The Nordic Bible: Bible Reception in Contemporary Nordic Societies 9783110686005, 9783110685947

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The Nordic Bible

Studies of the Bible and Its Reception (SBR)

Edited by Constance M. Furey, Brian Matz, Joel Marcus LeMon, Thomas Römer, Jens Schröter, Barry Dov Walfish, and Eric Ziolkowski

Volume 24

The Nordic Bible

Bible Reception in Contemporary Nordic Societies Edited by Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Kasper Bro Larsen and Outi Lehtipuu

ISBN 978-3-11-068594-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068600-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068604-3 ISSN 2195-450X Library of Congress Control Number: 2023937301 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface In recent years, “the Nordic” has become an object of growing global attention. American presidential candidates debate the pros and cons of the Nordic welfare state model; Britain is experiencing an invasion of Nordic noir in crime novels and TV series; and “New Nordic” has become a label for international trends in such diverse fields as cuisine, public school management, fashion, architecture, city planning, and business leadership. But is there such a thing as a Nordic Bible? In other words, can certain trends and habits of interpretation be identified in the public Bible reception practices of the Nordic countries? The question is complex, and accordingly also the answer. The present book aims to present and discuss contemporary examples of how the Bible works in this specific part of the world. The Nordic countries share a historical, political, cultural, and religious heritage that influences the ways that the Bible is received and negotiated in contemporary Nordic identity formation. This shared heritage, however, is not situated in a local Nordic vacuum. As the contributions show, the Nordic Bible participates in broader Western and even global macro-tendencies regarding, for example, liberal enlightenment values, secularization, individualization, and increasing multiculturalism. Nordic Bible reception, in other words, is performed between local and global spheres. Accordingly, this book does not seek to endorse a particularly “Nordic” way of using the Bible; even less do we suggest that Nordic Bible reception should be processed for intercultural export as a “New Nordic” commodity. The contributions represent a series of individual case studies from different societal domains and practices such as Nordic media, politics, cultural memory, and Bible translation. The contributions cover cases from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and are written by scholars from all four countries. The scholars represent a relevant spectrum of academic disciplines such as biblical studies, church history, Jewish studies, and politology. The volume concludes with an external comparative perspective from James Crossley, Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, England. The idea of this book was coined at an international workshop organized by Aarhus University (Denmark), the University of Helsinki (Finland), and the University of Oslo (Norway), all three universities belonging to the NordForsk research hub Reimagining Norden in an Evolving World (ReNEW). The workshop took place in the fall of 2019 at Aarhus University. We wish to thank the sponsors who made it possible to publish the present book: The NordForsk ReNEW hub, the research program at the Department of Theology at Aarhus University, and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo. We also would like to thank https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-001

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Preface

Yvonne Sherwood for important inputs at an early stage of the process. A word of thanks also goes to Dr. Louise Heldgaard Bylund and Dr. Erich Benjamin Pracht for assisting with manuscript preparation and indices. We also wish to thank editorial director Dr. Albrecht Döhnert and the editorial board of the Studies of the Bible and Its Reception series at de Gruyter Publishers in Berlin for accepting the volume for publication in this innovative series and for great professionalism in the publishing process. Some of the contributions are also published in shorter and more popular versions in the Danish popular science open-access web magazine Bibliana (www.bibliana.dk) and in the Swedish open-access journal Svensk Kyrkotidning (www.svenskkyrkotidning.se). August, 2022 Marianne Bjelland Kartzow University of Oslo

Kasper Bro Larsen Aarhus University

Outi Lehtipuu University of Helsinki

Table of Contents Preface

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Abbreviations

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I Introduction Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Kasper Bro Larsen, and Outi Lehtipuu 3 Bible Reception in a Nordic Context Hallgeir Elstad The Bible in the Nordic Welfare States

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II The Bible as Rhetorical and Political Weapon Hannah M. Strømmen A Nordic Far-Right Bible? Biblical Assemblages and the Role of Reception 39 History Niko Huttunen and Outi Lehtipuu The Bible as Hate Speech? Homosexuality and Romans 1 in a Contemporary 61 Finnish Debate Kasper Bro Larsen “Render unto Caesar”: Jesus and the Lutheran Liberal Bible in Debates on Religion and Politics in Denmark since 2000 79 Hanna Stenström Resisting the Rule of Mammon and Fighting with Jesus against Neoliberalism: Unexpected Uses of the Bible in Contemporary Political Debate in Sweden 97 Ole Jakob Løland The Bible in Norwegian Politics: Scripture in the Parliamentarians’ Discourse 119

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III The Bible in New Nordic Translations and Versions Søren Lorenzen To Honor or Respect Your Parents? The Reception of an Ancient Commandment in Contemporary Danish Media and Nordic Bible 143 Translations Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Karin Neutel “God Speaks Our Language”: Recent Scandinavian Bible Translations and the Heritagization of Christianity 163 Louise Heldgaard Bylund The Bibleness of Children’s Bibles: Paratextual and Material Aspects of Nordic 179 Children’s Bibles

IV The Bible in Multicultural and Secular Nordic Societies Riikka Tuori Jewish Reception of the Finnish Bible: Negotiating Jewish Identity in 195 Contemporary Finland Timo R. Stewart Using the Bible to Interpret the Qur’an: Finnish Christian Revivalist Narratives on Islam 221 Mikael Larsson Confession, Masculinity and Biblical Reception in Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built 253

V The Nordic Bible from the Outside James Crossley Contextualising the Nordic Bible(s): A Response List of Contributors

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275

Table of Contents

Bibliography Index of Names

291 317

Index of Biblical References

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Abbreviations AB BBC BibInt BT Di EBR EKK ER FGLP Harv JLPP HGANT HSK HTR ICC Int JAAR JBR JBRec JLR JRE JSNT LCL LHBOTS LNTS SAOB SAOL SJT TDOT ThWNT

Anchor Bible Blackwell Bible Commentaries Biblical Interpretation The Bible Translator Dialog: A Journal of Theology Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Encyclopedia of Religion Forschungen zur Geschichte und Lehre des Protestantismus Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe zum Alten und Neuen Testament Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft Harvard Theological Review International Critical Commentary Interpretation Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Bible and Religion Journal of the Bible and Its Reception Journal of Literary Research Journal of Religious Ethics Journal for the Study of the New Testament Loeb Classical Library The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies The Library of New Testament Studies Svenska Akademiens Ordbok Svenska Akademiens Ordlista Scottish Journal of Theology Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-002

I Introduction

Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Kasper Bro Larsen, and Outi Lehtipuu

Bible Reception in a Nordic Context 1 The Bible of the North

Ever since Christianity arrived in the Nordic countries during the Middle Ages, the Bible has been a source of authoritative values and has provided a grand narrative in the societies of the region. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Bible (or parts of it) were translated into different Nordic national languages. The most significant examples are Oddur Gottskálksson’s Icelandic New Testament (1540), the Gustav Vasa Bible in Swedish (1541), Mikael Agricola’s Finnish New Testament (1548), and Christian the III’s Bible in Danish (1550). These Bible translations were seminal in establishing and maintaining Nordic national languages and identities— and in marginalizing other languages and identities in relation to the power of state as, for example, in the case of Norway under Danish rule.¹ As such, the translations played an important ideological and political role comparable to the Lutherbibel in the German realm and the King James Version in the English-speaking world. In late modern Nordic societies, the Bible’s status as a grand narrative has diminished due to, for example, the increasing separation of church and state administration (not least in the public school systems), detraditionalization, and religious pluralism. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2017 disclosed that the percentage of adults in the Nordic countries who “believe in God as described in the Bible”—which is, of course, a highly indistinct statement—is considerably lower than the American 56 % and also well below the European median of 27 %. Finland scores 24 %, Norway 20 %, Denmark 17 %, and Sweden 14 %.² The Nor1 The history of Norwegian Bible translations is complicated since it is connected with the 19th century Norwegian history of independence from Denmark and the corresponding emergence of two Norwegian written languages, Bokmål (Norwegian Bokmål) and Nynorsk (New Norwegian). First, the Old Testament Apocrypha were translated into Norwegian in 1873; later came the Old Testament in 1891 and the New Testament in 1904. The first complete Bible in Nynorsk appeared in 1921. Also in other languages spoken in the Nordic region, the first (partial) Bible translations came relatively late: Faroese (1823, Gospel of Matthew), Greenlandic (1744, New Testament), and Sámi languages (1755, New Testament). See Sigurd Hjelde, “Nordic Language History and Religion/Ecclesiastical History IV: From Pietism to the Present,” in The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages, vol. 1, ed. Oscar Bandle et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008): 427–30. 2 Iceland did not participate in the survey. The survey only included answers given by non-Muslims. It further showed that among the three possible answers in the questionnaire (Biblical God/ higher spiritual power/non-belief ), the largest group in most participating Nordic countries opt for https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-003

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dic countries also display low scores on global indexes of religious belief in general, church attendance, and daily prayer practice. Paradoxically, however, the Nordic region also exhibits a high degree of loyalty to the traditional Lutheran national churches. In all Nordic countries, the majority of the population are members of the Lutheran church, ranging from a low 56 % in Sweden to a high 74 % in Denmark.³ The Bible remains a perpetual steady seller in Nordic book markets, and it continues to set its footprint on a variety of practices such as the popular life cycle rituals of the majority churches, school education with basic biblical narratives in the curriculum, cultural identity debates, national memorial ceremonies, public holidays, and political debates about multiculturalism and migration. In this paradoxical landscape, the Bible continues to play a role as a significant container of cultural values in the Nordic countries.⁴ The present volume investigates, by means of case studies, how the so-called “Great Code” of Christianity and Western culture, despite all rumors of religious and cultural amnesia, is remembered and mobilized in the public sphere of the Nordic countries today. Unlike many Bible reception studies that concentrate on the Bible in literature, art, and popular culture, this book hones its focus on public and political discourses. As such, the book offers new critical reflections on the use of the Bible in the Nordic countries and is the first international study of Bible reception in the Nordic countries or Norden, as the Scandinavians call it, i. e., the North European and North Atlantic geographical region that, according to the traditional understanding, covers the states of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland (including the Åland Islands), Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.⁵ Norden is an identity that interacts with other collective identities such as regional, national, European, Western, and global identities. Ever since the Nordic Enlightenment and the eruption of Romanticist nationalism in the nineteenth century,

a spiritual image of God rather than for a Biblical image or for atheism. Sweden, however, represents the atheistic exception with 41 % atheists versus 37 % spiritualists. See Pew Research Center, “Being Christian in Western Europe, May 29, 2018, https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/ sites/7/2018/05/Being-Christian-in-Western-Europe-FOR-WEB1.pdf, 106–09. 3 See “Svenska kyrkan i siffror,” Svenska Kyrkan, 2019, https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/statistik and “Folkekirkens medlemstal,” Folkekirken, 2020, https://www.km.dk/folkekirken/kirkestatistik/ folkekirkens-medlemstal. 4 The following Norwegian example illustrates the Nordic ambiguity toward the Bible: After the new Bible translation was launched in 2011, a particularly exclusive and aesthetic edition won a book design award for the most beautiful book of the year, yet in the category of “adult fiction” (“skjønnlitteratur for voksne”; see https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/pressemelding/bibeldesign-tilgull?publisherId=89452&releaseId=112845. 5 Whereas the Scandinavians (Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes) call the region Norden, it is Norðurlöndin in Icelandic and Pohjoismaat in Finnish.

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Norden has been mobilized, for example, in the construction of national identities. In that process, the Nordic countries were often discursively demarcated from mainland Europe, the Nordic countries allegedly being democratic, Protestant, progressive, and egalitarian vis-à-vis the Catholic, conservative, and capitalistic mainland Europe.⁶ Since 1952, the Nordic Passport Union has allowed Nordic citizens to travel freely and reside in other Nordic countries. Today, Norden may not be a deeply ingrained identity in the public imagination, but it is promoted by the governments of the region, for example in the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Even the present volume is a result of support from the Nordic Council of Ministers by means of its research funding program. As such, the volume not only analyzes Bible reception in the Nordic region, but it is also entangled in the structures that serve to produce and maintain Norden as an imagined community. In Nordic Lutheran societies, the Bible has traditionally been perceived as a basis of religion and social cohesion. Whereas such religious and confessional factors are well-researched with regard to the historical background of the Nordic welfare states, the focus of the present volume is on public use of the Bible today.⁷ The case studies discuss how Nordic Bibles (translations, children’s Bibles, rewritings, reenactments in cinema and politics) and Nordic Bible use (the Bible as argument and icon in the public sphere) legitimize and criticize common cultural codes and values of Nordic welfare societies (gender equality, individualism, national identity, religion as a private phenomenon, division of religion and politics, cultural heritage, secularized Protestant ideas, etc.). Moreover, two presentations will deal with Bible reception in relation to the use of the Jewish Bible and the Qur’an in a Nordic context. Without essentializing the idea of a “Nordic Bible,” the case studies contextualize common and opposing trends in biblical discourse across the Nordic countries today.

6 Øystein Sørensen and Bo Stråth, “Introduction: The Cultural Construction of Norden,” in The Cultural Construction of Norden, ed. Øystein Sørensen and Bo Stråth (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997), 1–24. 7 See, for example, Uffe Østergaard, “The Geopolitics of Nordic Identity: From Composite States to Nation States,” in Sørensen and Stråth, The Cultural Construction of Norden, 68–70; Jens Holger Schjørring and Jens Torkild Bak, eds., Velfærdsstat og kirke (Copenhagen: Anis, 2015); and Kaius Sinnemäki et al., eds., On the Legacy of Lutheranism in Finland: Societal Perspectives, Studia Fennica Historica 25 (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2019).

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2 Bible Reception in Biblical Studies: Approaches and Problems Academic biblical studies have traditionally dealt with the origin and meaning of the Bible and its writings in their first ancient contexts. In recent decades, however, the discipline has witnessed a growing interest in the reception history of the Bible, i. e., studies of the use of biblical texts in later historical and cultural contexts.⁸ One of the more practical reasons behind this trend is undoubtedly the limitless research possibilities that reception history offers to an academic field that is vulnerable to scholarly replay and iteration. One handbook definition describes this unlimited field in the following manner: Bible reception “comprises every single act or word of interpretation of that book (or books) over the course of three millennia.”⁹ Within such a field, selection becomes imperative. The same handbook defines the study of biblical reception as … a scholarly enterprise, consisting of selecting and collating shards of that infinite wealth of reception material in accordance with the particular interests of the historian concerned, and giving them a narrative frame. In other words, to get from the plenitude of reception to the finitude of reception history requires that historians of reception … envisage parameters: in particular, when reflecting on the history of responses to the Bible, whose responses do they deem to be of importance?¹⁰

Selection is a requirement of any reception history; but not all scholars define the study of biblical reception in terms of history. Some scholars prefer to speak of “reception criticism” or “reception theory.” Indeed, the terminology used for the study of Bible reception varies widely.¹¹ This variety reflects not only the variety of ap-

8 The growing interest can be seen, for example, in commentaries focusing on the receptions of biblical books, such as the Blackwell Bible Commentary series. Moreover, several journals devoted to Bible reception have recently been launched, for example, Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception (started 2011), Biblical Reception (published by Sheffield Phoenix Press since 2012), and Journal of the Bible and Its Reception (by de Gruyter since 2014). In addition, the latter publisher is currently publishing a thirty-volume reference work, The Encyclopedia of Bible and Its Reception, and has introduced the book series in which this volume appears, Studies of the Bible and Its Reception. Note also the Bible and its Reception series of the Society of Biblical Literature. 9 Jonathan Roberts, “Introduction,” in Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, ed. Michael Lieb et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1. 10 Roberts, “Introduction,” 1. 11 In Emma England and William John Lyons’ edited volume Reception History and Biblical Studies, the following terminologies appear: history of effects, reception history, reception criticism, reception studies, reception theory, biblical reception, reception of the Bible, cultural history, cultural

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proaches but also the fact that, until recently, there has been little methodological discussion on what reception in biblical studies actually entails. For some, it means collecting uses of biblical texts and themes in religious traditions, in visual and performing arts, in literature, etc.; for others, it is mainly a theorizing task to explain the various responses that biblical texts can generate.¹² This terminological variation is partly explained by the fact that key concepts such as Wirkungsgeschichte, Rezeption, and Rezeptionsästhetik were originally introduced in German and have been translated into English in several ways. The Gadamerian concept of Wirkungsgeschichte was programmatically introduced to biblical studies by Ulrich Luz in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, first published in 1985 in the series Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar.¹³ Luz made a distinction between Auslegungsgeschichte (“history of interpretation”) and Wirkungsgeschichte (“the history of the influence of the text”). The former, according to Luz, represents interpretations of biblical texts in commentaries and other theological writings, while the latter comprises the use of the Bible in other genres and media, such as sermons, canon law, hymns, and ecclesial art.¹⁴ Somewhat confusingly, however, Luz also uses Wirkungsgeschichte in a broader sense as an umbrella term that covers both genres of reception mentioned. Luz further explains this broader usage of the concept: Instead of Wirkungsgeschichte I could have said Rezeptionsgeschichte, which from the perspective of literary scholarship would probably have been more appropriate. I did not do so, because Rezeptionsgeschichte connotes for me primarily the people who receive the text, while Wirkungsgeschichte suggests for me the effective power of the texts themselves. For me that is what is basic.¹⁵

In an influential article published in 1992, the Finnish New Testament scholar Heikki Räisänen introduced a different distinction, i. e., between “reception histo-

impact, and ethology of the Bible. See idem, eds., Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, LHBOTS 615 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015). 12 James E. Harding, “What Is Reception History, and What Happens to You if You Do It?” in England and Lyons, Reception History, 39–40. 13 The commentary originally appeared in four parts. A completely revised edition of the first part (comprising Matt 1–7) was published in 2002. The commentary was translated into English in 1989, the revised edition in 2007. On Luz’s significance for the studies of biblical reception, see Roberts, “Introduction,” 3–5. 14 Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus: 1. Teilband, Mt 1–7, EKK I/1 (Zürich: Benziger Verlag, 1985), 78. 15 Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), 61.

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ry” and “effective history.”¹⁶ In Räisänen’s view, both aspects of Luz’s model (Auslegungsgeschichte and Wirkungsgeschichte) belong to “reception history,” i. e., to the “normative ecclesial-dogmatic tradition.”¹⁷ Instead of studying the ecclesiastical uses (and abuses) of the Bible, Räisänen wanted to trace the “effective history” of the Bible, i. e., the effects of the Bible on the culture at large, including harmful impact. He admitted that drawing a line between reception and effect can be arbitrary and that distinguishing between the effects of the Bible and those of the broader Christian tradition is often futile. Moreover, there are biblical texts that seem to have no effect at all—which, in many cases, is all the better, he claimed. Yet, the question of the broader cultural effects of the Bible remained for Räisänen a critical task of biblical study. These early theorists of biblical reception may disagree on the range of the field to be studied, but they agree to understand the Wirkungsgeschichte of biblical texts as a supplementary research project, detached from biblical scholarship proper.¹⁸ In their view, the main task of a biblical scholar is the analysis of texts in their first historical context with the aim of unraveling their meaning in relation to that context. Not infrequently, studying reception therefore entails a comparison between later interpretations and the allegedly “original” meaning, with the implicit purpose of measuring whether or not later interpretations are correct in relation to the original benchmark.¹⁹ This approach may be called one-dimensional (see fig. 1). It presupposes a hermeneutics where the study of bible reception simply aims to compare an original text and its original meaning with the afterlives of the text in later contexts. And it sees historical exegesis as detached from the reception history of the very object that it studies, i. e., the Bible.

16 Heikki Räisänen, “The ‘Effective History’ of the Bible: A Challenge to Biblical Scholarship,” in Heikki Räisänen, Challenges to Biblical Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 263–82. The article, based on a talk given in 1990, was first published in the SJT 45 (1992): 303–24. 17 Räisänen, “Effective History,” 269–70. 18 See Räisänen, “Effective History,” 267–270. “ʻEffective history’ could form a transition to a second (optional) stage in the biblical scholar’s work as I conceive it: a transition from empirical and religio-historical study to a theological (or philosophical) evaluation of the results.” 19 See Luz, Matthew 1–7, 61. In his selection of examples of a text’s influence, he preferred those that “approach the original sense of the text in a changed situation.” For criticism, see Benjamin L. White, Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 11–12.

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Figure 1. Bible Reception: The One-Dimensional Approach

More recent studies of biblical reception history have questioned such one-dimensionality. First, postmodern literary theories have challenged the dominant historical-critical paradigm by claiming that there is no single, original meaning in the text itself and that each text has potential for multiple meanings that come into being in dialogue with its various audiences.²⁰ Moreover, in biblical studies, the concept of an original text with an original wording has turned out to be problematic.²¹ Many of the texts that comprise the Bible came into being in stages, which makes it hard to identify an “original.” For example, if Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians is a compilation of several earlier letters, as most historical studies of this text claim, what is the “original text” of the letter and what can we say about its “original context”? Second, the Bible has never been entirely fixed; neither the individual texts nor the whole canon of the Bible is inherently stable. In the pre-Gutenberg era, texts were copied by hand and existed in several versions. And in the early church, instead of one fixed collection of scriptures, there was local variation concerning the texts that were considered authoritative. Only after the invention of the printing press, it was possible to produce several copies of the exact same text. Even among the printed Bibles that were published, the number and the order of the biblical books varied. Indeed, the contents of the Bible still differ according to denomination and edition. Third, the one-dimensional approach to reception exaggerates its distinction between “objective” historical inquiry and subjective interpretations—as if historical study were free from any ideological concerns.²² But all meaning-making of

20 See William John Lyons, “Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History,” JSNT 33 (2010): 207–220. 21 See Brennan W. Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, ISBL (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2014), 204–05. 22 Roland Boer characterizes this view as follows: “This is the only ‘sound’ and ‘scientific’ approach to biblical interpretation, an approach that is by definition free of ideological concerns

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biblical texts belongs to the sphere of reception; and scholarly inquiry like historical-critical exegesis is no exception to this.²³ We can only access an ancient text by way of its various receptions. Even a critical edition of the New Testament like the Nestle-Aland edition, which is often perceived in the academic classroom as a direct window to the early Christian past, is an eclectic and received text based on a number of ancient manuscripts. Moreover, scholars cannot remove themselves from the society and culture to which they belong. The only way to approach a text is from the point of view offered by one’s horizon (to use the Gadamerian language), which includes the already existing receptions of the text. When we read the Bible, we do it in dialogue with past interpretations of the text.²⁴ Fourth, the whole concept of reception has been problematized since it emphasizes the agency of the text rather than the agency of its readers.²⁵ “Reception” seems to suggest that an established text or tradition is transmitted intact from one cultural context to another with later audiences in the role of passive “receivers.” For this reason, scholars such as Timothy Beal and Colleen Conway prefer to talk about the cultural history of the Bible.²⁶ Instead of (passive) receiving, they prefer to talk about the audience’s (active) production of the text and its meaning. The meaning of a text is not limited to the meaning it once had, but the text is regenerated in new cultural settings with new meanings. Studying biblical texts is, from this perspective, not about what the texts mean but what readers and interpreters do with the texts.²⁷

such as gender, class, ethnicity, or politics. The catch with such a method is that it carries in its saddlebags the assumption that this is the only, properly ‘scientific’, way to interpret the Bible, the only one that is appropriate to the text itself, to its historical conditions, and so forth. Any other approach is by definition anachronistic, the application of ideas and assumptions from another age (our own) to the Bible.” See Roland Boer, “Against ‘Reception History’,” The Bible and Interpretation, 2011, https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/opeds/boe358008. 23 See Harding, “What is Reception History?”, 41 (emphasis original): “All the questions scholars ask are reception-historically conditioned, and are thus themselves part of the reception history of the biblical texts.” See also Geert Hallbäck, “Hvad er reception?” Collegium Biblicums Årsskrift (2006): 7–22. 24 See Mark Knight, “Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory,” JSNT 33 (2010): 137. 25 Timothy Beal, “Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures,” BibInt 19 (2011): 357–72; Colleen M. Conway, Sex and Slaughter in the Tent of Jael: A Cultural History of a Biblical Story (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3–5. 26 To Beal (“Reception History,” 371), reception history means interpreting scripture via culture, whereas the cultural history of the Bible would mean interpreting culture via scripture. Conway seems to suggest that “reception” implies a more theological or “scriptural” context, while cultural history refers to a more secular one. 27 Breed, Nomadic Text, 116–19; Sara M. Koenig, Bathsheba Survives (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2018), 7.

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3 A Multidimensional Approach to Bible Reception Considering the problems attached to the above approaches, we suggest a multidimensional approach to Bible reception. It is an approach that does not promote the canonical Bible text as an absolute point of reference in the analysis of Bible reception. Rather, Bible reception is seen as a discursive act taking place within a wide range of dimensions that must be taken into consideration in the analysis. While no model is exhaustive, the figure below illustrates how we envisage the multidimensional study of Bible reception in this book. We will focus on the following six dimensions of Bible reception, differentiated for analytical purposes and acknowledging that these dimensions often overlap and interact:

Figure 2. Bible Reception: A Multidimensional Approach

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Let us explain the model and its six dimensions, beginning with “The Bible” at the top of the model. In order for a cultural practice or product to qualify as Bible reception, someone must regard that practice or product as performing “Bible.” Without such a direct or indirect claim, the practice or product in question does not function as Bible reception. To give a recent iconic example, when the former US President Donald Trump on June 1, 2020 ordered the protesters in Washington, D.C. to be removed and then walked from the White House to Lafayette Square, his photo op became a discursive act of Bible reception the very moment he held up a physical “Bible” in front of St. John’s Church. Crucial for biblical reception studies, however, is the fundamental question: What is “Bible”? As the above discussion has already revealed, “Bible” is an unwieldy concept. “Bible” is not a single entity; it is not a book with a fixed content; it appears in various translations; in practice only a selection of its texts is commonly valued, while most of its content is only seldom activated in the cultural memory. Even in the Protestant tradition, influential in all Nordic countries, there is a canon within the canon, i. e., texts that are considered more authoritative or biblical than others.²⁸ Rather than being a monolithic book, “Bible” is an unstable idea in the Western and Judeo-Christian imagination. It is a cultural emblem with varying content and significance. The second dimension of Bible reception, moving clockwise on the model, is other already existing and established Bible receptions. New practices or products of Bible reception depend upon and develop already established habits of Bible interpretation, corresponding to what Gadamer called Wirkungsgeschichte. Nativity plays at Christmas, for example, reproduce a birth narrative that is perceived as “biblical,” even though many of its elements do not originate from the canonical Bible but are results of the later Bible reception of the Christian Middle Ages (Virgin Mary riding on the donkey, the stable, the notion of exactly three wise men with individual names, the idea that each one of them represents a continent, one of them being a black African, etc.). Bible reception adds new layers to the palimpsest of previous Bible receptions. Contemporary Bible reception is, in other words, the reception of receptions. The biblical text has merged with its receptions into something

28 Famously in his 1522 preface to the New Testament, Martin Luther prioritized the Gospel of John against the Synoptic Gospels as well as Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter against other New Testament letters, calling the Letter of James an “epistle of straw”; see Inge Lønning,“Kanon im Kanon”: Zum dogmatischen Grundlagenproblem des neutestamentlichen Kanons, FGLP 10/43 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget; München: Chr. Kaiser, 1972). Today, several texts of the Protestant canon do not appear in the lectionary of, for example, the Lutheran church of Finland; these include Judges, Esther, Ezra, Obadiah, Nahum, Haggai, Philemon, Jude, and 2–3 John. It may be asked in what way they are “canonical,” “authoritative,” or “normative” when they are never used in worship.

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that is perceived as “Bible.” Different religious denominations and different cultures establish such habits of reception over time. Jonathan Sheehan explains this phenomenon by the concept of “cultural Bible.” In his view, the Enlightenment transformed the Bible from a theological text into a cultural one, and the Bible was itself secularized from religious authority to a foundation of Western culture.²⁹ Other common habits of Bible reception include “the radical Bible” (used as a prophetic, moral and political voice), “the passive Bible” (as advocate of political quietism), and “the liberal Bible” (as fountain of modern values; see more below).³⁰ According to the third dimension on the model, Bible receptions do not only cite and develop previous receptions, but they also stand in contrast to other potential or existing Bible receptions with which they compete. This is, for example, the case when habits of reception like the ones mentioned above clash with each other. A recent example took place after President Trump’s aforementioned iconic Bible action on Lafayette Square. The British comedian and television host James Corden responded with a satirical feature on how to actually hold and use the Bible.³¹ Whereas Trump’s Bible reception represented what we may call a “lawand-order Bible,” Corden’s response was more in line with the tradition of “radical” or “prophetic Bible.” When comparing competing receptions like this, it is possible to map out the available possibilities of reception in a given cultural and historical context. The fourth dimension of Bible reception relates to cultural codes. Bible receptions negotiate the meaning of the Bible in relation to a set of values, norms, tastes, ideologies, etc. from the context in which reception is performed. As a contemporary example, some Danish children’s Bibles focus not only on traditional moral values such as friendship and love, but also on modern values such as independence and free speech. By integrating the latter values into the biblical stories and promoting them as biblical values, the children’s Bibles build bridges between the Bible and the modern world.³² In public discourse and politics, the Bible also continues to have an important role as a symbol and guarantor of “European” or

29 Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Compare Stephen Moore and Yvonne Sherwood, The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011), 47–48. 30 On terminology, see Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 303–32; James G. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014). 31 “Malcolm Corden Teaches Donald Trump How To Hold the Bible,” June 3, 2020, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=mZv8GQX8E1I. 32 Louise Heldgaard Bylund, “Udvandringen fra Egypten er som et 17. majoptog uden bunader og flag: Børnebiblers interaktion med den kulturelle kontekst.” Prismet 70 (2019): 109−24.

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“Western” values—often played against other cultures. Yvonne Sherwood has coined the term “liberal Bible” to describe a widespread Western tradition of interpretation that understands the Bible as a guarantee of “our” liberal values, such as freedom of conscience, human rights, democracy, and equality.³³ This “liberal Bible” certainly interacts with contemporary cultural codes. Since the Enlightenment, it has become a favorite Bible in the public sphere. As an established reception in Western societies, “the liberal Bible” not only performs cultural codes but also relates to the second dimension of Bible reception mentioned above. The fifth dimension of reception in the model concerns the rhetorical situation. As mentioned, any act and product of Bible reception plays into general cultural codes, but one should not overlook the specific rhetorical reasons for using “Bible” in speech acts and other kinds of symbolic action. Our analysis of Bible reception investigates such rhetorical reasons and aims by bringing the following types of questions into view: What is the purpose of this particular example of Bible reception? Why and how is the Bible invoked? Who is the audience? Are there any commercial interests in play? And who does this Bible reception benefit and harm?³⁴ The Bible may be used, for example, to warn or encourage in political debates, to include or exclude. And arguments may in certain cultural contexts be strengthened by appeal to the Bible as in, for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous prophetic civil rights speeches. The sixth and final dimension in the model concerns medium and genre. The received Bible often has material and artifactual qualities (as in Trump’s display of the Bible where its totemistic significance was in focus rather than its content); and Bible reception is always formed by the genres in which it is performed, for example, political discourse, social media, art, literature, commentary, sermon, etc. For biblical scholars in particular, it is important to recall the fact that the practices and products of Bible reception are always much more than reception of the canonical Bible (as in the one-dimensional model above). Trump’s demonstration in front of St. John’s Church was political theatre, power display, communication with the constituency, photo op, etc.—and Bible reception. The final dimension of the model underlines that when agents perform Bible reception, the reception is molded by the media and the genres in which reception is embedded.

33 Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 310–11. 34 See Koenig, Bathsheba, 6–7.

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4 The Present Volume: Case Studies and Perspectives In this volume, we have included studies from four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). Some authors employ an international, comparative approach, while other cases come from one of these countries with wider theoretical perspectives. As part of the introductory first main section of the book, we have included Hallgeir Elstad’s article “The Bible in the Nordic Welfare States.” As a Church Historian, Elstad provides a general overview of past and present roles of the Bible in the Nordic countries. He explores the structural preconditions regarding the use of the Bible in the post-war period up to the 1970s, a period that shaped “the Nordic model” of society-building. Through history, Elstad argues, the Bible has had strong influence on culture and society. In the post-war period, however, secularization has lessened its impact. Thus, it might be obvious to think that the “Book of Books” has very little to do with the modern Nordic welfare states. On closer inspection, however, this seems to be a hasty conclusion. Elstad examines the historical lines, discussing the ways in which the long tradition of Lutheran state churches has contributed to the development of the Nordic welfare states and the role of the Bible in revivalist movements, church life, and public schools. Even the secularized school of the post-war welfare state continued to give space for the Bible. Elstad argues that in recent years, the Nordic Bible has become as much a cultural as a Christian scripture. The Bible continues to be an important book in the context of Nordic history and culture. The second part of the volume is entitled “The Bible as Rhetorical and Political Weapon.” Hannah Strømmen starts with the article “A Nordic Far Right Bible? Biblical Assemblages and the Role of Reception History.” She argues that far-right inspired attacks and activism have marked the political landscape of Nordic countries over the last decades. Several examples can be mentioned: The Danish farright party Stram Kurs burning Qur’ans in Muslim-majority neighborhoods, the far-right organization Stop the Islamization of Norway ripping pages from a Qur’an, Peter Mangs’ shooting sprees in Malmö, and Anders Behring Breivik’s terror attacks in Oslo and Utøya. Strømmen examines the biblical elements of farright ideology and practice, drawing on examples from Norway. She analyzes how Bibles function in the anti-Islamic worldview propagated by the far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and the Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) politician Sylvi Listhaug. The article argues that while Breivik’s Bible could be conceptualized as a “War Bible”—consisting of explicitly violent biblical texts—and Listhaug’s as a “Civilization Bible”—consisting of references to the civilizational values and tradition of Christian scripture—the two are not disconnected. Both Breivik’s and List-

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haug’s use of the Bible, different as they are, contribute to the demonization of Muslims. Ultimately, Strømmen argues that it is necessary to map the ways Bibles emerge (i. e., “Bibles” as habits of Bible use), in what ways these Bibles are assembled, and with what materials and affects they function. She proposes that by treating Bibles as assemblages, biblical scholars can map the shifting shapes Bibles take in the Nordic context(s) and beyond. With Niko Huttunen and Outi Lehtipuu’s article “The Bible as Hate Speech? Homosexuality and Romans 1 in a Contemporary Finnish Debate”, we move to Finland to find another example of contemporary Nordic Bible use. In the spring of 2020, Päivi Räsänen, Finnish Member of the Parliament and former Minister of the Interior, was charged with incitement against a minority group. The charges were based on three instances where she had quoted the Bible in a way that, according to the prosecution, violated the dignity of homosexuals. The case has drawn a lot of public attention both in Finland and abroad, particularly among conservative Christians. What is at stake are the limits of the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion on the one hand and the definition of hate speech on the other. In their essay, Huttunen and Lehtipuu analyze how Räsänen uses and interprets the Bible, particularly Romans 1:24–32, and ask what this reveals about her reception of the Bible. They also discuss what the public debate around the case says about the status of the Bible in contemporary Finnish society. While Räsänen claims that she remains faithful to the Bible and does not omit anything, the authors argue that in reality she is faithful to her interpretative tradition that guides the way she understands the text of the apostle. Kasper Bro Larsen takes us to Denmark in “ʻRender unto Caesar’: Jesus and the Lutheran Liberal Bible in Debates on Religion and Politics in Denmark since 2000.” In his article, Larsen demonstrates the widespread use of Jesus’ famous “Render unto Caesar” maxim (Mark 12:17 par.) in contemporary political debates. The maxim has enjoyed a long reception history with regard to Western conceptualizations of church/state relationships. According to Larsen’s survey of the Danish reception, it serves as a boundary marker relating to the following five general discourses: (1) the Lutheran secularism discourse regarding the limits of religion in a modern society, (2) the liberal discourse regarding the limits of state governance over the private sphere, (3) the nationhood discourse concerning the limits of Danish identity, (4) the anti-Islamic discourse regarding the limitations of Muslim religion, and (5) the quietist discourse concerning the limits of religious free speech. By their use of the maxim, Danish center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians, including a number of prime ministers, voice a particularly Lutheran, nationalist, and anti-Islamist version of the liberal Bible that has dominated political Bible reception in the West since the Age of Enlightenment.

