There is no syllable one can speak that is not filled with tenderness and terror, that is not, in one of those languages, the mighty name of a god.
– Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of BabelIn 2007, Theodore Hiebert published an essay reexamining the narrative of Genesis 11:1-9.Footnote 1 In nuce the argument is that the traditional reading of the passage as a narrative of the arrogance of humanity and appropriate divine punishment stems from the history of interpretation rather than from the text itself. Hiebert contends that the passage’s meaning relates solely to ‘the origins of cultural difference and not about pride and punishment at all’.Footnote 2
Hiebert’s essay provoked multiple responses which point to serious difficulties with his proffered interpretation of Genesis 11. However, Hiebert’s argument does function as something of a clearing of the eyes of the reader, by inviting a closer reading of the passage and a critical questioning of a status quo interpretation of its constituent parts.
This essay will survey Hiebert’s argument, as well as those of his respondents, before focusing on the function of language in our understanding of the passage. In particular, it will be argued that the dominant modern mode of understanding language as designative does not do justice to the logic of the passage. An alternative understanding of language as constitutive of an entire dimension of human existence will be outlined and then related to Genesis 11. The interpretation of the passage within this alternative understanding will be critical of certain of Hiebert’s points, while also agreeing with and strengthening others.
Hiebert’s interpretation and his respondents
A primary feature of Hiebert’s argument is his focus on the role of language in the structure of Genesis 11:1-9. Rather than focusing primarily on the tower, as has been the case in the history of interpretation, Hiebert takes his cue from the opening of Genesis 11, highlighting the common language of the people gathered in the Valley of Shinar. ‘This story is about language; in particular, it is about the existence of a single, uniform language spoken by all people.’Footnote 3 The uniformity of humanity’s language is also noted by God in the passage in verse 6. Hiebert points out that the actions of the builders of the city and tower are attributed to all of humanity rather than to a particular king, empire or people. He objects to discerning in the description of the tower’s height a statement of prideful humanity’s ambition. Instead, Hiebert advocates understanding the tower ‘with its head in the heavens’ (וראשׁו בשׁמים, v. 4a) as subordinate to the phrase which ends the verse: פן־נפוץ על־פני כל־הארץ (‘lest [we] be scattered over the face of the whole earth’, v. 4b).Footnote 4 ‘The actual motive, stated explicitly in the narrative, is the people’s desire to stay in one place.’Footnote 5
Several factors move Hiebert away from the pride-and-punishment scheme toward a beginning of difference scheme. First, the syntax of verse 4 focuses attention on the end of the phrase (scattering) rather than the earlier clause (building project). Second, the narrator does not explicitly attribute this building project to human pride. Third, the tower is not the centre of attention in the narrative; ‘city and tower’ form a hendiadys referring to an urban centre. Fourth, canonical and extra-canonical texts suggest to him that the description of the height of the tower should be understood as just that, implying ‘neither an attempt to scale the heavens nor an arrogant revolt against divine authority’.Footnote 6
As an alternative, Hiebert suggests that this building project be understood neutrally. These post-diluvian humans wanted to propagate their culture in one place, full stop. According to his reading, the text contains no negative judgments. Instead, the focus is on humanity gathered as a ‘homogenous culture – exemplified by a common language and living space’.Footnote 7 With this interpretation of humanity’s project, Hiebert turns his attention to God’s response to this project, narrated in verses 5–9. The latter half of the passage is understood as God moving the people from cultural homogeneity to cultural difference.
Again, Hiebert has to push back against traditional interpretation. He understands God’s descent to see the tower (v. 5) as part of Genesis’ standard theophanic language. In God’s assessment of humanity’s project in verse 6, God does not focus on the tower but on language: הן עם אחד ושׁפה אחת (‘Behold, one people and one language’). The concern expressed by God in verse 6 is that of cultural homogeneity; humanity, united in language, has begun to work on this city so that they can stay in one place, and they will succeed. ‘God recognizes that the human race, left to itself, is intent on preserving one uniform culture and that recognition spurs God to action in vv. 7-8.’Footnote 8 In response, God introduces multiple languages (v. 7) and scatters the people (v. 8), thus disrupting the two key features which Hiebert has focused on for homogeneous culture: language and place. He contends that neither of these actions should be understood punitively. For example, the language of verse 7 regarding the mixing of language is constructed, according to Hiebert, using the ‘conventional expression for linguistic difference’; ‘this phrase is a simple description of a multilingual world’.Footnote 9 With regard to the second element, that of place, the dispersal of people from a single place is simply an action of God designed to bring about diverse cultures.
