Přestavby babylonské věže
Rebuilding the Tower of Babel

Contemporary Czech Paraphrases of Gen 11:1–9

Summary/Abstract: Gen 11:1–9 contains three levels of meanings: phonetic­‑semantic (focused on the city of Babylon), contextual (explaining the existence of many languages and the dispersion of humankind), and moral (what provoked God’s reaction?). If we analyse the extant ancient Jewish and early Christian paraphrases and interpretations (including LXX and Vulgate), we realise that while the moral meaning of the original Hebrew text is questionable, vague, and ambiguous, it becomes the prevalent meaning in the subsequent tradition. Finally, the study shows that the modern Czech paraphrases (unlike modern translations) are not based primarily on the Hebrew, text but follow the LXX, Vulgate and ancient Christian and Jewish (!) authors instead. Thus, the paraphrases are not an outcome of an independent interpretation of the Hebrew Vorlage. The more than two-thousand-year-long tradition provides their authors with a basic outline and a number of constant, complementary (definitely non­‑biblical) material to fill its gaps. With the help of such material, by freely adding and removing various elements, the authors build their own stories upon a general, common outline. The message of these new stories might be valid and valuable; it is, however, in most cases, far from the original one.

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