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The topic of Hanna Stenström’s essay “Resisting the Rule of Mammon and Fighting with Jesus against Neoliberalism: Unexpected Uses of the Bible in Contemporary Political Debate in Sweden” is the Swedish debate about changes in the welfare system motivated by neoliberal politics (2001–2017). Stenström’s focus is on texts criticizing the fact that for-profit companies receive tax money to deliver welfare services on behalf of the public sector. The aim is to show how participants in the debate who do not present themselves as Christians use biblical references—“Mammon” and the story of Jesus cleansing the temple—as rhetorical means to communicate opinions not based on certain biblical interpretations or “Christian values” but on political convictions and generally accepted democratic values. According to Stenström, this kind of use of the Bible in a secularized country such as Sweden may be called “the secular Bible.” Biblical references are used because they have power and function effectively as rhetorical means, even when secular actors argue for a secular political cause, not a politics based on “Christian values.” Last in this part of the volume, we return to Norway in Ole Jakob Løland’s article “The Bible in Norwegian Politics: Scripture in the Parliamentarians’ Discourse.” Løland argues that the political use of the Bible in a Nordic context is conditioned by the relatively high number of church members in the Nordic countries, combined with low levels of reported religious belief and religious attendance. In the parliamentarians’ discourse in Norway during the 2000s, the cultural Bible gained force from its authority as cultural heritage rather than as the revealed Word of God. This cultural text can be selectively quoted and referred to in uncontroversial ways in ceremonial political settings, such as the Prime Minister’s speech on New Years’ Day. Within the setting of parliamentary debates in the Storting, this cultural Bible sometimes appears a moral reservoir to justify the politicians’ own stance while attacking the political opponent with a certain irony. A similar rhetorical use of the Bible can be observed in mediatized settings, where parliamentarians’ rare biblical rhetoric is transmitted in more fragmentary forms but with a more direct impact on public opinion. There is one significant exception to the rule of an ironical distance to the potential meanings of biblical texts in the discourse of Norwegian parliamentarians: Rightist politicians from the Progress Party, Fremskrittspartiet, who without irony invokes the authority of the Bible to defend politicized ideas about the unique value of Christianity. Several examples in this second main part are taken from what can be seen as, broadly speaking, right wing or politically conservative biblical reception. We suspect that this is not merely arbitrary or due to the critical interest of the authors but may represent a broader picture: It is easier to find examples of what role the Bible plays from this side of the political spectrum, since the Bible is more popular there. It fills a given rhetorical and political function and is more explicitly taken to be a known and authoritative text.

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The third main part of this volume, “The Bible in New Nordic Translations and Versions,” starts with an article by Søren Lorenzen, “To Honor or Respect Your Parents? The Reception of an Ancient Commandment in Contemporary Danish Media and Nordic Bible Translations.” His study centers on the reception of the commandment to honor one’s parents in contemporary Denmark. The most recent translation of the Bible into Danish (Bibelen 2020) changed the wording from “honor” to “respect” to find enhanced resonance with modern-day readers. But what has prompted such a change in translation? Lorenzen has combed through 31 years (1990–2021) of articles published in national and local newspapers in Denmark to identify the reception of the commandment in contemporary Danish debate. As a result, four categories of the meaning of the commandment have been identified: (1) obedience, (2) recognition of heritage, (3) caretaking of elders, and (4) mutual recognition. The final category resonates well with the most recent Danish translation of the Bible since it accentuates the mutual respect between two equal parts. In other words, the more hierarchical distinction between parent and child has been flattened to become a respectful relationship between two equally valuable individuals. Although this reception is not a specifically Nordic one, the cultural framework of the Nordic welfare societies provides fruitful soil for such an interpretation. More on translations follows in Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Karin Neutel’s article “‘God Speaks Our Language’: Recent Scandinavian Bible Translations and the Heritagization of Christianity.” The authors ask to what extent the most recent Bible translations in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, which came out in the last two decades, present the Bible as part of their respective national cultures rather than as primarily a religious text. The central question emerges from the observation by scholars of religion that practices, objects, and traditions associated with Christianity as the majority religion in Western countries are increasingly reconfigured as culture and heritage, rather than as being predominantly religious. Kartzow and Neutel argue that, in order to get a better understanding of this development, the Bible is an obvious subject to explore, particularly in the Protestant context of the Nordic countries. Through an analysis of how these translations were initiated, presented, and received, they show that these translations indeed rely on and confirm an understanding of the Bible as a text that is significant specifically for “our culture,” with relevance for national language and identity. Louise Heldgaard Bylund’s contribution deals with a widespread and best-selling manifestation of the Bible on the Nordic book markets: children’s Bibles. The article, “The Bibleness of Children’s Bibles: Paratextual and Material Aspects of Nordic Children’s Bibles,” calls attention to the fact that Nordic children’s Bibles in many ways appear physically as secular children’s books with, for example, richly colored illustrations and big fonts on their covers. Her analysis of the paratexts and materiality of four Nordic children’s Bibles, however, reveals how they

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also make use of traditional biblical characteristics in their appearance. They invoke a sense of “Bibleness”—a term coined by Timothy Beal to designate the general expectations and associations induced by the Bible as an iconic cultural phenomenon. By means of paratextual and material features, the children’s Bibles take advantage of the authority and legitimacy of the biblical tradition and thus shape the readers’ expectations and reading strategies, even before they open the book and initiate the reading. In the penultimate part of the volume, “The Bible in Multicultural and Secular Nordic Societies,” we include perspectives from a broader interdisciplinary and interreligious context. In her article “Jewish Reception of the Finnish Bible: Negotiating Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland,” Riikka Tuori examines how the small Finnish Jewish community has received the Finnish Bible, translated by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church. While the services of the officially Orthodox synagogues are conducted in Hebrew, Bible texts are needed in Finnish in other than ritual settings. Tuori focuses on two works produced by the Finnish Jewish community, the Sidur Helsinki (2006), a bilingual prayer book of the congregation in Helsinki, and Tooran kertomuksia (2003, “Stories of the Torah”), a re-narration of the Torah for religious education at the local Jewish school. Following the ideals of Jewish Bible translation, where visible links to the original Hebrew are deemed essential, the authors of these works fluctuate between different Finnish Old Testament translations. Moreover, several substantial (lexical and linguistic) changes are made in the translations of such biblical texts where a Finnish wording may pose a challenge to their traditional Jewish interpretations. Overall, Finnish Jewish authors and editors are conscious of their use of Christian translations, and these are re-examined in the light of traditional Jewish Bible interpretations as well as recent global (American Jewish and Israeli) publishing trends of biblical and liturgical literature. Timo R. Stewart’s article entitled “Using the Bible to Interpret the Qur’an: Finnish Christian Revivalist Narratives on Islam” broadens the perspective even further. Surveys suggest that Christian identity is significantly linked to the belief that Islam is incompatible with Western culture. Stewart explores this connection through the narratives on Islam found in Finnish revivalist Christian books. Firstly, he situates Christian publishing trends in their wider mainstream literary context. Secondly, he analyzes Christian revivalist narratives on Islam as biblical interpretations. The core questions deal with how these narratives conceptualize Islam and how they use the Bible to do it. Moreover, he investigates the purposes that such interpretations have for their proponents. According to Stewart’s analysis, revivalist narratives exemplify a “closed view” of Islam, seeing it as a monolithic unit with an unambiguous identity and nature. Christian revivalist authors share an essentialist understanding of both Islam and Christianity, and they bring their literalist approach to their reading of the Qur’an. However, they portray Islam as fundamentally different,

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emphasizing how the God of the Bible is not the deity of Islam. Furthermore, Islam is presented as inferior in content—legalistic, sexist, and violent—while Christianity is equated with specifically Western values. This presentation of Islam constitutes a revivalist rallying cry and a connected attempt to socially reposition a particular brand of Christianity as the guardian of Western culture. The last article, “Confession, Masculinity and Biblical Reception in Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built” is written by Mikael Larsson from Sweden and takes us to the intersection between film studies and the Bible. The aim of Larsson’s investigation is twofold: first, to explore how “biblical” traditions permeate the conceptualization of masculinity in the Danish auteur Lars von Trier’s film The House that Jack Built (2018) and second, to relate the gender politics of the film to global politics in a post-secular society. The House that Jack Built stages the life of a serial killer through the lens of Dante Alighieri’s Divina commedia. By way of introduction, Larsson situates the film in a Nordic context with regard to feminism, secularization, and forerunners in film. The analysis opens with a survey of elements of more explicit biblical reception, like the names and setting, the notion of call, and the use of allegory. The analysis then proceeds to explore confession from three different angles: confession of sin versus confession of faith, confession as spectacle, and confession as contest. In a concluding discussion, Larsson assesses the impact of Jack’s speech. To what extent is he successful in attaining the circles of hegemonic men? Relating the fictional Jack to real-world terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, Larsson considers whether the film represents a re-enchantment of masculinity in our time and how it wrestles with the problem of legitimizing patriarchy. As this chapter shows, biblical reception can be implicit or even vague when mediated through popular culture. Sometimes it is almost impossible to separate Bible from Christianity or even Western culture, here with an example from the Nordic context. In sum, the contributions of the volume, specific as they may be, highlight a number of general tendencies in contemporary Nordic Bible reception. As a collection of case studies with a limited scope, The Nordic Bible does not demonstrate that there is a unique Nordic mode of Bible reception, nor does the volume exhaustively identify the national varieties of such Bible use. The following five tendencies, however, can be detected in our range of studies: First, Nordic Bible receptions participate in general Western megatrends regarding “the cultural Bible” and “the liberal Bible.” Whether it is in the Norwegian Parliament (Løland; Kartzow and Neutel), among Danish Prime Ministers (Larsen), in modernizing translations (Lorenzen), or in cultural products (Elstad; Larsson), the Bible appears as symbol of cultural heritage and a container of modern, liberal values rather than as a source of religious devotion or political programs. Second, this view of the Bible as “the liberal Bible” is sometimes utilized as a “civilization Bible” that defines Western civilization with Christian majority iden-

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tity vis-à-vis minority identities related to Judaism (Tuori) and, first and foremost, Islam (Strømmen; Larsen; Stewart). This use of the Bible, as mentioned above, is primarily seen on the right side of the political spectrum. Third, whereas the “liberal Bible” dominates the public sphere, alternative voices with less “decaffeinated” Bible receptions are also heard, for example when a Swedish cartoonist makes the Bible speak against what is considered neo-liberal threats to the welfare state (Stenström; “prophetic Bible”), or when a Finnish politician tweets Bible quotations to combat the Gay Pride festival (Huttunen and Lehtipuu; “conservative Bible”).³⁵ These alternative Bibles, however, seem to be rather marginal in the public discourse. Fourth, with few exceptions (see Løland) the Bible in all the above cases represents a voice with some authority, be it as literary classic, as soft cultural heritage or in a more traditional, religious sense. This is something that even Nordic children’s Bibles signify by way of their “biblical” appearance (Bylund). Fifth, while the above tendencies participate in Western megatrends of Bible reception, they also perform Bible reception in a local Nordic or national context. For this reason, “the liberal Bible” appears in local variants as, for example, a Norwegian liberal Bible of inclusive nationalism (Kartzow and Neutel) and a Danish Lutheran liberal Bible (Larsen). These five general tendencies in the case studies do not all in all provide us with The Nordic Bible per se, but they depict a contour of how the Bible works in contemporary Nordic identity formation. As such they form a basis for further investigation. As a conclusion to this collection of essays, it is our pleasure to include a fifth part: “The Nordic Bible from the Outside.” This part contains a contribution by the British Bible reception specialist James Crossley. In his text, entitled “Contextualising the Nordic Bible(s): A Response,” we get an outsider’s perspective on the Nordic context from a leading expert of Bible reception studies. Crossley has read all chapters carefully and critically and highlights patterns and tendencies in the book. Rather than answering the question of whether there is such a thing as a Nordic Bible, he contextualizes the case studies, placing them within a comparative framework. He concludes by asking “What next?”, locating this volume in the continuing conversation about Bible and reception for the future.

35 On “the decaffeinated Bible” as a nickname for “the liberal Bible,” see James G. Crossley, “The End of Reception History, a Grand Narrative for Biblical Studies and the Neoliberal Bible.” Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, eds. Emma England and William John Lyons, LHBOTS 615 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 45–60.

Hallgeir Elstad

The Bible in the Nordic Welfare States The Bible has had a profound impact on culture and society in the Nordic countries, with a long history of influence from the process of Christianisation in the Middle Ages up until recent times. Just think how language, customs, traditions and the social order have been influenced and formed by biblical narratives and the biblical universe. The stories and language of the “Book of Books” have been incorporated into the collective memory of the Nordic nations and now form parts of their common cultural tradition. For example, public holidays and Sundays have their roots in Christian faith, the national anthems have references to Christianity, and all the Nordic flags feature a cross.¹ Particularly in the twentieth century, secularisation has now lessened the influence of Christianity and its Holy Scripture, the Bible. Theorists link secularisation to the modernisation of society, characterising it as differentiation—a process in which certain areas of society such as economics, law, politics, culture and science become independent and develop their own secular logic in which God has no place. In pre‐modern times, however, religion was the glue that kept society together. Most people, despite seldom reading the Bible, still emphasise its importance. According to a study published in 2017, 6 per cent of Swedes, 8 per cent of Danes, and 15 per cent of Norwegians say they read the Bible once a month or more often.² In a survey conducted in Finland in 2019, 9 per cent of Finns read the Bible at least once a month.³ By comparison, 19 per cent of Swedes, 20 per cent of Danes, and 25 per cent of Norwegians agree that the Bible has considerable or quite considerable significance.⁴ In the following discussion, the aim is to provide some historical perspective on the function and role of the Bible in the Nordic Welfare States. The article will concentrate on structural preconditions regarding the use of the Bible in order to explore part of its role, and serves as an introduction to the context where the case studies in the following chapters take place. The period under consideration will

1 Sindre Bangstad, Oddbjørn Leirvik and Ingvill Thorson Plesner, eds., Sekularisme – med norske briller (Oslo: UniPub, 2012), 69. 2 Tore Witzø Rafoss, Nordmenns bibelbruk (Oslo: KIFO, Institutt for kirke-, religions- og livssynsforskning, 2017). 3 Hanna Salomäki, Maarit Hytönen, Kimmo Ketola, Veli-Matti Salminen and Jussi Sohlberg, Uskonto arjessa ja juhlassa: Suomen evankelis-luterilainen kirkko vuosina 2016–2019 (Tampere: Kirkon tutkimuskeskus, 2020), 152. 4 Rafoss, Nordmenns bibelbruk. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-004

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mainly be the post-war period up to the 1970s, a period that shaped the specific character of the Nordic welfare states that was also known as the “Nordic model”. However, in order to identify relevant developments, it will be necessary to extend the historical perspective back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

1 The Nordic Welfare States Both the concepts of “Scandinavian” and “Nordic Welfare states” are used in the literature. The concept of “Nordic Welfare states” includes Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. These countries, with certain exceptions for Iceland, share a range of characteristics that are summed up in the notion of a “Nordic welfare model” or just “the Nordic model.” Firstly, this model is based on an extensive prevalence of the state in the respective welfare systems. The state secures “a peaceful battleground for different classes,” and this “class compromise” forms a central element of the Nordic model. Secondly, the principle of universal social rights applies to the entire population. This means a universal mutual interdependence and accordingly a common sense of obligation to contribute to the community. Thirdly, the Nordic countries are known for their equality, the countries being known for fairly small class, income and gender divides. Historically this is explained by the strong standing of the peasantry resulting in a weakened position for landowners, and the frictionless involvement of the working class in the parliamentary system and in labour market negotiations.⁵ While there are different interpretations of the rise of the modern welfare state, a common view is that important foundations were laid in the late nineteenth century. The concept of the “welfare state” seems to have appeared for the first time in Germany in 1879.⁶ Against the background of growing industrialisation, Germany introduced social legislation under the conservative chancellor Otto von Bismarck—part of a strategy to woo workers away from political radicalism. In the 1880s, the government introduced and implemented accident and oldage insurance, a move that most scholars agree was the first feature of what subsequently came to be known as the “welfare state.” The Nordic countries were not far behind. In fact, the Norwegian Professor of economics, Ebbe Hertzberg, supposedly used the term “welfare state” in a lecture 5 Matti Alestalo, Sven E.O. Hort, and Stein Kuhnle, The Nordic Model: Conditions, Origins, Outcomes, Lessons (Hertie School of Governance, 2009), 2−4. 6 Tim Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen af den universalistiske velfærdsstat,” in Den nordiske protestantisme og velfærdsstaten, ed. Tim Knudsen (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2009), 20.

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as early as 1884, though precisely what he meant by it is somewhat unclear.⁷ In the period from 1891 to 1894, Denmark, Norway and Sweden introduced the first social insurance laws. The Danish old-age pension law in 1891 offered means-tested pensions for all elderly citizens who had not received poverty relief in the preceding ten years—an initial step towards schemes that covered the entire population. In 1909, the first health insurance law in Norway contained elements with the potential to become a universal scheme. Furthermore, industrial accident insurance and health insurance were successively introduced in the Nordic countries.⁸ However, it was not until after the end of World War II that the term “welfare state” came to be generally used in Britain, the USA and the Nordic countries. In 1941, the archbishop of York, later archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, published his book Citizen and Churchmen, arguing for a democratic welfare state as an alternative to Hitler’s and Stalin’s “warfare states.”⁹ It is, however, William Beveridge in Britain who has received much of the credit for the idea of universal welfare schemes that characterise the post-war period both in Britain and in the Nordic countries. In the 1940s, the Beveridge Report proposed widespread reforms of the social welfare system; and following its victory in the 1945 election, the British Labour Party implemented many of the proposals in the plan through extensive social legislation, resulting in what came to be known as the welfare state.¹⁰ The post-war period gave rise to a uniquely Nordic model, which is characterised by considerable convergence between the Nordic countries.¹¹ Even though the roots of the welfare state go back further, several researchers see the development of the universal welfare state as linked to the social democracy that resulted from the strong position of the social democratic parties in the Nordic countries in the post-war period.¹²

7 Aksel Hatland, Stein Kuhnle and Tor Inge Romøren, eds., Den norske velferdsstaten, 4th ed. (Oslo: Gyldendal, 2013), 16. 8 Hatland, Kuhnle, and Romøren, Den norske velferdsstaten, 16−17. 9 Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen,” 40−41. 10 Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen,” 41. 11 Stein Kuhnle and Sven E.O. Hort, The Developmental Welfare State in Scandinavia (Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development, 2004), 8. 12 Dag Thorkildsen, “Lutherdom, vekkelse og de nordiske velferdsstater,” TEMP – Tidsskrift for historie 1 (2010): 131−32.

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2 The Welfare State and the Church Focusing on the extensive historical lines, researchers have raised the question of the relationship between the Lutheran tradition and the Nordic welfare states. This question is based on the assumption that the values and principles of the welfare state mirror something deep and profound in the cultural background of the Nordic countries that has exerted an influence on the Nordic model. The long tradition of state churches, with the introduction of the Lutheran Reformation in the Nordic countries having put an end to the rivalry of state and church, represents a striking inter-Nordic convergence. The church organisation became subject to the King and integrated into the state, which gave the church organisation a double role: On the one hand it provided the framework for religious worship, while on the other hand it was also used for official and worldly duties, for example registering births, marriages and deaths, conducting population censuses, administering poor relief, providing school education, and some healthcare functions. In this respect the church and its local pastors were “tools” in the hands of the state.¹³ This was in fact also the case in Finland even though there has not been a Lutheran king to unite the nation since 1809. Still, the Folk church development in Finland is a bit different from the other Nordic countries.¹⁴ It has been asked in what sense the long tradition of Lutheran state churches has impacted the creation of the modern Nordic social democratic welfare states. It has even been argued that the Nordic model represents a secularised Lutheranism.¹⁵ The creation of a welfare state required a united and well-integrated state, and in the Nordic countries the Reformation resulted in the integration of church and state. As a consequence, the Nordic Lutheran churches, as institutions, did not compete with the power of the state. Loyalty and obedience to the authorities became a part of service to God, resulting in a mentality of trust in state authorities, which is a prerequisite for the welfare state. It could at least be argued

13 Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen,” 43. 14 See Ilkka Huhta, ‘The Future of the Past’: the Finnish Model of Two State Churches.” Religion − Staat − Gesellschaft: Zeitschrift für Glaubensformen und Weltanschauungen (Journal for the Study of Beliefs and Worldviews) (2014). 15 Thorkildsen, “Lutherdom,” 131. For the situation in Finland, cf. Kaius Sinnemäki, Anneli Portman, Jouni Tilli and Robert H. Nelson, eds., On the Legacy of Protestant Lutheranism in Finland: Societal Perspectives (Studia Fennica Historica 25. Helsinki: SKS 2019): https://oa.finlit.fi/site/ books/10.21435/sfh.25/read/?loc=On_the_Legacy_of_Lutheranism_in_Finland.xhtml.

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that Lutheranism was one of several significant factors that contributed to the development of these states.¹⁶ Furthermore, two essential features of the modern Nordic welfare state—full employment and social security—seem to correspond with central ideas in Lutheran theology: daily work as a fulfilment of God’s vocation, and the priesthood of all believers.¹⁷ The ideal of full employment could be seen as a secularisation of the Lutheran emphasis on the value of daily work. Secondly, the Lutheran theological principle of the priesthood of all believers contributed to the promotion of a culture of equality, in which large social differences between people were not accepted, because all were regarded as equal and with the same worth. These examples of the theological elements underlying the welfare state may justify talking about a “Christian welfare state.” The Lutheran Folk churches displayed a commitment to social issues in the early phase of the development towards a welfare state at a time when the social democratic parties were not strong enough to play a major role. In this situation, churches and clergymen contributed heavily to the social debate in the Nordic countries. It is here that the Danish Professor of theology and bishop of Sjælland, Hans L. Martensen, deserves mention. In the 1870s, he claimed that the main problem of modern capitalism was individualism and liberalism. Martensen included these critical perspectives in his wellknown textbook for theological students, “The Christian Ethics” (Den Christelige Ethik) published in 1871–78—a three volume work that went on to have a considerable impact on theologians and pastors in the Nordic countries. In it, he criticised “the Egoism of All” within the capitalist system, arguing for a “Condition of Justice.”¹⁸ Furthermore, Lutheran theologians and clergymen played a role in the social debates in all Nordic countries in the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of them worked for a period incognito as industrial workers in order to experience the conditions of the working class. If the church was to reach out to all people, then the clergy had to be familiar with the everyday lives of working people. In 1917, the Norwegian clergyman Mikael Hertzberg argued that the church

16 Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen”; Uffe Østergård, “Lutheranismen og den universelle velfærdsstat,” in Velfærdsstat og kirke, eds. Jens Holger Schjørring and Jens Torkild Bak (København: Anis, 2005), 147−84. 17 Knudsen, “Tilblivelsen,” 38. 18 Hans L. Martensen, Den sociale Etik (København: Gyldendal, 1878), 172−73, cf. Thyge Svenstrup, “Den etiske socialisme: Biskop Martensens samfundssyn i 1870’erne,” in Knudsen, Den nordiske protestantisme, 98−123; Niels Kærgård, “Den lille kristne nationalstat. Historie og dilemmaer,” in Schjørring and Bak, Velfærdsstat og kirke, 39−46.

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had to support political and social goals, such as the demand for an eight-hour day, in order to improve the conditions of working-class people.¹⁹ However, after World War II critical voices from church leaders were raised against the welfare state promoted by social democratic parties, the most prominent of those critics being the Norwegian bishop Eivind Berggrav. In 1952 he appealed to his Norwegian bishop colleagues to take action against the Labour Party and the welfare state.²⁰ Later that year, in a lecture given at the general assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, Berggrav elaborated on this criticism, warning against a state with totalitarian ambitions. “This state wishes to become (…) a kind of ‘All-Father’, it wants to be omnipotent,” he claimed. “The state which we see developing today is trying to take the place of God by substituting welfare for God and faith. My personal conviction is that we are here approaching a gigantic struggle.”²¹ While Berggrav’s harsh criticism of the social democratic welfare state become widely known, it found scant support among church leaders. In Denmark, after the end of World War II, the theology professor Hal Koch published a small book called What is Democracy (Hvad er Demokrati?), which had a considerable impact on democratic theory and which can still be found on reading lists in political science at Danish universities. Rather than defining democracy in opposition to the welfare state, Koch saw democracy as a way of life with dialogue as an essential component.²² The Finnish bishop Eino Sormunen cited Berggrav’s critical views in his book on the welfare state published in the 1950s, maintaining that the Norwegian bishop had provided a helpful warning about the possible disadvantages of state-dominated welfare politics. However, Sormunen’s own view was far more optimistic, pleading instead for collaboration and dialogue between state and church in the provision of public welfare,²³ while in Sweden, the clergyman and Social Democratic

19 Nils Ivar Agøy, Kirken og arbeiderbevegelsen: Spenninger, skuffelser, håp. Tiden fram til 1940 (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2011), 91−94. 20 Aud V. Tønnessen, “The Church and the Welfare State in Postwar Norway: Political Conflicts and Conceptual Ambiguities,” J. Church State 56 (2014): 29. 21 Eivind Berggrav, “State and Church Today: The Lutheran View,” in The Proceedings of the Second Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, Hannover, Germany. July 25-August 3, 1952 (Geneva: The Lutheran World Federation, 1952), 81, cf. Aud V. Tønnessen, “… et trygt og godt hjem for alle”? Kirkelederes kritikk av velferdsstaten etter 1945 (Trondheim: Tapir, 2000), 285−87; 290−93; Tønnessen, “Church and the Welfare State,” 29. 22 Hal Koch, Hvad er demokrati? 5th ed. (København: Gyldendal, 1991), 29. 23 Pirjo Markkola, “The Lutheran Nordic Welfare States,” in Beyond Welfare State Models: Transnational Historical Perspectives on Social Policy, eds. Pauli Kettunen and Klaus Petersen (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011), 113.

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parliamentarian, Harald Hallén, supported the expansion of the welfare state.²⁴ Berggrav’s criticism may be seen as an expression of concern for the position of the church in post-war society. According to Berggrav, the welfare state was secular, having no place for the church, and not even for God. Scholars have also emphasised the secular stamp of the modern welfare state. The church historian Ingmar Brohed, for example, claimed that the social democratic ideology of folkhemmet (“the people’s home”) in Sweden did not see Christianity as a factor in the formation of the social structure, and that the slogan from the war years, “The Swedish line is the Christian line,” no longer held true.²⁵ This reflects more or less the situation in all the Nordic countries. In the creation of the modern welfare state following World War II, the Lutheran ‘folk churches’ became less important. The conclusion that the modern welfare state is a Lutheran construction therefore seems somewhat open to dispute. Even so, the integration of state and church could have been one of several factors that prepared the way for the Nordic model.

3 The Bible for Everyone As mentioned above, the Lutheran theological concept of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ could be seen as corresponding with central ideas of the welfare state. With the Reformation in the sixteenth century, this concept had led to a renewed focus on Christian education within families. Martin Luther emphasised that people themselves should read the Bible, and in 1522 he translated the New Testament into contemporary German. Some years later, in 1529, while translating the Old Testament, he published a prayer book with biblical stories entitled Passionale, which contained texts from the life of Jesus focusing on the story of his suffering and resurrection. The book also contained illustrations that were obviously meant for children. The intention was clear: the Bible should reach out to everyone. The Bible stories did not stand alone, however. Luther’s Small Catechism supported the Bible stories, and it gradually acquired a main role in Church education following the Reformation. It was the catechism, not the Bible, that became the main text-

24 Pirjo Markkola and Ingela K. Naumann, “Lutheranism and the Nordic Welfare States in Comparison,” Journal of Church and State 56 (2014): 10. 25 Ingmar Brohed, Religionsfrihetens och ekumenikens tid, vol. 8 of Sveriges kyrkohistoria (Stockholm: Verbum, 2005), 195.

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book in ecclesiastical teaching and later in school in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.²⁶ In the nineteenth century, the Bible gained greater importance. In the Nordic countries, Bible societies were formed in the beginning of the century that were devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible. Furthermore, the emergence of revivalist movements, especially in the latter part of the century, contributed to the impact of the Bible on society. The revivalism focused on the Biblical truth and stimulated the reading of the Holy Scripture. The laypeople themselves read and interpreted the Bible independently of the official ministry. It is no coincidence that the people of the revivalist movements often were called “readers.” The Bible was to provide the foundation of faith and daily life, and efforts were made to spread the Bible among the population. The adherents of the revivalist movements really knew their Bible, and it was a level of knowledge that has hardly been surpassed since.²⁷

4 The Bible in the Welfare State—a Religious Book for Believers Gradually, however, the revivalist movements faded away and the twentieth century was characterised by increasing secularisation and pluralisation. The importance of church and Christianity gradually weakened and so did the Bible stories as common cultural narratives. This became evident in the creation of the modern welfare state after World War II. The dominating social democratic parties fronting the welfare state project saw religion primarily as a private matter,²⁸ a view that had a long history within the labour movement. Karl Marx described religion as a human invention, compensating for the people’s alienation and suffering within capitalist society, creating illusions about the human condition and serving the interests of the ruling class. It was a view in which religion naturally had no position in a socialist society. According to Marx, secularisation then was both de-

26 Oddvar Johan Jensen, “Den kirkelige undervisning i senmiddelalderen og under reformasjonstiden i Tyskland,” in “Lær meg din vei” − Kristen trosopplæring i går og i dag. En historisk oversikt, ed. Torrey Seland (Trondheim: Tapir, 2009), 78−82. 27 Dag Thorkildsen, “Vekkelse og modernisering i Norden på 1800-tallet,” Historisk Tidsskrift 77 (1998): 160−80; cf. P. G. Lindhardt, Bibelen og det danske folk (København: Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1942); Carsten Bach-Nielsen, Bibelen i Danmark: 500 års kirke- og kulturhistorie (København: Bibelselskabets Forlag, 2019). 28 Agøy, Kirken og arbeiderbevegelsen, 33−36.

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sirable and inevitable.²⁹ However, social democracy was not always in conflict with the Nordic state church system. In Denmark and Sweden, for example, members of parish councils were also elected from the ranks of the social democrats. In the post-war Nordic countries, religion was perceived as one of several special interests that had to be balanced within society. The welfare state was primarily based on modern rationalist science and not on biblical norms. The Bible had no formal status within modern society but was primarily perceived as a religious book for believers, which made it a “private” book for individuals. This was the case even though all the Nordic countries until 2000 had state churches that counted great majorities of their respective populations among their congregations.³⁰ Attending church was an individual and private choice. The Bible had its natural space within the church context and the various church activities—primarily the services, but also the folk church rituals (rites of passage). In the church services the word of the Bible was read and preached, especially the narratives of the gospels. However, the post-war period saw a fall in regular church service attendance as a common trend in the Nordic countries. In the 1970s, about 2−6 per cent of the population attended church on Sundays. This meant that a great majority of the Nordic population—including the members of the folk churches—very seldom went to church.³¹ On the other hand, participation in the folk church’s rites of passage was generally high in all the Nordic countries, and in taking part in these rites, a large proportion of the population listened to readings from the Bible and preaching based on biblical stories. The confirmation rite deserves particular mention. Reading the Bible was part of the young person’s preparation for confirmation, and confirmands became familiar with a number of central Bible stories. Bible translations in modern language intended for young people also had a positive effect, with confirmation education reaching a clear majority of 15-year-olds. In the 1970s the number of those who chose church confirmation in Sweden was still at 81 per cent, and over 90 per cent in Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.³² There is, overall, every reason to emphasise the importance of the folk churches for the maintenance of the Bible as a bearer of tradition and culture in the Nordic welfare state.

29 Emma Tomalin, Sociology, Religion and Development: Literature Review (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2007), 2. 30 Gøran Gustafsson, ed., Religiös förändring i Norden 1930−1980 (Malmö: Liber Förlag, 1985). 31 See the statistics for each country in Gustafsson, Religiös förändring. 32 Gustafsson, Religiös förändring.

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5 The Bible in the Public School System Even though the Bible can be characterised as a private book—like religion itself— in the modern welfare state, this is not the whole picture. The Nordic folk churches were state churches and for that reason could not formally be characterised as ‘private’. As pointed out above, the Bible had its place in the church’s rites of passage and in confirmation education. Even though only a small part of the Nordic population regularly attended church, the folk churches had a much wider influence in society. Churches and private homes were not the only venues for reading the Bible and receiving biblical instruction, and in the post-war period the Bible also had its place in public schools. In the Nordic countries, most children regardless of background attend public schools. Historically, there had been close links between school and church in all the Nordic countries, and from the very beginning the school’s most important task had been to educate children in the Christian faith. School was confessional, and education in Christianity was regarded as the Folk Church’s baptismal teaching. During the twentieth century, links between church and school were dissolved, which also came to influence religious education in public schools. Once school was no longer confessional, the teaching of Christianity was no longer based on catechism, but on the Bible and biblical narratives. From a pedagogical point of view the catechism was regarded as an obsolete model for religious tuition.³³ The biblical narratives engaged the pupils, which of course was a pedagogical advantage. Ethical teaching could be based on certain narratives both from the Old Testament and the New Testament, though with an emphasis on the ethical teachings of Jesus. As a consequence, biblical narratives acquired a stronger position in religious education than had previously been the case. In Sweden, a new curriculum was introduced in 1919. Religious education was to be based on the Bible, focusing on the ethical teachings of Jesus. This marked the end of the long tradition of Christian teaching based on catechism. In the 1950s, all the administrative links between church and school in Sweden were dissolved, and in 1969 a general religious education subject replaced the subject of Christianity. The implication was that pupils should also learn about religions other than Chris-

33 Lennart Tegborg, “Kirke og skole i et pluralistisk Norden. Indledning,” in Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud: National identitet og international nyorientering efter 1945, ed. Jens Holger Schjørring (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2001), 315.

