What if the Tower of Babel isn’t about a skyscraper at all, or trying to ‘reach God,’ but about language, thought and power? We begin our series with the strange little story - consisting of only nine verses- situated between the Noah episode and the great patriarch Abraham — and why it might be one of the few (if any) political passages in the Bible.
In the series, we’ll be taking a deep dive into Genesis 11 (1-9) the Babel story to open up its valuable teaching. We’ll discover the Bible’s take on free speech, freedom, and human flourishing. We’ll encounter God in sarcastic mode, and we’ll consider whether or not the people in the story were actually punished or not. We will consider how the story speaks so clearly to us today – with some surprising conclusions about the way we live and the choices we make. And the danger we are in.
In this episode: Before there’s a tower, there are bricks. Before there’s a plan, there’s technology. Babel suggests something unsettling: sometimes we build things simply because we can. The use of technology, in Babel and in our world, suggests a carefully ordered world, one with the necessary organisation, efficiency and desire for Man to control everything he grasps.
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.
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.
Music is Stars and Laurels by Shane Ivers for Silverman Sounds.
https://www.silvermansound.com
Books mentioned and recommended in this episode:
Judy Klitsner, Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other, Philadelphia, JPS, 2009.
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.
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