In this study-the third panel of a trilogy on J’s tales about evil and innocence in the primeval era-the author turns to Genesis 11:1-9, another parable, this time on the so-called ‘Tower of Babel.’ The Captivity of Innocence analyzes a systemic robotization of society as a way of keeping innocence behind bars, contending that innocence never fails to offend, never fails to stir envy and hate. Here, evil is not wrought by an individual like Cain or Lamech, but by ‘all the earth, ‘ so that the summit of evil is now reached before Abraham’s breakthrough in Genesis’ following chapter. The present analysis uses a variety of techniques to interpret the biblical text, including historical-critical, literary, sociopolitical, psychoanalytic, and deconstructive approaches. The inescapable conclusion is that ‘Babel’ is the ‘Kafkaesque’ image of our world and is a powerful paradigm of our hubristic contrivances and constructions-‘Des Tours de Babel, ‘ says Derrida-in order to deny our finiteness. Then innocence is trampled upon, but it is not overcome: Babel/Babylon’s fate is to crumble down, and to bring up from her ashes the Knight of Faith.
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Wayne G. Rollins received his B. A. from Capital University in Columbus , Ohio, and the B.D., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale. He has taught at Princeton University, Wellesley College, and Hartford Seminary Foundation, and served as Director of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies and Ecumenical Institute at Assumption College, Worcester, MA. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. His publications include The Gospels: Portraits of Christ (1963), Soul and Psyche, the Bible in Psychological Perspective (1999). He co-edited four volumes with J. Harold Ellens on Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures (2004) and Psychological Insight Into The Bible: Texts And Readings (2007) with D. Andrew Kille. In 2012, at the University of Amsterdam, colleagues presented Rollins with a Festschrift volume of essays , entitled Psychological Hermeneutics for Biblical Themes and Texts, edited by J. Harold Ellens. It honored Rollins’ 1991 founding of the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, an international organization of biblical scholars. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Assumption College and serves as Adjunct Professor of Scripture at Hartford Seminary.