Coming to the final verse of the pericope, Hiebert notes the connection with Babylon, as it is stated plainly in the text at verse 9. However, Hiebert does not impute any negative overtones to this connection. Rather, it is the Yahwist’s typical style of etymology by relying on a ‘rough similarity of sounds’.Footnote 10 The relationship set up between Babel and the mixing of languages is actually a positive thing, as it accords to this place the high status of the cradle of civilisation: ‘by means of aetiology and literary structure, the story describes Babel as the cradle of civilisation, the point of origin of the world’s different cultures’.Footnote 11
Hiebert’s interpretation of Genesis 11:1-9 certainly goes against the grain of traditional Christian and Jewish interpretation of the passage. Instead of reading the story as one of pride and punishment, he reads it as one passage among many in the early chapters of Genesis which deal with cultural differentiation.Footnote 12 Human desire for solidarity is not condemned. Nevertheless, God acts to bring diversity to the world.
Hiebert’s article resulted in at least two responses, both published in the Journal of Biblical Literature. In 2008, John Strong wrote one response, arguing from the basis of comparative history that there is a negative tone to the story.Footnote 13 Strong notes the canonical connection between Genesis 11 and Genesis 1, which names humanity and gives to humanity the role as the image of God. The language of Genesis 1:26-28 conceptually parallels ‘the model and function of ancient Near Eastern victory stelae’.Footnote 14 Humanity’s stated purpose to ‘make a name for ourselves’ (v. 4) ‘would be clear to an ancient reader that the humans were defacing the image of God and were, in essence, scratching off the name of God and replacing it with their own name. This was not a neutral act, though this may be lost on modern readers; it was an act of hybris.’Footnote 15 Even though Strong notes some helpful features of Hiebert’s reading, through reading the passage in its ancient Near Eastern context he ultimately argues for a retention of the traditional tone.
In addition to John Strong, André Lacocque wrote a response to Hiebert in 2009.Footnote 16 Lacocque’s argument is wider ranging than Strong’s. He takes issue with Hiebert in the areas of hermeneutics, source criticism and philology. Hermeneutically, Lacocque raises concerns about Hiebert’s reading in light of the history of interpretation. That a negative reading of the passage has predominated in biblical and postbiblical traditions should count for something, even as that history does not ‘standardise its meaning’.Footnote 17 From the perspective of source criticism, Lacocque argues that it would be difficult to imagine a postexilic Judean author producing a story in which Babylon is not seen negatively.Footnote 18 Philologically, several factors militate against Hiebert’s reading, when considered from a canonical perspective. These factors include: the location of the city in the Valley of Shinar; the proposed plan of humanity to make a name for themselves; the brick and mortar as materials for the construction project; and the confusion/mixing of languages which produces a lack of understanding. Even though Hiebert’s argument is provocative, according to Lacocque, the passage remains polemical in its message.
Language and background: Designation or dimension
The aim of this present essay is to offer a modest contribution to our reading and interpretation of the passage in light of two issues raised by the dialog between Hiebert and his critics. First, Hiebert helpfully foregrounds the importance of language in Genesis 11:1-9. Language is mentioned at the beginning (v. 1), middle (v. 6) and end of the passage (v. 9). Second, the debate which his article set off reminds readers of the inescapable reality of reading against a larger background of understanding. Hiebert consistently notes that a pride-and-punishment reading of Genesis 11 finds no basis in the text, but can only be found when one reads within a particular reading tradition.Footnote 19 The main goal of this essay is a combination of these two issues: to highlight how the understanding of language in the background of the reader influences the interpretation of the passage. As various essays and books of Charles Taylor engage in the discussion of differing philosophies of language, Taylor will be the primary source of this next section. Below, two views of language will be introduced and applied to the passage: the first, language as designation, which has been the dominant view of language in western thought since the Enlightenment; the second, which has been a minority view, understands language as inducting a subject into a new dimension of existence otherwise inaccessible. Below these two views are briefly summarised. After that, the difference they may make for interpretation will be illustrated through interaction with Genesis 11:1-9.