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tianity. Later curricula focused on existential questions, emphasising an objective approach in all situations.³⁴ In Norway, confessional teaching continued for much longer.³⁵ Even so the Bible gained a more prominent position as early as the latter part of the nineteenth century. This shift occurred with the publication in 1858 of Volraths Vogt’s illustrated Bible History and a Little of the Church’s History (Bibelhistorie med Lidt af Kirkens Historie). This book was published in more than one million copies over the next thirty years, and it was used in Norwegian public schools until the 1960s.³⁶ In Denmark, religious education was to be provided on the basis of the Folk Church, and this in fact remained the situation until 1975. From this point a new curriculum focused on essential Christian issues, so that the pupils make up their own minds about religion. In 1970, the Lutheran clergy’s involvement in religious education in the public school system was abolished in Denmark. Still, biblical narratives are a central field of knowledge in Danish public schools.³⁷ In Finland changes did not occur until the post‐war period. In Finnish public schools other religions have been part of the curriculum from the 1970s. In 1985, Ethics was introduced as an alternative to religious education for those students who do not belong to any denomination. Today, religious education is “nonconfessional” but students are divided into groups according to their denomination.³⁸ In Iceland, school and church became independent from each other in 1926. Nevertheless, Christian education in schools long continued to be considered part of children’s religious upbringing. Also in Iceland, teaching was based on biblical narratives. Then, in the 1970s, the subject of Christianity also included “other world religions,” though the public school system in Iceland continued to be based on Christian ethics.³⁹

34 Lennart Tegborg, “Svenska kyrkan och den svenska skolan på väg mot ett uppbrott,” in Schjørring, Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud, 320−31. 35 Sigurd Hjelde, “Norge: Mellom sekularisering og kristendom – forholdet skole-kirke i Norge i etterkrigstiden,” in Schjørring, Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud, 347−48. 36 Andreas Aarflot, “Vogt, Henrik Ludvig Volrath,” in Norsk biografisk leksikon (Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget, 2005), 9:388. 37 Thorkild C. Lyby, “Danmark: Fra konfessionel til sekulariseret skole”, in Schjørring, Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud, 332−39. 38 Gustav Björkstrand, “Finland: Från reell til formell konfessionalitet i religionsundervisningen,” in Schjørring, Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud, 352−62; Tuula Sakaranaho, “Religious Education in Finland,” in Temenos – Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 49 (2014): 225–254. https://doi.org/10. 33356/temenos.9547. 39 Hjalti Hugason, “Island: Kyrka-skola i det moderna samhället”, in Schjørring, Nordiske folkekirker i opbrud, 363−75.

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In all the Nordic countries, religious education provoked debate in the postwar period, with the confessional aspect being one of the issues in dispute. Some claimed that education in a specific religion should not be a role for public schools. The public school system was all-inclusive, without regard to religious background, and therefore it should provide “objective” knowledge about religion. Hence, it was claimed that religious education should be a historical subject.⁴⁰ A common feature of all the Nordic welfare states was that the trend within all the public school systems went from confessional to secularised. Nevertheless, the Bible retained an important role in religious education, so if children and young people were not taught the Bible privately, biblical narratives were still presented in school. The secularised school in the modern welfare state continued to have a place for the Bible. However, secularisation and pluralisation prompted the Nordic folk churches to realise a need to focus on their own baptismal education. The role of Sunday schools also deserves to be mentioned. These schools have also helped to provide Bible knowledge for children and young people in the welfare state, though they have been in decline for the past decades.

6 The Welfare State—an Expression of Christian Charity? The Nordic welfare states are based on principles such as generous social benefits, universalism and equality. There should be equal rights for all. No one should be left behind. The central value norm is solidarity, which means that everyone must contribute to welfare arrangements. The welfare state’s ideal of equality communicates with the Christian idea of charity. Although the welfare state is in principle secular, it is based on values that are also fundamental to the Christian tradition.⁴¹ In 1975, The Norwegian Labour Party’s national meeting approved the following: According to a Christian view, a society has to be based on the command of charity. The Labour Party sees a clear connection between the Christian message and a societal politics built on solidarity. A society built on gender equality, the equal value of people and safety, responsible cooperation and peace in the world corresponds with the principle of charity.⁴²

40 Tegborg, “Kirke og skole.” 41 Dag Kullerud, Bibelen. Boken som formet vår kultur (Oslo: Verbum, 2016), 419−27. 42 Tønnessen, “…et trygt og godt hjem,” 345. The quotation is translated into English by H. Elstad.

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The Christian message of charity is primarily based on the stories of Jesus in the Gospels. Help for those in need is a direct realisation of the narrative of the Good Samaritan—a parable told by Jesus in response to the question from a lawyer: “Who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29). The conclusion in the parable is that the neighbour is the person (the Samaritan) who displayed mercy for his injured fellow man. Previously, this was a story that was familiar to almost everyone— learned in school and in confirmation and known by everyone. It was a general reference point for the essential principle of charity. Secularisation, pluralisation and an erosion of biblical knowledge mean that there is no longer an obvious connection.

7 A New Space for the Bible The cultural influence of Christianity is still present in the Nordic countries, with the Bible continuing to act as a bearer of tradition. It inspires individuals and groups, and has always inspired artists and writers. The use of biblical motifs in literature, art, music, film, and TV represents competition with the church, which then no longer has a monopoly on interpretation of the Bible. In recent times we have seen how the Bible’s space has been extended, no longer being exclusively connected to the church and to believers. Current art and literature show that issues described in the Bible continue be of have relevance to modern existence. This also means that new interpretations of the texts arise, and indeed there are books in which writers retell Bible narratives in their own way. The Bible’s space is undergoing a process of secularism and diversity. It has been liberated from the religious authorities and is now constantly referred to as an important book in the context of the Nordic history and culture. The Bible has now become as much a cultural as a Christian scripture.⁴³ For example, Karl Ove Knausgård, one of the Norwegian authors who served as consultants on the latest Bible translation in 2011, states that the Bible is “the most important text ever written, and thoughts and images from it still shape our perception of reality.”⁴⁴ There are many others who could say the same thing. From having merely had almost a religious-normative function, the Bible has become a central cultural text that is now being embraced with increasing public interest. 43 Sylfest Lomheim, “Ei bibelsoge 1862−2011,” in Mellom gammelt og nytt. Kristendom i Norge på 1800- og 1900-tallet, eds. Knut Dørum and Helje Kringlebotn Sødal (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2016), 247. 44 Karl Ove Knausgård, “Hjelpemann på bibelen”, Samtiden. Tidsskrift for politikk, litteratur og samfunnsspørsmål 4 (2010): 66.

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In 2011, the Norwegian Bible Society published a new Bible translation, which garnered considerable attention, with reports in TV news broadcasts. When the previous Bible translation was launched in 1978, it received hardly any publicity —just part of a large body of evidence for how the general cultural significance of the Bible has grown in the secularised Nordic countries. There is a new space for the Bible as a cultural book. The Bible has influenced Nordic life for many centuries, as it still does. It had its place in the Nordic folk churches, in the church’s rites of passage and in confirmation education, which for a long time was something the majority of the population underwent. The nineteenth century’s revival movements led to more people reading the Bible and to increased Bible knowledge. The article has discussed how Lutheranism was one of several significant factors that contributed to the development of the Nordic welfare states. Furthermore the public school system in the Nordic countries was a crucial arena for Bible study. A close connection between the church and public schools, which most children attended, has long been a tradition in all the Nordic countries. As has been shown, Bible narratives had a central position within religious education in the classical phase of the Nordic welfare state. In recent times the Bible’s space has become extended, being no longer exclusively connected to the church. The churches and the clergy no longer have a monopoly on interpretation of the Bible. There are clear signs that the Bible has become a central cultural text, and one which is being embraced with increasing public interest.

II The Bible as Rhetorical and Political Weapon

Hannah M. Strømmen

A Nordic Far-Right Bible? Biblical Assemblages and the Role of Reception History 1 The Nordic Far Right In 2009 and 2010, right-wing terrorist Peter Mangs went on shooting sprees in Malmö, targeting non-white people. In Norway in 2011, Anders Behring Breivik set off a bomb in central Oslo and shot at Social-Democrat summer-camp attendees on the island of Utøya, killing 77 people and injuring many more. Another far-rightinspired attack in Norway followed on August 10, 2019, when a gun-man attacked the Al-Noor Islamic Centre in Bærum, opening fire just after the prayers in the mosque had ended. Versions of the far right in the form of street-protests and party politics have also made their mark in Nordic politics in recent years. The Danish far-right party Stram Kurs has thrown Qur’ans to the ground and burnt Islam’s sacred scripture in Muslim-majority neighborhoods. The leader of the party, Rasmus Paludan was filmed in 2019, dousing a Qur’an in what he said was the semen of Christian men, before burning it.¹ Allegedly, he had previously wrapped a Qur’an in bacon.² Parties such as Sverigedemokraterna, Dansk Folkeparti, and the Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet have enjoyed increased popularity with their anti-immigration agenda and opposition to so-called “Islamization.”³ Fremskrittspartiet in Norway, for instance, has been speaking about snikislamisering, “stealth Islamization,”

1 Rachael Kennedy, “Denmark’s Quran-burning Politician Gathering Support for Election Candidacy,” Euronews, April 25, 2019, https://www.euronews.com/2019/04/25/denmark-s-quran-burning-poli tician-gathering-support-for-election-candidacy. 2 Florian Elabdi, “Dane Who Wants to Deport Muslims, Ban Islam to Run in Election,” Aljazeera, May 16, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/rasmus-paludan-danish-islamophoberises-political-stardom-190516090301567.html. 3 For a discussion of the emergence of far-right parties in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, see Marie Demker, “Scandinavian Right-wing Parties: Diversity More than Convergence?” in Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe, ed. Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin and Brian Jenkins (London: Routledge, 2012), 239−53, although some of the discussion is by now out of date. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-005

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for at least a decade.⁴ The Finnish Perussuomalaiset and the Icelandic Íslenska þjóðfylkingin similarly peddle anti-immigration and specifically anti-Islam policies. The “far right” is a broad and baggy term. Terrorists such as Mangs or Breivik and party-politicians such as the leader of Sweden’s Sverigedemokraterna, Jimmie Åkesson, or the leader of Norway’s Fremskrittspartiet, Sylvi Listhaug, are of course not the same in terms of their political message or their methods. As a transnational phenomenon in Europe, extreme right ideology typically encompasses notions of inequality and hierarchy in designating “insiders” and “outsiders;” ethnic forms of nationalism linked to a mono-racial community; and calls to defend the imagined “pure” community.⁵ But far-right protest-movements and right-wing parties also make use of such notions, appealing to nativist ideas that have become a common-ground for excluding those deemed “other.”⁶ Antipathy to immigration and to Islam in particular has become a common call from the extreme to the mainstream, not only in the Nordic countries, but also across Europe more broadly.⁷ I use “far right” in this chapter to designate these common tendencies and strategies. In this chapter, I will examine the biblical elements of far-right ideology and practice, drawing on examples from Norway. Islam is not, however, the only religion that is invoked in far-right circles. Claims that “the Christian identity of European nations is being threatened” by liberal elites and by Islam are rife across Europe.⁸ In a speech in Rome in March 2011, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, spoke of immigration as a dangerous threat to the West. Appealing to a common European culture, he stated that the West shares the same Judeo-Christian culture and that this culture is superior to Islamic culture.⁹ The pitting of a Christian Europe against Islam rehashes 4 “2009−2019: Ti år med begrepet ‘snikislamisering’,” ABC Nyheter, September 20, 2019, https:// www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/norge/2019/09/20/195612298/2009-2019-ti-ar-med-begrepet-snikislamiser ing. 5 Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin and Brian Jenkins, “Introduction: Mapping the ‘Right of the Mainstream Right’ in Contemporary Europe,” in Mammone, Godin and Jenkins, Mapping the Extreme Right, 5. 6 Pietro Castelli Gattinara and Andrea L. P. Pirro, “The far right as social movement,” European Societies 21 (2019):447–62. 7 Farid Hafez, “Shifting borders: Islamophobia as common ground for building pan-European right-wing unity,” Patterns of Prejudice 48 (2014): 479–99. 8 Olivier Roy, “Beyond Populism: The Conservative Right, the Courts, the Churches and the Concept of a Christian Europe,” in Saving the People: How Populists Hijack Religion, ed. Nadia Marzouki, Duncan McDonnell, and Olivier Roy (London: Hurst & Co, 2016), 186. 9 Ruth Wodak, The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean (London: Sage, 2015), 55–57. Wilders’ proclamation that a Judeo-Christian Western culture will be lost if it is not protected against immigration has been echoed by leaders of the far right across Europe. See Birgit Sauer and Edma Ajanovic, “Hegemonic Discourses of Difference and Inequality: Right-Wing Organ-

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the clash of civilizations thesis.¹⁰ Citing historian Bernard Lewis’s account of Islam as an “ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage,” the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington characterised the relationship between the West and Islam a clash of civilizations.¹¹ The thesis has become popular since the early 1990s, despite critiques of its simplified narrative.¹² After the end of the Cold War, Huntington proposed, religion returned to politics. The Iron Curtain was gone but a “Velvet Curtain” was now drawn between different religiously grounded cultures, where Western civilization and Islamic civilization in particular are in conflict.¹³ For Huntington a civilization is marked by historical, territorial and linguistic features, however, what is central is religion.¹⁴ Europe is founded on Christianity.¹⁵ Encounters between different civilizations “enhance the civilization-consciousness of people that, in turn, invigorates differences.”¹⁶ These differences are key for animosities that stretch back “deep into history.”¹⁷ Huntington argues that religion is a determining factor for these animosities: “Even more than ethnicity, religion discriminates … among people.”¹⁸ As people define themselves by their religions, he suggests, we will come to see a political dynamic that pits religions against each other across the world.¹⁹ The “Velvet Curtain of culture” is the single most significant dividing line in Europe.²⁰ As a consequence, Huntington suggests that the “centuries-old military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline.”²¹ This interaction will only become more virulent.²² As Hans-Georg

isations in Austria,” in The Rise of the Far Right in Europe: Populist Shifts and ‘Othering,’ ed. Gabriella Lazaridis, Giovanna Campani, and Anne Benveniste (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 94. In Austria, both the Austrian Freedom Party and movements such as the Viennese Citizenship Initiative have spoken of Christianity as a criterion of inclusion into the Austrian people. Christianity is treated as a “natural” common ground in contrast to the alleged “natural” difference of Muslims. 10 See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 11 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72 (1993): 131, citing Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” The Atlantic, September 1990, 47−54. 12 See for instance Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand, The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations (London: Routledge, 2010). 13 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 31. 14 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 24−25. 15 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 27. 16 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 26. 17 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 26. 18 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 27. 19 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 29. 20 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 31. 21 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 31.

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Betz points out, it is not fair to call Huntington a right-wing extremist but the arguments he has advanced are taken up by far-right figures in Western Europe to aid their anti-immigration campaign, particularly against Muslims.²³ As my examples at the beginning of this chapter make clear, Qur’ans have become key material and symbolic artefacts in far-right demonstrations, as physical things to be destroyed in the deliberate desecration of Islamic scripture. But Bibles have also played their part in far-right milieus. In the UK, for instance, the far-right British National Party produced an election poster in 2009 that featured a picture of Jesus and his words as recorded in the Gospel of John 15:20: “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”²⁴ The Alternative für Deutschland uses the Good Samaritan story from the Gospel of Luke 10:25−37 to put forward an anti-immigration interpretation of this famous parable in their party literature.²⁵ Moving from the far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik to the Fremskrittspartiet politician Sylvi Listhaug, I examine the way Bibles come up in the anti-Islamic worldview they propagate in this chapter. The point is not to conflate the worldviews or the Bibles of Breivik and Listhaug. Their worldviews and their Bibles are different. Although their Bibles look very different, however, I argue that they are connected in the way these Bibles are used for demonising Islam in contemporary far-right circles. I begin by discussing what I call Breivik’s “War Bible,” before explicating where his notions of Bible came from in the ideological material that inspired him. I call the Bible that appears in this material the “Civilization Bible” and examine how it relates to Listhaug’s reflections on the Bible. When I talk about different Bibles here, it is to indicate different approaches to, and assumptions about, what constitutes “the Bible.” While the figures I examine mostly assume a Christian Bible, there are important differences in terms of what they think the Christian Bible signifies and which biblical texts are emphasized. Nonetheless, I contend that the more benign-looking Civilization Bible that appears in the background

22 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations,” 31. 23 Hans-Georg Betz, “Against the ‘Green Totalitarianism’: Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contemporary Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe,” in Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right, ed. Christina Schori Liang (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 37. 24 Timothy Peace, “Religion and Populism in Britain: An Infertile Breeding Ground?” in Marzouki, McDonnell, and Roy, Saving the People, 107. 25 Beatrix von Storch, “Grußwort,” in Warum Christen AfD wählen, ed. Joachim Kuhs (Eßbach: Arnshaugh Verlag, 2018), 11−13. See Hannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel, The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right (London: SCM press, 2020), 76−77. See also, Karin Berber Neutel and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, “Neighbours Near and Far: How a Biblical Figure Is Used in Recent European Anti-Migration Politics,” BibInt 29 (2021): 358−80.

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to Breivik’s War Bible contributes to the demonization of Muslims. Ultimately, I suggest that it is crucial to map the way these Bibles emerge, in what ways they are assembled, and with what materials and affects they function. I propose that by treating Bibles as assemblages, biblical scholars can map the shifting shapes Bibles take in the Nordic context(s) and beyond.

2 The Bible of a Far-Right Terrorist The perpetrator of the terrorism in Norway 2011 made clear that his sympathies lay with the extreme ends of the far right in his trial, as well as in a Youtube video he uploaded, and the manifesto he distributed electronically before the attacks. He saw the victims of his terror—77 dead and many more injured—as supportive of immigration and multiculturalism and therefore as traitors to Norway and to Europe. As Jone Salomonsen recounts, six hours before the bomb blast in Oslo, Breivik uploaded a video of himself to Youtube, “urging radical nationalists, extremists and new-right activists in Europe and the United States to ‘embrace martyrdom’ and join him in defending ethnic rights to homeland, separatism, gender hierarchy, and monoculture for white survival.”²⁶ The video shows him dressed as a crusader, a Knights Templar, wielding a large sword, using text blurbs to call for a return to the zeal of the early Christian crusades.²⁷ In the manifesto, it is stated that an “Islamic Imperialism” is taking hold in Europe and is supported by the political elites. The manifesto is compiled for all “European patriots,”²⁸ to “prevent the annihilation of our identities, our cultures and traditions and our nation states.”²⁹ The ultimate aim outlined in the manifesto that runs to over 1,500 pages is to stop the spread of Islam. The hope is that “Europe will once again be governed by patriots”³⁰ in “a monocultural Christian Europe.”³¹ Much of the manifesto is not written by Breivik himself, but is made up of material he has drawn into the manifesto from a variety of far-right figures and websites. He is a representative of what Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg call the “‘far right 2.0,’ which primarily

26 Jone Salomonsen, “Graced Life After All? Terrorism and Theology on July 22, 2011,” Di 54 (2015): 250. 27 Salomonsen, “Graced Life After All?,” 250. 28 “Manifesto,” 2011, https://publicintelligence.net/anders-behring-breiviks-complete-manifesto2083-a-european-declaration-of-independence/, 13. 29 “Manifesto,” 13. 30 “Manifesto,” 1413. 31 “Manifesto,” 1404.

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operates through forums, websites, and social networks.”³² Jorunn Økland has pointed to the need to pay careful attention to what material is included in the manifesto and where this material comes from.³³ I am not interested, then, in what Breivik “really” believed or thought. Whether or not Breivik read a Bible is not my question. I am interested in which worldview he repeats and propagates in his manifesto and which Bible emerges in this worldview. Øyvind Strømmen’s Det mørke nettet: om høyreekstremisme, kontrajihadisme og terror i Europa, “The Dark Web: On Far-right Extremism, Counter-Jihadism and Terror in Europe,” outlines the key features of Breivik’s worldview and the way it draws on the idea of Eurabia and Counter-jihadism. Briefly put, the idea of Eurabia is that political leaders in Europe are part of a conspiracy to turn Europe into an Islamic colony.³⁴ The most important aspect of the Eurabia idea is that the “Islamization” of Europe through immigration is taking place as a conscious plan, aided and abetted by European governments, academics, journalists, banks, and religious leaders.³⁵ Counter-jihadism is characterised by the view that Islam and the West are at war, with Islam considered not a religion but a totalitarian political ideology. The duty of counter-jihadists is to stop a supposed “Islamization,” contain Islam in countries that already have a Muslim majority, and to establish an anti-multicultural political network to replace the current political classes that enable a purported Islamic imperialism.³⁶ Proponents of these pernicious views are cited frequently in Breivik’s manifesto.³⁷ Although they do not form a major part of the manifesto, biblical references are present. The majority of the biblical references can be found in a section under the heading “The Bible and Self-Defence.”³⁸ This section is situated within a larger part entitled “Christian Justification of the Struggle,”³⁹ which is in book three of the manifesto (“A Declaration of Pre-Emptive War”).⁴⁰ Øystein Sørensen

32 Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, Far-Right Politics in Europe, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2017), 113. 33 Jorunn Økland, “Feminismen, tradisjonen og forventning,” in Akademiske perspektiver på 22. juli, ed. Anders Ravik Jupskås (Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2012), 121. 34 See Øyvind Strømmen, Det mørke nettet: om høyreekstremisme, kontrajihadisme og terror i Europa (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2012) and I hatets fotspor (Oslo: Cappelen Damm, 2014). 35 Strømmen, Det mørke nettet, 50. 36 Strømmen, I hatets fotspor, 102−03. 37 See Mattias Ekman, “Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38 (2015): 1998 and Sindre Bangstad, Anders Breivik and the Rise of Islamophobia (London: Zed Books, 2014), 78. 38 “Manifesto,” Section 3.149, 1328−34. 39 “Manifesto,” 1325. 40 “Manifesto,” 776.

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suggests that it is in book three that Breivik’s totalitarian ideas fully come to the fore.⁴¹ Here, the vision for a new era where a conservative church will uphold the structure of European society is laid out.⁴² In the section titled “Christian Justification of the Struggle,” Breivik begins with an allusion to Popes Urban II and Innocent III granting favour to “martyrs of the church, those men and women who, by virtue of their suffering, assists [sic] in the intercession for all Christians”, stating that in the twelfth century such favour was extended to all, beyond crusaders of a particular context.⁴³ Moving to Pope Benedict XVI, he raises the question as to whether he would condone a new crusade. Answered in the negative, Breivik concludes that Christianity in Europe has been abandoned. It is then for “we, the cultural conservatives of Europe” to initiate “coups against the given multiculturalist European regimes and contribute to repell [sic] Islam from Europe for a third time.”⁴⁴ The biblical references that follow are situated in the framework of a religiously motivated warfare. Psalm 18:34 is cited to confirm the idea of God’s support for battle: “He teaches my hands to make war.” Exod 15:3−6 evokes the image of a warrior God and a Lord who can shatter the enemy. Similarly, Is 42:13 is cited: “The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.”⁴⁵ While the possibility of keeping “your head in the sand” is put forward as a choice, the manifesto simultaneously emphasises that all are “called to be soldiers of Jesus Christ, not just a select few.”⁴⁶ Ultimately, the Bible is used to justify a form of aggressive, militant self-defence that alludes to the allegedly pious heroism of the crusades: “we are now all good soldiers of Jesus Christ.”⁴⁷ To remove authority from contemporary European leaders who are seen as “traitors,” Acts 5:29 is referenced to make the claim that we “must obey God rather than men.”⁴⁸ A Bible is invoked that brings not peace but a sword, calling for defence against those deemed to be the enemy. What unites these verses is God’s apparent justification of violence against the enemy. As the manifesto states: “Many Christians claim that acts of self-defence are unbiblical, unscriptural and ungodly. However, they are un-

41 Øystein Sørensen, “En totalitær mentalitet: Det ideologiske tankegodset i Anders Behring Breiviks manifest,” in Jupskås, Akademiske perspektiver på 22. juli, 106. 42 Sørensen, “En totalitær mentalitet,” 110. 43 “Manifesto,” 1327. 44 “Manifesto,” 1327. 45 “Manifesto,” 1331. 46 “Manifesto,” 1332. 47 “Manifesto,” 1330. 48 “Manifesto,” 1334.

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doubtfully wrong. The Bible couldn’t be clearer on the right, even the duty we have as Christians to self-defence.”⁴⁹ Exod 22:2−3 is cited to show that if a thief breaks into your home, you “have the right to protect your home, your family and your property, the Bible says.”⁵⁰ Breivik’s Bible could be dubbed a War Bible. It is made up of verses from the Bible that are specifically linked to violence. It is a Bible robbed of narrative, of laws, and calls for mercy and loving the stranger. Instead, verses related to violence are strung together to emphasise the righteousness of violent defence against Islam and anyone who represents multiculturalism in Europe. It is key to note that the biblical verses that are cited in the manifesto do not function on their own. There is not a straightforward embrace of Christianity or the Bible in general in the pages of the manifesto. The Bible Breivik invokes works in conjunction with the anti-Islam diatribes, the accounts of Christians being persecuted by Muslims, and with other religious imagery that fill the manifesto. The clash of civilizations thesis is in the background to the Bible that Breivik invokes, where a clash between a Christian West and Islam is deemed to be inevitable. Breivik has, as Sindre Bangstad notes, fully embraced the “Huntingtonian identity politics.”⁵¹ Wherever “national purity, fixity and homogeneity have been lost, they must be restored.”⁵² What is abundantly clear in the manifesto is, as Bangstad points out, the fixity ascribed to Islam and Muslims.⁵³ The Bible, then, becomes one tool for the “Christian West” to use in its conflict with Islam. The War Bible he invokes is connected to the Knights Templar identity he adopted. Allusions to crusaders and martyrs alongside the biblical references in the manifesto give this Bible “sense” as a War Bible, where the righteous soldiers of Christ will bravely fight the eternal enemy: Islam. Breivik’s War Bible is not only made up of biblical verses, selected from the Christian canon, but also of Crusader costumes, and, strikingly, of pagan elements. As Salomonsen has discussed, pagan elements are also part of Breivik’s worldview. He called his weapons Mjølner and Gugne, after Thor’s magic hammer and Odin’s magical spear of eternal return in Norse mythology. Breivik named his car Sleipner, after Thor’s wagon.⁵⁴ Salomonsen argues that while Breivik identified as a cultural Christian, “of the medieval, empire-building type,” he is also a “cultural Odin-

49 “Manifesto,” 1328. 50 “Manifesto,” 1328. Recalling Nehemiah building the walls of Jerusalem, Neh 4:17−18 similarly serves to highlight the necessity of defence against the perceived threat of invasion. 51 Bangstad, Anders Breivik, 96. 52 Bangstad, Anders Breivik, 96. 53 Bangstad, Anders Breivik, 96. 54 Salomonsen, “Graced Life After All?,” 251.

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ist.”⁵⁵ Paganism and Christianity are both claimed by the far-right terrorist.⁵⁶ This mixing could be evidence of what Aage Borchgrevink sees as Breivik getting “lost in the religion department.”⁵⁷ But it could also demonstrate the way far-right imagery does not need to conform to one idea of Christianity in order to function effectively. In fact, the biblical verses work because they are assembled alongside other components of a far-right worldview, rather than as discreet and distinct texts to be interpreted on their own. The biblical verses that appear in the manifesto are assembled as components that work with the paganly named weapons and vehicle, with the Knights Templar costume Breivik donned, and with the violence that killed seventy-seven people on 22 July 2011. They cannot be interpreted as if they stood alone or apart from any of these other elements.

3 Biblical Values The Bible that appears in Breivik’s manifesto is important to examine because it exemplifies trends in the rise of the Nordic and broader European far right that show no signs of abating.⁵⁸ Breivik is no lone wolf. His ideas are deeply embedded in and indebted to far-right networks. Cobbling together texts from far-right writings, his manifesto demonstrates the way ideas spread across far-right networks. The Norwegian far-right group Stop the Islamisation of Norway (SIAN) has expressed their admiration for Breivik’s actions on several occasions.⁵⁹ Such admiration is not confined to the Nordic far right, however, but is echoed across Europe. Mario Borghezio, for example, an Italian League politician who was a member of the European Parliament, praised Breivik’s manifesto a few days after the attacks,⁶⁰ saying that he shared Breivik’s opposition to Islam, including his call for

55 Salomonsen, “Graced Life After All?,” 252. 56 Salomonsen, “Graced Life After All?,” 252. 57 Aage Borchgrevink, A Norwegian Tragedy: Anders Behring Breivik and the Massacre at Utøya, trans. Guy Puzey (London: Polity Press, 2013), 175. 58 Since 2011, Bangstad has reported on figures, groups and planned terrorist attacks citing Breivik as an inspiration (Bangstad, Anders Breivik, 8). Lippestad too wrote about the worrying status increasingly given to Breivik in some circles as a cult figure (Lippestad, Det kan vi stå for, 182). 59 Harald Klungtveit og Jonas Skybakmoen, “‘Kanskje vi på sikt må slippe ham ut, så vi får ryddet opp’: SIAN gjentar Breivik-uttalelser før ny demonstrasjon,” Filter Nyheter, September 12, 2020, https://filternyheter.no/kanskje-vi-pa-sikt-ma-slippe-ham-ut-sa-vi-far-ryddet-opp-sian-gjentar-brei vik-uttalelser-for-ny-demonstrasjon/. 60 Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide (London: Verso 2015), 96−97.

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a Christian crusade. He added that a significant number of Europeans agree with Breivik’s views.⁶¹ The assumption that Christian Europe is threatened by Islam is not only an idea on the extreme ends of the right.⁶² Rather, as Mattias Ekman has argued, notions of a Europe under attack by Islam have “permeated into public discourse.”⁶³ Camus and Lebourg suggest that what is most striking about Breivik’s ideology is that the central idea of the manifesto “is now the basis of the new political program of European neopopulism.”⁶⁴ Similar to his far-right ideology, the Bible that appears in Breivik’s manifesto does not come from nowhere. Rather, it is indebted to ideological trends that have gained traction over the last few decades. In his manifesto Breivik cites (amongst others) two key far-right ideologues namely Egyptian-British writer Bat Ye’or and American writer and blogger Robert Spencer. Both Ye’or and Spencer have published several books, given public talks, and enjoy prominent roles and reputations on far-right internet platforms. Two claims run through their publications: the West is and always has been under attack from Islam; the Bible is a foundation of Judeo-Christian Western culture that stands in stark opposition to the “violent” Qur’an. Extolling “biblical values” in opposition to Muslims with their Qur’an is central to Spencer and Ye’or’s writings. These biblical values are treated as fundamental to, and a foundation for, Western civilization. Spencer claims that “values” and “moral principles” of Western countries are “rooted in Christian premises,” premises that are shared with Judaism but “do not carry over into Islam.”⁶⁵ One of the key arguments of Spencer’s Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, is that the Bible does not encourage violence while the Qur’an does. The Bible, in this view, has inspired values of non-violence. This is part of what Spencer sees as the civilizational superiority of the “Judeo-Christian West.” Similarly, Ye’or undergirds her idea of Eurabia with reference to the shared biblical values of Jews and Christians in opposition to Muslims. In the collected writings, Understanding Dhimmitude, Ye’or only intermittently evokes particular biblical texts, but she continuously makes use of the phrase “People of the Book” to signify the joint condition of Jews and Christians as proponents of “Biblical values.”⁶⁶ She uses the term to ce-

61 Berardi, Heroes, 97. 62 Ekman, “Online Islamophobia,” 1986. 63 Ekman, “Online Islamophobia,” 1986. 64 Camus and Lebourg, Far-Right Politics in Europe, 112. 65 Robert Spencer, Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t (Washington D.C: Regnery Publishing, 2007), 3. 66 Bat Ye’or, Understanding Dhimmitude: Twenty-One Lectures and Talks on the Position of NonMuslims in Islamic Societies (New York: RVP Press, 2013), 126; 219. Ye’or refers to “People of the

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ment “Judeo-Christian” as a strong category with a shared scripture, which is set apart from Muslims with their scripture. While “biblical values” remain an obscure but omnipresent phrase, these values are taken to be uniquely compatible with, and even constitutive of, Western civilization. Western civilization, in turn, is starkly contrasted with Islam and Muslim countries. Like Spencer, then, Ye’or assumes that a focus on biblical values will hold Islamic or Qur’anic values in place as separate. Whether or not one is religious is irrelevant in this worldview; civilizations are taken to be steeped in ancient scriptures that have permeated the history of different territories, cultures, and peoples. Breivik is a prime example. While he is self-describing as not an “excessively religious man,”⁶⁷ a “we” is invoked who “believe[s] in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform.”⁶⁸ Breivik insists: “This makes us Christian.”⁶⁹ In fact, explicitly non-Christian far-right figures similarly lay claim to the Bible as a foundation of European culture and civilization. Invoking the Bible appears to be a benign way of spouting truisms about the influence of Christianity and its scripture on Europe. Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist who had an illustrious career interviewing high-profile politicians, published two books after the 9/11 terror attacks that have courted both critique and admiration. The Rage and the Pride, published in 2001, and The Force of Reason, published in 2004, sold in large numbers. In these books, Fallaci decries the state of Europe and the West today. Drawing on Ye’or, she claims that Europe has become “Eurabia.” She suggests that a demographic and cultural warfare is taking place whereby Muslims are subtly subjugating Europe. The values and principles of European culture are being lost. Islam is deemed an inferior religious tradition, while European culture is celebrated as superior. While Fallaci declares herself an atheist, she insists on calling herself a “Christian atheist.”⁷⁰ The “religion in which our culture is steeped” is, she insists, Christianity.⁷¹ In Jesus and in Christianity Fallaci sees the rejection of death, which she calls the principle that “leads and feeds our civilization.”⁷² Biblical passages about Jesus

Book” throughout the book because it is the term used of Christians and Jews under Islamic law (also referred to as “dhimmis”). In Islamic law, the status as “People of the Book” signifies the protection rather than the persecution of Christians and Jews. 67 “Manifesto,” 1404. 68 “Manifesto,” 1308. 69 “Manifesto,” 1308. 70 Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2004), 185−86. 71 Fallaci, Force of Reason, 111. 72 Fallaci, Force of Reason, 189.

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and Paul are credited with inventing secularism.⁷³ Fallaci appeals to the “roots” of Europe to save Western civilization. She identifies as a Christian atheist precisely because she appreciates the “discourse which stays at the roots of Christianity,” not the dogma, liturgies, and priests that have come later.⁷⁴ The Bible that comes up in these writings could be termed a Civilization Bible.⁷⁵ Like Breivik’s War Bible, it does not function on its own, as a celebration of a Bible that has influenced the values seen to be core to the West. Instead, it functions with the antipathy to Islam that makes the Bible a convenient icon held up in contrast to the Qur’an. It is used as a tool in the clash of civilizations narrative. And it functions as one element in the attempt to uphold the West as a superior and unique civilization that is radically distinct from an Islamic civilization. It is obvious that the War Bible that is invoked in Breivik’s manifesto is of a different kind to the Bible hailed by Spencer, Ye’or and Fallaci. However, if the idea that Islam poses a significant and serious threat to Western civilization also runs through the Civilization Bible, then Breivik is arguably merely pushing the argument to its violent ends. By terming his violent actions a “defence” of Western Christian culture, he presents his own position as a necessary evil to stop the threat—a martyr-like position where God is on his side.

4 The Bible of a Right-wing Populist Like Spencer, Ye’or and Fallaci, Sylvi Listhaug, a prominent Norwegian politician in the right-wing populist Fremskrittspartiet, celebrates the idea of biblical values. Right-wing populism across Europe takes different forms, but what is characteristic of populist politics is critique of so-called “elites,” antipluralism, and a claim to represent “the people.”⁷⁶ Fremskrittspartiet was in power in Norway with the centre-right party, Høyre, between 2013 and 2020, until Fremskrittspartiet left the government in January 2020, due to internal disputes. Listhaug has held ministerial posts as Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Immigration, Minister of Justice, Minister of Petroleum and Energy, and has been party leader since 2021. Listhaug’s Christian faith is well-known in Norway, in part due to her cross-necklace that

73 Fallaci, Force of Reason, 188. 74 Fallaci, Force of Reason, 186. 75 Although I did not call it a Civilization Bible, I have examined the way Jonathan Sheehan’s concept of the Cultural Bible and Yvonne Sherwood’s concept of the Liberal Bible become connected to far-right understandings of the Bible as a foundation for European civilization in “Biblical BloodLines: From Foundational Corpus to Far Right Bible,” BibInt 25 (2017): 555−73. 76 Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism (London: Penguin, 2016), 2−3.

