Abstract

Attention to the Bible, though not central, is constant in Paul Ricœur’s work, which features a succession of several approaches. In Symbolique du mal (1960), Ricœur attempts to think on the basis of biblical symbols with a clear philosophical intent that, however, uses a theological scheme (“believe to understand”). In subsequent essays on biblical hermeneutics, such as Herméneutique de l’idée de révélation (1977), Ricœur chooses to distance himself from theological reading in order to enable his philosophical reading to grasp the Bible’s strangeness. Later on, his quasi-private meditations on death and its imaginary ( Vivant jusqu’à la mort , 2007) will lead him to explore anew crossroads of philosophical reading and theological reading of the Bible, so as to offer an astonishing and stimulating critique of biblical resurrection accounts