The first view, which Taylor contends is the dominant view in the modern world, conceives of language as primarily designative. In this view, language’s primary capacity is to adequately identify objects in the world. While it is acknowledged that language enables humans to do such things as express emotions and articulate positions, these are considered secondary features. Taylor traces this view to a modern, instrumentalist anthropology in which human beings are conceived as disengaged from the world around them, and yet able to interact with objects within that world which they perceive. This perception is facilitated by observation, in which our minds receive discrete data and then process this data together in our heads in the form of ideas. Language is not necessary to perceive this world and this data; they are received by the subject based upon sensory impressions. Language helps human beings achieve their goals of interacting with the world by designating a certain object for the sake of clarity and corporate life. However, significantly, the human is already aware of and, in a certain sense, knowledgeable of the object prior to the use of the word.
Taylor contrasts this dominant understanding of language with another view in the modern world, which Taylor attributes to the Romantic movement. For the purposes of this essay, the alternative can be set off from the dominant view in its relationship to human perception and its social role. As to the role it plays in perception, Taylor argues that language has a formulative power to bring into focus what the speaker would otherwise not have seen or known to have existed. We have some sense that there is something to say, some feeling which we have or some feature of the world which on which we wish to focus. It is through language that the contours of this feeling or feature are grasped by the speaker themselves. Without the word, the speaker is unfocussed. ‘To find a description in this case is to identity a feature of the matter at hand and thereby to grasp its contour, to get a proper view of it.’Footnote 20 Distinct from the designative view, in this case it is through language that human beings become conscious of their world, gaining explicit awareness of a feeling or object in the world.
A second feature to highlight of Taylor’s alternative is language’s role in constituting ‘characteristically human concerns’.Footnote 21 In view here are issues such as benevolence or justice or injustice. While we might be able to ascribe anger to an animal, we can only ascribe indignation to one anthropomorphically. This is because to be indignant requires that one be aware of the violation of some standard which is held both by the individual and the community. And to be aware, within human language, is to be able to articulate the standard and why a particular action violated a given standard, or why a particular action fulfilled a standard virtuously. ‘But to recognise in this sense, to mark the discrimination between, for instance, mere inclination and the right, or between what we love and what also calls on our benevolence and respect, we need to have articulated the domain of actions and ends or at least to have marked the relevant discrimination through expressive behaviour, for example through ritual, gesture or the style of comportment.’Footnote 22 This act of discrimination and demarcation calls upon a whole host of features and standards which are constituted by linguistic articulation. To have these standards as standards therefore requires language. And this is a major feature of what language does in human life.
Genesis 11 and the linguistic dimension
While these philosophical discussions may be interesting in their own right, in this essay the focus is their potential impact on an understanding of Genesis 11:1-9. The traditions in which we read necessarily shape that reading. The question addressed from this point is how our background understanding of language might shape our reading of Genesis 11:1-9.
Genesis 11:1-4
The opening verses of this passage describe humanity at the outset of their common building project. Two aspects stand out for attention: first, the meaning of the final phrase of verse 1 (שָׂפָה אֶחָת וּדְבָרִים אֲחָדִים) and, second, how the unity of language here described relates to the plurality of language already narrated in Genesis 10 (cf. vv. 5, 20, 31, each of which uses the root לשׁן). As to the first, this final phrase of verse 1 is odd because the plural form (אֲחָדִים) is rarely used in the Old Testament.Footnote 23 Based on the other contexts in which the word occurs in this form, it could be translated ‘few’. Thus, all of humanity had one language but few words. While this translation takes note of other usages of this difficult phrase, it does not seem to make sense of the passage which follows. Genesis 11:1-9 does not read as if it is about how humanity acquired a larger set of terms to include in their dictionaries. Rather, the passage narrates an explosion of whole languages, not individual lexemes. For at least this reason, the translation of this unclear phrase as related to a poor vocabulary does not satisfy the passage in which it is placed.