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has been discussed in the media.⁷⁷ The fact that Breivik was a member of Fremskrittspartiet for a short while has not gone unnoticed either. Listhaug has explicitly distanced herself from Breivik’s actions. Clearly, Breivik’s worldview is more extreme than anything Listhaug or Fremskrittspartiet would sign up to. Breivik’s War Bible is not Listhaug’s Bible. However, there are echoes of Spencer’s and Ye’or’s Civilization Bible in Listhaug’s book Der andre tier, “Where Others are Silent,” from 2018. In this book, Listhaug presents a benign Bible linked to her childhood, to tradition, and to Norwegian values. Again, this Bible does not operate as an independent object. The benign Bible Listhaug invokes is contrasted with a malign Islam. In this sense, her Bible—for all its innocence—feeds into the clash of civilizations narrative, where Islam is reduced to a threat to the West. This stark contrast feeds the anti-Islam sentiments that she herself propagates. In the chapter, “Our Values,” Våre verdier, Listhaug writes about going to Sunday school as a child. She writes of the love she had, and still has, for her local nineteenth century church.⁷⁸ She admits that, in a way, it is the main reason she is still part of the Norwegian church. She has no sympathy for the bishops in the church, who she accuses of acting like politicians.⁷⁹ Recounting her childhood Christianity, Listhaug writes that today she is happy that she had Bible-teaching at Sunday school. She reminisces about the way the Sunday-school instructor used a flannelgraph with pictures from the Old and the New Testament to illustrate the biblical texts. “So we got to hear about the lost sheep, Moses leading his people out of Egypt, and not least the baby Jesus, who was born in a manger in Bethlehem. Every time we were there, we got a star-sticker.”⁸⁰ Listhaug admits that she sometimes found the Sunday school lessons boring.⁸¹ She was not known for being a particularly prominent Christian in her local area, she says, but her Christian faith was with her the whole time.⁸² Her parents were not particularly religious either, but they had their childhood faith which they passed on. The point of referring to this childhood background is to emphasise that her and her parents were raised in a Christian tradition, and that she passes this tradition

77 See Sigurd Bjørnestad, “Listhaug i full korskrangel,” Aftenposten, March 6, 2017, https://www. aftenposten.no/norge/i/nomno/listhaug-i-full-korskrangel. 78 Sylvi Listhaug, Der andre tier (Oslo: Kagge Forlag, 2018), 143. All translations from Der Andre Tier are my own. 79 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 143. 80 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 143. 81 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 143. 82 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 144.

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on to her children.⁸³ Listhaug explains that she calls herself conservative because conservatism is about preserving what has worked well. This idea of tradition is also what fuels Listhaug’s aversion to immigration, particularly to Muslim immigrants. Muslim immigrants represent change, a threat to the values Listhaug deems to be “Norwegian” and “Christian.”⁸⁴ According to Listhaug, “Norwegian and Christian values are under pressure.”⁸⁵ Like many proponents in the contemporary European populist right, she complains about elites and about a supposedly uncontrolled “stream” of asylum seekers coming to Norway.⁸⁶ Islamism, she writes, is today’s “horror-ideology,” and has to be battled.⁸⁷ It is not insignificant that Listhaug links childhood Bible stories to “our” traditional values. Along with her local nineteenth century church, her flannelgraphBible represents what she believes needs to be preserved in Norway and passed on, although exactly what these values are or how they are linked to stories such as “the lost sheep, Moses leading his people out of Egypt, and not least the baby Jesus, who was born in a manger in Bethlehem”⁸⁸ is not explained. Norwegian Christian biblical values are deemed to be benign. Islamic—and presumably Qur’anic—values, on the other hand, are deemed malign. As she puts it: “I at least don’t know any Norwegian Christians who would kill someone for their opinions, or because they live in a particular way, but I have spoken to Muslims who have broken out of an honour culture and risked their lives for their choices.”⁸⁹ In and of itself there is nothing offensive about reminiscing about one’s memories of a childhood Bible. There is nothing strange about a Christian drawing out values from Christianity’s sacred scripture and of deeming this an important part of one’s faith life. What is problematic is the way this flannelgraph-Bible is tied together with an essentialization of Muslims as malign. The fond memories of childhood Bible stories slide into a denigration of Muslims as murderers in Listhaug’s narrative, when she moves rapidly from discussing her Childhood Bible to the idea of Muslims (as opposed to Christians) killing others for their opinions or ways of life.⁹⁰ Listhaug writes that her faith has become more important with the years,⁹¹ although she avers that her faith is private rather than political.⁹² She

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug, Listhaug,

Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre Der andre

tier, 144. tier, 149. tier, 149. tier, 37; 86−87. tier, 140. tier, 143. tier, 149. tier, 149. tier, 144.

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draws a distinction between this private faith, however, and her defence of a “Christian people.”⁹³ Her defence of a Christian people, she says, is about pushing against the idea that to be Christian in Norway is embarrassing.⁹⁴ She writes that this is “problematic because there is nothing wrong with being Christian. But also, because the Christian heritage, whether we like it or not, is an important foundation for our civilization.”⁹⁵ “Christianity has played such an important role in the formation of Norwegian society that it is impossible to imagine what our country would be like without it.”⁹⁶ She gives two examples of the impact of Christianity on Norwegian society. The first is the clear divide between state and church during the Reformation. The second is the idea of the individual.⁹⁷ The idea of the Christian foundation of Norway and the Bible that represent Norwegian values alongside the denigration of Islam is reminiscent of the Civilization Bible propagated by figures such as Spencer and Ye’or. Again, the Christian heritage and the Bible Listhaug alludes to is immediately connected to a comparison with Islam. “It is easy to see how it has gone in Muslim countries, where one is strongly impacted by Islam. The whole Middle East is characterized by economic stagnation and whole generations grow up without future options.”⁹⁸ The clash of civilizations narrative is clearly in the background here, and connected to her Bible, in the assumptions about “peoples” being starkly distinguished according to their separate scripture-cultures. Listhaug goes on to state that it is unfortunate when we distance ourselves from our Christian cultural heritage,⁹⁹ because “the values we appreciate don’t come of themselves.”¹⁰⁰ It is not about everyone being believing Christians. It just means that we should not wash away everything that has to do with Christianity from the public sphere. Listhaug’s flannelgraph-Bible, then, is not just a private affair, or a sentimental and innocent part of her own childhood memories. It is a political and public Bible which masquerades as a benign personal memory. To be clear, there is nothing in and of itself that is particularly problematic with this childhood Bible or with the Civilization Bible it is reminiscent of. Of course, the Bible has had an enormous impact on Western culture and on specific countries and traditions in the West.

92 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 144−45. 93 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 94 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 95 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 96 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 97 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 98 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 145. 99 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 146. 100 Listhaug, Der andre tier, 146.

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The Civilization Bible does not operate alone, however. It is problematic when and where it functions as a crutch for a civilizational identity that is simplistically conceived, reductive of cultures and peoples, and essentialising as well as demonising of Islam. The way the Civilization Bible works for far-right ideologues such as Ye’or and Spencer, echoed by politicians such as Listhaug, is with what Seyla Benhabib has called a “reductionist sociology of culture.”¹⁰¹ Benhabib points to the frequent but false assumption that cultures can be simply defined and mapped onto particular peoples. There is, she suggests, an over-emphasis on cultural differences and distinctions, which, in turn, stresses the supposed homogeneity internal to cultures.¹⁰² The Bible is invoked as a pure possession of a European people. It becomes a way of defining Europe and the West in stark opposition to Islam with its Qur’an—as if the two scripture-cultures are antithetical. The Bible is treated as a symbol of the Christian roots of Europe and of its Judeo-Christian culture and can therefore be mobilised in opposition to what is deemed an “other” culture, namely Islam. In this way, the Bible becomes a component of the anti-Islam agenda of the far right. It is perhaps not so strange, then, when a figure such as Breivik turns to the Bible as one component that can justify violence in the name of a Christian West supposedly under threat from Islam. If the Christian Bible is the foundation of the West, then it can also become a prop, alongside weapons, crusader costumes, and bombs, to justify righteous warfare. The War Bible of Breivik’s manifesto violates the so-called peace-loving and benign Civilization Bible that props up Western civilization in less extreme right-right writings than Breivik’s manifesto, by crudely picking out violent passages and acting on them. Yet in another sense, it is simply the logical conclusion to a far-right worldview that constantly reiterates the dangers, threats, and violence of Islam to call for the defence of Western culture.

5 Biblical Assemblages The Bible may not form a central element in the far-right worldview of figures and groups in Norway or the Nordic countries more generally. But Bibles feature as components in a larger far-right agenda that connects ideologies and practices across different countries inside and outside Northern Europe. It is not necessarily a case of proponents of the far right putting forward interpretations of the Bible or

101 Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 4. 102 Benhabib, Claims of Culture, 4.

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biblical texts. There is little that could count as “exegesis” accompanying either Breivik’s or Listhaug’s Bibles. But notions of what “the Bible” is and how it functions in the West play a role in hailing a Christian Europe against an Islamic other. The radical difference drawn up between the West and Islam fuels hateful rhetoric and hate crime against Muslims. In this chapter, I have argued that in the cases of Breivik and Listhaug we can see how a War Bible and a Civilization Bible are at work in the extreme and softer far-right in Norway. These Bibles are different. Yet they are connected through the essentialization of religious cultures that features so strongly in contemporary European far-right narratives about the West. These Bibles are accompanied by—and fueled by—antipathy to Islam. They are products of a nostalgia for a pure Christian Europe. And they stoke fear about the impact of immigration. To conceptualize the discussion of the Bibles in this chapter, I would like to reflect on how biblical reception history can map the emergence of Bibles in contexts such as the Nordic far right. As the introduction to this volume spells out, biblical reception history is experiencing a watershed moment. In Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, Emma England and William John Lyons marked the intensified need for, and interest in, studies that foreground the role the Bible and biblical texts have played in politics and culture.¹⁰³ Journals such as the Journal of the Bible and its Reception, book series on biblical reception, research groups on biblical reception at the European Association of Biblical Studies and the Society of Biblical Literature, and ambitious projects such as the Encyclopaedia of the Bible and its Reception, all testify to the momentum gathering around biblical reception history. But how biblical reception history can and should be done is very much an open question. In their introduction to this volume, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Outi Lehtipuu and Kasper Bro Larsen point out that sustained reflection on methodology in biblical reception is lacking.¹⁰⁴ Brennan Breed’s Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History is probably the most frequently cited monograph on how to study biblical reception.¹⁰⁵ It is a valuable intervention into the field of biblical studies. But based on my analysis of Breivik’s and Listhaug’s Bibles, I would like to push biblical reception history in a different direction. Breed takes Job 19:25−27 as his starting point and characterises what he calls semantic nodes that make up three interpretive trajectories to these

103 Emma England and William John Lyons, “Explorations in the Reception of the Bible,” in Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, ed. Emma England and William John Lyons (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 3−13. 104 REFERENCE 105 Brennan Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2014).

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verses: survival, presence and justice.¹⁰⁶ From these verses he discusses manuscripts and readers of Job that map onto these trajectories. This approach shows the multiple interpretations connected to a small snippet of text such as Job 19:25−27. But reception history could also, or alternatively, begin with the contexts in which Bibles are made and unmade. As Bjelland Kartzow, Lehtipuu and Bro Larsen discuss, the Bible is an “unstable idea in the Western and Judeo-Christian imagination. It is a cultural emblem with varying content and significance.”¹⁰⁷ What conceptions and constructions of the Bible emerge at different times and in different milieus? What is taken for granted when different groups and people refer to “the Bible” and what “it” supposedly says? Where do particular conceptions and constructions of the Bible become popular and dominant and when do important shifts happen that alter particular perceptions about Bibles? These kinds of questions can take account of the ways in which Bibles are not always read or interpreted. It would be an approach that uncovers the assumptions, actions and affects that produce Bibles and make them work in particular contexts.¹⁰⁸ Speaking of a War Bible, a Childhood Bible or a Civilization Bible does not denote physical Bible editions one could purchase in a shop and then take home to read. They name phenomena in the use of Bibles. They denote trends in Bible-use. In one sense, speaking in the plural about Bibles is necessary because there can be no such thing as “the Bible.” Quite literally, of course, people own and operate with different Bibles as physical objects. But more than this, people invoke different Bibles when they assume their Bible to have a particular role, identity, canon, and when they (inevitably) highlight, invoke, or interpret particular biblical texts, tropes, passages, or verses. A Bible studied as a set of ancient manuscripts in a secular university programme is different to a decorative Bible that is paraded and kissed in a church service, which is different again to a tattered, well-thumbed-through Bible full of highlights and dog-ears. Timothy Beal has called for precisely this kind of attention not only to the materiality of Bibles, but to “the economic aspects of scriptural production, marketing, and consumption, and to the

106 Breed, Nomadic Text, 150. 107 Introduction to this volume 108 In many ways, I am building here on the kind of biblical scholarship foregrounded by scholars such as Yvonne Sherwood, James Crossley, and Jonathan Sheehan. Yvonne Sherwood, “Bush’s Bible as a Liberal Bible (Strange Though That Might Seem),” Postscripts 2 (2006): 47−58. See also Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); James Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century (London: Equinox, 2008), and James Crossley, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans: Religion in Contemporary English Discourse (London: Pluto Press, 2018); Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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way those processes trade in various unstable forms of social, cultural, financial, and sacred capital.”¹⁰⁹ Bibles are not only different material artefacts that are conceived and treated in different ways. They also never operate alone or in a vacuum. It goes without saying that Bibles always operate in contexts and with institutions, histories, buildings, feelings, ideologies, attitudes and actions. Like Breed, I believe Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari can be helpful for biblical reception history. Unlike Breed, however, I would like to highlight their concept of the assemblage. The concept of assemblages is at the heart of A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, originally published in 1980. As Brent Adkins explains, “assemblage” can be thought of as Deleuze and Guattari’s answer to the question of “what is a thing?”¹¹⁰ Assemblages are “concrete collections of heterogeneous materials that display tendencies toward both stability and change.”¹¹¹ An assemblage is a “temporary coagulation of intensive processes into a stable state.”¹¹² Assemblages have differing temporal and spatial scales: “The intensities of tectonic movement that stabilize into mountain ranges exist on a vastly different temporal and spatial scale compared to the intensities that stabilize into a person’s mood.”¹¹³ What matters for Deleuze and Guattari is attention to the “processes that create the mountain range and the processes that result in a particular mood” without resorting to notions of universal or eternal properties.¹¹⁴ An assemblage for Deleuze and Guattari is not a “unified gathering” but made up of “heterogeneous elements.”¹¹⁵ A unity is made up of the intrinsic relations that different parts have to the whole, an organic whole such as the organs of the human body.¹¹⁶ Thomas Nail explains how in contrast to organic unities, “assemblages are more like machines, defined solely by their external relations of composition, mixture, and aggregation.”¹¹⁷ An assemblage is not a part or a whole, but rather a multiplicity. It is a case of potentially quite diverse things brought together, such as a series of things unearthed in an archaeological dig (bowls, cups, bones, figurines) that come to ex-

109 Timothy Beal, “Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures,” BibInt 19 (2011): 366. 110 Brent Adkins, Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus: A Critical Introduction and Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 10. 111 Adkins, Deleuze and Guattari’s, 14. 112 Adkins, Deleuze and Guattari’s, 15. 113 Adkins, Deleuze and Guattari’s, 15. 114 Adkins, Deleuze and Guattari’s, 15. 115 Thomas Nail, “What is an Assemblage?,” SubStance 46 (2017): 22. 116 Nail, “What is an Assemblage?,” 22. 117 Nail, “What is an Assemblage?,” 23.

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press a particular character such as “Etruscanness.”¹¹⁸ Assemblages are also caught up in semiotic signs and systems, such as discourses, words, meanings, and non-corporal relations that connect signifiers with effects.¹¹⁹ For biblical reception history, it might be useful to think of Bibles as assemblages. There is no Bible, there are only biblical assemblages, no beings but only becomings. Bibles are multiplicities. Or “expressive machines,” as Stephen Moore puts it.¹²⁰ As Deleuze and Guattari argue, understanding texts is not a matter of the “inside,” the “interior,” of reading and interpreting content. Rather, a “book is a little machine.”¹²¹ It works in conjunction with other things, it transmits intensities or fails to transmit intensities.¹²² “The Bible” is a changing entity made up of different and shifting parts—some of which are textual and some of which are not. As Beal has argued, Bibles are not given, self-evident objects, but are rather historically “discursive objects,” altering in relation to different productions of meaning.¹²³ “Assemblages select elements from the milieus (the surroundings, the context, the mediums in which the assemblages work) and bring them together in a particular way.”¹²⁴ Bibles are made up of different, heterogeneous matters brought together temporarily to form assemblages. Different types of multiplicities “coexist, interpenetrate, and change places—machines, cogs, motors, and elements that are set in motion at a given moment, forming an assemblage productive of statements,”¹²⁵ such as the much-(ab)used statement that begins “the Bible says …” Thinking about the Bible as an assemblage is useful because it moves away from the misleading singularity in the term “the Bible.” Talking about biblical assemblages enables a focus on the changeability of the Bible rather than a supposed essence. Different Bibles emerge at different times and Bibles take different forms. In Moore’s words, Bibles

118 J. Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage,” in Giles Deleuze: Key Concepts, ed. Charles J. Stivale (Montreal and Kingston: McGill, 2005), 78. 119 Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage,” 80. 120 Stephen D. Moore, “A Bible that Expresses Everything While Communicating Nothing: Deleuze and Guattari’s Cure for Interpretosis,” in Biblical Exegesis without Authorial Intention? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship and Meaning, ed. Clarissa Breu (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 113. Moore draws on Deleuzian theories of expression to rethink the obsession with authorship in biblical studies. 121 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (London: Bloomsbury, 2013 [1987]), 2. 122 Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus, 3. 123 Beal, “Reception History,” 370. 124 Macgregor Wise, “Assemblage,” 78. 125 Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus, 41.

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continue unceasingly not just to engender effusions of sameness, stultifying expressions of the status quo, oppressive confirmations of existing arrangements, but also to engender the previously unthought and untried, the socially innovative and experimental.¹²⁶

Rather than a logic of unity and identity—“the Bible” is—biblical scholars could adopt Deleuze’s and Guattari’s logic of “and” and “with.”

6 Conclusion: The Shifting Shapes of Bibles As I have discussed in this chapter, the Nordic far-right Bible is more than one thing. Breivik’s Bible is different from Listhaug’s Bible. Breivik’s Bible is made up of selected verses about violence. It is embedded in and with the manifesto of which it forms a part. Breivik’s Bible is a biblical assemblage which I have called a War Bible. It functions with the violence that took place on 22 July 2011. Listhaug’s Bible, by contrast, is made up of flannelgraph pictures. It is connected to the Christian tradition and the symbols of this tradition such as the cross-necklace she wears and the nineteenth-century church she loves. This Bible is assembled with the antipathy towards Islam that is central to her politics. It functions with and through this antipathy, as much as it functions with her nostalgia for a childhood that represents Norwegian traditional values. These Bibles have different speeds, affects and dates. They are assemblages with different matters—such as Breivik’s PDF-file manifesto read on screen, or Listhaug’s flannelgraph Bible images—and with different affects: nostalgia, fear, hate. For the context of the Nordic far right, it is crucial to identify and condemn Breivik’s War Bible, to recognise the workings of the far-right Civilization Bible that fuels it, but also to note how a much more benign-looking Bible like Listhaug’s “Childhood Bible,” feeds into a narrative in which Muslims emerge as enemies of Western civilization. However benign such a Bible might seem it does not function alone. Assembled with a nativist rhetoric that ties it closely to the Norwegian tradition, with narratives of “stealth islamization” and anecdotes about murderous Muslims, the Civilization Bible, together with its benign Childhood Bible companion volume, skirts dangerously close to the violence that Breivik put into action in Norway nearly ten years ago. Through attention to how and when Bibles emerge, in what ways they are assembled, and with what materials and affects they function, biblical scholars can map and problematize the shifting shapes Bibles take in the Nordic context and beyond.

126 Moore, “Bible that Expresses Everything,” 123.

Niko Huttunen and Outi Lehtipuu

The Bible as Hate Speech? Homosexuality and Romans 1 in a Contemporary Finnish Debate Does citing the Bible count as hate speech? This question lies at the heart of a recent lawsuit and ensuing public debate in Finland. The Finnish Member of Parliament, former chair of the Christian Democratic party (2004–2015) and former Minister of the Interior (2011–2015), Päivi Räsänen was charged for incitement against a minority group, because of her comments on homosexuals.¹ The controversy was sparked by a tweet that she posted during the Helsinki Pride week in June 2019. While individual members of the clergy had participated in the Pride parade and other activities for years, this was the first time that the Lutheran church officially collaborated with the event. Räsänen, a member of the Lutheran church, questioned the partnership in a post containing a photo that showed the verses of Rom 1:24–27 and a text in which she implied that homosexuality is a subject of “shame and sin,” not pride. The tweet was not an isolated incident, for Räsänen is well known for her disapproval of homosexuality; for many Finns, she is the face of uncompromising Christian condemnation of same-sex relations. The police investigation and criminal charges also dealt with her previous utterances on homosexuality in a pamphlet originally published in 2004 and in a radio show in 2019. The district court cleared Räsänen of all charges in March 2022 but the case remains ongoing, as the prosecutor has appealed to a higher court. Räsänen herself has denied all wrongdoing and has declared that she is ready to defend her freedom of speech and religion in all necessary courts, including the European Court of Human Rights, if needed.² The lawsuit is essentially about the limits of the freedom of speech and religion, on the one hand, and non-discrimination and social peace on the other. While the LGBTQ+ communities and their allies, mainstream media included,

1 A somewhat analogous case was heard in Sweden in the beginning of the twentyfirst century when the Pentecostal pastor Åke Green was prosecuted for hate speech because of his opinions on homosexuality in his sermon on July 20, 2003. He was first convicted and sentenced to one month in prison but the court of appeals and, later, the Supreme Court acquitted him. See Inger Österdahl, “Åke Green och missaktande men inte hatiskt tal,” Svensk Juristtidning 91 (2006): 213–26. 2 See Räsänen’s post on her official twitter page, https://twitter.com/PaiviRasanen/status/ 1509999361748520966. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-006

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have largely condemned the tweet, Räsänen has also found supporters, both domestic and international. These include Christian conservatives but others as well.³ For example, many “immigration-critical” politicians have raised their voices in her defense to back up their own position in debates over the limits of the freedom of speech, and Räsänen’s supporters also include public debaters who deeply disagree with her opinions but strongly support her right to express these opinions.⁴ How the lines between the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and hate crimes will ultimately be drawn in this case remains to be seen.⁵ In this essay, we will not deal with the legal aspect of the case, but discuss how the defendant uses and interprets Rom 1:24–32 and other biblical texts and ask what this reveals of her reception of the Bible. We also discuss what the public debate around this case tells us of the status of the Bible in contemporary Finnish society. Our primary source is the 2004 pamphlet because there Räsänen is able to elaborate her views. However, we start from the tweet that triggered the controversy. After analyzing the tweet, we discuss the hermeneutical framework in which Räsänen operates. We then take up three points that we find especially relevant in

3 The case has drawn international attention, e. g., through AFP international, an American evangelical advocacy group. When the news broke that the court date was set, the Executive Director of the organization, Paul Coleman declared: “In a free society, everyone should be allowed to share their beliefs without fear of censorship. The Finnish Prosecutor General’s decision to bring these charges against Dr. Räsänen creates a culture of fear and censorship. It is sobering that such cases are becoming all too common throughout Europe. If committed civil servants like Päivi Räsänen are criminally charged for voicing their deeply held beliefs, it creates a chilling effect for everyone’s right to speak freely.” See “Court date set for Finnish MP charged over Bible-Tweet,” ADF International, https://adfinternational.org/court-date-set-for-finnish-mp-charged-over-bible-tweet/. [Päivi Räsänen’s profession is physician; she is not a doctor in the academic sense of the word.] In November 2021, the major newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that the Prosecutor General had received hundreds of emails from all over the world in support of Räsänen as well as a petition with more than 200,000 signatures, mounted by the advocacy group CitizenGo. See “Valtakunnansyyttäjä hukkuu eri puolilta maailmaa tulevaan palautevyöryyn, koska nosti syytteet Päivi Räsästä vastaan,” Helsingin Sanomat, November 1, 2021, https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art2000008362584.html. 4 On the several opinions, see “Päivi Räsäselle satelee tukea,” Uusi Tie, May 12, 2021, https://uusitie. com/paivi-rasaselle-satelee-tukea/. Among others, Teemu Laajasalo, the Lutheran Bishop of the Helsinki Diocese, strongly disagrees with Räsänen’s views but considers the charges as a serious threat to the freedom of speech and of religion. 5 “Hate speech” is not a legal term in Finland. The charges against Räsänen concern “incitement against a minority group” that is criminalized according to the Criminal Code (39/1889) 11 § 10 (511/ 2011). More in Jussi Karkulainen, “Raamatun siteeraaminen? Rangaistavaa?” [Is Quoting the Bible A Punishable Act?] Oikeus 50 (2021): 386–95.

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her reading of Rom 1. These are the limits of the text, the nature of same-sex relations in the text, and the question of what “deserving death” means in the text.

1 A Tweet with No Comments Räsänen, an active social media user, posted her tweet on June 17, 2019 on Twitter and later on Instagram and Facebook. The tweet criticized the Lutheran church in Finland for sponsoring Helsinki Pride. The tweet consisted of a photo and the text: “How can the Church’s doctrinal foundation, the Bible, be compatible with the lifting up of shame and sin as a subject of pride?” The photo showed a page of the Bible, containing the verses of Rom 1:24–27 according to an older Bible translation (from the 1930s) that for many people sounds “biblical”; its outdated, partly archaic linguistic features have more or less the same effect as the King James Version in the English-speaking world. The text, according to KJV, runs as follows. 24

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

Choosing an older Bible translation that uses words such as “uncleanness,” “shamefulness,” and “vileness” may have been inadvertent; many conservative Christians prefer this translation, which claims to be a “literal” translation, to the latest official Bible translation (from 1992) that the Lutheran church normally uses. The newer translation does not differ much from the older, but it does use more moderate alternatives for such Greek words as ἐπιθυμία and ἀσχημοσύνη (desire instead of lust and indecency instead of vileness). The visual presentation of the tweet shows a biblical passage without any context or commentary. As such, it is a powerful rhetorical tool. It strengthens the impression that what we have here is the “clear word of God” that does not need any explanation or interpretation. The same impact emerges from photos that were taken when Räsänen was on her way to the police investigation. She poses in front of the police station with the Bible in her hands, creating the appearance of someone who remains faithful to the Bible even when prosecuted. Showing the biblical passage without a context has other consequences as well. Combining Bible verses with the text that talks about Pride creates the im-

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pression that they both deal with the same phenomenon, that the apostle Paul is commenting on the Pride event. Because the text uses expressions such as “vile affections” and calls sex with a same-sex partner “unnatural,” it generates a negative stereotype of those who participate in the Pride activities. Moreover, since the text in Rom only talks about sexual acts, quoting it sexualizes LGBTQ+ people and distorts the core idea of the Pride event, which is to promote the rights of LGBTQ+ people. It is precisely this association with homosexuality that has caused offense.⁶ The direct association between Rom 1 and contemporary LGBTQ+ people was rhetorically successful, provoking critical reactions toward the criminal charges. In an extensive interview in Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland, the then Prosecutor General, Raija Toiviainen, reassured the readers that it was not the Bible that was on trial. The question is not about censoring the Bible or imposing present-day standards on ancient texts. The fear that appealing to Christian teachings would be punishable, or that Christian tradition would no longer be accepted, or that Christian views would be excluded from the social debate are unfounded.⁷ What matters is how the Bible is being used. Quoting from the Bible can be criminal if the purpose of the quote is to insult others. “You cannot hide behind a citation. The point is that a crime can be committed if you quote the Bible with the intent to offend others.”⁸ Toiviainen also explicitly mentioned the Qur’an and its use. In the ensuing public debate, however, this has gone largely unnoticed. Those who have been most concerned about the curtailment of Christian freedom of speech have not publicly defended the right of Muslims to express their opinions that might run counter the values of the secular society.⁹ Even though Räsänen’s tweet gives the impression that the Bible quote speaks directly of the contemporary circumstances and its message is clear and timeless, her understanding of the passage is but one example of its interpretation and use. The role of the interpreter is crucial in the generation of the meaning of the text. It is not possible to justify one’s opinions in a tweet limited to 280 characters. Räsänen deals with the text of Rom 1 in more detail in the pamphlet, which she published fifteen years earlier, in 2004, and behind which she says she continues to

6 Karkulainen, “Raamatun siteeraaminen,” 389–91. 7 Paavo Teittinen, “Raamattu-siteeraus voi olla rikos, sanoo valtakunnansyyttäjä: ‘Ei pyhien kirjojen avulla saa loukata toisen ihmisarvoa,” Helsingin Sanomat, November 20, 2019. 8 According to Toiviainen, this is the core of the matter from the legal perspective. This is also emphasized in the title of the interview, which in English is “Citing the Bible Can Be a Crime, Says the Prosecutor General: ‘Scriptures Must Not Be Used to Offend the Dignity of Others.’” 9 On the contrary, the same people who condemn the “censoring” of Räsänen’s Bible-based opinions often criticize Qur’an-based Muslim views as “inappropriate” for Finnish society. For examples, see Timo Stewart’s chapter in this volume.

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stand.¹⁰ Next, we will analyze her arguments in the pamphlet and the parameters that guide her reception of Rom 1.

2 Male and Female He Created Them – Räsänen’s Hermeneutical Presuppositions The title of Räsänen’s approximately 20-page pamphlet is translated as Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity. ¹¹ Räsänen wrote it for the so-called Luther Foundation, a conservative organization at that time still within the Lutheran Church. The organization was founded in 1999 to gather those members of the Lutheran clergy and laity who opposed the ordination of women into the ministry. In 2013, the congregations established by the foundation formed an independent Lutheran church called the (Evangelical Lutheran) Mission Diocese. The pamphlet continues to be found on their website, both in Finnish and in English.¹² The publication of the booklet was financially sponsored by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation, the service organization of the Missouri Synod, the conservative Lutheran denomination in the United States. The publication appeared when the Finnish parliament had passed an act on registered partnership that allowed same-sex couples over 18 years of age to register their relationship officially, and when the debate on same-sex marriages was only beginning.¹³ The core message of the pamphlet is to argue against homosexual

10 In an interview on the eve of the court hearing Räsänen declared, “I have carefully gone through these writings and statements that are under review. And yes, I still stand behind them.” https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12277736 11 The title in Finnish is Mieheksi ja naiseksi Hän heidät loi: Homosuhteet haastavat kristillisen ihmiskäsityksen. The pamphlet has been translated into English after the beginning of the police investigation against Räsänen; see https://www.lhpk.fi/en/booklet-male-and-female-he-createdthem-homosexual-relationships-challenge-the-christian-concept-of-humanity-paivi-rasanen/. In this chapter, we refer to the English version of the pamphlet. 12 “Aamutähti #29: Mieheksi ja naiseksi hän heidät loi,” Suomen Luther-säätiö, http://www.lu thersaatio.fi/question/aamutahti-29-mieheksi-ja-naiseksi-han-heidat-loi/. The webpage calls the pamphlet an “information booklet” (informaatiokirjanen) and highlights Räsänen’s competence as a Member of Parliament who knows the legislation, a medical doctor who understands “psychological distractions,” and a Christian who is able to summarize the “unequivocal teachings of the Bible, the will of God.” For the English version, see previous footnote. 13 The immediate cause for the writing and publishing of the document was the ecclesiastical discussion within the Lutheran church. In November 2003, two directly opposed initiatives related to homosexuality had been taken by the General Synod, the highest decision-making body in the

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behavior in general and same-sex partnership in particular, and to warn against the consequences of complying with the demand to allow homosexuals to marry and adopt children.¹⁴ The booklet is divided into two sections, the first dealing with “impacts on society,” the second “the Bible and the Church” – as if reflecting the Lutheran two kingdoms doctrine.¹⁵ In the first part, Räsänen discusses legislative issues, changing family values, sexual education, causes of homosexual orientation, individualism, etc. without citing any biblical passages. However, the explicit starting point of her discussion is the binding nature of the Bible that, in her view, is “irresistibly clear” on the question of homosexuality.¹⁶ A guiding hermeneutical principle for Räsänen is the unity of the Bible and its ethical teaching. The Bible must be taken in its entirety, without cutting anything off. She states, in the form of a personal confession, Over the years, I, too, might have torn out many portions from my Bible if I had been authorised to build my own image or picture of God that suited my own sense of justice. I have noticed that this only reveals how limited and warped my understanding is. People who submit themselves to God’s guidance in the Bible are repeatedly amazed at how the very Bible teachings hardest to understand contain God’s deep wisdoms.¹⁷

In the second part of her piece, Räsänen supports her points with biblical arguments. She refers to a number of passages but gives a more detailed explanation only of Paul’s discussion in Rom 1:24–32 (to which we turn below). Somewhat surprisingly, the section containing this long quote together with several references to the Old Testament (Gen 19:1–11; Lev 18:22; 20:13)¹⁸ is headed “The Words of Christ and Homosexuals.” This is another indication of how Räsänen takes the Bible as a unified whole. According to her, the Old Testament is as indispensable for Christians as the New Testament, for Jesus did not nullify the Mosaic law.¹⁹ This means

Church. The first proposed creating a new rite of blessing for those who have registered their partnership under the new law, while the second sought to deny Church office to those who had thus registered their partnership. Neither initiative received sufficient support but they were rejected. 14 Compare her claim, “I consider it entirely possible that homosexuality may increase when it is favored at the legislative level alongside heterosexual relationships.” Male and Female, 8. 15 According to Martin Luther, God rules the world in two ways: through the temporal kingdom of the state, based on the law, and through the eternal spiritual kingdom, based on grace. See the Lutheran Confession, Apologia Confessio Augustanae XVI. 16 Male and Female, 3. 17 Male and Female, 3. 18 In the original Finnish version, Räsänen mistakenly gives the reference as Lev 20:20. This is corrected in the English translation. 19 This claim seems to be based on passages such as Matt 5:18 where Jesus says: “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the

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that “the entire Bible is ultimately the Words of Christ. His teachings are not only the Gospels, but also, for example, the Letter of the Apostle Paul to the Church of Rome.”²⁰ If the readers of the Bible begin to pick and choose what suits them, they are in danger of losing everything: “How could I believe the most wonderful Biblical message of Jesus’ atoning death and His historic resurrection if I thought the Bible is full of messages totally inappropriate to our day and age?”²¹ Räsänen’s rhetoric is likely to appeal to her like-minded audience but is also open for criticism. First, she does not admit that instead of one absolute biblical truth there are different ways of perceiving the text. She disregards the fact that different Christian interpreters have understood Paul’s text in various ways, simply claiming that in these Christian circles, “these Biblical guidelines are regarded as void in this day and age.”²² In other words, she asserts that they no longer take the Bible seriously. Räsänen’s understanding is shaped by the interpretative practice of her Christian tradition, which regards sexuality positively as a gift of God – as long as it is practiced in a heterosexual marriage. All other types of sexual acts are distorted by sin and are damaging to those who practice them.²³ Räsänen and her interpretative community take for granted that the modern heterosexual marriage and nuclear family correspond to the biblical concepts of marriage and households, without considering the many changes that have modified the family institution and without problematizing polygamy, patriarchal order, or other historical aspects that characterize biblical marriage. Similarly, it is obvious for them that the Bible speaks of homosexuals in the passages that condemn sexual intercourse between same-sex partners. Moreover, the claim that the Bible forms a unified whole in which everything is binding and nothing must be cut out is simply impossible to maintain. Räsänen herself is unable to adhere to this standard, as the following example concerning the death penalty issued by the Mosaic law clearly shows. In the original version, Räsänen quotes the verse Lev 20:13 but “tears out” a crucial part, shown in square brackets: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. [They are to be put to death.] They

law until all is accomplished.” In other passages, however, Jesus’s teaching clearly depart from the Mosaic law, most markedly in Mark 7:19 (“he declared all foods clean”), see also Matt 5:38–39. 20 Male and Female, 16–17. 21 Male and Female, 4. 22 Male and Female, 3. 23 “God has also created sexual pleasure to enrich man’s and woman’s lives. In a responsible marriage between a woman and a man, in the framework intended by God, sex is natural.” Male and Female, 19–20. Celebrating sexual pleasure is a modern perception. For generations, Christian tradition has been in many ways reserved toward heterosexual pleasure, also within marriage.

