From Divine Violence to Religious Violence. A Socio-Political Interpretation of Exodus

The purpose of this chapter is to try to understand the textual characteristics of divine images. In fact, they play an important role in the building of religious imaginaries, having also socio-political consequences. The structure of this chapter is focused on the analysis of a biblical text. Limiting my analysis to Exodus 15, I will highlight some images of divine violence contained there. The Biblical tradition is extensive and complex, and the analysis of a single text meets the aim of giving a specific example, rather then developing a definitive theory that is valid for the whole Biblical corpus.