In this final episode, we try to bring all of the various threads together in a summary and recap to round off the series. In this series, we have taken a deep dive into the Babel story, unpacking the many allusions and wordplays, and taking note of perceptive scholarship revealing new insights on the customarily held understanding of the story’s meaning. The Tower of Babel is often read as a story about human pride: people try to build a tower with its top in the heavens, and God punishes them by confusing their language and scattering them. The people at Babel do disobey – but what they get wrong is frequently assumed to be this matter of pride and hubris – when it is more complex than that. We considered the possibility that God is really liberating the people from a tyranny of sorts and that the story is asking a more unsettling question. What happens when the human desire to build, achieve, organise and belong becomes a desire to make everyone speak the same words, pursue the same project and remain together under a single vision? The problem may not be human ingenuity itself, but the attempt to turn ingenuity into a system that leaves no room for difference. Read in the light of the wider biblical narrative, Babel becomes a recurring pattern rather than an isolated incident. We encounter it in the bricks and forced labour of Egypt, in the pursuit of a lasting name, in the concentration of political power, and in the temptation to mistake technological capability for wisdom. There are many identifiable links, especially with the Exodus story and the happenings at Pentecost. One of my aims with this podcast series was to demonstrate the power and importance of Biblical texts as underpinning the West and its values. We are currently living in a time where the west and what it stands for are frequently undermined by political ideology – ironically those who repeat slogans and mantras, in some sense having just one language and one set of words – leading to an inability to think, it might be argued. In our rush to expand upon the secular spaces of society, we now find ourselves lacking in confidence when it comes to the very texts that have supported us for many centuries. People know thy need to rediscover the Bible but find it hard to jump in from scratch. How to start? Where to start? And the awkward matter of belief in a world where modern scientific materialism is championed at every turn. My ‘sideways’ take on biblical texts aims to make the stories strange again as well as demonstrating their relevance to modern life. No special or particular theological beliefs are required, and all are welcome to partake and ask questions. Thank you for listening! We’ll be back soon with another sideways look at the Bible for the Bible Curious! NEXT! Series 2 We shall be returning to the Bible in future episodes. For now, the Sideways Thinker podcast continues with a reflective series on one of my first written pieces for the Substack, Rosemary’s Baby: This is Really Happening. In the new series I will reflect upon how I came to write the piece, what I think about its approach now, along with a consideration of the the themes of the film and book, the story’s treatment of the subject of evil and its curious links to biblical themes. There will also be some new music developed for the series which I hope you will enjoy! Catch up here if you would like to read the original essay: Images are AI adaptations of the author’s own sketches and drawings, in addition to adaptations from Breugel’s renowned paintings of the Tower of Babel. Other images posted above are obtained using Google searches, or are derivatives of the author’s own work. Music is Stars and Laurels by Shane Ivers for Silverman Sounds. https://www.silvermansound.com Dr Caroline Kaye (The Sideways Thinker) presents this series aimed at non believers and believers alike exploring the West’s foundational texts - in order to see them anew. Dr Kaye holds graduate and post graduate qualifications in Religions and Theology from the University of Wales Trinity St. David and the University of Manchester She also holds an interdisciplinary PhD in Art History with Biblical themes from the Manchester Metropolitan University. Books and references consulted for the series: James Austin, The Tower of Babel in Genesis: How the Tower of Babel Narrative Influences the Theology of Genesis and the Bible, Bloomington, Westbow Press, 2012. Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, (‘The Netziv’) Haamek Davar on Genesis, Vilna, c. 1879. Sefaria. sefaria.org. Tom de Bruin, “The Tower of Babel,” in Biblical Themes in Science Fiction, ed. Nicole L. Tilford and Kelly J. Murphy (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2023), 35–56. Peter Enns, How the Bible Actually Works, New York, Harper One (Harper Collins) 2019. J.P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis: Specimens of Stylistic and Structural Analysis, 2nd Ed., Oregon, Wifpf & Stock, 1991. Daniel Gordis, “The Tower of Babel and the Birth of Nationhood,” Azure 40 (Spring 2010) pp 19-36. Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012 Shai Held, “People have Names: The Torah’s Takedown of Totalitarianism,” Mechon Hadar, mechonhadar.org/ShaiHeld, 2015. Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom:Reading Genesis, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006. Judy Klitsner, Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other, Philadelphia, JPS, 2009. Jordan B.Peterson, We who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine, London, Allen Lane, 2024. Dennis Prager, (Ed. Joseph Telushkin), Genesis: God, Creation and Destruction, The Rational Bible Series, Alperson Edition, Washington, Regenery Faith, 2019. Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bble in the light of History, New York, Schocken Books, 1966, reprinted 1970. Roger Scruton, The Face of God (The Gifford Lectures, 2010), London, Bloomsbury, 2012. Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution. Illinois, Crossway, 2020. Hugh Willbourn, The Bug in Our Thinking: And the Way to Fix It, Hertfordshire, Welwyn Press, 2023. Hebrew courtesy of Ted Hildebrandt, Biblicalelearning, Genesis 11 -- Hebrew Bible Speaker with English Captions on YouTube (Free online biblical resources for the global community). The audio was read by Abraham Shmuelof provided by the Academy of Ancient Languages. The Hebrew text is from Mechon-Mamre.org. The English translation is from the DASV [Digital American Standard Version]. Tanak Hebrew Bible reading video was prepared by Ted Hildebrandt for http://biblicalelearning.org and Gordon College. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to comment and share. If you find my work interesting and worthwhile, I would be glad to receive one-off donations through the Buy me a Coffee scheme. Do subscribe if you haven’t already, subscribing alone supports my work. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/SidewaysThm This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thesidewaysthinker.substack.com