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have deserved to die.” Leaving out the order to kill may be accidental; the English translation includes this part of the verse but omits the last words.²⁴ It also coheres with Räsänen’s dilemma with the interpretation of this command. On the one hand, she insists that the Mosaic law in all its detail is still valid – it is part of the “words of Christ.” On the other hand, she has made clear elsewhere that she has never suggested that homosexuals should be killed; in her words, “that would be a horrible idea.”²⁵ She resolves this apparent contradiction theologically: the death penalty is absolute but there is no need to carry it out because Christ has died for all sinners. This logic, however, falls apart since it calls into question the whole concept of social justice. It is generally accepted in Räsänen’s Lutheran tradition that divine mercy and social justice operate on different levels. It is hardly conceivable that in her role as the Minister of Interior, responsible, among other things, for the police force, Räsänen would have advocated the view that no societal punishment needs to be enforced on criminals since Christ has suffered the punishment of all sinners. Naturally, sex with a same-sex partner is not a punishable crime in presentday Finland, but this has not always been the case. Several stipulations of the Mosaic law, including the death penalty for sex between men, became a part of the national law in Sweden (that also ruled Finland) in the early seventeenth century (1608).²⁶ The law was also executed; there are roughly twenty known cases of men being sentenced to death based on Lev 20:13.²⁷ From the seventeenth century perspective, it would be unheard of not to pass a sentence on those who were caught in homosexual acts because Christ had atoned for them. This shows how deeply embedded different biblical interpretations are in their historical contexts. Räsänen’s theologizing of the punishment ordered by the Mosaic law helps her to avoid the consequences of the literal understanding of Lev 20:13, unbearable for her and other present-day readers. It may be asked, however, whether her claim that the verse remains valid holds when she clearly dismisses part of it.

24 Male and Female, 16. 25 She stated in an interview in the conservative Christian newspaper Uusi Tie: “I have never said so [that homosexuals should be killed] and I do not think so. That would be a horrible idea.” The interview is entitled “This Question Is in God’s Hand.” “ʻTämä asia on Jumalan kädessä,’” Uusi Tie, January 8, 2020, https://uusitie.com/tama-asia-on-jumalan-kadessa/. 26 Martti Takala, Lex Dei – Lex Politica Dei: Lex Politica Dei –teos ja Kaarle IX:n lainsäädäntö [Lex Politica Dei and the Legislation of Carl IX of Sweden], Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran toimituksia 160 (Helsinki: Suomen kirkkohistoriallinen seura, 1993), 208. 27 Jonas Liliequist, “Staten och ‘sodomiten’: Tystnaden kring honosexuella handlingar i 1600- och 1700-talets Sverige,” Lambda Nordica 1 (1995): 9–31.

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Räsänen’s argumentation shows that being faithful to the whole Bible is a rhetorical cliché. In reality, no one can observe everything; every interpreter must choose what parts they consider binding – and what this means in practice. The choice is largely determined by the interpretive tradition, whether the interpreter acknowledges this or not. Most present-day readers do not encounter the biblical text directly but through layers of earlier interpretations. In Räsänen’s case, too, her understanding of Paul’s discussion in Rom 1 follows the traditional course of conservative Christian interpretative strategies. One aspect of this has to do with the extent of the quote. Next, we will turn to the limits of her quote and see how they influence the meaning she gives to the text.

3 The Limits of the Quote Guide the Meaning of the Text The key biblical passage in Räsänen’s writing is Rom 1:24–32. However, most Bible translations, the Finnish translations included, take a larger portion of text, namely verses 18–32, as belonging together and separate this section with a heading.²⁸ The justification for limiting the discussion to verses 24–32 might be the change of focus in Paul’s text between verses 23 and 24. Whereas vv. 18–23 are about the relationship between God and humans, verses 24–32 deal with human interrelations.²⁹ Because of the elimination of the preceding verses, the first word of the quote in Räsänen’s text is “therefore” (διό). In her exposition, Räsänen does not comment on this word or explain to what it refers. Leaving out the preceding verses means that verses 24–32 are taken out of their immediate literary context, which, in turn, means that the logic of Paul’s discourse is no longer guiding the interpretation of the passage. Even though a longstanding Christian tradition takes Rom 1 as a description of the fallen state of humanity, the link between the fall and same-sex relations is by no means obvious.³⁰ Paul does not refer to Adam, Eve, and the fall explicitly (as he does, for instance, elsewhere in the letter in Rom 5:12; see also 1 Cor 15:21–22.) Instead, he gives an28 The headings typically focus on human sinfulness and guilt: “God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness” (NKJV and ESV); “God’s Wrath against Sinful Humanity” (NIV); “The Guilt of Humankind” (NRSV). The Finnish equivalent “Ihmisten syyllisyys” corresponds to the last alternative. 29 This is how the passage is structured by Robert Jewett, for instance: Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), 148, 165. 30 See Dale Martin, “Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Rom 1:18–32” in Dale Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 52–55.

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other reason for sexual misconduct, namely, idolatry.³¹ In the verses that Räsänen excludes from her discussion (vv. 18–23), Paul maintains that God’s will is manifest and clear for all people to understand but there are those who “suppress the truth” (v. 18). They have not honored and given thanks to God but “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (v. 23). In other words, they have begun to worship idols. For this reason (“therefore” v. 24), God has “given them up” (παρέδωκεν) to the power of their desires which manifests itself in improper sexual relations. Thus, Rom 1 does not depict sex between same-sex partners as a manifestation of the distortion caused by Adam’s fall. Paul is not describing the fallen state of all humanity but the wickedness of pagan polytheists. Exchanging the worship of the Creator for worshipping and serving the creature corresponds to exchanging the truth of God for the lie (v. 25). Paul continues his argument in Rom 2, where he claims that Jews are as sinful as pagans. Jews are guilty, however, because they act against the law. Pagans are guilty because they are idolaters. Neither can escape God’s wrath. Sex with a same-sex partner is the consequence of the pagan idol worship, and is not listed among the errors of the Jews. Räsänen’s reading only contains a distant echo of this as she writes, “Paul sees homosexuality and its acceptance as a consequence of giving up the worship of God.”³² Even though she here seems to follow Paul’s words, her explanation of the existence of same-sex relations is not based on Paul’s teaching but modern psychology. In other words, despite her claim of being loyal to everything in the Bible, she puts aside what Paul says about the origins of same-sex relations. She does not blame idolatry but “psychosexual developmental disorder,” for “we know more about the origins of homosexuality today than was known at the time when the Bible was written.”³³ The unacceptable sexual relations (from Paul’s point of view) are not only a consequence of idolatry but a divine punishment for it. It is God who has abandoned idol worshippers to their hateful mutual relationships (“therefore God gave them up to … dishonor their bodies among themselves”). The logic between the theological error and sexual behavior is so central that Paul repeats it three times, first in verse 24 and then in verses 26–27 and 28–31: “For this reason (διὰ τοῦτο) God gave them up (παρέδωκεν) to vile passions” (v. 26) and “As (καθώς) they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up (παρέδωκεν) to a debased mind” (v. 28.) 31 Idolatry and sexual misconduct (fornication, adultery) are also connected in Jewish tradition; see Jer 3:1–13; 13:27; Hos 4:10–15. 32 Male and Female, 17. 33 Male and Female, 18.

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This leads Paul to give a list of vices that shows the “debased mind” of the idol worshippers in vv. 29–31. They are full of all wickedness, evil, greed, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, and craftiness; they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Strikingly, sex with same-sex partners does not appear in the list.³⁴ For Paul, the worship of idols is the root of all these evils. Räsänen includes the vice list in her quote but does not comment on it or discuss it at all. It seems that the verses are there because only in this way can she also include v. 32, which is important to her argument. Before we turn to her reading of this verse, we will discuss how Räsänen construes what the text says about same-sex relations.

4 The Nature of Same-sex Relations It is clear that in Rom 1 Paul disapproves of sex with same-sex partners. It is, however, less clear what he means by these relations and why they are so offensive to him. Paul does not explain his conviction; he simply assumes that his audience shares his view. He links two characteristics with these relations. First, they are “contrary to nature” (παρὰ φύσιν); second, they result from exchanging (μετήλλαξαν in vv. 26 and 27) the natural relation for an unnatural one. This exchange reflects the original erroneous exchange (ἤλλαξαν in v. 23) of the worship of the one true God to worshipping idols, as explained above. This terminological choice has led many commentators to conclude that, according to Paul, all people orientate themselves, by nature, towards the opposite sex. The concept of “homosexual orientation” would be inconceivable for him – instead, he talks about sexual acts between same-sex partners performed by those who do not serve the true God.³⁵ These actions that Paul describes as “contrary to nature” (παρὰ φύσιν) are the result of “the lusts of their hearts” (ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν) and “vile passions” (πάθη ἀτιμίας). These lusts and passions are the consequence of the lack of proper understanding: “they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (v. 21). This logic comes close to the Stoic view of desire according to which human beings want what they perceive to be good.³⁶ If their per-

34 Some manuscripts add πορνεία (sexual immorality) to the list but do not specifically bring up same-sex relations. 35 Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 124–26, 131–32; Jewett, Romans, 177. 36 Niko Huttunen, Paul and Epictetus on Law: A Comparison, Library of the New Testament Studies 405 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 59–62.

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ception of good is wrong, their desire is also misdirected. The Stoics call the misdirected desire “lust” (ἐπιθυμία) which is one of the four basic categories of “false emotion” (πάθος). These are precisely the words Paul uses in his discussion. To better understand what “natural” (φυσικός) and “contrary to nature” mean in this context, it is instructive to see the diverse ways in which Paul uses nature language in his other letters and how commentators have understood his argument in Rom 1. Sometimes φύσις indicates origin, e. g., when Paul declares himself and his addressees “Jews by nature” (Gal 2:15; see also Rom 2:27; Gal 4:8) or talks about grafting an olive branch that is “wild by nature” onto a cultivated olive tree (Rom 11:21–24). In the last-mentioned passage, the grafting of a wild branch onto a cultivated tree is “contrary to nature” (παρὰ φύσιν) but this “unnaturalness” is not perceived in negative terms. Sometimes φύσις refers to “inborn instinct,” e. g., when Paul says that lawless Gentiles do “by nature” what the Law requires (Rom 2:14) and sometimes “nature” seems to be no more than a conventional custom.³⁷ This is the case in Paul’s discussion of the veiling of women (1 Cor 11:3–16) where he claims that “nature itself teaches” that long hair is a disgrace for a man but a glory for a woman (vv. 14–15). Strictly speaking, “nature” does not teach so, for male and female hair grows “by nature” in the same manner if it is not cut. What Paul calls “natural” is what he considers normal and socially acceptable. It is obvious that the changed attitudes toward homosexuality in Western societies have also altered the scholarly interpretations of Paul’s text. As long as homosexuality was considered a sin, a crime, or a disorder, it was natural to think that Paul shared this view. The need to challenge this traditional interpretation arose with the acceptance of homosexuality.³⁸ While many commentators are convinced that Paul is not talking about homosexuality in any modern sense, there is variation among scholarly views, too.³⁹ The cultural, social, and religious context

37 Koester, Helmut, φύσις κτλ. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament 9 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1973), 246–71.; Martti Nissinen, “Creation, Nature, and Gender Ideology,” The Against Nature Journal 1 (2020): 98–105. 38 As late as 1993, Joseph Fitzmyer talked about homosexuality as “sexual perversion” and “moral perversion”; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 275, 285. This kind of language was typical for older scholarly treatments of Rom 1. Most commentaries written in the current century prefer to speak of “homoeroticism” to differentiate between Paul’s notion and modern views of homosexuality; see Jewett, Romans, 176–78. 39 Examples of conservative views on the issue include Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2001), 229–97; see also Jean-Baptiste Edart, “The New Testament and Homosexuality,” in The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality, ed. Innocent Himbaza et al. (Washingon, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 73– 107.

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in which scholars work affects their way of reading Paul. There is no neutral position and no obvious meaning of the text.⁴⁰ Räsänen represents a different view. While she explains the existence of homosexuality in modern terms as a psychological disorder, and admits that homosexuality in the modern sense did not exist in Paul’s time, she claims that Paul knew the same phenomenon. She argues that homosexuality was prominent and widely accepted in Paul’s culture.⁴¹ She also gives a theological explanation for the existence of homosexuality. It is the result of the Fall that has “distorted God-created sexuality” and, thus, it is contrary to nature. Paul, however, does not link nature with creation.⁴² He does use the word “creation” (κτίσις) twice in Rom 1, but the first occurrence is in a temporal expression (“since the creation of the world”; ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου, v. 20) and the second explains idolatry (“they worshiped the creation instead of the creator”; ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα, v. 25). Neither has directly to do with same-sex relations, which makes Räsänen’s claim that “the Apostle Paul considers homosexuality to be contrary to God’s order of creation” an overstatement.⁴³ Räsänen rejects the claim that “the Bible would only forbid homosexual relationships wherein one male partner is subjected to and abused by the other.”⁴⁴ She rightly points out that Paul is also talking about women.⁴⁵ At the same time, she wishes to show that the Bible does not accept same-sex relations based on love and mutual respect. The Greek speaks of men in general (ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν), without further qualifications. Räsänen concludes:

40 Strikingly, Himbaza et al. claim that in writing about “the Bible and the question of homosexuality” they are able to “to give themselves to the text without personal or ecclesial interpretation”; Himbaza et al., The Bible on the Question of Homosexuality, 2. 41 Male and Female, 17. Räsänen justifies her claim by referring to Plato, without addressing the chronological gap between Plato (who died in the fourth century BCE) and Paul. 42 Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World, 107. 43 Male and Female, 17. In the Finnish debate, equating “nature” with “creation” is almost unavoidable since both words derive from the same root (luonto – luominen). Many conservative commentators claim that Paul rejects same-sex relations because they are contrary to creation, even though Paul does not explicitly say so. For example, according to Gagnon, the “intertextual connection between Rom 1:23 and Gen 1:26 (LXX) is unmistakable”; Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 289. See also Edart, “The New Testament and Homosexuality,” 88–92. 44 Male and Female, 18. This has been argued, e. g., by Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). 45 On the question of female homoeroticism in Rom 1, see Bernadette J. Brooten, Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996), 215–66.

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The spectrum of homosexual love seems to have been as vast as in the Western culture of today. Why would the Apostle Paul have only meant submissive homosexual relationships when he does not mention anything which refers to submission??⁴⁶

Moreover, she points out, Paul must be talking about equal relationships between men and women, because he talks about reciprocity between men who “burn in lust for one another” (Rom 1:27). Reciprocity, however, is not the same as equality. “Lust for one another” can also occur in subordinate relationships, as in the story of the Fall where God predicts of the woman: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16).

5 Who Deserves to Die and What Does It Mean? Even though Räsänen’s explanation of Paul’s argument in Rom only focuses on verses 24–27, she extends her quote further, up to the end of verse 32. The vice list in verses 28–31 does not play any role in her exposition; she does not comment on any of the twenty-one vices mentioned. Apparently, she has not cut them out in order to be able to include verse 32 in her discussion that runs as follows: “They know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die and yet they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them” (Rom 1:32). This verse is so significant for her that she refers to it three times altogether.⁴⁷ In Räsänen’s reading, “such things” (τὰ τοιαῦτα) refer to homosexual acts and Paul juxtaposes those who do them with those who accept them. She concludes, Paul equates the commission of sin and the approval of sin in strikingly similar terms of condemnation (Romans 1:32). The Church is in great peril where it is tempted to demonstrate its approval of homosexual relationships.⁴⁸

46 Male and Female, 19. It is noteworthy that the two other New Testament passages that have traditionally been associated with homosexuality (1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10) do not play a role in Räsänen’s discussion. She does not even mention the latter one and only refers to the first in passing. While the meaning of the key words μαλακός and ἀρσενοκοίτης is contested, they have been taken to refer to the active and passive partners in male sexual intercourse. This implies a hierarchical, unequal relation which does not fit Räsänen’s claim that Paul talks about mutual, equal relationships. For the interpretation of 1 Cor 6:9 and 1 Tim 1:10, see Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World, 113–18. 47 Male and Female, 17, 18, 20. 48 Male and Female, 20.

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This conforms with the rhetorical tone of the whole pamphlet, which is constructed as a warning to the Lutheran church that death will be the fate of the Church if it shows “approval of homosexual relationships.” As the primary audience of the pamphlet, however, is likely to consist of like-minded Christians, the warning to others functions to strengthen those of the same mind. This kind of argument ignores the preceding verses (28–31) and links death with the sexual conduct described in verses 26–27. Paul does not connect death directly with same-sex relations but with the other twenty-one vices, such as greed, envy, arrogance, and disobedience against parents. Despite its length, the vice list is not exhaustive, offering examples of evils that result from deserting God and that deserve death. Given Paul’s negative judgment of sex with a same-sex partner, it is likely that he would include it in his list of vices that deserve death, even though he does not say so explicitly. From this perspective, Räsänen’s interpretation is not totally unfounded. However, it is tendentious when it singles out same-sex relations that are only implicitly included and keeps silent about all the explicitly mentioned vices. Logically, Räsänen should also be worried that the Church is in great danger if it fails to reject greed, envy, arrogance, disobedience to parents and all the other faults. Räsänen’s discussion leaves open how she understands Paul’s declaration that sinners “deserve to die” (literally, “are worthy of death,” ἄξιοι θανάτου εἰσίν). She returned to this question fifteen years after the publication of the pamphlet, when the police started the criminal investigation against her in the fall of 2019. In the original interview with the Prosecutor General Raija Toiviainen in Helsingin Sanomat (see above), the journalist who wrote the story made the straightforward interpretation that Paul “refers to homosexual men, calls them unclean and says they should be killed.”⁴⁹ Räsänen reacted immediately through her Facebook page. She claimed that the report in Helsingin Sanomat “contained serious and dangerous errors” that made her ask herself “whether knowledge of the foundations of the Christian faith is so weak or whether there is a deliberate misunderstanding.” According to her, Paul speaks of “spiritual death that concerns us all – and that is why we all need Jesus.”⁵⁰ Räsänen’s protest is well founded as far as Paul’s text is concerned. Whatever “worthy of death” means for Paul, he is not saying that men who have sex with a same-sex partner should be killed. First of all, he is not associating death directly 49 Teittinen, “Raamattu-siteeraus,” Helsingin Sanomat, November 20, 2019. After a flood of feedback, the newspaper published a correction notice in which they admitted that Paul does not say that men who have gay sex should be killed but that they deserve to die. 50 “Päivi Räsänen: HS:n jutussa vaarallisia virheitä,” Verkkouutiset, November 21, 2020. https:// www.verkkouutiset.fi/paivi-rasanen-hsn-jutussa-oli-vaarallisia-virheita/#c0af67d3.

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with sexual misconduct but with the vices he lists in verses 28–31. Secondly, even though the Mosaic Law orders that “men who lie with men” shall be put to death and they deserve to die (Lev 20:13; see above), it is doubtful that Paul’s words reflect this.⁵¹ While the last sin in the list of vices, disobedience to parents, also deserves capital punishment according to the Mosaic Law (see also Deut 21:18–21), most of the evils listed, such as boasting or gossiping, “could not conceivably carry a death penalty in any code.”⁵² Third, Paul is making a theological argument, not giving instructions on how communities or individuals should act. It is likely that Paul’s reference to death is part of his rhetorical embellishment and not an allusion to a particular law.⁵³ On the other hand, “spiritual death” is also a vague expression and open to several interpretations. While Räsänen is certainly not urging people to violence against sexual minorities, the direct linkage of homosexuality with Paul’s rhetoric of “deserving death” runs the risk of creating such an interpretation. Words are not innocent. To say that a certain group of people, say, an ethnic minority, “deserves to die,” can easily be taken as an incentive to carry out the wish. The history of Christianity contains many examples of how claims such as “heretics deserve to die” or “Jews deserve to die” have led to actions.

6 Conclusion The debate concerning homosexuality and Rom 1 shows that, contrary to the rhetoric used, there is no unbiased reading of biblical texts. No present-day reader is entirely faithful to the biblical text because our changed circumstances do not allow us to perceive the text in the same way as its first audience. We can only be faithful to our interpretative traditions. Indeed, we do not read as independent individuals but as members of interpretative communities. Earlier interpretations build layers between us and the text, even where we become critical of these ear-

51 The two verses, Rom 1:32 and LXX Lev 20:13 do not resemble each other in Greek as closely as they do in many modern translations. Most modern translations (the Finnish translations included) use the same expression, “deserve to die,” but Rom 1:32 speaks of those who are “worthy of death” (ἄξιοι θανάτου εἰσίν) while LXX Lev 20:13 phrases “they are liable to death” (θανάτῳ … ἔνοχοί εἰσιν). According to the Göttingen edition, there are no LXX manuscripts closer to Paul’s wording. 52 C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans: Introduction and Commentary on Romans I–VIII, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), 134. 53 Thus, e. g., Jewett, Romans, 191. He also rejects the common interpretation that Paul is referring to the Fall that brought death to the world.

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lier interpretations. While new contexts and changing circumstances call for new reading strategies, our interpretations never exist in a void but develop in dialogue with other readings. This also applies scholarly treatments of biblical texts. As members of the guild, biblical scholars are as dependent as any reader of the Bible is on their own situation, their interpretive community, and their own presuppositions – all this has led to a variety of exegetical interpretations of Rom 1. Training in biblical scholarship, however, should carry with it both a sensitivity for the historical context of biblical texts and an awareness of the biases created by the particular situation in which the scholar works. When Räsänen published her pamphlet in 2004, it received very little attention beyond her own circles. Her views gained more visibility in 2010 when she was invited to be one of 18 guests in a television talk show on homosexuality. Her appearance in the show provoked strong reactions among the spectators. Even though Räsänen did not represent the Lutheran church in the show, tens of thousands of members left the church as a protest.⁵⁴ At the same time, she was treated as a hero by those who shared her religious or political views. Lately, however, critical voices have also been heard from within the party, according to which her uncompromising views on homosexuality have become a burden on the party.⁵⁵ The fact that the pamphlet ended up in a police investigation fifteen years after its publication shows the profound change in the attitudes toward homosexuality and same-sex marriage in Finnish society during this time.⁵⁶ This change has been rapid. Homosexual acts were decriminalized in 1971 and removed from the classification of disorders in 1981. Yet public incitement to commit same-sex acts remained punishable until 1999. Finally, an act on registered partnership was passed in 2001 and a bill on equal marriage in 2014. The law has been in effect since March 1, 2017.

54 Salomäki et al., Community, Participation, and Faith Contemporary Challenges of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Publication Church Research Centre 62 (Tampere: The Church Research Institute, 2013), 11, 57. 55 For example, in the party’s newspaper, the party secretary, Aimo Maanselkä, has called for a “more humane approach to Christian Democracy” that emphasizes love of neighbor instead of “rock-hard attitudes toward sexual minorities.” “Asmo Maanselän kolumni: Kissa pöydälle,” KDlehti, August 20, 2021, https://www.kdlehti.fi/2021/08/20/asmo-maanselan-kolumni-kissa-poydalle/. 56 Details in Laura Kallatsa, Homoseksuaalisuus ja papit: Suomen evankelis-luterilaisen kirkon pappien käsitykset samaa sukupuolta olevien avioliitosta ja asenteet homoseksuaalisuutta kohtaan [Homosexuality and the Clergy: How Pastors in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Finland Perceive Same-Sex Marriage and Homosexuality], Publications of the University of Eastern Finland: Dissertations in Education, Humanities and Theology 156 (Joensuu: University of Eastern Finland, 2020), 40–43.

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According to surveys, attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage are more averse among older generations. This is natural, considering the fact that most of them were raised to reject same-sex relations as a sin, a crime, and a psychological disorder. The younger generations no longer share this history. Our assumption is, however, that the opinion represented by Räsänen will not disappear. The disavowal of homosexuality based on biblical arguments will not die out but it is likely that this opinion will become even more marginalized and the general public will find it ever stranger. How will this affect the general public’s attitude to the Bible? The future will tell whether these types of public expressions will marginalize the Bible even more and whether the general public will find the Bible ever stranger.

Kasper Bro Larsen

“Render unto Caesar”: Jesus and the Lutheran Liberal Bible in Debates on Religion and Politics in Denmark since 2000 1 Introduction: Bible Reception and Critical Discourse Theory¹ One of the most defining moments in recent Danish history and self-understanding was the Muhammad cartoon crisis prompted by the twelve caricatures of the Islamic prophet published in the national newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005. The cartoons led to various reactions in the Muslim world, from a peaceful boycott of Danish products such as Lurpak butter to violent attacks on Danish foreign embassies and death threats against the cartoonists. In Denmark, the crisis increased public concern over radical Islamist terrorism as an ever-looming threat to society, and it triggered energetic public debates over freedom of speech, inclusive language, and religion in the public sphere. In this context, the Danish centerright Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Venstre, Denmark’s Liberal Party, 2001–2009) published a programmatic feature article in the leading newspaper Politiken on May 20, 2006. Under the headline “Faith and Politics: Keep Religion Indoors,” he stated: “In my view on religion and society, I am heavily influenced by Jesus’ famous words: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s’.”² It may come as a surprise to find a contemporary northern European politician quoting a religious authority to reinforce an argument for secularism. After all, at the end of the twentieth century it was a social scientific truism that religious arguments were rare and of little value in Nordic politics, by contrast to,

1 For valuable comments on this article, I wish to thank Louise Heldgaard Bylund, René Falkenberg, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Outi Lehtipuu, Ole Jakob Løland, Jacob Mortensen, and Erich B. Pracht as well as the attendees at the virtual session in the Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship Unit, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, November 21, 2021. 2 Anders Fogh Rasmussen, “Tro og politik: Hold religionen indendørs,” Politiken, May 20, 2006, third section, 6. Quotations from Scandinavian languages appear in my own translation. For a collection of academic studies of Rasmussen’s feature article, see Peter Lodberg, ed., Sammenhængskraften: Replikker til Fogh (Højbjerg: Univers, 2007). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-007

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for example, the American context.³ To some extent this is still the case, also in Denmark, where secularism and the privatization of religion are general trends, even if contradicted by the fact that the Lutheran church is supported by the state according to the constitution of 1849 and, for example, is responsible for the civil registration system. In this culture of religious privatization, however, it is no longer a political taboo to invoke the Christian heritage. As this article shows, Fogh Rasmussen is by no means the only Danish politician to use Jesus’ well-known “Render unto Caesar” maxim. In fact, this maxim surfaces regularly in contemporary Danish politics and public debates, often among highly profiled politicians, debaters, and journalists, where it has become a rhetorical trope that serves as a boundary marker, legitimating a variety of political agendas. Recently, in February 2020, the then Minister of Culture and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Joy Mogensen (the center-left Social Democratic Party, 2019–2021) declared in an interview that the saying was her favorite quotation from the Bible.⁴ This article aims to analyze how Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” maxim is used in contemporary public debate in Denmark. As such, the article is a case study of Bible reception in a modern political context. The study of Bible reception is a relatively new discipline within biblical studies. It has often been practiced as a means by which biblical scholars could measure the extent to which posterity had understood or misunderstood a given biblical text in its so-called original meaning. Such an approach, however, is too simplistic. Admittedly, it does increase our awareness of ideological biases and anachronisms in later ecclesial and political Bible receptions. For example, it may call attention to the fact that “Render unto Caesar” in its first-century context did not aim at legitimizing Christian emperors, promulgating the separation of church and state, or advocating secularism, just to mention a few of the uses made of the saying in later reception history. But this kind of approach tends to disregard the fact that even the extant first-century versions of the saying are receptions and that its meanings are notoriously difficult to determine. While some biblical scholars consider the saying to be a Jewish antiRoman slogan implying that the whole of creation is God’s and not Caesar’s, others

3 Ole Riis, “Om samfundsreligionen,” Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 6 (1985): 19: “In our Danish context, an appeal to the civil religion would in most cases appear untrustworthy if spoken by the Prime Minister.” 4 “Fem skarpe om Bibelen til Joy Mogensen,” Bibelselskabet, February 20, 2020, https://www.bi belselskabet.dk/fem-skarpe-om-bibelen-til-joy-mogensen. See similar statements by Connie Hedegaard, former minister (2004–2009) and European commissioner (2009–2014; representing the center-right Conservative People’s Party), in Lars Nørgaard Pedersen, ed., For alt hvad du har kært – om tro og kristendom (Copenhagen: Jyllands-Postens Forlag, 2008), 143.

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understand it as an apologetic statement signaling early Christian loyalty to the Roman emperor.⁵ The approach in this article regards Bible reception as a much more complex phenomenon than simply a comparison of first-century meanings of a given text and its later receptions. As I have argued, together with Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Outi Lehtipuu in the introduction of this book, Bible reception must be studied multidimensionally.⁶ Bible reception is a kind of intertextuality where the relation of later reporting texts to the reported originals is less interesting than, in the words of discourse analyst Norman Fairclough, “how reported texts and voices are recontextualized within the reporting text—positioned and framed in relation to each other and in relation to the authorial voice.”⁷ Bible receptions are events of recontextualization in which authorial voices attach biblical texts and symbols to existing cultural and societal discourses. By discourse, I mean (paraphrasing Fairclough, who is again indebted to Michel Foucault) a group of statements that communicates a certain way of representing aspects of the material, mental, and social world.⁸ Below, I shall identify and analyze the general discourses that are drawn upon and played into by contemporary Danish politicians and prominent debaters when using Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” saying. But first a few words on method.

2 “Render unto Caesar” as a Political Boundary Marker According to the comprehensive Danish media monitoring database Infomedia (www.infomedia.dk, visited on Jan 12, 2021), Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” saying has been cited in as many as 415 articles in Danish national newspapers since Jan-

5 On the interpretation and reception history of the saying, see Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, EKK I/3 (Zürich & Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger & Neukirchener Verlag, 1997), 254–57; François Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Lk 19,28−24,53), EKK 3/4 (Zürich: Benziger, 2009), 98–100; Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 5–6, 98–99; and Ian Boxall, Matthew through the Centuries. BBC (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2018), 325–28. The quest for the “original” meaning of the saying is further complicated by the fact that it appears in a number of early sources (Mark 12:17; Matt 22:21; Luke 20:25; Gospel of Thomas 100:2–3; Egerton Gospel 3:1–6). 6 See Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Kasper Bro Larsen, and Outi Lehtipuu, “Bible Reception in a Nordic Context” in the present volume. 7 Norman Fairclough, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London: Routledge, 2003), 61. 8 See Fairclough, Analysing Discourse, 123–24.

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uary 1, 2000.⁹ In the following, I shall focus on how prime ministers, cabinet ministers, and members of parliament use the saying in national newspaper articles, political speeches, and parliamentary debates. This focus on powerful and wellknown individuals as well as on influential media serves to demonstrate that Jesus’ maxim does not only appear in ideological and societal peripheries, but holds strong currency at the center of contemporary political debates about the boundaries between religion and politics. Whereas this maxim has often been interpreted during its reception history in a total manner, either as sanctioning the universal power of God (everything is God’s) or the absolute power of Caesar (everything is Caesar’s), in the present context the saying is almost exclusively taken in a partial manner regarding the separation of powers in two different spheres: the religious domain of God and the political domain of Caesar.¹⁰ Politicians and debaters generally use the saying in order to articulate these two domains, to police perceived transgressions of the boundary between the two, and to disqualify practices and utterances that allegedly threaten to perforate this delicate and invisible membrane. “Render unto Caesar,” in other words, functions as a warning sign that regulates the borders between perceived domains in the public sphere. As I shall show below, Jesus’ maxim is a mobile boundary marker which is typically used to define limits relating to the following five general discourses in Danish political debate: (1) the Lutheran secularism discourse regarding the limits of religion in a modern society, (2) the liberal discourse regarding the limits of state governance over the private sphere, (3) the nationhood discourse concerning the limits of Danish identity, (4) the anti-Islamic discourse regarding the limitations of Muslim religion, and (5) the quietist discourse concerning the limits of religious free speech. In what follows, I shall show how the “Render unto Caesar” saying relates to each of these discourses, one by one.

2.1 The Limits of Religion: The Lutheran Secularism Discourse The first discourse, which I shall call the Lutheran secularism discourse, appears together with other discourses in Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s feature article in 2006. The Lutheran secularism discourse explains secularism as the ultimate result of

9 These 415 hits are the result of a search on the specific phrase “hvad kejserens er” (“the things that are Caesar’s”) in national newspapers only. In comparison, a random selection of other oftquoted sayings by Jesus appear in the following number of articles: “Forgive us our trespasses” (221), “Love your enemies” (251), “One does not live by bread alone” (249), “Love your neighbor” (781), and “Turn the other cheek” (1,504). 10 For interpretations of the total kind, see Boxall, Matthew through the Centuries, 325–28.

