Babel's Tower translated : Genesis 11 and ancient Jewish interpretation / by Phillip Michael Sherman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sherman, Phillip Michael, author.

Series:

Biblical interpretation series ; volume 117.

Biblical interpretation series ; volume 117

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible.

Babel, Tower of.

Bible. Genesis, XI--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Rabbinical literature--History and criticism.

Rabbinical literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 393 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boston : Brill, 2013.

Summary:

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 the actions or 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 the text in Jewish antiquity. Book jacket.

Contents:

Interpretation as translation or exegesis and historical hermeneutics

Return to Babel: reading without the canon

Reading Babel backwards : canonical foundations for exegetical expansion

The holy language in the book of Jubilees : the Tower of Babel and the eclipse of sacred tradition

Pseudo-Philo's Biblical antiquities : echoes of the Tower

Josephus and the influence of anxiety : colonizing the Tower and the politics of dispersion

Translated to heaven : the Tower of Babel and third (Greek) Baruch

The inner tower : Philo and the translation of cultures

A just translation : reading the rabbinic Babel in Genesis Rabbah.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789004205093

9004205098

9789004248618

9004248617

OCLC:

827115132