Speaking of
CrookedShore, Glenn has just written a great piece on Babel, Nimrod and the beginnings of urbanization in Genesis. I quote here the first two paragraphs:
In chapter 10 of Genesis we have this curious list of the Table of Nations. It appears that the outcome of the command to Noah and his sons after the flood, to be fruitful and multiply and fill is the ethnic diversity of the nations of the earth. This is God’s ideal for the world. But look what happens at Babel. There the energy of human beings is directed at maintaining unity, God seeks diversity; human beings seek one centre; God seeks dispersal; Human beings want to be safe with homogeneity; God welcomes pluralism. Here in the story that emerges in chapter 11 the centrifugal energy of God is in conflict with the centripetal force of human beings.
I highly commend you to
read the rest of Glenn's thought-provoking, argument-inciting post. Then comment. What do you think about his analysis? Is it a fair biblical account of urbanization? What positive things might the Scriptures have to say about urbanization and centralization?
1 Comments:
Wow Thom...I'm really grateful for the links and glad that you found something on CS to make you think. The urbanisation thing is interesting in this part of Genesis, particularly in the light of the diversity issues thrown up in the Babel story (more to come in a later post).
And happy to keep talking about God's work in the city.
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