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Martin Luther’s break with the medieval papal state and of his doctrine of God’s two kingdoms (the spiritual and the secular kingdom). This discourse comes to the surface in the passage from Fogh Rasmussen mentioned above, which I quote here more extensively: In my view on religion and society, I am heavily influenced by Jesus’ famous words: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” With Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms, it is obvious to take these words as the starting point for a separation between the worldly and the spiritual, between the political and the religious.¹¹

Fogh Rasmussen’s partial conflation of Jesus, Luther, and secularism is common among contemporary Danish politicians and debaters.¹² Like other discourses, this Lutheran secularism discourse has a genealogy. It was developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth century by, on the one hand, Catholic critics of Protestantism, who blamed Luther for paving the way for modern irreligiosity, and, on the other hand, by Protestant theologians in Germany, who regarded secularism as one of Protestantism’s great achievements.¹³ The Lutheran secularism discourse may be historically plausible to a certain extent, but like other monocausal historical explanations, it is simplistic and vulnerable to criticism. Nevertheless, it has become an international narrative that is promulgated by contemporary sociologists, historians, and philosophers as an equivalent to Max Weber’s thesis on the connection between Calvinist Protestantism and modern capitalism.¹⁴ Fogh

11 Rasmussen, “Tro og politik.” 12 The Danish Lutheran secularism strategy has been identified by scholars such as Camilla Sløk, “Here I Stand: Lutheran Stubbornness in the Danish Prime Minister’s Office during the Cartoon Crisis,” European Journal of Social Theory 12 (2009): 231–48; Anders Berg-Sørensen, “The Politics of Lutheran Secularism: Reiterating Secularism in the Wake of the Cartoon Controversy,” in Religion in the 21st Century: Challenges and Transformations, ed. Lisbeth Christoffersen et al. (London: Ashgate, 2010), 208; Henrik Reintoft Christensen, “Religion and Authority in the Public Sphere: Representations of Religion in Scandinavian Parliaments and Media” (PhD diss., Aarhus: Graduate School of Theology and the Study of Religion, 2010), 60–63, 192–93, 201, 213; and Marie Vejrup Nielsen, “Claiming Luther as a Religious Resource: Civil Religion in Conflict?” Journal of Religion in Europe 4 (2011): 300–27. 13 Karl Holl, The Cultural Significance of the Reformation, trans. Karl Hertz, Barbara Hertz, and John H. Lichtblau, Living Age Books 25 (New York: Meridian Books, 1959); trans. of “Die Kulturbedeutung der Reformation,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte I: Luther, 6th ed. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1932), 468–543; Udi Greenberg, “Is Religious Freedom Protestant? On the History of a Critical Idea,” JAAR 88 (2020): 74–91. 14 See, for example, Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 266. For examples of criticism of the discourse in a Danish context, see

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Rasmussen links Jesus to this discourse by interpreting his words as a “starting point for a differentiation” (“udgangspunkt for en skelnen”) between religion and politics. Fogh Rasmussen is not claiming that Jesus’ maxim is a full-blown manifesto for the separation of church and state. Instead, he understands it as a catalyst for later developments, thus signaling a certain degree of historical consciousness. According to the Lutheran secularism discourse as it appears in Danish political debate, Lutheran religion prescribes that there are limits to religion, but it does not separate the church and the state in an absolute manner. As mentioned above, Fogh Rasmussen understands Jesus and Luther as starting points for a relative “differentiation” between religion and politics. By doing so, Fogh Rasmussen admits the soft secularism of the Danish constitution. On the one hand, there is freedom of religion—in Fogh Rasmussen’s words: “The state does not – and should not – have any religion”—but on the other hand, there is no equality of religion since the state supports the Lutheran Church of Denmark. Fogh Rasmussen, however, emphasizes that the constitution does not call the Lutheran Church of Denmark a state church, but a people’s church (Folkekirke; 83 % of the population were members at the time of Fogh Rasmussen writing in 2006, 74 % in 2020, the decrease of membership percentage primarily caused by immigration of nonmembers). As such, the church is, in principle at least, not the same as the state but a highly popular member association that deserves special support from the state. Fogh Rasmussen is not pleading for a French laïcité model, but in the public sphere religion must confine itself (“religion, first and foremost, is a private matter”) if Danish society is to continue to foster a strong sense of “social cohesion” (“sammenhængskraft”).¹⁵ Fogh Rasmussen’s use of the Lutheran secularism discourse is without question a result of Lutheran pastor Søren Krarup’s general influence on the public debate in Denmark. Krarup, who has now retired, was editor of the theological Tidehverv magazine and MP for the right-wing nationalist and anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, 2001–2011). In the past 50 years, Krarup has been the most prominent promoter of the Lutheran secularism discourse.¹⁶

Nielsen, “Claiming Luther as a Religious Resource.” See also Frederik Stjernfelt, Syv myter om Martin Luther (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2017), 43–74. 15 Rasmussen, “Tro og politik.” In contrast, see how Norwegian MP Carl-Erik Grimstad (Venstre, the Liberal Party, 2017–2021) describes the Norwegian law on relative separation of church and state: “The Parliament [Stortinget] has got what belongs to the Parliament, and God has got what belongs to God,” Stortinget, April 14, 2020, 2890, https://www.stortinget.no/globalassets/pdf/ referater/stortinget/2019-2020/refs-201920-04-14.pdf. Thanks to Ole Jakob Løland for this reference. 16 See, among many examples, Søren Krarup, “Dansen om menneskerettighederne,” Berlingske, September 8, 2012, first section, 29. Notice that in this feature article, Krarup explicitly connects

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His influence can be identified among other right-wing politicians such as, most obviously and vigorously, his daughter, Marie Krarup (MP, Danish People’s Party, 2011–2022; independent MP since February 2022), who has written several online and newspaper articles arguing that Protestant Christianity is a guarantor of secularism due to its separation of Caesar’s and God’s domains. For example, in an article in 2013 published on a website sponsored by the ecumenical Christian daily Kristeligt Dagblad, she stated: “On the basis of this story [i. e., Jesus and the tribute penny] Protestants have been differentiating for centuries between faith and politics. Caesar’s world is the earth, the secular, and God’s world is the heavens and faith.”¹⁷ As we have seen in the case of former Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen, however, this discourse is not only used by right wing nationalists but also by center-right politicians.¹⁸ A final significant example is yet another former Prime Minister also from the center-right Liberal Party, Lars Løkke Rasmussen (2009–2011, 2015–2019). In a speech held at a service to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation on Pentecost Sunday 2017 in Haderslev Cathedral, he merged Jesus and Luther by ascribing Jesus’ words to Luther: “Luther gave us a new understanding of the relationship between religion and politics.

“Render unto Caesar …” to the Lutheran secularism discourse: “We in Evangelical-Lutheran Denmark know that there is a substantial difference between spiritual and secular authority, the sacred and the secular, the kingdom of God and of the emperor.” 17 Marie Krarup, “Sekularisering er indbygget i protestantisk kristendom,” kristendom.dk, January 25, 2013, https://www.kristendom.dk/kommentaren/sekularisering-er-indbygget-i-protestantiskkristendom. For other examples of her use of “Render unto Caesar” in defense of Lutheran secularism, see “Sekularisering er kristendom,” Berlingske, July 27, 2013, https://www.berlingske.dk/po litik/sekularisering-er-kristendom; “Islam har brug for kritik,” Berlingske, January 23, 2016, third section, 19; “Vi prædiker demokrati, som var det en religion,” Berlingske, April 7, 2017, first section, 32; and “Vores religion er usynlig – og sådan skal det være,” Berlingske, December 15, 2017, first section, 32. For other politicans and debaters, see the editorials “Håndsky præster.” Information, December 13, 2007, first section, 24; “Biskoppens kor,” Jyllands-Posten, October 16, 2014, first section, 22; Søren Espersen, “Hvorfor holder vi hele tiden med islamisterne?” Jyllands-Posten, July 27, 2016, first section, 18; Søren K. Villemoes, “Strudsene og de ansvarlige,” Weekendavisen, September 9, 2016, first section, 2; the editorial “Klimaet i kirken,” Jyllands-Posten, September 29, 2019, second section, 32; Palle Weis, “Klimaet er kejserens problem, tilgivelsen er Guds,” Jyllands-Posten, January 23, 2020, https://jyllands-posten.dk/debat/kommentar/paadenandenside/ECE11894951/klimaet-er-kej serens-problem-tilgivelsen-er-guds/; and Katrine Lilleør, “Borgerlighed forpligter,” Berlingske, June 2, 2020, first section, 20. 18 As an exception, the Lutheran secularism discourse appeared in the left-wing daily Information (see “Håndsky præster”), where “Render unto Caesar” was called “a Lutheran bon mot.”

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Slightly simplified: Render unto God the things that are God’s. And to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s.”¹⁹ To sum this section up: By their use of “Render unto Caesar,” Danish prime ministers and other politicians, primarily from the center-right and the rightwing nationalist parties, subscribe to a Lutheran version of what scholars of Bible reception have coined “the liberal Bible” (Yvonne Sherwood) or “the Enlightenment Bible” (Jonathan Sheehan).²⁰ According to Sherwood and Sheehan, the Bible was transported into modernity by means of a certain view of the Bible that was developed by translators, philosophers, and biblical scholars since the early Enlightenment. This view of the Bible constructs the Bible as a moral and cultural rather than, for example, a political and legal canon. As my examples above show, Danish right-wing politicians endorse the notion of the liberal Enlightenment Bible by understanding Jesus as the starting point of a Lutheran path to modern secularism. In other words, the liberal Bible that Sherwood and Sheehan find in European and North American politics appears in Denmark in a particular guise as the Lutheran liberal Bible. This involves a rhetorical strategy that emphasizes both Enlightenment ideas and Protestant heritage, thus mediating between these two main ideologies of Danish intellectual culture at the expense of the Muslim third Other, as I shall show below.²¹

19 Lars Løkke Rasmussen, “Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussens tale ved reformationsgudstjenesten den 4. juni 2017,” June 4, 2017. https://www.stm.dk/statsministeren/taler/statsminister-larsloekke-rasmussens-tale-ved-reformationsgudstjenesten-den-4-juni-2017. 20 Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), see especially the chapter “On the Genesis of the Alliance between the Bible and Rights,” 303–32; Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 21 See Kasper Bro Larsen, “En kulturradikal jul,” Weekendavisen, June 23, 2017, 15. For British and American examples of contemporary politicians using “Render unto Caesar” as an epitome of the liberal and secular, but not Lutheran, Bible, see James G. Crossley, “The End of Reception History, a Grand Narrative for Biblical Studies and the Neoliberal Bible,” in Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, ed. Emma England and William John Lyons, ScrTr 6/LHBOTS 615 (London: T & T Clark, 2015), 49–52. For Norwegian and Swedish examples, see Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (party leader of Senterpartiet in Norway, MP since 2005, Minister of Finance since 2021), “Jesus er større enn norsk politikk,” Verdidebatt, July 26, 2017, https://www.verdidebatt.no/innlegg/11692820jesus-er-storre-enn-norsk-politikk; and Lars Adaktusson of the Swedish Christian Democrats (MEP 2014–2018, MP 2018–2022), “Våra värderingar bygger på kristna etik- och idéarvet,” Göteborgs-Posten, August 10, 2016, https://www.gp.se/debatt/våra-värderingar-bygger-på-kristna-etik-och-idéarvet-1. 3640474.

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2.2 The Limits of the State: The Liberal Discourse of Religious Freedom But there is also another side of the tribute penny. The above-mentioned Lutheran secularism discourse regarding the limits of religion corresponds to a liberal discourse regarding the limits of the state, including individual rights like freedom of religion.²² According to the liberal discourse, developed since the Age of Enlightenment and particularly prominent in American church/state debates, the state should limit itself and not dictate the world-view of its citizens but grant liberties of belief. Among Danish politicians, Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” saying has also become a proverbial formulation of this discourse. Fogh Rasmussen made the connection in his feature article in the following way: “Giving to God what belongs to God, and to the emperor what belongs to the emperor thus means to me that the state must be reminded that it is only a secular authority.”²³ Jesus’ maxim, in other words, supports the liberal discourse of a liberal democracy in contrast to totalitarianism and statolatry. Lars Løkke Rasmussen took a similar stance in a speech entitled “Freedom and Fellowship: Grundtvig’s Legacy” held on January 11, 2011 at Vartov, Copenhagen. Once again, the maxim was used: But regarding democracy and citizenship, we must make clear where the line is drawn between the realm of the emperor and the personal space [frirum] of the citizen. That is the dilemma of freedom. We must encourage everyone to be part of the Danish people and become active in the democracy. And we must also keep a spiritual personal space [frirum] clear for all.²⁴

In this context, “Render unto Caesar” means that there is a realm of religion and personal space beyond the power of the state and political intervention. Another MP from the center-right Liberal Party, Birthe Rønn Hornbech, (MP 1984–87, 1990– 2015; Minister of Integration and Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs 2007–2011) concurred in an article from 2012: “The power of state must keep the kingdom of the 22 In the words of Habermas: “Die Säkularisierung der Staatsgewalt und die positive wie negative Freiheit der Religionsausübung sind zwei Seiten derselben Medaille.” See Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion: Philosophische Aufsätze (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2005), 9. 23 Rasmussen, “Tro og politik.” Before Fogh Rasmussen became Prime Minister, he was known for writing a liberal manifesto against big government which was quite libertarian by Danish standards. See Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Fra socialstat til minimalstat: En liberal strategi (Copenhagen: Samleren, 1993). 24 Lars Løkke Rasmussen, “Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussens foredrag ‘Frihed og fællesskab – arven efter Grundtvig’ på Vartov den 11. januar 2011,” https://www.stm.dk/statsministeren/taler/ statsminister-lars-loekke-rasmussens-foredrag-frihed-og-faellesskab-arven-efter-grundtvig-paa-var tov-den-11-januar-2011.

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emperor in order but has nothing to do with the hearts and minds of the citizens. … The emperor does not rule in the kingdom of God.”²⁵ And in 2016, the Minister of Justice Søren Pind (Venstre, Denmark’s Liberal Party, MP 2005–18) put the liberal discourse into practice as a representative of the state by refusing to interfere in discussions of Islamic theology with reference to the “Render unto Caesar” principle: “It has nothing to do with my job as Minister of Justice. I might think that Islam is a spiritual wasteland. But people may believe what they want. I have to distinguish: … Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”²⁶ According to the liberal discourse, Jesus’ saying protects the freedom rights of the individual citizen.

2.3 The Limits of Danishness: The Nationhood Discourse In Denmark, the above-mentioned liberal discourse is sometimes formulated in language associated with—and to a certain extent originating from—the Danish poet, theologian, and politician N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783−1872). This includes terms like frisind (liberality, literally “liberal-mindedness”), frirum (personal space, literally “freedom of space”), and, not least åndsfrihed (intellectual freedom, literally “freedom of spirit”).²⁷ Grundtvig is often regarded as a founding father of Danish democracy and mentality due to his participation in the constitutional assembly of 1849, his involvement in the popular non-formal adult education movement (folkehøjskolen), and his many community songs and hymns that are still in common use. As a consequence, the use of Grundtvigian language becomes a signal of national belonging. So when the universalist liberal discourse merges with Grundtvigian vocabulary, it appears as intrinsic to Danish nationhood. This notion was canonized in the so-called Denmark Canon, which came into being in 2016 on the initiative of the Minister of Culture Bertel Haarder from Denmark’s Liberal Party. Here freedom (frihed) and liberality (frisind) were identified as two of the

25 Birthe Rønn Hornbech, “Giv Gud, hvad Guds er, og kejseren, hvad kejserens er: Tanker i anledning af teser om åndsfrihed,” Kristeligt Dagblad, March 16, 2012, 17. 26 Villemoes, “Strudsene og de ansvarlige.” For a similar liberal use of Jesus’ maxim, see Lone Kühlmann, “Uhørt: Giv kejseren, hvad kejserens er,” Politiken, Maj 17, 2007, second section, 2; Lilleør, “Borgerlighed forpligter.” 27 For an academic study of the phenomenon, written by Esben Lunde Larsen, who was subsequently the Minister of Higher Education and Science (2015–2018, Denmark’s Liberal Party), see Esben Lunde Larsen, “Frihed for Loke saavelsom for Thor: N.F.S. Grundtvigs syn på å ndelig frihed i historisk og aktuelt perspektiv,” Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 40 (PhD diss., Copenhagen University, 2012).

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top-ten most important values, traditions, and movements in Danish history and identity.²⁸ The conflation of the liberal discourse and Grundtvig (and Jesus) is obvious in the title of Birthe Rønn Hornbech’s article quoted above: “Render unto God the Things that are God’s and unto the Emperor the Things that are the Emperor’s: Reflections Occasioned by ‘Theses on Liberality [frisind]’.”²⁹ Jesus’ saying is connected subtly with a nationhood discourse. The Danishness of “Render unto Caesar” becomes more explicit in the Berlingske Tidende editorial by editor in chief Niels Lunde in 2005: Jesus replies: Render unto God the things that are God’s, and render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. The Constitution is a token of the essence of Danish democracy: There is a boundary between the earthly and the divine. That boundary is the basis of Danish democracy.³⁰

In former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s already cited speech on Grundtvig’s legacy held in the Vartov building, a Grundtvigian stronghold in Copenhagen, the connection with nationhood is once again emphasized: “In Denmark we have a long tradition of ‘rendering unto God the things that are God’s and to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s’.”³¹ This strategy of conflating secularist ideas, religious traditions, and national identity is not peculiar to Denmark but is a general trend in European and global politics, not least since the radical Islamist terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11, 2001. The sociologist of religion Ernst van den Hemel calls this trend “Post-Secular Nationalism” and describes it in the following manner:

28 See https://www.danmarkskanon.dk. Items on the list were nominated by the public and eventually selected on the basis of a public vote for a top-ten list. 29 Hornbech, “Giv Gud, hvad Guds er.” In a very recent debate on the potential prohibition of the ritual circumcision of boys, architect Kjeld Ghozati also advocated for religious freedom by reference to Danish, Grundtvigian “åndsfrihed” and to Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” saying. See Kjeld Ghozati, “Åndsfriheden er truet af tolerancefascister,” Jydske Vestkysten, September 16, 2020, https://jv.dk/artikel/åndsfriheden-er-truet-af-tolerance-fascister. 30 Niels Lunde, “Kære Fatih, sætter du Koranen over Grundloven?” Berlingske Tidende, January 13, 2005, second section, 12. See also the quotation in note 16 by Krarup, “Dansen om menneskerettighederne.” 31 Rasmussen, “Frihed og fællesskab.”

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The post-secular nationalist position is characterized by: a sketch of secular values as core components of national identity; an emphasis on the religious roots of these secular values; an emphasis on the cultural intransigence of this religious-secular citizenship.³²

By means of the “Render unto Caesar” saying, Danish center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians and debaters to a certain extent advocate a post-secular nationalism. As such, they continue a strategy in European nation-building of merging Jesus with nationhood, a strategy that was not least cultivated in the nineteenth century.³³ Jesus becomes a boundary marker that defines the limits of Danishness.

2.4 The Limits of Muslim Religion: The Anti-Islamic Discourse According to Lars Løkke Rasmussen in his Vartov speech, “the new Danes” must accept the conditions of Danishness (secularism and liberalism) epitomized in Jesus’ maxim.³⁴ This term, “the new Danes,” evidently refers to immigrants of (primarily) Muslim religion. I have already mentioned the Lutheran pastor and politician Søren Krarup as the most influential Danish right-wing thinker in the past 50 years. He has also been the most influential critic of Islam, describing Islam as a nomistic religion, i. e. as a political religion that threatens secularism by failing to differentiate between religion and politics.³⁵ In this discourse regarding the limits of Muslim religion, Christianity becomes not only the sole Abrahamic religion that is truly compatible with modern secularism, but also its guarantor. Krarup states: It is Christianity that very consciously and very clearly marks a distinction between God and the emperor, so Christianity is the ultimate basis for the civil freedom that is implemented in the Constitution as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. … If Christianity does not define society as a secular and not a religious matter, societal matters

32 Ernst van den Hemel, “Post-Secular Nationalism: The Dutch Turn to the Right & Cultural-Religious Reframing of Secularity,” in Social Imaginaries in a Globalizing World, ed. Hans Alma and Guido Vanheeswijck (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 260. 33 On the interconnected history of European nationalism and representations of Jesus, see Halvor Moxnes, Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism: A New Quest for the Nineteenth-Century Historical Jesus (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). 34 Rasmussen, “Frihed og fællesskab.” 35 On the genealogy of the concept of nomistic religion as the Protestant Other, see Jonathan Z. Smith, “A Matter of Class: Taxonomies of Religion,” HTR 89 (1996): 387–403, and “Religion, Religions, Religious,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 269–84.

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will become religious, and we will end up being hogtied by totalitarian authorities, be they communist, Nazi, or Islamic.³⁶

In Krarup, “Render unto Caesar” once again appears as the proof text, this time not in a narrowly Lutheran secularism discourse but in an anti-Islamic discourse where Christianity as such is presented as democratic by contrast with Islam. “Render unto Caesar” becomes an anti-Islamic slogan, and has been used in that sense by politicians from the Danish People’s Party such as Marie Krarup and Søren Espersen.³⁷ Sometimes the slogan serves to formulate an essentialist understanding of Christianity (kristendommen)³⁸ as secular “from the beginning”³⁹ or “in itself.”⁴⁰ Pernille Vermund, leader of the right-wing nationalist party the New Right (Nye Borgerlige) and an MP since 2019, is currently one of the slogan’s most vocal proponents. On February 28, 2020, she introduced a bill in parliament proposing to remove all Muslim religious communities from the state’s official list of tax-exempt religious communities (Bill B77). The motion was lost, but Vermund closed the debate with the following statement: The Christian faith says: ‘Render unto God the things that are God’s and render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’ This is totally explicit,…. Christianity provides evidently more space for freedom and democracy than, for example, Islam because the Christian Scriptures

36 Søren Krarup, “Kristen samfundsforståelse kontra sharia,” Jyllands-Posten, June 14, 2008. https://jyllands-posten.dk/debat/kronik/ECE4092774/Kronik-Kristen-samfundsforståelse-kontra-sha ria/. 37 Marie Krarup, “Islam har brug for kritik;” Espersen, “Hvorfor holder vi hele tiden med islamisterne?” For other examples, see Katrine Winkel Holm, “Mettes kulturkamp,” Kristeligt Dagblad, January 26, 2004, https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/kronik/mettes-kulturkamp; Lunde, “Kære Fatih”; and Morten Messerschmidt, Den kristne arv (Copenhagen: Eksistensen, 2021), 114: “It is true that the Christian world with its sharp separation of ʻthe Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Emperor’ (Matt 22) has evidently produced the most successful societies in world history.” Since January 2022, Messerschmidt has been the chairman of the Danish People’s Party (MP, 2005– 2009, 2019–; MEP 2009–2019). 38 Krarup, “Kristen samfundsforståelse kontra sharia.” 39 “Om regeringens værdipolitik med fokus på de udfordringer, der følger af indvandringen,” Parliamentary debate F2 (statement by Pernille Vermund), January 17, 2020, https://www.ft.dk/samling/ 20191/forespoergsel/f2/beh1/forhandling.htm#tE938EC74786F4740AEF33CB26067233Btab1. 40 Holm, “Mettes kulturkamp.” See also Birthe Rønn Hornbech, “Evangeliet er ikke et partipolitisk program, som nogen skal gøre til sin ejendom,” Jyllands-Posten, December 12, 2019, https://jyllandsposten.dk/debat/blogs/birtheroennhornbech/ECE11840359/evangeliet-er-ikke-et-partipolitisk-pro gram-som-nogen-skal-goere-til-sin-ejendom/: “But with Christianity the intermixture of the kingdom of the emperor and the kingdom of God is abolished.” For other examples, see Ane Kirstine Brandt and Pia Rose Böwadt, eds., Gud på borgen: Interview med danske politikere om religionens rolle i samfundet (Copenhagen: Professionshøjskolen UCC, 2011), 32.

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openly recognize that we must not dictate everything by religious laws and that one must respect the fact that Caesar’s is Caesar’s and that God’s is God’s. Actually, I think this says enough.⁴¹

The anti-Islamic discourse is widespread in the public debate of contemporary Western societies. It often understands the Quran as theocratic in contrast to the liberal Bible and “the Judeo-Christian tradition.” As we have seen, Danish politicians feed this discourse by means of the proverbial Jesus saying. However, even this anti-Islamic use of “Render unto Caesar” is not a local phenomenon, as exemplified by a speech held by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French nationalist party Rassemblement national (formerly known as Front national) on October 19, 2020, three days after the murder of middle-school teacher Samuel Paty by a radical Islamist terrorist. Against Islamism, Le Pen stated that “Render unto Caesar” is a sacred principle and a foundation of French secularist laïcité. ⁴² Danish right-wing politicians may subscribe to a softer kind of secularism, but they spice up anti-Islamic rhetoric with words by Jesus in a similar manner. As Yvonne Sherwood has put it, “It is a truth if not universally, then widely, acknowledged— and crucial to the self-identity of Europe and North America—that the Christian bible is far more tolerant and liberal than some other scriptures we could mention.”⁴³

41 “Forslag til folketingsbeslutning om at fjerne anerkendelsen af muslimske trossamfund i Danmark,” Parliamentary debate B77 (statement by Pernille Vermund), February 28, 2020, https://www. ft.dk/samling/20191/beslutningsforslag/B77/BEH1-68/forhandling.htm. See also a similar statement in a parliamentary debate on the government’s value-based politics and immigration: “Om regeringens værdipolitik med fokus på de udfordringer, der følger af indvandringen,” Parliamentary debate F2 (statement by Pernille Vermund), January 17, 2020, https://www.ft.dk/samling/20191/fore spoergsel/f2/beh1/forhandling.htm#tE938EC74786F4740AEF33CB26067233Btab1; Pernille Vermund, “Giv kejseren, hvad kejserens er,” Den korte avis, February 16, 2016, https://denkorteavis.dk/2016/ en-giv-gud-hvad-guds-er-og-kejseren-hvad-kejserens-er/. 42 Marine Le Pen, “Marine Le Pen appelle au grand sursaut face à l’islamisme,” October 19, 2020, https://rassemblementnational.fr/videos/marine-le-pen-appelle-au-grand-sursaut-face-a-lislamisme/ “Notre civilisation consacre, en effet, la salutaire distinction entre le temporel et le spirituel, “rendre à César ce qui est à César et à Dieu ce qui est à Dieu.” C’est là le fondement de notre laïcité, principe qui, dans notre pays enclin aux guerres de religion, garantit la paix civile et religieuse.” For American examples, see Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming, 308. See also the best-selling critic of religion and Islam in particular, Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: Norton, 2004), 231: “As many commentators have observed, there is no Koranic equivalent to the New Testament line ‘Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s, and render unto God those things that are God’s’ (Matt. 22:21). As a result, there appears to be no Islamic basis for the separation of the powers of the church and state. This, needless to say, is a problem.” 43 Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming, 6.

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2.5 The Limits of Religious Free Speech Rights: The Quietist Discourse The final discourse that the “Render unto Caesar” saying plays into in contemporary Danish politics is related to the first discourse regarding the limits of religion. As we have seen, Jesus’ maxim is used proverbially to indicate that there should ideally be no overlaps between the secular and the religious sphere. But in reality the interface is subject to constant negotiation, not least in a Danish context, where the annual opening of parliament includes a church service organized by the Church of Denmark, where Lutheran pastors are civil servants of the state, and where the parliament acts as legislator for the church, even in content matters such as same-sex marriage.⁴⁴ In accordance with the ideals of the liberal discourse, religious preachers are granted free speech rights, but when they use their right to address political issues, Danish politicians and significant debaters will often warn them against misusing their religious office for political purposes. This is sometimes done by reference to “Render unto Caesar.” In what follows, I focus on three examples. During the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2014–2015, Bishop Marianne Christiansen of Haderslev Diocese wrote a letter to the editor of Jyllands-Posten challenging the restrictive nature of Danish refugee policies at a time of civil war in Syria. One of her arguments was the Golden Rule as put forward by Jesus: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).⁴⁵ Two days later, the newspaper answered in the editorial: Pastors in the Church of Denmark may, of course, raise their voice against the abuse of power, but: … another essential doctrine in Lutheranism, as it is written in the gospel, is to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s. In other words, it is important as a pastor and preacher in the Church of Denmark to bear in mind that one does not use the pulpit as platform for politicizing and thus does not misuse the office and theology in public debate.”⁴⁶

44 Lene Kühle et al., “Religion and State: Complexity in Change,” in Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere: Comparing Nordic Countries, ed. Inger Furseth, Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 81–136. 45 Marianne Christiansen, “Vi tænker med to halvdele,” Jyllands-Posten, October 14, 2014, 21. 46 “Biskoppens kor.” For Marianne Christiansen’s view on “Render unto Caesar,” see her presentation at a 2019 parliamentary hearing on church and state, “Hvad gør kirken for staten?” Folkekirken, January 23, 2019, https://www.folkekirken.dk/om-folkekirken/kirke-og-stat/hvad-goer-kirkenfor-staten.

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This quietist discourse, according to which religion should have no political dimension, serves to silence religious preachers and limit their free speech rights. Of course, there are always limits to the speech rights of every citizen, but according to the quietist discourse special limitations apply to pastors in the Church of Denmark as civil servants and as religious preachers. Once again, the situation is paradoxical: Politicians and debaters who warn religious preachers against crossing into Caesar’s domain risk stepping into God’s domain by discussing theological issues in public. In 2019, Naser Khader (MP in 2001–2011, 2015–2022 representing the center-right Conservative People’s Party since 2009 until he became independent in 2021) criticized so-called politicizing pastors and was in turn accused of attempting to limit their free speech rights. Khader defended himself by distinguishing between the speech rights of the public and the private person: “But I am against using a pulpit for political messages. As it is written in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s’.”⁴⁷ One final example of the quietist discourse appeared in the context of “Break for the Climate” on September 27, 2020, when a group of NGOs facilitated a twohour climate strike at Danish workplaces. Bishop Henrik Stubkjær encouraged parishes in Viborg Diocese to participate and provoked severe criticism from debaters and politicians. The editorial in Jyllands-Posten reacted by quoting “Render unto Caesar” in order to call attention to the limits of the bishop’s free speech rights, not as a private person but as a bishop.⁴⁸ The quietist discourse thus privatizes religion and uses a Jesus maxim to defang the church when it aspires to become a prophetic voice in society. Some bishops and pastors in the state church may read Scripture as a “radical Bible” with politically revolutionizing potential, but center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians and debaters are quick to bring up quotations from an allegedly quietist, “passive Bible.”⁴⁹

47 Naser Khader, “Nej, jeg vil da ikke gå i en anden kirke, Paula Larrain,” Altinget, December 12, 2019, https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/naser-khader-folkekirken-skal-ikke-vaere-en-politisk-arena-forlandets-praester. See also Hornbech, “Evangeliet er ikke et partipolitisk program.” 48 “Klimaet i kirken,” Jyllands-Posten, September 29, 2019, second section, 32. For a similar point, see Weis, “Klimaet er kejserens problem.” For a defense of Bishop Stubkjær, see the letter to the editor by Professor of Theology Peter Lodberg, “Biskoppen tager sin opgave alvorligt,” JyllandsPosten, October 6, 2019, 31. 49 For the terms, see Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming, 312–15; on the decline of the “radical Bible” in English politics during the past half-century, see James G. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).

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3 Conclusion Jesus’ famous maxim “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17 par.) has enjoyed a long reception history with regard to Western conceptualizations of church/state relationships. The present analysis has demonstrated widespread use of this maxim in contemporary political debates in Denmark, with prime ministers endorsing it publicly on a number of occasions, for example in the context of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy (2005–2006) and the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (2017). The politicians and debaters who use the saying predominantly represent the center-right and the right-wing nationalist parties. They connect the saying to five main discourses by which the saying serves to define the limits of (1) religion, (2) the state, (3) nationhood, (4) Islam, and (5) religious free speech rights. When used by contemporary Danish politicians, Jesus’ maxim becomes a proof text that legitimizes these five discourses while simultaneously promoting an idea of the Bible as a foundation for modern secularism and civil rights (“the liberal Bible” in Yvonne Sherwood’s terms). The liberal Bible is not a particularly Danish, Scandinavian, or Nordic phenomenon, but a general Western idea. The same applies to the anti-Islamic use of the liberal Bible as a contrast to the allegedly illiberal and theocratic Quran. In the Danish use of “Render unto Caesar,” however, there are some historically determined peculiarities. First, the saying is not used to advocate the formal separation of church and state. In contrast to a French laïcité model, Danish center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians identify a soft secularism of non-interference between religion and politics in the saying. Religious arguments are illegitimate in a political context, just as religions should remain apolitical. Second, in the context of the Danish welfare state, where nearly everyone pays relatively high taxes, “Render unto Caesar” never plays into discourses regarding tax payment or tax resistance. This is something quite different from the way the maxim is used in the United States.⁵⁰ Third, “Render unto Caesar” is linked to nationhood and Danishness by means of Grundtvigian vocabulary (e. g., åndsfrihed); but more than anything else it is understood as a Lutheran slogan promoting modern secularism. This is probably due to the influential reception of Luther by Søren Krarup and the Tidehverv movement. In Denmark, the liberal Bible has become a Lutheran liberal Bible (epitomized by “Render unto Caesar”), something that we rarely find anywhere else in the

50 Grant M. Newman, “The Taxation of Religious Organizations in America,” Harv JLPP 42 (2019): 681–710.

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Scandinavian countries.⁵¹ In the Danish use of “Render unto Caesar,” moreover, the Lutheran liberal Bible warns pastors in the Lutheran Church of Denmark against using the Bible in politically provocative ways. As we have seen, “Render unto Caesar” is a favorite maxim among Danish center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians and debaters. In the cultural memory activated in these debates, the Bible is a cultural archive or a passive reference memory from which particular sayings, narratives and ideas can be selected for the cultural working memory. While biblical references are not very common in Danish political debates, Jesus’ “Render unto Caesar” maxim is a conspicuous exception. It is an item from the biblical archive that has been elevated to cultural canonicity in contemporary Danish political debates, not least by Danish prime ministers. Its uses are soaked in paradox as politicians defend secularism by invoking authorities that are in fact traditionally regarded as religious (Jesus, Luther). But until now, the strategy of paradox, celebrating secularist liberalism and Lutheran Christianity equally as principal cultural heritages, seems to be the preferred rhetorical strategy of Danish center-right and right-wing nationalist politicians in the new millennium. It is a strategy that aims at social cohesion between the Enlightenment segment and the Lutheran segment (and everyone in-between) of Danish society. But at the same time, it more or less consciously ostracizes the Muslim segment, which purportedly lacks a secular credo like “Render unto Caesar.”

51 See Christensen, “Religion and Authority in the Public Sphere,” 201. According to Christensen, the Lutheran secularism strategy is peculiar to Denmark in a Scandinavian context. But above we have also found examples from Norway (Vedum, “Jesus er større enn norsk politikk”) and Sweden (Adaktusson, “Våra värderingar”).

Hanna Stenström

Resisting the Rule of Mammon and Fighting with Jesus against Neoliberalism: Unexpected Uses of the Bible in Contemporary Political Debate in Sweden Sweden is often described as “the most secularized country in the world.”¹ During the twentieth century, Sweden was transformed into a modern, democratic welfare state through secular and rational politics. It is commonly accepted, often taken for granted, that in public debate, arguments for political actions and reforms are based, not on the Bible or “Christian values,” but on rational considerations of ends and means, political convictions, generally accepted democratic values, and, when relevant, on research. Religion, in Sweden, belongs to the private, not the public, sphere.² Although the situation is changing—Sweden is experiencing what is called “the return of religion” or “the new visibility of religion”³ and may be moving towards a “post-secular society”⁴—I normally do not expect the Bible to be used in political debates, except when self-identified Christian or Jewish

1 See, e. g., Vera Ericson von Bahr, Offentlig sektor i ett mångreligiöst Sverige: En inventering av kunskapsbehoven (Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2021), 7–8, http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn: nbn:se:sh:diva-44286; “The Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map,ˮ World Values Survey, https://www. worldvaluessurvey.org/photos/EV000190.JPG. 2 See, e. g., Anders Bäckström and Grace Davie, “Preface” in Welfare and Religion in 21st Century Europe 1: Configuring the Connections, ed. Anders Bäckström et al (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), ix; Ninna Edgardh, “Sweden,” in Welfare and Values in Europe: Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender 1, AUU Studies in Religion and Society 4, ed. Anders Bäckström (Uppsala: Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre, 2011), 38. 3 See, e. g. José Casanova, Public Religion in the Modern World, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Peter L Berger, ed., The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward, eds., The New Visibility of Religion: Studies in Religion and Cultural Hermeneutics (London: Continuum, 2008). 4 “Postsecular society” is a contested concept with different meanings. I use Anders Bäckström’s definition according to which a post-secular society is a pluralistic, secularized society where religious voices and actors are integrated in the public sphere. See Anders Bäckström, “Att leva i en post-sekulär tid – vad menas med det?” Svensk kyrkotidning 13 (2012): 433–37. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-008

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individuals or organisations participate in debates motivated by their religious convictions.⁵ However, to my astonishment, biblical references are sometimes used in the ongoing debate about the welfare system in Sweden by actors who do not present themselves as Christians or Jews.⁶ For example, changes in the organization of health care due to neoliberalism are, in a debate article from 2009, described as consequences of the rule of Mammon (Matt. 6:24 par. Luke 16:13).⁷ The story about Jesus driving out the merchants from the Temple is used, time and again, to argue against for-profit companies acting as providers of welfare services, such as, childrens’ school and eldercare. Therefore, in this essay, I reflect on what is actually going on when biblical characters and stories are used in public, political debates in contemporary Sweden.

