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, we take a deeper dive into the concept of the city. From Cain to Babylon, cities often symbolise something uneasy in the Bible: the sense of anonymity that’s found in the city, the concentration of power, and the forgetting of God. The feeling is that in the city that we don’t need God. It is easy to assume that the Bible is distrustful of cities and what they represent or stand for.

Genesis is surprisingly ambivalent about cities. Cities are not simply condemned. In fairness, they become places of culture, trade, worship and justice—but the early chapters of Genesis repeatedly associate the first cities with attempts to create security, identity and permanence in a kind of moving away from any dependence upon God.

So biblically speaking, Cities – are not bad in themselves. It is what can happen in the wake of their existence, the kind of behaviour that so often ensues. It is something to be aware of.

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

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 referred to in this episode:

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.

Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012

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.

Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bble in the light of History, New York, Schocken Books, 1966, reprinted 1970.

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