La Violencia and the Hebrew Bible

Violence in its wide range of horrifying expressions is real in people's lives, and biblical interpreters must take violence in the world seriously to arrive at exegetically noteworthy and culturally-theologically relevant ideas about the place of the Bible in the world. These twelve essays illustrate the range of biblical meanings when scholars, living and working on the American continent, address people's experiences of violence in the study of the Bible through the context of la violencia. La violencia, the Spanish noun, refers to the brutal, repressive, and murderous policies of state-sponsored violence practiced in many South and Central American and Caribbean countries during the twentieth century that external powers such as the U.S.A. often endorsed and fostered. Interpreting the Bible through the lens of la violencia yields important insights about the reading of the Bible on the American continent. This book invites students and general readers of the Hebrew Bible to learn more about the complex historical, political, and cultural conditions on the American continent that have contributed to our understanding of violence in the Bible and its various interpretation histories.