1 Topic, Aim, Structure, Personal Presuppositions In this essay, I present and discuss examples of the use of biblical texts and motifs in a certain public debate that took place in Sweden in the first decades of this millennium and is still on-going. The topic of the debate is the welfare system and consequences of neoliberal changes to this system. My aim is, first, to show how biblical references are used as a rhetorical means to communicate opinions not based on certain biblical interpretations or “Christian values,” but on political convictions, generally accepted democratic values, and/or research. Secondly, I propose the concept of “the secular Bible” for this interpretation and use of the Bible, and invite my readers to consider if the concept is an apt description of my examples and useful for future research. The expression “the secular Bible” is not with-

5 For churches and other religious actors as welfare providers and/or voices in public debates, see Anders Bäckström, “Religion mellan det privata och det offentliga – om religion och välfärd,” in Religionens offentlighet: Om religionens plats i samhället, ed. Hanna Stenström (Skellefteå: Artos&Norma, 2013), 37, 40–42. 6 I am indebted to James Crossley’s works on the use of the Bible in contemporary political discourses. I share his interest in interpretations of the Bible in contexts marked by neoliberalism. See James G. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968, LNTS 506 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014); Cults,Martyrs and Good Samaritans: Religion in Contemporary English Political Discourse (London: Pluto, 2018). 7 Jan Halldin, “När Mammon tillåts styra vården,” Läkartidningen, July 7, 2009, https://la kartidningen.se/debatt-och-brev/2009/07/nar-mammon-tillats-styra-varden/.

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out its problems, since it is already used in various contexts with different meanings.⁸ I use it here, in part, due to a lack of better words. I will begin with a presentation of concepts and theoretical perspectives that provide a framework for understanding my examples, as well as a preliminary definition of “the secular Bible.” I will then turn to the presentation of the debate of which my examples are a part. Finally, in my conclusions, I will return to “the secular Bible,” showing how my examples substantiate the claim that the concept describes an actual phenomenon. I do not approach my topic as a detached observer. This essay is an example of how a biblical scholar intentionally works in relation to her social location, personal convictions, and presuppositions.⁹ First, I am a member in a network that tries to arouse public opinion against neoliberal changes in the Swedish welfare system, including the inclusion of for-profit companies as welfare providers.¹⁰ Secondly, I am formed by personal experiences. I worked in eldercare before and during my time as a student and in-between academic jobs and heard many stories about the difficult conditions for both patients and staff when for-profit companies took responsibility for municipality-run nursing homes. My father lived the last years of his life in an elderly home run by a for-profit company. I was one of many who tried to make local politicians aware of the shortcomings of this care-provider and their negative consequences to both families and staff.¹¹ Therefore, conditions of eldercare are of great concern to me. They are part of my own life.

8 See e. g. Jaques Berlinerblau, The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); A. C. Grayling, ed., The Good Book: A Secular Bible, (London: Bloomsbury, 2011). 9 For my contribution to the debate, using the cartoon by Robert Nyberg presented below, see Hanna Stenström, “Driv ut månglarna ur templet,” Dagens Seglora, January 18, 2013, https://dag ensseglora.se/2013/01/18/driv-ut-manglarna-ur-templet/. It is quoted in the Swedish Wikpedia article about Jesus cleansing the Temple and may have influenced later uses of the story, “Jesus driver ut månglarna ur templet,” Wikipedia, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_driver_ut_månglarna_ur_ templet. 10 See Gemensam Välfärd, https://gemensamvalfard.se/. 11 I was also one of many who went out on the streets and protested when Milton Friedman, an important neoliberal economist, received the Nobel Memorial Price in Economic Sciences in 1976. The main reason for the protest was, as I remember it, Friedman’s connections with the military junta in Chile.

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2 Basic Concepts and Theoretical Perspectives Since my study is concerned with uses of certain biblical stories and characters in a public, political debate, I will begin with the concept of “the cultural Bible,” since it includes both political and cultural interpretations and uses of the Bible. Then I will introduce other concepts established in international discussions of political uses of the Bible. I will relate these concepts to some Swedish studies relevant for my work, hitherto not used by international biblical scholars. This leads me to the suggestion of the concept “the secular Bible.”

2.1 The Cultural Bible There are at least two ways to understand the concept of “the cultural Bible.” First, Jonathan Sheehan who established the concept in his The Enlightenment Bible (2005) employed it with reference to Christian projects formed to meet the challenges of modernity in protestant contexts in Germany and England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.¹² This development transformed the Bible from a religious authority to the guarantor of Western civilization. The “cultural Bible” in this specific sense is a political interpretation of the Bible, well integrated in the formation and maintenance of national identities as well as the identity of “Western culture.”¹³ Secondly, there is a wider use of the concept to denote the shared cultural heritage of specific parts of the Bible. For example, even in a secularized country such as Sweden, the Bible, and certain biblical stories, characters, motifs, and symbols are still widely known outside churches and used in cultural life and in general public discourse.¹⁴ The overall perspectives of “culturalization” and “heritagization” of the Bible well suit the cases I will discuss below, but in the Swedish context, I am also inspired by the works of two Swedish biblical scholars, Stefan Klint and Lina Sjöberg. Even though they do not use the expression “the cultural Bible”—their works are published either before or at the same time as Sheehan

12 Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 13 Sheehan, Enlightenment Bible, see especially xi–xiv, 219–60. For “the cultural Bible” as a political reception of the Bible with twentieth century examples, see Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 10–12. 14 This understanding of “the cultural Bible” is developed further in Marianne Bjelland Kartzow’s and Karin Neutel’s contribution to this book.

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developed the concept—they make observations and ask questions that I find relevant for my task. Stefan Klint, in his dissertation on representations of Jesus in the prose fiction of twentieth century Swedish author Pär Lagerkvist (2001),¹⁵ challenges the claim that the frequent use of the Bible in public discourse and cultural life in contemporary Sweden shows that Sweden is not as thoroughly secularized as often maintained. Instead, he argues that the opposite is true. Biblical references are not evidence of the remaining importance of Christianity but of the privatization of religion and of secularization. The Bible has become a shared cultural heritage that everyone feels free to use in any way and for any purpose they want.¹⁶ Lina Sjöberg studies intertextual relations between the Sara and Hagar stories in Genesis and those in novels by the twentieth century Swedish novelist Sara Lidman.¹⁷ For my discussion, it is relevant that she addresses issues related to biblical authority. She argues that in cultures deeply influenced by Judaism and/or Christianity, the Bible has an exceptional position because biblical texts have long been regarded as holy and authoritative in our collective consciousness. Therefore, references to the Bible carry more weight than references to other classical texts and they build more impactful arguments, they are more powerful.

2.2 Political Readings of the Bible Although “the cultural Bible” is a political reading of the Bible, there are other designations for political uses of the Bible which I find relevant for my work. Some of them are used in other contributions to this book since they are commonly used in scholarship. A frequently used term is “the liberal Bible,” an interpretative tradition where the Bible functions as a guarantor of “our” liberal values, such as human rights, equality, and democracy.¹⁸ James Crossley has identified two other traditions of the political reception of the Bible that he calls the “neoliberal” and the “radical” Bible.¹⁹ The “neoliberal Bible” refers to biblical interpretations where the interpreter’s neoliberal convictions are visible,²⁰ but also to niche edi-

15 Stefan Klint, Romanen och evangeliet: Former för Jesusgestaltning i Pär Lagerkvists prosa. (Skellefteå: Norma, 2001). For an English summary, see 239–47. 16 Klint, Romanen, 196–97, 247. 17 Lina Sjöberg, Genesis och Jernet: Ett möte mellan Sara Lidmans Jernbaneepos och bibelns berättelser (Hedemora: Gidlund, 2006). For an English summary, see 325–27. 18 See further the “Introduction” to this volume. Cf. also Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 12–15. 19 Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 15–19. 20 A case in point is Margaret Thatcher, see Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 110–26.

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tions of the Bible sold on the market, each competing and trying to catch the attention of different groups, such as, girls, military personnel, LGBTQ+ people, engaged couples, and so on.²¹ “The radical Bible,” on the other hand, denotes a tradition that links the Bible with socialism or with revolutionary changes in one way or another. Crossley also includes here traditions that are religiously and/or politically radical or progressive, but not “socialist,” for example the Cathars, the radical reformation, and liberation theology.²² I will use “the radical Bible” in this wide sense. Two recent Swedish studies provide further inspiration for my analysis. Stefan Arvidsson argues in his work on socialist idealism (2018) that the production of ideologies in secular political movements is, to a high degree, based on mythic stories.²³ Cultural and political identities are partly formed by narratives that give meaning and offer ideals. The Bible, or “biblical mythology” to use Arvidsson’s words, includes such narratives.²⁴ Arvidsson uses the expression “mythic politics” to describe how secular political movements use mythological elements. First, events and persons in the movement are mythologized when stories about them are retold in order to communicate knowledge about lasting values and ideals. Secondly, elements from mythologies known and used in society and culture are used to form identity, to communicate the message of the movement, and to inspire political organization and action. In the “mythic politics” of early socialism, biblical elements were combined with persons and events from Graeco-Roman and Old Norse mythologies, mythologized medieval romantic stories, and from the history of the socialist movement.²⁵ The second work is Tomas Fransson’s study (2012) of the ways Jesus and his teachings have been interpreted outside established forms of Christianity from 1850–2006.²⁶ Fransson concludes that in the development of modern Swedish society, traditional Lutheran Christian culture lost importance but in its place a diversity of alternative interpretations of who Jesus was and what he taught emerged: “Jesus was [not] removed to the margins of culture, but many ‘Jesusesʼ appeared –

21 Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 16–17. 22 Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 18–19. 23 Stefan Arvidsson, The Style and Mythology of Socialism: Socialist Idealism, 1871–1914. Routledge Studies in Modern History 32 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018). My references are to the Swedish version Morgonrodnad: Socialismens stil och mytologi 1871–1914. (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2016). 24 Arvidsson, Morgonrodnad, 42–44. 25 Arvidsson, Morgonrodnad, 42–63. 26 Tomas Fransson, Inte bara kyrkans: Jesus i kulturen (Skellefteå: Artos, 2012); English summary 141–44.

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everyone with his own ideological touch.”²⁷ Fransson’s examples include early socialists who understood Jesus as a liberator whose intentions would finally be realized by socialists and poems that depict Jesus in line with liberal Protestantism as a kind person, a friend of outcasts, and a true human being different from Christological dogmas.²⁸ His most recent examples concern controversial books and art exhibitions that contain images of Jesus as, for example, a friend of LGBTQ+ people. Fransson shows that groups and individuals in churches and in society at large appeal to Jesus to support their cause even in the twenty-first century. At the same time, there is also resistance from more traditional Christianity against such free uses of Jesus that are considered blasphemic and/or incompatible with Christian ethics and dogma. These examples of “the radical Bible” differ from Sheehan’s understanding of the “cultural Bible” in one important aspect, namely, that they do not claim the Bible to be an important and authoritative founding document of our culture. Rather, they participate in struggles over the “cultural heritage” of the Bible. Different understandings of authority as well as political and cultural conflicts hereby enter the story.

2.3 A Secular Bible? On the basis of the above discussion, I propose the concept of “the secular Bible” to describe how “the Bible” —or rather, selected and interpreted parts of the Bible— forms part of Sweden’s cultural heritage in contexts where its divine authority and its cultural authority is not recognized. In “the secular Bible,” the Bible provides language, narratives, metaphors, and other textual elements that can be described as having the power to form collective and individual identities and as offering resources for orienting one’s life and ways of living in the world. In the cases I discuss below, the authority presupposed is the authority of certain ethical values and political convictions. Those who read biblical texts as “the secular Bible” are not seeking new grounds for biblical authority in a secular society but are engaged in political or cultural projects. Examples of “the secular Bible” may include ele-

27 Fransson, Inte bara kyrkans, 141. 28 Fransson, Inte bara kyrkans, 56–93, 133–35, 142–43. This corresponds to what Crossley calls the “Good Man Jesus,” an inspiring figure who represents the values of the interpreter and who typically is misunderstood by the church.” Cf. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 29–32. For other studies of images of Jesus through history, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (New Haven; CT: Yale University Press, 1985, 1999); Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).

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ments from the radical, the liberal, or the neoliberal Bible, however, the point of “the secular Bible” is not to say something about the Bible itself, but to use the Bible to comment on something else. Finally, in “the secular Bible” contemporary readers are free to use the Bible as they wish, without relating to traditional religious interpretations or to biblical scholarship. And yet, interpretations are formulated in historical and cultural contexts, and may therefore depend on earlier readings, including both religious and scholarly ones.

3 The Context: Changes in the Swedish Welfare System Sweden, like the other Nordic countries, belongs to “the social democratic welfare regime”²⁹ where the state has the overall responsibility to ensure general social welfare. Need-based welfare services are provided to all residents and are mainly financed through taxes.³⁰ “State” refers to the entirety of the “public sector,” including the state, the regional level (regioner), and local municipalities (kommuner). Responsibility for welfare rests mainly on the regional and local level, while state agencies are responsible for their supervision. The system is regulated by law. During the 1990s, decisive changes took place in the Swedish welfare system as a result of criticism of the welfare state from both ends of the political spectrum.³¹ The political left criticized the “strong state” as a powerful colossus that could crush the weak and small, and demanded democratization of the welfare system.³² The political right criticized the welfare state as inefficient and bureaucratic and demanded that the rationality and efficiency of the business sector should be fol-

29 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge Polity Press, 1990), 27–28. 30 Cf. Anders Bäckström and Grace Davie, “The WREP Project: Genesis, Structure and Scope” in Bäckström et al., Welfare and Religion, 1–23; Eva Jeppson Grassman, “Welfare in Western Europe: Existing Regimes and Patterns of Change,” in Bäckström et al., Welfare and Religion, 31–32. See also Elstad’s contribution to this volume. 31 See Laura Hartman, “Inledning,” in Konkurrensens konsekvenser: Vad händer med svensk välfärd? ed. Laura Hartman (Stockholm: SNS, 2011), 9–31; Anne-Marie Lindgren “Välfärdspolitikens förändring,” in Från konkurrens till kvalitet: Vägen till ökad jämlikhet i välfärden, ed. Åsa Pia Järliden Bergström and Katinka Hort (Falun: Scandbook, 2013), 29–59. 32 See, e. g., Kjell Östberg and JennyAndersson, Sveriges historia 1965–2012 (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2013), 32–34; Lindgren, “Välfärdspolitikens förändring,” 32–33, 41–52.

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lowed.³³ Although some proposals from the left were accepted, the critique from the right led to real, neoliberal changes.³⁴ One aim was to offer opportunities to choose between different service providers of, e. g. education and eldercare. A market for welfare services was created through political means. Today, regions and municipalities are still responsible for providing welfare but they can delegate the implementation of welfare services to other actors, non-profit and for-profit. While virtually all welfare service provisions are still publicly funded, for-profit companies play a more important role in the welfare system in Sweden than in other Nordic countries.³⁵ The “welfare market” in Sweden is dominated by a few large, financially strong companies, including multinational companies not based in Sweden.³⁶ The changes have been so profound that some argue Sweden is being transformed from a “welfare state” to a “welfare society.” While the public sector is the central actor in the former, its role is reduced in the latter to being one of many entities providing welfare services.³⁷ These changes in the Swedish welfare system are related to the development of neoliberalism as a dominating ideology in many parts of the world. “Neoliberalism” is a contested term.³⁸ According to a textbook definition that must suffice here, since it is in accordance with the understanding of “neoliberalism” in the debate where my examples participate,³⁹ neoliberalism is an economic ideology that idealizes a global market that it sees as indispensable for creating a better world. The ideal that people shall serve the public good, justice and welfare for all, is replaced by an ideal where self-interest and the perusal of profit are regarded as the main driving forces for human actions. Neoliberal politics include deregulation of the economy, liberalization of trade and industry, and privatization of enterprises traditionally owned and run by the public sector. Neoliberal public administration

33 See, e. g., Östberg and Andersson, Sveriges historia, 45–46. 34 See, e. g., Åke Sandberg, Värden i välfärden: Om styrning och organisering efter New Public Managment (Stockholm: Arena, 2014), https://arenaide.se/rapporter/varden-i-valfarden/. 35 Emil C. Bjøru et al., Når velferd er til salgs: Ideelle og kommersielle leverandører av velferdtjenester. Fafo-rapport 11 (2019): 197. In Sweden, the public sector is responsible for about 78 % of welfare services, non-profit actors make up 2–3 %, and for-profit companies about 17 %. For comparison, in Denmark, 7 % for-profit and 14 % non-profit actors are responsible for welfare services, while Norway reports 13 % for-profit and 8 % non-profit providers. 36 Stefan Svallfors, “Who Loves the Swedish Welfare State?” in The Oxford Handbook of Swedish Politics, ed. Jon Pierre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 27 with references. 37 Hartman, “Inledning,” 9−10. 38 Jenny Andersson, “Drivkrafterna bakom nyliberaliseringen kom från många olika håll,” Respons 2020: 20–21. 39 I use Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For a definition of “neoliberalism,” see 11–15.

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follows principles from the business world with a strong focus on leadership and measurable results.⁴⁰ These changes in the Swedish welfare system have been hotly debated. There is strong popular support for provider diversity and the ability to choose a welfare provider, but there is also a strong opposition against “profit in welfare” (vinst i välfärden), as the for-profit providers are called.⁴¹ One argument against “profit in welfare” is that it is unacceptable that taxes, our money collected to guarantee welfare for all, become profits for owners of companies. Another argument is that the aim and driving force for for-profit companies is to create profits for their owners. Those who oppose “profit in welfare” argue that while this may work for the production and selling of commodities, it is in conflict with the aims of welfare services based on values that are central to the professional ethics of those who work within the welfare system. Another line of argument questions the basic assumption of neoliberalism, that is, that principles of the market can be transferred to the welfare sector. In public debates, criticism of “profit in welfare” is often related to scandals, such as, when elderly people in a nursing home suffer from maltreatment because the care provider cuts costs to maximize profits.⁴² Critics of neoliberalism ask fundamental questions, such as: What is the difference between relating to society as a customer or as a citizen?⁴³ Is it true that human beings are primarily motivated by self interest and economic gain? Or, are we social beings who want to work together for the common good, motivated by duty or an awareness of our shared vulnerability?⁴⁴ Perhaps the use of biblical references in this criticism has to do with regarding neoliberalism in welfare as a threat to fundamental values; what was earlier recognized as sacred is now used in a secular sense to highlight fundamental values. In Sweden, an important part of the national identity in the twentieth century has been that Sweden is a modern, secularized welfare state.⁴⁵ Therefore, many people consider attacks on the

40 For the New Public Management in Sweden, see, e. g., Jon Pierre “Introduction,” in Pierre, Oxford Handbook, 9. 41 Göran Dahlgren, “Sjukvården: Vinstdriven sjukvård – erfarenheter och förslag,” in Bergström and Hort, Från konkurrens, 164–66; Anne-Marie Lindgren, “Vinstvarning?” in Bergström and Hort, Från konkurrens, 221–39; Sandberg, Värden i välfärden, 24. 42 For scandals, see Andersson and Östberg, Sveriges historia, 478–79; Sandberg, Värden i välfärden, 10–11. 43 Bengt Göransson, Tankar om politik (Stockholm: Erzats, 2010). 44 Göran Rosenberg, Plikten, profiten och konsten att vara människa (Stockholm: Bonniers, 2003). 45 As a matter of fact, Arvidsson includes folkhemmet (“the People’s Home,” the word used for the Swedish welfare state) as one of the contemporary phenomena that belong to “mythic politics.” Arvidsson, Morgonrodnad, 42.

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welfare state as attacks on the common, national identity. In the following cases, there is no appeal to the Bible as a part of our national heritage, but the national identity of Sweden as a welfare state, and even Jesus is involved in this project.

4 Uses of the Bible in the Welfare Debate: Resisting the Rule of Mammon In 2009, Läkartidningen, the journal of the Swedish Medical Association, published a debate article by Jan Halldin, MD and physician, with the title “When Mammon is allowed to lead health care” (“När Mammon tillåts styra vården”).⁴⁶ Halldin criticizes how economic interests influence daily work in health care in Stockholm. For example, nurses at a call service providing medical advice receive a bonus if they keep the phone calls short. Health care providers, including individual doctors and nurses, are supposed to be motivated by economic gain and to produce health care which can be measured (how many patients they meet, how many phone calls they answer, etc.) as if they were working at a factory. Halldin argues that such practices not only have serious consequences for patient safety but also for the well being of doctors and nurses. He raises ethical questions, arguing that health care must have the patient in its focus, not economic interests or the interests of society. Halldin proposes establishing a commission of politicians and health care professionals to monitor if there are threats against patient safety, the working conditions of health professionals, or human dignity. Thus, the article is an appeal for concrete changes, appealing to the professional ethics of health care providers and the values expressed in laws regulating Swedish health care.⁴⁷ The title adds a perspective: this is what happens when Mammon is allowed to lead health care. It does not say, for example, “Neoliberalism is incompatible with the ethical values of health care” or “When profit is allowed to rule health care.” Instead, it claims that a mythological being, Mammon, is the actual ruler over health care in Stockholm in the twenty-first century. “Mammon” is a reference to the saying of Jesus that one cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matt 6:24 par Luke 16:13; see also Luke 16:9; 11). Still, there is no appeal to Jesus in Halldin’s text. The authority Halldin’s text presupposes

46 Jan Halldin, “När Mammon tillåts styra vården,” Läkartidningen, July 7, 2009, https://la kartidningen.se/debatt-och-brev/2009/07/nar-mammon-tillats-styra-varden/. “Mammon” is not mentioned in the article. 47 “Hälso- och sjukvårdslagen (2017:30),” Sveriges Riksdag, https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokumentlagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/halso-och-sjukvardslag_sfs-2017-30.

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to make the argument valid is not the authority of the Bible, nor Jesus, but the authority of professional ethics and Swedish law. Therefore, this use of “Mammon” is a reference to the earlier uses of “Mammon” in Sweden (and other countries) that has roots in the Bible but has, for a long time, lived its life independent of the Bible. To borrow a formulation from the “Introduction” to this volume, the use of “Mammon” here is a “reception of receptions.”⁴⁸ In the following, I will give some examples of earlier uses of “Mammon” in Sweden to provide a context for Halldin’s use of the expression; a context that makes the reference an effective part of his rhetoric.

4.1 “Mammon”: Examples from Reception History Dictionaries of Swedish show that “Mammon” can be used in a wide sense to denote “money.” It is even possible to say “I have a lot of Mammon” meaning “I have a lot of money,”⁴⁹ although this use is not common in Sweden today. “Mammon” is associated with possessions, wealth, or greed, and can be personified, even described, as an idol, a false god. A well known example of this use is the explanation of the first commandment in Luther’s Large Cathechism, where Mammon, i. e. money and possessions, is called the most common idol on earth.⁵⁰ “Mammonism” is the term used for the cult—in a transferred and/or symbolical sense—of Mammon. The earliest examples of this use are from the Swedish reformation era. “Mammon” and “mammonism” became an important way of speaking about greed, profit making, and untampered capitalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both in Sweden and internationally.⁵¹ Thereby, a certain use of “Mammon” was integrated in the “mythic politics” of early socialism and may be regarded as part of “the radical Bible.” A similar use of Mammon can also be found in Christian circles who, although not socialists, recognized that there was an urgent need for social reforms.⁵²

48 Cf. “Introduction,” xxx. 49 “Mammon,” Nusvensk ordbok 2:1870; “Mammon,” SAOL and SAOB, https://svenska.se/tre/?sok= Mammon&pz=1. 50 Martin Luther, Large Cathechism, Book of Concord Online, http://bookofconcord.org/lc-1-intro. php. For Mammon as an idol, see “The Ten Commandments” and the passage on the First Commandment. 51 Arvidsson provides examples from a work of the young Richard Wagner and from the US workers’ movement; Morgonrodnad, 49. 52 For example, in a sermon from 1917, Nathan Söderblom, archbishop of the Church of Sweden and pioneer of the ecumenical movement, argued that the rule of Mammon must be ended to ach-

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The best known Swedish example of this kind of use of Mammon is a poem by Viktor Rydberg entitled “Den nya grottesången” (1891).⁵³ Rydberg reuses a story from Nordic sagas to an allegory, or a dystopia, showing a world where the injustices of early industrialism, the use of child labor, and harsh working conditions are taken to their utmost extreme to make a profit. In this world, the religion of Christ is replaced by the cult of Mammon.⁵⁴ Rydberg was a Christian, a liberal protestant who revered Jesus, but was critical of the Church and its Christological dogmas.⁵⁵ Even though he was a political liberal and critical of socialism, this poem became important for many in the labour movement and thereby for early socialism in Sweden.⁵⁶ To sum up, “Mammon” is generally known, especially in Sweden, as deified greed, a personified search for profit, and as a “false God.” To “serve Mammon” is contrary to generally accepted ideals of a good life and a danger to the well being of society and its citizens.⁵⁷ Mammon is a biblical reference that lives on in Christian traditions but also has a life of its own in public discourse. Therefore, it also works well as a rhetorical means for discussing profit in welfare. Its use in the headline discussed above provides a certain perspective on the current health care situation in Stockholm and sharpens the criticism of economistic (neoliberal) thinking and practices, implying that they are not only problematic, but signs of serving a false God and in conflict with the basic values of a good society.

ieve a better world. See Emil Åhrén, De stora världsproblemen i den gudomliga uppenbarelsens ljus (Stockholm: Skandinaviska förlagsexpeditionen, 1920), 267–68. 53 The title of Rydberg’s poem “Den nya Grottesången,” literally “The New Song about Grotte” refers to an old Norse poem that tells about Grotte, a magic grinder, that produces everything its owner wishes: gold and welfare but also war and disaster. 54 Viktor Rydberg, “Den nya grottesången” in Viktor Rydberg, Dikter, Svenska klassiker utgivna av Svenska akademin (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1996), 151–85. 55 Staffan Björck, “Viktor Rydberg,” Nationalencyklopedin 16:103–104; Viktor Rydberg, Bibelns lära om Kristus (Stockholm: Bonners, 1904). 56 See e. g. Andreas Hedberg, “I dikten möts vi kring obesvarade frågor,” Svensk kyrkotidning 11 (2012): 220. 57 A cursory and selective reading of the references to “Mammon” in two databases of digitalized Swedish literature confirm these uses. There are 474 references in http://runeberg.org/ and 384 in https://litteraturbanken.se/. A search in the database of Swedish newspapers from 1780–2021 at the website of the National library, www.kb.se, gave 2.427 references.

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4.2 Mammon and the Secular Bible The use of Mammon in the headline to Halldin’s text, echoes of a whole tradition of interpretation where Mammon is profit or capitalism turned into an almighty power, a tradition where “Mammon” has mythical overtones. Therefore, the use of “Mammon” has more power than if the headline used “greed” or “profit” or “economic interests” even in secular contexts and uses. This example shows how “Mammon” works well to communicate a message and substantiate the point of the debate article, even in the case when the reader does not recognize the biblical reference. In my opinion, this is an example of reading the Bible in the way that I have chosen to call “the secular Bible.” The debate is rooted in a secular context and the author makes no claims of being a Christian or representing a Christian church or politics. The use of “Mammon” here shows how people in a secular society use biblical texts as they wish. However, the use is dependent on the history of reception. The freedom to use “Mammon” in ways other than the biblical text is not just a consequence of secularization, it is the result of a long history of interpretation and use. This history makes it possible for “Mammon” to work as a rhetorical means in a debate about health care in Stockholm. Halldin does not base his argument on the Bible but on Swedish law and generally accepted democratic values. However, readers who recognize “Mammon” as a biblical reference may understand the headline as saying that criticism of a world where economic interests are allowed to influence the basic routines of health care is in line with biblical values. This appeal to a biblical reference to support generally accepted values has traits of the liberal Bible but may also be understood as continuing the tradition of the radical Bible. It is tempting to see an element of “mythic politics” here, too. The use of “Mammon” in a headline to a debate article is not part of a developed “mythic politics” described by Arvidsson, but it may be regarded as a reception of this kind of reception of the biblical text. It is possible for a reader to associate the use of Mammon with certain mythic politics and feel the power of the myth in a debate about such a non-mythical issue as the routines of medical call centers in contemporary Sweden.

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5 The Bible in the Swedish Welfare Debate: Fighting with Jesus against Neoliberalism In Sweden, the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15−19 par) is known as “Jesus drives merchants out of the Temple” (Jesus driver ut månglarna ur Templet). Månglare is an old word, originally a neutral word referring to a man (there is also a feminine form månglerska) who runs a small scale business, for example, selling fruit and vegetables at the local market. Today, it is not frequently used and has negative associations, perhaps due to the biblical story.⁵⁸ In the following examples, the story about Jesus driving out the merchants is used in two ways. First, “drive the merchants out of the Temple,” or just “drive out the merchants,” is an established, proverb-like saying. It presupposes knowledge of the biblical story but now lives a life of its own. Jesus may not be mentioned and the reference to “the Temple” can be dropped. The expression is used as a general claim that those who make a profit shall be expelled from places where they do not belong. The second way of using the story is retelling it as a story about Jesus who drove the merchants out of the Temple. When the story is used in this way, Jesus’s action is central, for example, as a model to follow.

5.1 “Drive Out the Merchants” as a Proverb “Drive out the merchants” is a frequently used saying; in the Swedish daily press it has been used 101 times between 2018–2021.⁵⁹ I have chosen three representative examples. On July 2001, the daily newspaper Aftonbladet published a debate article by two social democratic politicians, Bengt Silverstrand and Bengt Lindqvist, with the title, “Yes to diversity but drive out the merchants.”⁶⁰ It is a reply to a debate about “profit in welfare” that had taken place at the congress of The Swedish Municipal Workers Union. Those who defended for-profit companies as welfare providers claimed that this was the only way to guarantee diversity. Silverstrand and Lindqvist challenged this, arguing that it is possible, even desirable, to create diversity through allowing non-profit actors to provide addi-

58 “Månglare,” Svensk ordbok 1:786, which has a reference to the biblical story; “Månglare,” SAOB, https://svenska.se/tre/?sok=m%C3%A5nglare&pz=2. 59 The database is available at www.kb.se. 60 Bengt Silverstrand and Bengt Lindqvist, “Ja till mångfald men rensa ut månglarna,” Aftonbladet, July 4, 2001, https://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/a/m61lJ0/ja-till-mangfald-men-rensa-ut-man glarna.

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tional welfare services. They conclude that the merchants must be thrown out of the “temple” (their quotation marks) financed by our common money, by taxes. In March 2014, Läkartidningen published a short article where Björn Bergström, MD and physician, criticizes the roles of economic experts in hospitals.⁶¹ In his view, economists now hold leading positions previously held by physicians and make decisions that should be based on medical knowledge and ethics. These decisions, he argues, must be made by doctors, not economists. The headline of the article is “Drive out the merchants from the Temple.” A similar title appeared in August 2017 on the website of Tankesmedjan Balans (a think-tank called “Balance”) in a text commenting on the working conditions of primary school teachers.⁶² The title runs, “There are no miracles! Has the time come to drive out the merchants from the Temple?” A classic painting of Jesus driving out the merchants appears under the heading. The text contributes to a discussion on the demands on teachers to deliver high quality education to their “customers” (= pupils) although schools lack the necessary resources. Money is wasted, the authors claim, on paying expensive consultants to give lectures that are supposed to inspire teachers to produce better quality education. What is needed is more school resources. Therefore, the time has come to “drive out the merchants from the Temple,” with the consultants explicitly identified as “the merchants.”

5.2 Retelling the Story of Jesus Cleansing the Temple The story of Jesus driving out the merchants is used in the welfare debate in a blog published in 2012 by the network Gemensam välfärd (“common welfare.”) The network is an advocacy group against neoliberal changes in the Swedish welfare system. In the text entitled, “Not all liberals want profit in healthcare,”⁶³ the author Peter Lorentzon comments on the discussion around the huge economic gains and tax evasion of the directors of some big for-profit care providing companies who were under investigation by the Swedish Tax Agency. Profiting off tax money and then avoiding paying taxes evoked such general dismay that the government initiated discussion groups and an ethical platform for all care providers financed

61 Björn Bergström, “Driv ut månglarna ur templet,” Lakartidningen, March 3, 2014, http://www. lakartidningen.se/Opinion/Debatt/2014/03/Driv-ut-manglarna-ur-templet. 62 “Det är dags att driva månglarna ur templet,” Balans, august 10, 2017, http://tank esmedjanbalans.se/det-ar-dags-att-driva-manglarna-ur-templet/. 63 Peter Lorentzon, “Inte alla liberaler vill ha vinst i vården,ˮ Gemensam, November 24, 2012, https://gemensam.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/inte-alla-liberaler-vill-ha-vinst-i-varden.

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by taxes. Lorentzon is not convinced that these efforts make a difference. He argues that a business leader does not care about ethics but only about personal economic gain. Therefore, the author concludes, the Swedish government should follow Jesus’s example. Jesus did not preach ethics to the merchants in the Temple, he threw them out. While Lorentzon does not explicitly remind his readers that the members of government responsible for health care and social issues at the time belonged to the Christian Democratic Party (Kristdemokraterna), it may be implied that those who identify as Christian should follow the example of Jesus. My second example is a satirical cartoon by Robert Nyberg who is known for cartoons criticizing the negative consequences of neoliberal changes in welfare for ordinary people. In Nyberg’s cartoons, political consequences are pushed beyond what is actually happening and made absurd, creating a humorous effect. At the same time, they offer a serious critique of what is going on in the present and a warning for the future: this is where we will end up if we do not find ways to change course. In the cartoon, a grown up is sitting bedside a bed, reading a bedtime story to a child.⁶⁴ At the top of the picture there is a banner with the word “EvangeliuM” (“the gospel”). The final letter is formed as the symbol for Moderaterna, the political party that at the time was closest to neoliberalism. A speech bubble shows what the grown up reads, obviously the gospel according to the Moderates: “Then Jesus invited the merchants into the Temple.”⁶⁵ In the world created in Nyberg’s pictures, the world we are moving towards or already live in, the gospel story is rewritten to support neoliberalism in a way that is in total contrast to the original version.⁶⁶

64 Robert Nyberg, Guldfeber (Stockholm: Karneval, 2012). The picture is available at http://www. robertnyberg.nu/docs/senaste/senaste273.html and in Hanna Stenström “Jesus, tempelrensningen og velfaerdsdebatten i Sverige,” Bibliana 2/2020, www.bibliana.dk. 65 “Då bjöd Jesus in månglarna till Templet.” In 2020, the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter published a cartoon by David Nessle, similar to Nyberg’s. The picture looks like a medieval painting showing a man with a halo surrounded by people. The text at the side of the picture says, in archaic Swedish, that the lobbyists worked very hard to make Jesus drive the merchants back into the Temple. David Nessle, Muralgranskaren, Dagens Nyheter, May 10, 2020, 36. 66 The picture was first published in Aftonbladet on Christmas Eve. This was the reason Nyberg choose the topic; e-mail from Robert Nyberg to Hanna Stenström, April 11, 2020.

