The Nowhere Bible: Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction

220 Pages·2015·1.266 MB·English

by  Frauke Uhlenbruch

Frauke Uhlenbruch
The Nowhere Bible
Studies of the Bible
and Its Reception
Edited by
Dale C. Allison, Jr., Christine Helmer,
Thomas Römer, Choon-Leong Seow,
Barry Dov Walfish, Eric Ziolkowski
Volume 4
Frauke Uhlenbruch
The Nowhere
Bible
Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction
ISBN 978-3-11-041154-6
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-041417-2
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-041427-1
ISSN 2195-450X
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A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
Logo: Martin Zech
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Preface
ThisbookisbasedonmydoctoralresearchwhichwassponsoredbytheCentre
forSociety,Religion,andBelief(SRB)attheUniversityofDerby,whereIspenta
wonderful four years and learned a lot, among others about hard interdiscipli-
narity. Iexplained my project tomany psychologists,biologists, and engineers,
andourconversationsoftenfoundcommongroundinthatobscureplacewhere
conceptsmoreorlessconverged:StarTrek,zombiefilms,andmutantantsfrom
planet X. It is a luxurious challenge to have to explain (and justify) a research
projecttothoseoutsideofahome-discipline,whodonottakeaspecificdiscipli-
naryconsensusforgranted.Hence,informedandinspiredbytheinterdisciplina-
ryenvironmentinwhichIwrotemostofit,thisbookismeantnotjustforthose
whoareprimarily interestedin the Bible, and not justfor those primarily inter-
estedinutopiaorsciencefiction,andIreallyhopeIhavesomehowmanagednot
to bore,underwhelm or overwhelm either camp.
IwanttothankDavidChalcraft,whosupervisedmyPhDresearch,notonly
butalsoforthatonetimewhenIfeltsoterriblyaudaciousforputtingascience
fictionreferenceintoafootnoteofanearlydraftandhiscommentinthemargin
said “Ok,but what about Cybermen?”.
I would also like to thank Ehud Ben Zvi for comments and feedback along
theway,andforencouragingthegeekapproach.IanD.Wilson hascommented
on ideas,papers, and drafts, for which also many heartfelt thanks.
I am indebted to those colleagues and friends working in SRB when I was
there – Kristin Aune, Simon Speck, Paul Weller, and Andrew Wilson – and of
course,thefantasticcommunitiesofinspiringjuniorresearchersattheUniversi-
tyofDerby,theUniversityofSheffield, andattheEuropeanAssociationofBib-
lical Studies.

Contents
 Fragmented Allusions 1
 Texts and Concepts 6
. Utopia, dystopia, science fiction 6
. Utopian thought, utopian and science fiction theory 11
. Social sciences and philosophy 15
. Bible 18
. Bible as utopia 19
 Utopia as an Ideal Type 23
. The problem with defining utopia, dystopia, and science fiction 23
. Ideals and ideal type 25
. Max Weber and beyond 30
. Family resemblances and anachronisms 35
. Using an ideal type to read utopia in the Bible 36
. The concept of utopia for use with the Bible 38
. Creation and disruption of links between fiction and reality 43
. The impact of dating a utopia 45
. Features of literary utopias: fiction, history, place 46
.. Realistic proposal or fiction 46
.. Religion versus utopia 50
.. The utopian pun 54
 Utopia and Reality 57
. “Zero Worlds” 57
. Relationship between the fiction and the author’s reality 60
. Perceiving different utopias 63
. Can utopias be understood without the reality behind them? 68
. Reverse-engineering utopia 70
.. Game rules 70
.. The abstraction’s independent meaning 71
.. Retrograde analysis of utopia 72
 Numbers 13 and Its Reception Read as Utopia and Dystopia 75
. Reality and utopia in William Bradford’s reading of Numbers 13 76
.. Reading Numbers 13 as utopian blueprint 83
VIII Contents
.. Utopia into history: Cotton Mather reads Bradford and Numbers
13 89
.. Estranged biblical utopia 91
. Reality or utopia in maps: Numbers, Ezekiel, and scholarly
reception 93
.. Functions of fictional maps 94
.. Some biblical utopian maps 97
.. The map of Numbers 13:17–26: A utopian map? 101
a All of the land or part of the land? 104
b Returning elsewhere? (vv.25.26) 105
c Difficult representation 106
d Paran or Kadesh 107
e Ṣin and Rĕḥōb, Lĕbōʾ-Ḥămāt 109
f Negeb and Ḥebrôn 110
g ʾEškōl 111
h The telescope effect 113
I Elevated narrators 114
j Moving narrators 115
k Interviewing omniscient locals 117
l Moving protagonists, encounter with locals, and consequences of ex-
ploration in Numbers 13 118
. Ezekiel’s utopian boundaries and Numbers’ boundaries 121
. Implications 123
 Utopia and Dystopia 126
. Utopia, dystopia, anti-utopia 126
.. Utopia 126
.. Dystopia 126
.. Anti-utopia 128
.. Form criticism? 129
. Ambiguous utopian and dystopian images in Numbers 13 131
.. Fortified cities: asset and threat 132
.. Eating and being eaten 133
.. Giants’ grapes 135
.. Escaping coercion 135
.. YHWH as utopian/dystopian leader 138
. Simultaneous utopia and dystopia 141
.. Cyclical relationship of utopias and dystopias 142
.. Simultaneous “Ustopia” 144
.. Neutral spaces 146
Contents IX
.. Utopian readers 148
. Excursus: Fantasy 152
.. Elements of the fantastic 152
.. World-building the Promised Land 157
 Science Fiction and the Bible 160
. The strange text 160
. Science fiction theory and the Bible 161
.. Darko Suvin: the “novum” 162
.. Raymond Williams: types of transformations 166
.. Margaret Atwood: mythological questions 168
.. Eric Rabkin: the narrative world 169
.. Roland Boer: alternate world 170
.. Discontinuities 171
. Science fiction in Numbers 13: disposable characters, cyborgs, and
first contact 173
.. Red Shirts 174
.. Nephilim as cyborgs 176
.. First contact 180
. A known yet unknown stranger 183
 Afterthoughts 192
. Reading with and as utopia 192
. Reading with and asscience fiction 194
Bibliography 197
Index 206