One possible solution to the translation of the final phrase of verse 1 emerges if we draw it into the second noted aspect of the passage; how it relates to the already existant plurality of languages reported in Genesis 10. As Victor Hamilton writes, ‘This age possessed a common language (‘one language’) with a conventional vocabulary (‘one speech’).’Footnote 24 Hamilton’s interpretation helpfully highlights the difference between the structures of a language and its use. In Saussurian terms, not only was all the earth united in langue but also in parole. Hamilton understands Genesis 11 to be stating that, amidst the plurality of languages narrated in Genesis 10, there nevertheless existed a lingua franca by which these various people groups could communicate. It may be possible to tie this lingua franca to one dominating power on the world scene. Hiebert relates this position among some contemporary scholars: ‘The emphasis on one language at the beginning of the story represents the imperial suppression of local languages and cultures.’Footnote 25
Taylor’s view of language opens up another possible understanding of this admittedly odd phrase and its relation to previously narrated linguistic plurality. For Taylor, one of the weaknesses of the designative view is its isolating influence on our understanding of language. Each word is isolated from all others, words isolated from a situation, and words are isolated from a background understanding. The view Taylor draws from Herder, Humboldt, Kant, Wittgenstein and Heidegger seeks to address these issues. First, language is holistic; each word exists in a web of other words, which ‘brings out the fact that our grasp of any single word is always situated within our grasp of the language as a whole, and the multiple rules and connects that define it’.Footnote 26 Second, ‘Our words have the meaning they have only within the “language game” we play with them, and these in turn find their context in a whole form of life.’Footnote 27 This sets words within the situations in which they are used. Finally, words draw on a shared background understanding for their meaning, a background made up of linguistic features and practices which give the speaker a sense of the rightness of a term for that particular use.
Within an understanding of language marked by the features Taylor highlights, Genesis 11:1 could be understood as portraying humanity as united in a shared background of practice and action by which their linguistic activity had a common sense. In this way, a reading informed by Taylor does not disagree with Hamilton’s, but provides a richer understanding of what shared conventions of speech might mean. Moreover, the view of language which takes into account common action connects this statement of humanity’s united background understanding with the building project which the passage goes on to describe. The common speech and convention stated in verse 1 are not only related to the comprehension of the people regarding the scheme outlined in verse 3 but also in the actions undertaken as a result of that speech. The workers who are about the task of building the city and tower know what supplies are needed, but the words formulate what those supplies are, even as the linguistic formulation of city and tower bring into focus the entire project for all involved. Workers calling out for materials are aware of what is expected of them and how they are to perform because they are members of a common linguistic background, with its attendant practices and embodiment. This means not just that they use the same utterances to designate the same objects but that they understand what they are about and how to do it. The one who hears ‘brick’ knows that this does not mean pick up the solid object and throw it as far away as possible, but to hand it to the speaker for a task they both understand. Not only is this task understood but it is also commonly valued. The workers coordinate their actions because there are shared visions for why one would do this. And all of this is due to the linguistic dimension in which humanity lives and moves. As the text emphasises, Taylor’s view helps us see how being united in background understanding leads to unity in speech, action, and aspiration.
Genesis 11:5-9
The second section of the passage is distinct from the first by its focus on the action of the Lord, even as in many ways it parallels or at least resembles the first section. The Lord goes down to see what the sons of Adam have been building. He remarks upon their unity, in particular their speech, and what they have and will be able to accomplish. His resolutions in verse 7 evoke those of humanity in verse 4: ‘Come, let us…’ The action of confusing the speech impacts the unity of each man and his neighbour in verse 3a. Whereas humanity wanted to avoid being scattered over the earth (v. 4), the Lord scatters them over the face of all the earth (vv. 8 and 9).
Given the focus of this essay on understandings of language, remarks will be confined to this topic. It is noteworthy that speech is seemingly ubiquitous in this latter section of the passage. It is a feature of the united people in verse 6, the focus of the Lord’s action in verse 7, and that which is behind the naming of this place in verse 9. In the first half of the passage, common speech enabled these builders to embark upon their city and tower project in order to avoid scattering. In the second half of the passage, speech is confused, leading to the cessation of the project and the scattering of the builders over the face of the earth.
Taylor’s articulation of the role and function of language highlighted this tight connection between speech, action, and aspiration in the first half. Now, in the second half of the passage, Taylor can aid us in seeing how the confusion of language is wound up with the cessation of the work project and scattering. However, in order to better grasp the difference Taylor makes, it is helpful to articulate, as a foil, a reading that might be offered according to the designative view of language.
