jewish commentator Netziv, is laid out by Judy Klitsner in her book Subversive Sequels in the Bible.  Netziv saw the group at Babel as a totalitarian state that imposed a rigid uniformity on its people.  It didn't want anyone to leave, and it didn't want any new ideas to come in.

One thing supporting this reading is a parallel between Genesis 11:3-4 amd Exodus 1:10.  In Genesis 11:4, those at Babel say, "Come, let us build ourselves a city....lest we be dispersed."  In Exodus 1:10, Pharaoh tells his people, "Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply..."  This "Come, let us, ....lest....." construction appears in the Bible only in these two passages.  

In Exodus 1, Pharaoh enslaves the Israelites, and they make bricks and built cities, as in Genesis 11.  This parallel leads to the idea that in Genesis 11, the people are being enslaved and forced to make bricks and build a city.  The group at Babel is trying to make a name for itself (Gen 11:4), but it is a collective name, with no individual names mentioned.  In Netziv's reading, this group is a collective like the Borg in Star Trek:  The Next Generation.  One midrash on Genesis 11 says that when someone carrying bricks up the tower fell to his death, people mourned for the loss of the bricks rather than the loss of a human life.  At Babel it was the collective that mattered, not the individuals.  

In this reading, we can see why God would put a stop to the group's efforts.  God created people in his image to be able to express their individuality and make free choices.  In particular, we can use our free will to seek a relationship with God.  The group at Babel was cutting itself off from any relationship with God.  

At Pentecost in Acts 2, an event that is kind of a reversal of Babel, the disciples of Jesus were unified, being "all together in one place" (verse 1).  Their unity was not a coerced uniformity, like the one at Babel.  Rather, they were united in love by the Spirit of God.  That unity is expressed in a diversity of spiritual gifts, as described in 1 Corinthians 12.  

Seder 20: Comparing Abraham and Job

 In her book Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Judy Klitsner identifies a number of parallels in the biblical narrative and places the parallel accounts in conversation with each other.  

One of her examples comes from Genesis 22, where God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac.  At the end of the chapter are listed some names of the children of Abraham's brother Nahor.  Three of these names also show up in the book of Job, but not in many other places:

• Uz is Nahor's first son (Ge 22:21), and Job lived "in the land of Uz" (Job 1:1).
• Buz is Nahor's second son, and Elihu in the book of Job is a "Buzite" (Job 32:6).
• Chesed is another son of Nahor (Ge 22:22), and in Job 1:!7, some Chaldeans (plural of Chesed) make a raid on Job's camels. 

There are also parallels between Abraham and Job themselves:

• Both feared God (Ge 22:12; Job 1:1).
• Both compare themselves to "dust and ashes" (Ge 18:27; Job 42:6).
• Both are old and contented when they die (Ge 25:8; Job 42:17).

Their narratives contrast two different ways to react to the prospect of a sudden loss.  Abraham responds to God's directive in uncomplaining obedience, while Job vocally questions God.  Their widely divergent responses have recently been discussed in Richard Middleton's book, Abraham's Silence;  The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God.