Course Code: BID02

Justice, Peace and Overcoming Violence: Biblical and Ethical Perspective

BD IV, Semester II, 2 Credit Hours, College Paper, No Final Examination

(It is Compulsory for the College to submit the Marks through Online Portal)

Course Objectives

• To enable the students to be familiar with a contrapuntal reading of the Bible
• To help the students to be aware of the use and the potential abuse of the Bible
• To help students understand the brutality of violence perpetuated on the powerless by the dominant
• To encourage justice and peace initiatives in church and society
• To search for alternate ways of doing theology and involving in social witness, engaging both texts and contexts
• To read the biblical discourses to promote peace, justice and human rights

Note

No final Examinations. Class work, seminars, papers, project, and other methods would be determined to examine students.

Course Requirements

• Final Examination 60%
• Internal Assessment 40%

Course Outline

1. The potential for use and abuse of the Hebrew Bible
   • The poetics and politics of ‘self’ and the ‘other’ in the Bible
   • Israel as the people of God and the conquest of Canaan: implications on peace and justice issues
   • Conquest and Liberation: Traditions in conflict in the Bible
   • Exodus motif: a liberating as well as a colonial motif
   • Oppositionality and its potential for furthering oppression
2. The potential for use and abuse of the Christian Testament
   • The peace and war sayings of Jesus in the Gospels
   • The Life of Jesus: A consensual and conflictual life for peace and justice
   • The cross of Christ: peace in and through suffering violence?
   • New Testament teaching to be subject to governing authorities (Rom 13)
   • The New Testament teaching to oppose the governing authorities (Rev. 13)
3. New Testament in Context: Roman Peace and Peace of Christ
   • Violence and Peace in the Roman colonial context
   • Oppression and Justice in the Greco-Roman-Jewish settings
   • The early Christian discourses in the context of Greco-Roman imperial and the native Jewish nationalistic discourses
   • The Jesus movement: The Am-ha-aretz’s arts of resistance for justice and human-hood
   • The cross and resurrection of Christ as the hope of all the crucified peoples of the world
   • The New Testament foundations of human rights:
     • Personhood and new creation
     • Political rights
     • Economic rights
     • Socio-cultural rights
4. Manifestations of Violence
   • Levels of Violence: Individual, Familial, Communal, National and International levels
   • Empire, terrorism and war on terror
   • Violence of holy wars: communalism
   • Dalits and violence
   • Violence against nature
   • Violence against women and children
5. Towards a Theology of Life: Initiatives for a Glocal Just Society
   • Theological reflections on violence, war and empire building
   • Theological and scriptural legitimization of suffering and violence
   • The use of the Bible in peace initiatives in glocal situations
   • Peace and justice initiatives in India: narratives from social movements
   • Towards building communities of peace and justice: a theological imperative

Bibliography

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• Berquist, Jon L., ed. Strike Terror No More: Theology, Ethics, and the New War. Missouri: Chalice Press, 2002.
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• Castelli, Elizabeth, et al., eds. Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence. New York: Palgrave, 2004.
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