In the designative view, to which Taylor objects, language’s role is to coordinate action and make cooperation easier, but it is not constitutive of a human being’s ability to perceive the world. Thus, on this view, when the Lord confused the speech of the builders they were no longer uttering the same sounds to designate the objects they needed. The result is a comical picture of these humans calling out one word and being heard as speaking either utter nonsense or another language. As a consequence of the confusion, they are so frustrated that they cannot take the time to point at the brick or mortar they need (remember, they already perceive these things, but lack common utterances to designate them for their fellow workers), or, beyond pointing, they cannot take the time to realise that their single utterances have been swapped out and then work to come up with a new dictionary which includes these wider set of designations. ‘Ah, when I say “brick” you say “Ziegel.” Great, now I will understand that you want the object which I designate as “brick”.’Footnote 28
Victor Hamilton offers another reading of how confusion and scattering relate, which is to understand the Lord going beyond his stated intention in verse 7 as an escalation of the punishment. ‘The text [of verse 8] does not refer explicitly to Yahweh’s confusing of the language…But between the word of intention [verse 7] and the word of accomplishment [verse 9] is the note about the builders being scattered…Not content to confuse their language, Yahweh must disperse them too.’Footnote 29 This is a perfectly reasonable reading of the passage, but it postulates more than what is in the text. The text does not state that the Lord had decided to go beyond his original stated intention of verse 7 and that scattering the people is an added move.
Taylor view suggests another option, based upon his thicker understanding of language and the linguistic dimension. Per this alternative view, what is introduced in Genesis 11:5-9 is linguistic incommensurability. In linguistic incommensurability, languages cannot be lined up according to their respective lexicons, and then aligned, one word in one language with a word in the other language, as if to suggest that the meanings across such a table would be equivalent. Rather, as words mean what they mean in a wider context of linguistic relations and cultural practices, there are things which can be stated in one language that cannot be stated in another without a sense of loss in the transition.
To be clear, the view which Taylor advocates is not based upon supposed differences in perceptions of colour or numbering as present in different languages. He is not arguing that the number of words a language has for snow posits a vast gulf of experiencing reality between it and others which may have more or less. ‘These…involve questions about different ways of encoding the same external reality; but when we are looking at divergent ethical or religious ways of life, or distinct political structures and social imaginaries, we are dealing with different human realities.’Footnote 30 Taylor’s view of language’s constitutive capacity is that it opens up the space wherein human concerns and values can emerge and be ascertained. It is in this realm, and not in categorising meteorological phenomena or colours, that one can speak of incommensurability between languages and cultures. ‘It is clear that…diverse understandings of human meanings, ethical ideals, and aspirations to self-transformation are frequently opaque to each other.’Footnote 31 This is because language, particularly language related to human values and meanings, is grounded in particular ways of life. Taylor illustrates this through an imaginative description:
Observers from some totally despotic culture, dropped into classical Athens, we keep hearing this word ‘equal’, and its companion ‘like’ (isos, homoios). We know how to apply these words to sticks, stones, perhaps also houses and ships; for there is a tolerably exact translation in our home language (Persian). And we also know a way of applying them to human beings, for instance physical likeness or equality of height. But there is a peculiar way these Hellenes have of using the words which baffles us. Indeed, they have a pugnacious and perverse way of applying them to human beings who seem to us not at all like, some tall and some short, some of noble birth, some of base, and so on.Footnote 32
The visitor has some sense of the words and can translate them into certain designative categories, but does not understand the human value expressed because it is dependent on the way Athenian society was structured, which is made manifest in certain ways of relating to one another: intrinsically right speech and body language.
Taylor’s view of speech can helpfully enrich one’s understanding of the debate on Genesis 11 which Theodore Hiebert’s essay prompted. Both Hiebert and his critics point to the same words in the passage. Yet, they posit different background understandings which shape how these words have meaning. In the more traditional reading, whereby the passage speaks of pride and punishment, this common background is active rebellion against the sovereignty of God: ‘let us make a name for ourselves (and not settle for what God would give us)’. In Hiebert’s view, the common background understanding upon which the words depend is a peaceful project of culture building. Both of these visions operate in the unarticulated background upon which language depends. As stated above, it is this background which enables common speech, action, and aspiration.
Not only does Taylor’s articulation help one to understand a facet of the contemporary debate; it also can be a useful way to understand what is going on in Genesis 11:5-9 itself. When human languages are confused, the whole web of meanings-in-relation-to-practices is confused.Footnote 33 It is no longer that a command, question or exhortation is taken up into a commonly held skein of human meanings and values. Rather, there erupts incommensurable visions of good in the world. Because these views are based upon embodied practices, then the scattering is a necessary component of the confusion of language. To have language is to belong to a language community; human beings would need to scatter and regather in order to have any understanding of themselves and the world.Footnote 34
Summary of remarks on Genesis 11:1-9
Hiebert’s desire is to exegete Genesis 11:1-9 such that the reader understands that ‘difference is God’s reality, the result of God’s own activity in re-creating the world after the flood’.Footnote 35 Moreover, ‘At the end of the story, there is no dominant, exceptional, or normative culture that is in a position of power or privilege to dominate, demean, marginalise or eliminate other cultures.’Footnote 36 These assertions make sense when the story is read within a view of language as designation. If everyone leaves Babel with a different set of designations, then there is no privilege or power to speak of. Everyone is accessing the same reality or perhaps has their own distinct views on reality, each being of the same value. The only difference is that we use different sounds to indicate this commonly perceived world.
