In the Judeo-Christian scriptures language is, then, a property of humankind by virtue of the fact that God creates humans 'in his own image' (Gen. 1:27). All other animals are called forth out of the ground, implying that htye have a physical nature and are subject to the same physical principles as inanimate matter 9Gen. 1:24). The creation of humanity, however, has a second step: 'The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being' (Gen. 2:7). In other words, humanity is given a spiritual nature that is specifically said to be parallel in many respects to God's. Among other things, this means that since God is a linguistic being, so are humans."
Regular readers will know of my interest in developing a proper theology of language (mostly posted under the 'homo loquens' tag on this blog), and I guess I had been hoping that this would contain some help in that, but I'm not sure it really does. However, in identifying why it doesn't I think it helps me move forward. The quoted section raises some ostensibly good points but inadequately for my purposes. Broadly speaking I'm happy with saying that language has a spiritual component (for many reasons that have to be explored further) and the interpretation about a degree of specialness in relation to God compared with other created beings, though I would want to be careful about how I characterised that and where I went with it (for example, the naming of the animals seems to imply a drawing of the creatures into the orbit of spiritual significance with human beings exercising a priestly role).
Where I have trouble with it is saying that God is a linguistic being. While the text of Gen 1-3 does present God speechfully, it is only in relation to creation that it is so. And when we reflect on the nature of language, we perhaps get an inkling of why: language necessarily involves partialness as we select topics and ignore -or leave assumed- other things. Language is, of necessity, tied up with the work of dividing up and demarcating creation. So to say that God is a linguistic being is problematic. Doubly so when we further reflect that God has no vocal tract (except in incarnation). And yet clearly God condescends to communicate in some way corresponding to verbally with Adam. So perhaps it is not that God is linguistic so much as God is communicative and language is a chief means to communicate in a context involving finitude both of environment and of agents? Being communicative is an aspect of loving: it is going out to the other, touching the other, overcoming the separation.
Anyway, that was not the only issue raised in this book, apparently, with a theological dimension. Linguistic diversity is tied down to the tower of Babel. And indeed that is well and good because it is clearly a primary text for reflecting on linguistic diversity theologically. However, we should also recall that it is not the only point to note from Genesis, or even the first point.Remember the Tower of Babel story is chapter 11 of Genesis, well, in 10:5 we read:
From these the coastland peoples spread. These are the descendants of Japheth in their lands, with their own language, by their families, in their nations.(emph, mine, obviously). It gives, rather, a diffusion idea of language difference growing as people spread. See also v.20 and 31. It is then a bit of a shock to read Gen 11:1
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.Now there may be ways to harmonise these statements, though it is hard to imagine how some obstacles would not remain about how these descendants are dispersed and speaking differently and all of a sudden are in one place speaking in common*. I suppose that those who originally told these stories and collected them together, would have been aware also of the differences (there's nothing like memorising stories to help you to be really familiar with them), so I don't think that harmonising them was a high priority because they weren't listening and telling them with our modern concerns about history; they didn't, I suspect, really tell them as history but as stories that helped them know their place in the world and in God's purposes. The Tower story doesn't 'work' without a common language at the start, so it has to be told that way and it would be understood that we were engaged in another story at this juncture. The point, theologically, I think, is that human accumulation of power is potentially a bad thing and that linguistic diversity has a place in checking the pretension of Empire (and read that against the kind of background of interpretation of Colossians, for example, to be found in Walsh and Keersmaat's 'Colossians Re;mixed') I think that the tower of Babel thing is actually about a preference for subsidiarity/decentralisation rather than about language as such. The language angle, taken in with chapter ten, would be, I suggest, that for all the difficulties that different languages can bring, there is another side which is about holding back the oppression and pride of Empire. This latter point seems to be Mark Baker's too. However, I'm not sure I'd go along with the rather pessimistic spin he puts to it:
Genesis presents the creation of linguistic diversity as an act of judgement and limitation, meant to afflict humanity and prevent it from reaching certain goals, rather than as an act of blessing.
