The Bible is the Word of God as expressed in human language. The goal of the present article is to develop a hermeneutical approach based in the communicative function of language. It first takes up the constitutive elements of the communicative event and the different patterns of representation. It then focuses in the exact operative function of language so as to clarify the relation between the semantic content and its pragmatic usage. Finally, it analyzes the specific characteristic of a biblical (...) text to apply the above communicative process to the analytical interpretation of a literary text. (shrink)

This contribution offers a reflection on the death penalty in the light of OT Law that enforced and sanctioned it only within the scope of the biblical understanding of justice. Starting therefore with the Torah and moving through the Prophets into the New Testament, the reader is called to question the logic behind retributive justice, as it attempts to re-establish the desecrated order. Retributive justice does so by means of a 'just' punishment, by giving everyone one's due, and through the (...) emendation of the culprit. The cross, though, goes well beyond the understanding of God as symmetry and the concept of a 'matching' justice. In Christ's death, the first place cannot be accorded to an order that needs to be set right again; still less can it be given to the suppression of bad subjects. That first place must belong to the human person who cries out for redemption and asks to be re-created in God's image. This would amount to nothing less than a restitutio principii. (shrink)