A bíblia como literatura no Brasil: história e análise de novas práticas de leitura bíblica

Abstract

This research work proposes to verify the meanings of reading the Bible as literature in Brazil. It starts by a bibliographical research that compares the titles launched in Brazilian publishing market from the 1990s and that have offered literary approaches for the biblical books. By this research it´s possible to point out that there´s no homogeneity among works and authors, while there´s a more fluid mediating interference of religions groups on the process of biblical reading, what allows greater care to these texts aesthetic aspects as well as their importance as a cultural patrimony. On the other hand, at the same time that religious mediations are reduced, there´s also the strong influence of other mediating forces, such as secular academical literary institutions that urge for critics’ fitting to contemporary literary theories. Considering the evaluation of titles that correspond to literary approaches of the Bible in Brazil, either from foreign or native authors, it was also possible to distinguish two work views that are explicitly differentiated by the editors that have published them. The first group, published by secular publishers, is formed by literary critics that have got interested in the Bible, especially by its literary value and importance for the understanding of western artistical production. For those, the greatest challenge was to overcome prejudice that put the Bible apart from other literary works, being therefore considered of importance only within religious subjects. The other group, published by religious editors, is formed by critics that have started their studies in theological fields, by biblical exegesis and, similar to the first ones, moved to contemporary literary theories in theirs studies in order to improve the already known biblical interpretation. For this second group, these new reading strategies represent improvements as long as they are helpful tools to overcome historical paradigms from traditional exegesis.