“Nada acrescenteis, nada tireis, à palavra que vos digo” (Dt 4,2): a Bíblia como literatura na superação do fundamentalismo bíblico

Abstract

The Bible is the foundational text of Judeo-Christian religions and has influenced Western culture and society, shaping notions of morality and human relationships, as well as religion, politics and the arts. Since the second half of the 20th century, Literary Studies have shown increasing interest in this work, analyzing it through the lens of literary theory and exploring its transtextual relationships. In the same period, fundamentalist readings of the Bible, associated with moral and religious ideological assumptions, have gained strength worldwide. The aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that approaching the Bible as Literature makes it possible to overcome the limitations of fundamentalism, especially when acknowledging that the composition of biblical texts follows what Paul Ricoeur (2010) calls mûthos. Through this mode of plot weaving, temporal experience is mimetically represented in the narrative—not through transparent texts, but through fictional texts that recreate the past based on present needs and future projections. To achieve this goal, following an Introduction, this dissertation examines the Bible through the lens of Literature, discussing the particularities of its authorship and reception. It then presents specific cases of fundamentalist readings related to the claim of possession over the Promised Land, to exemplify the impact of fundamentalism on social and geopolitical contexts around the world. Finally, the main narratives related to this theme, found in the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Joshua, are analyzed through a literary approach. As a method, in addition to literature review, the analysis contrasts the biblical texts with their context of writing and initial reception, following the principles of New Historicism (Veeser, 1989), in order to infer the boundaries within which contemporary interpretations should remain. Authors such as Robert Alter, Northrop Frye, Paul Ricoeur, Umberto Eco, Karen Armstrong and Jean Louis Ska form the theoretical foundation upon which our arguments are built. Our analyses demonstrate the unsustainability of fundamentalism as a valid method or acceptable form of reading and conclude by advocating for a deterritorialized reading of the biblical text that understands the Land in symbolic terms, beyond its geographical boundaries.