Bible Caught in Violence

Before discussing the challenge of violent texts, the Commission pays a lot of attention to biblical passages that pose historical problems. It is based on “inaccuracies and historical discrepancies” found in various texts and “the presence of unreal narratives in the Bible” (pp. 106–124). This seems to be the first challenge for the authors of the document. The order of presentation of the challenges chosen by the Pontifical Biblical Commission is not due to their significance or importance, but is rather a pedagogical choice. One of the key aspects for the interpretation of the biblical texts which talk about violence, encourage and even assign it to God Himself (p. 125) is proper understanding of their historicity.

The strength of this statement is disclosed in point 127 entitled The Law of Curse. There are considered fragments of the three books of the Old Testament: Deuteronomy (7:2–20; 20:16–18), Joshua (6–12) and First Samuel (chapter 15). In their context, there is made some radical statement: “these narratives are not historical in character” (p. 127). After pointing out the reasons for supposing the above statement, there is made the methodological proposition “forces us to think carefully about the literary genre of these narrative traditions” (pp. 127 and 128). At this point, the Commission refers to the model developed in the last century which is about the study of historical texts based on the proper discernment of literary genres (see Pius XII, Divino afflante Spiritu, 558–560). The radicalism of above statement and the importance of the methodology that takes into account the literary genre of the particular phrase is especially important from the perspective of a co-operative reader of inspired texts. It opens him to the still little-understood and absorbed aspect of the historicity of biblical texts. The connection between the text that relates the event and the historical event only seems to be broken suddenly. The “suspension” of the direct relationship of both: the text and the event allows the discovery of the mediator, which is certainly the text itself, but also the process of its creation. This is what the inspirational action of God is associated with. Only in this way can one speak of the Bible as an inspired text.

The second part of the book includes chapters dealing with the reception of biblical texts about violence. They fit into this line of the document, which recognizes the sensitivity of the contemporary lector of the Bible, and they pay attention to the texts which may be outrageous or confusing (p. 124), and even lead the reader to denying the meaning of the Bible as the Word of God (see 4). In this part there was used a chronological key: from antiquity and the Middle Ages (see K. Bardski, Biblical symbols of violence in medieval and Christian interpretation) through the Italian revival (see M.A. Balducci, Jihad and crusades: blessed violence in the Divine Comedy) and modern Russian literature (see D. Dzikiewicz, The theme of God’s violence in the Bible of the approach through belles-lettres. An example from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s literary anthropology) to the contemporary legal reflection (see D. Muńko, Gen 34 in the light of modern international law on resolving conflicts between nations).

Considering this perspective opens the way to the elaboration of certain guidelines that “would allow the believers to assimilate today, as was done in the past, all the riches” of the Word of God. This task appears to be extremely urgent. At the same time, the experience acquired in the past in solving other “difficult sides of the Bible” indicates that this perspective, the human’s lively contact with the Word, is the most inspiring for the biblical scholars themselves; Searching for not only academic solutions and confronting them with the desires of the hungry of the Word of God people is the source of first-rate inspiration and hope for every researcher of the Holy Scriptures. At the same time, it is the closest to the nature of the Holy Scripture, which, being a living word of God who communicates Himself, is addressed to a specific contemporary man and invites him to communion with the Word (see p. 4).