390 Biblical Studies and Scripture

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The Captivity of Innocence: Babel and the Yahwist, Andre LaCocque,

Cascade Books, 2010 (ISBN 978-1-60899-353-6), xvi + 190 pp.,
pb $23.00

The Captivity of Innocence: Babel and the Yahwist is the final book in Andre
LaCocque’s trilogy. The trilogy is aptly described by Wayne Rollins, in
the foreward to this book, as ‘a set of magisterial portraits of the mind
of J, the Yahwist narrator at work behind Genesis 1–11’. For those who
have already read the first of the three, The Trial of Innocence: Adam,
Eve, and the Yahwist (Cascade, 2006), and the second, Onslaught Against
Innocence: Cain, Abel, and the Yahwist (Cascade, 2008), this third book
comes as an anticipated concluding section to the cycle. For those who
have not yet read the previous two, and for those who have, a scholarly
adventure lay ahead!
In this third book, The Captivity of Innocence: Babel and the Yahwist, a
study of Genesis 11:1–9, LaCocque, a scholar of magnitude, depth, and
insight, leads readers from the ‘tried and true’ into academic places that
many may not yet have been tread . . . He moves us with ease through
the best of biblical scholarship on this text; from the historical critical
method into literary, socio-political, through psychological criticism
and well into postmodern, citing such scholars as Derrida and Bakhtin.
LaCocque is a mature scholar whose writing overflows with insight
from his store of academic expertise as, with a sense of excitement, he
delves into both traditional and newer ways of looking at this well-
studied text.
Whatever we thought we knew about the tower of Babel story, we are
presented with opportunities for new thinking and new directions in
our own scholarship. Until now, many writers have confined them-
selves to one critical method, or at least one method per book! The
twenty-first century signals new directions, which include dialogue
among methods. LaCocque earlier demonstrated this, with his book
Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies, jointly written
with the late Paul Ricoeur, (University of Chicago Press, 1998). One
might describe this book on Babel as ‘towering’ in that it is both deeply
rooted in the historical critical method and, at the same time, offers the
reader a chance to reach up and grasp (or, at least, consider) the heights
of postmodern thinking. One might say: ‘the sky’s the limit’.
This Babel book also directs us to consider the human condition
today. LaCocque points out that engaging the methods of psychological
criticism leads us to possible reasons that may underlie the activity of
tower building. Such projects continue, to this day, to be a common
human endeavor (e.g. the Seattle Tower, the CN Tower in Toronto, the
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Biblical Studies and Scripture 391

even higher tower in Dubai and the incredible ongoing lofty building
projects in China!). Could such projects reflect, psychologically speak-
ing, an attempt at immortality? Might they be based on hidden desires
to be god-like? To go a step further, what are the goals of governments
whose citizens, like the people of Babel, are required to be, as LaCocque
quotes Bakhtin, of one lip – ‘monoglossic’ (p. 140), locked in one step, ‘a
unity without diversity’ (p. 153)? In addition, we may ask why, in some
nations, the people are commanded to keep on building higher, as if
trying to reach the heavens?
The entirety of Part Two is dedicated to deconstruction criticism of
the text. LaCocque points out that, indeed, the Babel story itself could be
called a Jewish deconstruction in relation to the very real Babylonian
city and tower that existed in the mid-sixth century BCE, during the
time of the Exile; a time that was painful but also vital to the survival
and building up of the Jewish people. LaCocque offers his own decon-
struction. This time it is deconstruction, not of the people of Babylon
(represented by the Babelians), but of the biblical text itself. For this
reason, Part Two of this book could be called a deconstruction of a
deconstruction, as LaCocque seeks and finds inconsistencies and pos-
sible author conflicts in the text!
The fifteen page bibliography is impressive, considering the book is
written on the topic of only nine biblical verses! The bibliography is
followed by an index of names and an index of biblical references.
This book is highly recommended. The reader will enjoy not only
LaCocque’s scholarship and creative ways of using the various critical
methods, but also his style and choice of language. It is a short book, only
162 pages, but, in this as well as the first two of the trilogy, the reader will
find nourishing food for thought in relation to exegetical methods, ways
of understanding the text, and even the human condition.

Doreen M. McFarlane
University of Shanghai

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The Minor Prophets in the New Testament, Maarten J.J. Menken and
Steve Moyise (eds.), T&T Clark, 2009 (ISBN 978-0-5676-03305-4), 179
pp., hb $130.00

Following on from their previous collaborations on the New Testa-

ment’s usage, respectively, of Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy, this
latest release in the Moyise–Mencken ‘OT in the NT’ series switches
attention onto the Minor Prophets (MPs), and their particular function
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.