The way it is presented in chapter 10 seems rather more positive, or at least less negative. It almost reads as a celebration of the identity of the different peoples; and as such an anticipation of both the different tongues praising God (seen positively) in Revelation and, arguably, of the different treasures of the nations brought into the New Jerusalem which I think would include poetry and literature, for example. The Babel story is often paired in Christian reflection with the Pentecost gift of tongues. Strangely, though the Pentecost story is seen as a kind of reversal of Babel, we don't see a miraculous gift of all speaking the same language but God's glory being proclaimed in all different languages, suggesting that it is appropriate and desirable for all languages to become vehicles of doxology. This perspective might fit better with Mark Liberman's questionning of Mark Baker's remarks about evolutionary fitness, too.
*We should note too in 10:11 that only some of Noah's descendants are placed in Shinar, so all in all seeing chapters 10 and 11 as non-sequential (saying that chapter 10 is an overview, pointing up where the peoples ended up after the Babel scattering) probably doesn't help harmonise the stories. I think we really shouldn't try: that isn't the purpose of having these stories here.
PS Cath at ninetysixandten has a nice post on this selfsame assertion -I note we both blogroll Language Log...
4 comments:
Hi Andii,
thanks for the comment on my blog. What you say here is very interesting and I'm glad we agree that there's something odd about saying 'God is a linguistic being'!
The only comment I'd add is that the point about a vocal tract is perhaps a slight red herring, since most contemporary linguists would view the physical aspects of *speech* production as a separate question from the nature of *language* itself.
I agree with your observation that 'it is not that God is linguistic so much as God is communicative'.
On the separate question of what happened at Babel, I've a suspicion that the discrepancy you mention between Gen 10 and Gen 11 is over-stated, but that'll have to be a story for another day :)
Cath
I see your point about the vocal tract though it's worth bearing in mind that it's a point exemplifying that we should be wary of anthropomorphising (though the Incarnation means we need to be careful of babies in our bathwater): language whether spoken, signed or brained is a product, necessarily, of finite created order.
So, perhaps I'd add to 'communicative' that human language part-images God in 'dividing' up and ordering...
I'd be interested to find out more about why you think I may be overstating the Gn 10 vs 11 differences.
Fair enough re the vocal tract, although of course the Incarnation didn't change anything in the divine nature per se.
Re Gen 10 and 11, I think i might actually take the opposite tack from what you recommend in your footnote :) It's only recently that I came across the view that they contradict, but i have to say i don't find it very convincing, even tho it turns out to be fairly popular. As you say, the Babel story doesn't really make sense if the people involved didn't share the same language at the start - and Gen 10 does have an 'overview' feel to it, listing the descendants of all three of Noah's sons and stating that in each case the info provided was a sketch of how they split up into tongues/families/nations etc. If Gen 11 does double back and fill in the details of how the division according to 'tongues' came about, it would only be similar to what Gen 2:18ff does for Gen 1:27, eg.
Unless i'm missing something ... :)
Cath
I don't think you're missing something: it's a possible reading strategy, and one that did occur to me. I'm just not convinced. If anything your analogy with Gn 2 & 1 kind of makes my point since there were have even more clearly two different narratives that are not really meant to be co-ordinated narratives: they are placed together by topic but the details don't match up. (That's not to invalidate them as Scripture, just to recognise clues on how they seem to be Scripture; what kind of scripture they are). In Gen 1 & 2 two theologically complementary stories with points of contact, ditto 10 & 11.
I suppose that the mention of Shinar in 10:10 seems to me to be of a kind that seems to jar with it in ch.11. But more importantly, it seems to me that the opening words of chapter 11 don't mesh with the way things are presented by the end of ch 10. So we have two basic interpretive moves available to us: to recognise we have a different 'take' being presented with a different set of theological purposes, or we suppose that it should be one single narrative and attempt to read the latter back into the former. But that is a decision about how we think the text should function, I think, and not one that necessarily derives from the passage[s] but rather from a priori assumptions determining how we approach or want to approach the text. ... ?
Taking a punt at what some of those might be, I should say that I'm perfectly happy to read these texts in the purview of 2Tm3:16 -I think the texts are God-breathed; I'm just trying to get a handle on the kind of respiration involved!
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