When the passage is read within a view of language as constituting the linguistic dimension, through which humans gain awareness (Besonnenheit) of themselves and the world, and which constitutes the whole skein of human values and social relations, there is an implied critique in the scattering. The critique is found in the implication that human beings were not willing to suffer the cost of expanding their own vision of reality constituted by their own language. For Taylor, linguistic incommensurability does not necessarily lead to moral relativity. Rather, linguistic incommensurability means rather that the only road to mutual understanding, and perhaps ultimately agreement on moral and political principles, lies through patient mutual study and equal exchange, leading perhaps to the ‘fusion of horizons’ of which Hans-Georg Gadamer spoke, something which is at the heart an exercise in hermeneutics.Footnote 37
In Taylor’s view, learning another language is not solely gaining another set of motions of our mouth, tongue, and other vocal instruments. Rather, it is an expansion of our sense of self and world. That humanity scattered after Babel would imply an unwillingness to pay the price of change to self-understanding for the sake of understanding the other.Footnote 38 Thus, scattering as a consequence tied up with the confusion of language suggests something about the human heart, not just a change in location in space and time. In the traditional view, this would be credited to the presence of sin in human cultures.
Hiebert’s aspiration is commendable, in that he argues against an interpretation that results in cultural imperialism. One danger, however, is that this may end in cultural indifference, in which each is comfortably ensconced in equally valid interpretations of the world with no motivation to engage with the other, no incentive to pay the price of changed self-understanding. If every cultural expression is equally valid, then it could be interpreted to mean that God has no redemption to offer cultural expressions. An even greater danger is that these cultural separations and differences are taken to be established within the created order in such a way as to preclude any sort of integration, as is hauntingly seen in some of the justifications for apartheid in South Africa. In this context, J. A. Loubser cites one paper given at a conference in South Africa in 1944: ‘In pluriformity the council of God is realized…Therefore no equality and no miscegenation.’Footnote 39 Loubser states that the author of the paper found justification for this position in the Tower of Babel, among other places in the Bible.
Conclusion
In this essay, Genesis 11:1-9 has been read in conversation with two theories of language on offer in the contemporary frame: one which focuses on language as designative and the other which understands language as constituting a distinctly human dimension of existence. One may perhaps object to this exercise as too speculative or conjectural to count for biblical exegesis.
In response to this objection, it should be noted that this exploration into views of language is responding to the text’s repeated foregrounding of speech. Additionally, it is developing Hiebert’s contention that the reader’s background influences their understanding of the text. More importantly, this exploration is an engagement in filling out what Paul Ricoeur calls ‘the world of the text’. In Ricoeur’s view, texts are severed from their authors and reference to the objective world is interrupted. Texts become self-referential, with their own interior logic, they build their own worlds. Great texts do this well and involve readers in what film studies call the suspension of disbelief; they are drawn in and, for a time, forget that this world is not their own. However, it is not only great texts which have this feature of their own world. Readers must be attentive to how their assumptions may override the text’s world. Moments of confusion or breakdown signal where this overriding may be happening.
Within a stance toward Genesis 11 which seeks to read it as Scripture, the multifaceted understanding of the linguistic dimension offered by Charles Taylor opens up a way of reading this passage that make better sense of the words on the page and the way they relate. In line with the above discussion, it is always the case that language is drawing on a wider background for sense-making to occur. The interaction around Theodore Hiebert’s interpretation of Genesis 11 raised one particular feature of that background, which is our understanding of language. Additionally, for those to whom Taylor’s view may seem novel and therefore perhaps suspect, it should be noted that the designative view is not necessarily humanity’s default understanding of language. In many ways, Taylor’s dimensional understanding stands in greater continuity with antiquity.Footnote 40 Could it not be that holding to a designative view could also work to occlude the meaning of the text, closing a modern reader off from what the text may be saying? This can only be stated as a possibility. The above essay has sought to argue that more sense is made with an alternative view.
