Babel's Tower translated
Subtitle: Genesis 11 and ancient Jewish interpretation
By: by Phillip Michael Sherman
Series: Biblical interpretation series -- v. 117; Biblical interpretation series -- v. 117.
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 363
ISBN-13: 9789004205093; 9789004248618
Subjects: Rabbinical literature; Rabbinische Literatur; Criticism, interpretation; History and criticism; Bible; Tower of Babel; Turmbau zu Babel; Pseudepigraphen
Description: In 'Babel's Tower Translated', Phillip Sherman explores the narrative of Genesis 11 and its reception and interpretation in several Second Temple and Early Rabbinic texts (e.g. Jubilees, Philo, Genesis Rabbah). The account of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is famously ambiguous. The meaning of the narrative and actions of both the human characters and the Israelite deity defy any easy explanation. This work explores how changing historical and hermeneutical realities altered and shifted the meaning of text in Jewish antiquity.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-354) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Part I. Unearthing the Tower. Introduction to part I. -- -- 1.; title: Return to Babel: reading without the canon -- -- 2.; title: Reading Babel backwards, canonical foundations for exegetical expansion --; title: Part II. Rewritten Babel. Introduction to part II -- -- 3.; title: The holy language in the book of Jubilees: the Tower of Babel and the eclipse of sacred tradition -- -- 4.; title: Pseudo-Philo's biblical antiquities: echoes of the Tower -- -- 5.; title: Josephus and the influence of anxiety: colonizing the Tower and the politics of dispersion -- -- 6.; title: Translated to heaven: the Tower of Babel and third -- (Greek) Baruch -- 7.; title: The inner Tower: Philo and the translation of cultures --; title: Part III. The rabbinic Babel: Midrash as translation. Introduction to part III -- -- 8.; title: A just translation: reading the rabbinic Babel in Genesis Rabbah.