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5.3 Driving out the Merchants: Examples from Reception History The examples presented above belong to the rich reception history of the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple.⁶⁷ The story has an established place in “the radical Bible”⁶⁸ and in the Social Gospel Movement in the USA in the nineteenth century, becoming “the paradigmatic gospel story.”⁶⁹ In his first Inaugural Address in 1933, during the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the “New Deal,” he declared: The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.⁷⁰

Roosevelt’s speech was also cited in Sweden. In one case, Roosevelt is credited for coining the phrase “drive out the merchants”, not to the Bible.⁷¹ Several examples from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries confirm that the story was part of a commonly known cultural heritage.⁷² In the socialist daily press from this period, the conflict in the biblical story was identified with the conflict between the socialists and the church, in particular the Church of Sweden. Jesus’s attack on the Temple and the priests—in Swedish, the word präst refers both to Lutheran clergy and to the priests in the Temple of Jerusalem—becomes an image of the socialists’ conflict with the Church of Sweden.

67 In a paper at the 2017 SBL Annual Meeting, “Trump’s Temple Tantrum: Money Changers in American Political Discourse,” Jason von Ehrenkrook analysed the uses of the story in American political discourse during the twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries and showed that the story can be used to support various political agendas. Von Ehrenkrook has shared the paper with me. I do not quote from it since it documents unpublished research. 68 Crossley provides contemporary examples; Cults, 44. According to Arvidsson, the story was important for early socialists but he does not give examples; Morgonrodnad, 48. 69 Prothero, American Jesus, 94. 70 “First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt,” The Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale. edu/20th_century/froos1.asp. 71 Björn Elmbrant, “Driv ut månglarna ur templet!” Dagens Arena, September 18, 2008, https:// www.dagensarena.se/opinion/driv-ut-manglarna-ur-templet/; Bjørn Elmbrandt, “Den osynliga handen är inget att hålla i handen,” Dagens Arena, April 1, 2008, https://www.dagensarena.se/opinion/ den-osynliga-handen-ar-inget-att-halla-i-handen/; Juhani Kulo, “Driv ut månglarna – skydda medborgarna,” September 20, 2008, https://juhanikulo.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/driv-ut-manglarnaskydda-medborgarna/. 72 Cf. Selma Lagerlöf, Jerusalem II: I det heliga landet (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1902), 63.

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Lutheran clergy are seen as Jesus’s priestly opponents and called with pejorative names.⁷³ The clergy may be included in the list of oppressors hit by Jesus’s whip.⁷⁴ In one case from 1891, the merchants in the story are clearly identified with people who make a profit. This example appears in a report in a politically liberal local daily newspaper, Jönköpingsposten, about a lecture by a certain pastor Winqvist at a public meeting of the temperance movement. Winqvist who was probably not a pastor in the state church but a minister in one of the many free churches in Jönköping, compared the merchants in the Temple, who turned a profit off of the religious needs and good intentions of the Jews, with those who produce and sell alcoholic beverages and profit off of people’s evil inclination and sinful desires. They must be driven out, with the temperance movement as the whip that makes them flee.⁷⁵ Another interesting case is a text published in 1917 by Alf Nyman, later a professor of theoretical philosophy at Lund University, where he describes the work of a certain philosopher as intending to drive out the psychologistic, relativistic and pragmatic merchants from the temple of logic and epistemology.⁷⁶ This example shows that many kinds of opponents can be identified with “månglarna,” not just those who seek to make a profit.

5.4 Merchants, Jesus, and the Temple in the Secular World The connections of the story about Jesus driving out the merchants from the Temple to “the radical Bible” are obvious. Its use in supporting one’s arguments in the debate about “profit in welfare” works as a rhetorical means even in a secular context. This is due to the reception history of the text and of the figure of Jesus in general. Three elements in the story demand further comment: the merchants, Jesus, and the Temple. How are they used and what do they signify? The few examples shown here demonstrate that the merchants can be identified with many different kinds of opponents. Often profit-making is the focus, but this is only part of the picture. Especially in the socialist press in the late nineteenth century, the buying and selling in the Jerusalem Temple is juxtaposed with the practices of their contemporary state church, which the early socialists criticized for other reasons than profit-making. The identification of the merchants in the Temple with for-profit providers of welfare works because both are regarded as bringing commer-

73 74 75 76

Folkets röst, December 24, 1887, 2; Socialdemokraten, August 16, 1895, 2. Folkets röst, August 18, 1888, 2. Jönköpingsposten, January 19, 1891. Alf Nyman, “Wilhelm Windelband: En epitaf,” Ord och Bild 26 (1917): 488.

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cial interests into a sphere where the aim to make a profit is in conflict with the values of this sphere. This is one of the main arguments against “profit in welfare.” In the twenty-first century, Jesus is still the “Good Man”—“an inspiring figure who represents the values of the interpreter and who typically is misunderstood by the church”⁷⁷—who represents and supports a broad spectrum of causes. In my examples above, Lorentzon uses Jesus against politicians who, at least to some degree, appeal to his name, but the debate is not about Jesus but about welfare. Lorentzon’s argumentation presupposes that it is self-evident that Jesus is on the side of those who struggle against those who profit off of tax money. Thus, Jesus’s authority is assumed not as the incarnation of God, but as an exemplary figure who provides a model to follow. It is less obvious how “the Temple” can be transferred to the Swedish welfare system. In many cases, the temple is simply left out of the reference and only Jesus and the merchants are retained. In one of my examples, the word is put in quotation marks, implying that there is something odd about referring to schools as “the Temple.” However, calling social institutions, financed by tax-payers’ money, a temple, opens up the possibility that there is something special about common projects that serve the welfare of all who live in Sweden. With some creative reading it is possible to ask if the use of the word “Temple,” i. e. a holy place, brings an aura of holiness to non-negotiable values that shall not be violated. Is there something sacred about welfare work, welfare systems, welfare states and societies in this sense? The reference to the Temple and its holiness may add power and weight to the argument. However, as shown above, many references exclude the temple and only use the form “Jesus drives out the merchants.” For them, referring to Jesus seems to show that the case is legitimate, even in the contemporary Sweden. It is tempting to see at least some elements of “mythic politics” at work, even though the references are not part of a developed project or an organized political movement.

6 Conclusions and Final Reflections In this essay, I have discussed examples of how the Bible is used in contemporary Swedish political debates by people who do not identify as religious. Here, biblical references are not used to support Christian politics, but as a rhetorical means to communicate opinions based on political convictions and generally accepted democratic values. The references work because they are “receptions of receptions,” i. e. because they have become part of a shared cultural heritage through their use in var-

77 Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 29.

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ious contexts over a long period of time. This is certainly the case with “Mammon” but also when the story about Jesus expelling the merchants from the Temple is retold or when the story’s details are identified with contemporary circumstances. In the latter case, the long tradition of “the Good Man Jesus” told in churches but also in literature and political contexts establishes meanings and associations that make the reference an efficient rhetorical means. However, even these free uses of the Bible are not formed in isolation from earlier interpretations. Rather, they carry with them a heritage with roots in Christian interpretations, but which has secular interpretations integrated within it. The borders between Christian Bibles and the cultural Bible are not firm and there is an ongoing interaction between them. The examples presented here support the concept of “the secular Bible.” They show that instead of a sign of the return to or new visibility of religion, the use of biblical references in public discourse in contemporary Sweden is a sign that people in a secularized society feel free to use a biblical story or a biblical expression in new ways, without taking traditional religious or scholarly interpretations into account. References to Mammon or Jesus or other biblical expressions have a certain power related to the historical role of the Bible but have no authority in the traditional sense. The authority present in my examples is based on ethical convictions and values and on Swedish law, not on the Bible as divine revelation or a founding document of our culture. Still, more reflections are needed to substantiate that “the secular Bible” is an apt category to describe the use of the Bible in Sweden and comparable secularized societies. In this essay, I have suggested that biblical references add an almost mythical dimension to the daily work of welfare services and to political debates concerning it. People are invited to see contemporary Sweden as a place where Mammon leads healthcare and neoliberals preach a gospel that is the exact opposite of the true story of Jesus. In other words, people are invited to see these changes in Sweden’s welfare system as a genuine threat to the basic values of society. I share these critiques of neoliberalism, which I regard as an erosion of fundamental values. Still, questions about this mythical dimension keep bothering me. I keep asking myself whether the use of biblical references has an inherent danger, the demonization of the opponent. Should we avoid using biblical references and stick to this-worldly arguments when we discuss politics? Or do we need this strong language to express that the fundamental values of our society, recognized by both religious and non-religious people from different parts of the political spectrum, are threatened? What else could we use if not the Bible? The question remains how we can use biblical language responsibly, without thinking about our world in mythological, even apocalyptic ways.

Ole Jakob Løland

The Bible in Norwegian Politics: Scripture in the Parliamentarians’ Discourse 1 Introduction Unlike the United States, in Norway candidates for political office generally do not highlight the Bible’s influence on their political thinking. Similarly, during their campaigns, journals typically do not ask candidates to identify their favourite verse in the Bible. Searches undertaken within the digitized parliamentary proceedings on the web indicate that the Bible is a marginal entity in the public discussions of the Norwegian parliament,¹ with some notable exceptions.² After the 1930s, the Bible hardly ever influenced decision making within political debates. Elsewhere, I have documented and analysed the absence of the Bible in the historical speech of Norway’s Prime Minister at the memorial service two days after the terror attack in Oslo on July 22, 2011. Although the service was orchestrated within a Protestant cathedral, the country’s major political leader construed his discourse with a notable lack of religious or biblical language in what was a crucial moment for the creation of national unity in the context of mass grief.³ When scholars write the history of the Bible in Norway, the political role of the Bible is typically not thematised.⁴ Nonetheless, the Bible has not been entirely absent from the public discourse produced by Norwegian parliamentarians during the last two decades. This chapter will explore the political roles of the Bible in Norway by focusing on its use in the discourse of parliamentarians during the 2000s. I will trace a cultural Bible at work in the parliamentarians’ discourse and demonstrate the usefulness of this Bible on three levels: first, the ceremonial political setting; second,

1 All proceedings from the Storting are being made available through the official website www.stortinget.no. The proceedings from 1814 until 2005 can also be accessed through the website of the National Library www.nb.no/statsmaktene. Nearly 3 million pages from the political processes in this period are digitized and constitute an invaluable resource for scholars. 2 Of particular importance is the role of biblical texts, Pauline texts in particular, in the 1930s Storting debates about women’s ordination in the state church of Norway and in the 1880s parliamentary debates about women’s’ rights to owe property. 3 Ole Jakob Løland, “The Norwegian 9/11: In the Church without a Bible,” Political Theology 1 (2017): 1−15. 4 See for instance Norsk Bibelselskap, ed., Bibelen i Norge (Oslo: Det Norske Bibelselskap, 1991). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-009

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the parliamentary setting of official Storting debates; and third, the setting for the use of the cultural Bible created by various Norwegian media. As the editors of this volume make clear, biblical reception is conditioned by broad cultural codes, but it does so with specific rhetorical aims. Hence, the politically appropriate and rhetorically effective use of the Bible relies on context. As Norway’s Prime Minister demonstrated on New Year’s Day in 2010, biblical ideas can be successfully employed in a speech written for a ceremonial political setting in Norway. Moreover, references to biblical texts have occasionally been seen in recent debates in the Parliament and also in more polemical political settings outside the Parliament that have been channelled through media. Given its unique role as the pillar of the religious tradition that has been predominant in the country since the Reformation period, the Bible is a fascinating object of study once it enters national politics in Norway. In this process of entering politics, the Bible is being renegotiated as an act of what the philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls “profanation”.⁵ Rather than merely secularizing Holy Scripture into wholly worldly visions that are saved and freed from the religious sphere, the Bible is returned from this sphere without neutralizing the ambiguous relationship between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular. These profanations manifest the various Bibles that continue to haunt attempts to demarcate this relationship in a clear and completely defined manner. The religious is not neutralized, but its forces are returned to a new use in what is imagined to constitute a mundane domain, which goes under the name of “politics.” In presupposing that there are different Bibles, I am following the lead of Yvonne Sherwood in contributing to the history of Bibles that Jonathan Sheehan began with his study of the “Enlightenment Bible.”⁶ In this pioneering study, Sheehan observes how the overarching presuppositions about the essence of the Bible in a certain historical period and ideological context are transformed. Sheehan works with the notion that a powerful vision of the very essence of the Bible is imagined, construed and produced in modernity as “the Enlightenment Bible.” Far from disappearing, the authority of the Bible is reshaped in modernity as cultural heritage. The Bible is seen more as an acclaimed literary classic or cultural achievement of our civilization than as the revealed Word of God.⁷ Accordingly, it should be asked: What kinds of Bibles are at work in Norwegian politics,

5 Giorgio Agamben, Profanations, trans. Jeff Fort (New York: Zone Books, 2007), 73−92. 6 Yvonne Sherwood, Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 311. 7 Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).

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and what can Norwegian politicians possibly achieve with them? Moreover, why is the Bible brought into politics in the first place?

2 Conditions for the Intersection of Religion and Politics in Norway In a global perspective, membership rates in Nordic churches are relatively high, while reported religious belief (such as in life after death or the existence of God) as well as religious attendance remain low.⁸ What is more, the Nordic countries stand out as the countries in West Europe that see the greatest decline of people identifying themselves with the label “Christian.” Many in the Nordic countries who were raised as Christians cease to consider themselves so when they are adults. A report published in 2018 suggested that Norway was on top (together with Belgium) with the most dramatic shift in terms of religious identity. While a slender majority (51 %) reported that they saw themselves as “Christians”, 28 % told the survey that although they had been raised Christian, they no longer considered themselves so. The entire group reported that they had become unaffiliated to any religion.⁹ In that perspective, it is not surprising that religiosity determines voting behaviour in this region only to a low degree.¹⁰ Like other Nordic countries, Norway finds itself in a societal situation characterized by increased religious diversity due to individuation of religion and to the growth of minority religions. Moreover, the recent disestablishment of the Evangelical Lutheran majority church also affects the role of religion in Norwegian politics. Although the levels of religious participation, affiliation and belief in the Nordic countries remain low or are decreasing, the importance of religion for politics in these countries seems to have increased from the 1980s until the 2000s (with the exception of Sweden).¹¹ Some of the increase of debates in Nordic parliaments related to religious issues can be accounted for by a rise in parliamentary activity in

8 Phil Zuckerman, “Why Are Danes and Swedes So Irreligious?,” Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 22, (2009): 55−69. 9 “Being Christian in Western Europe,” Pew Research Center, 2018, https://www.pewforum.org/ 2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe/. 10 Inger Furseth, Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere: Comparing Nordic Countries (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 148. 11 The research has documented an increased presence of debates related to religion in the parliaments by comparing the amount of these kinds of debates in the year of 1988/1989 with 2008/2009. Furseth, Religious Complexity, 163−64.

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general. Nevertheless, it probably also reflects a shift of political discourse on religion away from a political consensus to an articulated disagreement about the role of religion in today’s Nordic societies. No full overview or complete data of the frequency of the mention of the Bible, a biblical text, or a biblical character in Norwegian politics in general, or the Storting in particular, during the last two decades has been published. The ambition here is not to provide an exhaustive account of the total use of Scripture in this particular political and historical context, but to give some telling examples of it inside and outside the Storting from the two last decades. The use of the Bible does not count in the same way for all social scientists in their findings about religion in Norwegian politics. For some, it goes under the radar of what counts as religion in the parliament.¹² For others, this use of the Bible in Nordic parliaments is only partly covered in their research, by including key terms such as “Bible” or “Jesus” without analysing in detail the particular ways the Bible functions in parliamentarian discourse.¹³ Hence, a considerable part of the cultural meaning-making with recourse to the Christian canon in the mouths of parliamentarians goes unnoticed in current research. This blind spot of social scientists is regrettable. Brennan Breed’s Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History ambitiously sets out to redefine the whole field of modern biblical criticism by challenging and deconstructing the constitutive wall of separation between the original meaning of texts and later meanings of the same texts. Without an entirely stable ground from which to detect a historical context that provides the original meaning of an ancient text, all efforts at reconstructing this context and its meaning are the fruits of acts of reading of these very same texts, and these acts result in new layers of reception of these texts. This complicates the whole endeavour of distinguishing clearly between the historical production of a text and its reception. Against this background, Breed calls for a shift in focus for biblical scholars, from asking about the meaning of a text to asking about the function of this

12 For a recent example of a scholarly work produced by social scientists that exclude terms such as “Bible,” “Matthew,” “Luke” or “Moses” from their list of key words guiding their search into the proceedings of the Storting, see Pål Ketil Botvar and Sunniva E. Holberg, “Religion i politikken – gammelt tema, nye konflikter,” in Religionens tilbakekomst i offentligheten? Religion, politikk, medier, stat og sivilsamfunn i Norge siden 1980-tallet, ed. Inger Furseth (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2015), 47. 13 Jonas Lindberg, Religion in Nordic Politics as a Means to Societal Cohesion: An Empirical Study on Party Platforms and Parlamentary Debates 1988−2012 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2015).

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text in the readers’ contexts.¹⁴ The Bible is therefore considered less as a container of meaning and more as a thing that perform things for the reader. Accordingly, one may ask what biblical texts can do for a Norwegian politician in her or his specific contexts. In his influential essay “The ‘Effective History’ of the Bible,” Heikki Räisänen reacted against reductive approaches to the history of interpretation of the Bible that limited its scope to the history and affairs of the Christian churches. The Finnish scholar called for studies of reception in a broad sense, including areas of societal life such as legislation and politics.¹⁵ Biblical reception takes place in a social space in which the position of the Bible and its legacy are continuously being negotiated. One of the central cultural arenas for this negotiation is literature. The Bible has informed various types of Norwegian literature from Henrik Ibsen’s plays from the nineteenth century until Karl Ove Knausgaard’s recent novels.¹⁶ In Knausgaard’s 2004 novel “A Time for Everything,” En tid for alt, biblical stories, primarily from the book of Genesis, are rephrased and retold in free and creative ways. In other words, there is a cultural background for a political appropriation of the Bible in Norway.

3 Ceremonial Political Setting: The Bible as Cultural Memory In Norway, one ritual frame for the parliamentary debates is found in the traditional speech for January 1, where the Prime Minister is expected to address more fundamental issues and unifying themes for the entire people of the country. This political ceremony is broadcast on national radio and television. Jens Stoltenberg was Norway’s Prime Minister from 2000 to 2001 and thereafter from 2005 to 2013. He belongs to the “Labour Party,” Arbeiderpartiet, and led a three-party coalition that consisted of the “Socialist Left Party,” Sosialistisk Venstreparti, and the “Centre Party,” Senterpartiet. He is among the growing segment of Norwegians who are not members of any religious community, and his government had achieved an agreement with all the parties in the Parliament

14 Brennan W. Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), 142. 15 Heikki Räisänen, “The ʻEffective History’ of the Bible,” in Challenges to Biblical Interpretation: Collected Essays, 1991−2000, ed. Heikki Räisänen (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 271. 16 For an overview of the Bible’s influence on Norwegian literature in the postwar period see Jan Inge Sørbø, Essay om teologi og litteratur (Oslo: Samlaget, 1994), 211−30.

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in 2008 that implied constitutional changes with regard to the relations between the Lutheran state church and the state in the country. Hence, his government proved to be instrumental in the gradual separation of state and church in Norway. On January 1, 2010 Stoltenberg gave a New Year’s Day speech that created only a few headlines in Norwegian media, and it mostly went unnoticed that the Labour Party’s leader had used the Bible to justify his economic policies. Stoltenberg began an argument about the importance of economic saving with some biblical facts about ancient civilisations: Among the first public buildings we know of from the earliest civilisations are granaries. They were used to provide emergency relief in years when crops failed. We remember the story of Joseph advising Pharaoh to build up a store of grain because the seven good years would be followed by seven years of famine. This is ancient wisdom: we should save when times are good so as to be prepared for hard times.¹⁷

Stoltenberg speaks about the “the first public buildings” that “we know” and retells a story that “we” share as a common memory. Then he reveals that the story he has in mind is a biblical one, as if the biblical can testify to our factual knowledge about our earliest civilizations. His explicit point, however, is that the biblical story from Gen 41 provides us not with historical knowledge nor with religious insights, but with “ancient wisdom” about savings for difficult periods. This is a form of wisdom that his government’s policies build on in the area of economy. The biblical wisdom gives it further legitimacy: We have been able to spend more during these difficult times because we were careful when times were good. In this respect, you could say that we have followed the advice Joseph gave to Pharaoh, albeit in a rather different way. The Egyptians built granaries. We built the Government Pension Fund.¹⁸

Many viewers or listeners know that as an economist committed to saving the revenues from the national oil industry for future times and even generations, the Prime Minister is probably more inspired by John Maynard Keynes and modern economic theory, but the biblical argument works well enough to go somehow unnoticed in the public reception of the speech. The supposedly secular politician follows the advice from a biblical character, but the divine origin of Joseph’s advice is erased in Stoltenberg’s retelling of the biblical story. Stoltenberg’s ceremonial

17 Jens Stoltenberg, “Prime Minister’s New Year’s Address 2010,” 2010, https://www.regjeringen.no/ en/aktuelt/prime-ministers-new-years-address-2010/id589483/. Official translation. 18 Stoltenberg, “Prime Minister’s New Year’s Address.”

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speech does not imply any notion of divine intervention or existence of a supernatural sphere above the human one. Moreover, the biblical wisdom Stoltenberg draws upon from does not exclude other forms of wisdom, in principle. The story about Joseph advising Pharaoh is simply one “we” happen to remember. It is part of the knowledge Norwegian pupils are supposed to have learned in school about the holy book of the majority religion in the country, as part of a shared narrative heritage. Nonetheless, it would be unlikely that a Norwegian Prime Minister would have used a story from the Quran or another canonical text from a minority religion. First, the politician cannot expect the population to know these non-Christian stories to the same degree. Second, the status and role of minority religions is more often connected to controversies and contested issues, particularly when it comes to Islam. Third, the vocabulary of this kind of ceremonial speech must be shared by a considerable majority of the public. It can therefore include biblical vocabulary, but its content must be sufficiently secularized or profaned in order to be politically acceptable. The Bible must be presented as a non-political cultural memory reflecting common sense. Hence, the cultural Bible was at work in Stoltenberg’s speech. Nonetheless, to refer to a well-known biblical story was not an established tradition for The Prime Minister’s Address on the New Year’s Day. Nor did it become a habit after Stoltenberg’s 2010 speech. It was one of those rare moments when biblical ideas were brought to the fore of political discourse in Norway. This rather marginal political role of the Bible can also be found in the Storting. Although biblical references have appeared in the parliamentary debates in the last 20 years, it has not happened often. In what follows, I will present and analyse one of these rare moments in the Storting. One single debate from 2012 will serve as an example of how Norwegian parliamentarians can use biblical texts in the Storting. It is probably the debate from the Norwegian parliament in which the Bible was most frequently referred to in the period 2000−2020.

4 Parliamentary Setting: Bible-Thumping in Norwegian On December 13, 2012 the Storting gathered for a debate on aspects of the national budget for the following year, related to education, culture, public administration

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and church affairs.¹⁹ The country had been ruled by a majority coalition for seven years, consisting of the “Labour Party,” Det Norske Arbeiderparti, the “Centre Party,” Senterpartiet, and the “Socialist Left Party,” Sosialistisk Venstreparti – the so-called “red-green government.” It came to power in 2005 and secured a new majority in 2009 when it won 86 of the 169 seats.²⁰ Over these seven years, the parliament had witnessed how power had been transferred from its main hall to the majority government, who could confidently bring their cases to the Storting in the assurance that they would pass without major difficulties. For most parts of its post-war history, Norway had been ruled by minority coalitions that left many decisions in the hands of the majority in the Parliament. Nothing in the parliamentary speaker’s presentation of the agenda for the day signalled that any substantial changes of policies were to be expected in the coming hours of debate, nor was the debate broadcasted in Norwegian media. There did not appear to be much at stake. The only daily newspaper that noticed the biblical references in the debate was Vårt Land, which has a Christian profile. It published an article two days later carrying the title “Bible Lesson at the Storting.”²¹ What kind of lesson was taught? The agenda of the day was not anything particularly religious. The speaker announced that the proposals from various standing committees in the Storting (for affairs of family and culture, for affairs of the church, education and research, etc.) would be treated and debated. Given that the same political parties that had a majority in the Storting also enjoyed the same position in this committee, it seemed more of a routine to debate political positions and priorities that were known from previous meetings. Besides, the parties disagreed only on what in the overall national budget were minor changes. The conservative opposition disagreed with the centre-left government on some minor priorities, but the debate was typically dominated by a consensus of the overall goals of the policies. It was more a matter of which parties or coalition were best suited to govern, or what advantage or disadvantage a certain allocation of revenues proposed by the opposition could possibly have for Norwegian society and for specific segments of the population. The voting at the end of this meeting confirmed this impression, since all the proposals from the committee gained a majority. The debate seemed to have had no substantial impact on the actual policies. In other words, the biblical texts that figured in the debate had no observable impact on real politics. Representatives from all the seven political parties in the Storting engaged in this peculiar form of Bible-thump19 “Torsdag den 13. desember 2012 Kl. 10,” Stortinget, 2012, https://www.stortinget.no/globalassets/ pdf/referater/stortinget/2012-2013/s121213-ny.pdf. 20 Toril Aalberg, “Norway: Norway,” European Journal of Political Research 49, (2010): 1113−21. 21 Bjørgulv Bjåen,”Bibeltime på Stortinget,” Vårt Land, December 15, 2012.

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ing. The Christian Democrats referred to a notably higher number of biblical texts than the others, which leads one to wonder whether its politicians felt the need to demonstrate their superior familiarity with the Bible, as could be expected in this context. It is not clear how the biblical references entered the debate. What is clear is that the initiative did not come from the “Christian Democratic Party,” Kristelig Folkeparti, as might have been expected, given that it is the only party represented in the Storting that states explicitly in their party platform that their politics are built on the Bible. Nonetheless, the first to mention the Bible and thereby place it within a chain of arguments was Marianne Aasen from the Labour Party. In the middle of a long argument focused on the need for research, particularly about the climate, and the government’s abilities to strengthen research through its political priorities, Aasen affirmed that a particular verse from the Bible was “extremely valid”. She then quoted: “Those who increase knowledge increase sorrow” (Eccl 1:18), before firmly stating that some of the answer to the challenge of climate changes lay in research.²² Accordingly, the government had increased the amount of money destined to this cause.²³ Aasen’s choice of a biblical book to quote from may have set the tone for the series of biblical references that followed her speech in the debate. In fact, the part of the Bible most frequently quoted in the debate was the Old Testament wisdom literature. In the debate, the book of the Ecclesiastes was quoted or referred to four times, the book of Job twice, the book of Psalms once and the Proverbs on nine occasions throughout the debate. When analysing the whole debate, one sees that both Old Testament and New Testament texts were referred to. From the New Testament, the Gospels were the most attractive to the politicians, in particular the Gospel of Matthew (referred to six times). In total, references were made to 47 different biblical texts during the debate. Of these 47, I have selected some in order to signal how biblical texts can work within a parliamentary Norwegian setting with involvement from the whole political spectrum.

22 When biblical texts are quoted, the NRSV version will be used. For practical reasons, the original Norwegian quotations of the biblical texts will not be translated here. Unlike in the case of Stoltenberg’s speech, the Norwegian government has not made any official translations of the Storting debates. The English translations of the debates referred to here are therefore the author’s. 23 “Møte Torsdag,” 1609.

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5 Biblical Texts Free from Divine Beings It was striking that texts containing stories about supernatural forces, divine agents or God as an agent were mostly absent from this gallery of texts chosen by the parliamentarians. When Tord Lien of the “Progress Party,” Fremskrittspartiet, followed Aasen’s example of quoting from Ecclesiastes, selecting the verse: “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not fulfil it” (Eccl 4:5), he applied it directly to human affairs. He criticized the government’s alleged inability to fulfil its promises about granting money for the construction of necessary research infrastructure.²⁴ In this way, Lien endorsed the wise moral of the biblical saying in order to implicitly make his political opponents look like immoral or untrustworthy governors. Speaking of wholly humanly and innerworldly concerns, the politician could draw upon the common sense quality of the biblical saying: The best thing is to fulfil a promise. Lien needed no divine being for that biblical argument. The Socialist Left Party’s Snorre Valen demonstrated that it was not only up to the right wing in the parliament to attack the opponent with a biblical saying. Perhaps triggered by Lien’s attack on the government that Valen’s party was part of, Valen responded to another criticism of the government originating from the opposition, this time from Elisabeth Aspaker of the “Conservative Party,” Høyre. Valen found a rhetorical weapon in Proverbs and directed his biblically founded criticism towards Aspaker (Aspaker had already quoted the book of Isaiah). The topic had gradually changed from research to primary education and the results from testing the pupils, and thereafter to comparing these results internationally. The Bible says: Like apples of gold in bowls of silver are words spoken at the proper time. Representative Aspaker was not so lucky to live up to the words. In a few hours she went from preparing the ground for blaming the red-greens and Kristin Halvorsen for the decline in our international results to humbly and selflessly taking the credit for the progress afterwards. She took the credit after the red-green government had been sitting for more than seven years.²⁵

Valen introduced his sarcastic description of Aspaker’s moral in the form of humility and altruism with a quotation from Proverbs 25:11. It served to bolster his attack on an opponent who had already referred to the Bible and the book of Isaiah as an authority about political affairs. Moreover, the quotation demonstrated that Valen knew the Bible and the biblical reasoning the other parliamentarians were 24 “Møte Torsdag,” 1612. 25 “Møte Torsdag,” 1616.

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indulging in. This could have a special effect in the debate, considering that Valen belonged to the political party with the strongest secularist tradition in the parliament, the Socialist Left Party. While the party was known for some of its Christian socialists, its profile highlighted the tension between human rights and freedom of religion in parliamentary debates, like other left-wing parties in the Nordic countries.²⁶ Responding to the same criticism of Aspaker as Valen did, the Centre Party’s Anne Tingelstad Wøien affirmed that “after listening to the talk of the representative Aspaker it is almost as if I need to quote the Bible as well: ‘Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?’”²⁷ Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before this seemingly serious and moralistic use of the Bible would be interrupted by another tone, particularly after Tingelstad Wøien’s rather harsh attack on Aspaker as hypocrite. This may perhaps have led the Speaker of the Storting, Dag Terje Andersen from the Labour party, to remark rather laconically: “With all these nice quotations from an important and long book, I now understand that the name of the committee starts with the word ‘church’.”²⁸ In reality, however, the politicians seemed to be experimenting with a political use of the Bible that was rare in this parliamentary setting. The excessive use of Scripture and the moralistic effect of this use may have led the president to comment on it. The political disagreements continued to be articulated with Bible verses, before the Speaker once again commented them in his concise way, stating that “the president [the Speaker] has learned quite a bit about the Bible today”.²⁹ It sounded as if the presence of the Bible in the debate was unusual, and his words may possibly have been an expression of his subtle interrogation of this new rhetorical style. One of the first to comment on the biblical rhetoric was the Minister of Education, Kristin Halvorsen, from the Socialist Left Party. She apologized for not coming up with any Bible verse, since all the verses she had learned in her years at the Sunday school had already been used by others. The written version of the proceeding remarks in parenthesis “cheerfulness in the hall,” munterhet i salen. Obviously, representatives smiled because of this remark, but they were already triggered to continue with their political use or abuse of the Bible. The debate was a moment for profanation of the Bible, in Giorgio Agamben’s sense of transferring what had been considered as belonging to a sacred sphere and returning it to

26 27 28 29

Furseth, Religious Complexity, 170. “Møte Torsdag,” 1616. “Møte Torsdag,” 1616. “Møte Torsdag,” 1620.

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the free use of politicians. The politicians felt obviously free to deactivate the hegemony of biblical interpretation of either the church or the most religiously active Norwegians. They played with this object from the sphere of the sacred, without abolishing this sphere.³⁰ In fact, they seemed to maintain this sphere in their discourse about the importance and high value of the Church of Norway, which was in a process of disestablishment. Interestingly, when some argued for the allocation of more economic resources to this particular church, they did not bolster their arguments with the Bible, as they had done up to this point in the debate. For instance, the Minister of Ecclesial Affairs, Rigmor Aaserud (Labour Party), did not in one single instance argue with the Bible. While the Bible was present to an overwhelming degree (by Norwegian standards), God was almost entirely absent from the debate. The content of the biblical texts was profaned in the sense of being persistently applied to secular concerns, without any notion that God existed or miracles could happen. In fact, the discourse reflected rather the opposite stance. While the moral validity of biblical sayings was indeed recognized, the facticity of biblical miracles was questioned. The Minister of Fisheries, Lisbeth Berg-Hansen (Labour Party), affirmed that the government’s vision was that Norway was to be the world’s greatest producer of maritime food. Then she added that she doubted whether the conditions for realizing this vision were as beneficious as those that we can read about in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14, the narrative about Jesus miraculously feeding the five thousand with just five loaves and two fishes.³¹ The conservative politician Henning Warloe commented thereafter on the miracle Berg-Hansen referred to, stating that we are lucky that the miracle the Bible tells about is not possible today. That would indeed have reduced the demand and the market potential for the maritime industry of Norway!³² And the minister followed up by sharing her dream of cultivating fish in the Sea of Galilee.³³ The debate had come to a point where the idea of the benefits for contemporary Norway of a repetition of Jesus’ miracle in the Gospels were ridiculed and its realism in today’s world quite simply denied. Rather than investing in an idea of the truthfulness of the biblical, several of these politicians seemed to play with this idea through the performative act of quoting the Bible. When the postcolonial biblical critic R.S. Sugirtharajah in the early 2000s reflected on the role of biblical texts in public spaces, primarily through examining

30 31 32 33

Agamben, Profanations, 76. “Møte Torsdag,” 1636. “Møte Torsdag,” 1637−38. “Møte Torsdag,” 1638.

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examples from the British newspaper The Guardian, he observed how often the “serious tone of the Bible is punctuated with humour and playfulness.”³⁴ In the 2012 debate in the Norwegian Parliament, this cultural logic also seemed to be operative in the sense that the frequency of Bible references was excessive and the use of them politically inappropriate in a way that would not be repeated with the same density of biblical quotations in the following years. The seriousness of the Norwegian parliamentarians’ Bible was sooner or later punctuated with humorous remarks that called into question the very use of it and retained its ambiguous status within the political. This cultural logic was also seen in the political performances of the leader from the Christian Democratic Party from 2011 until 2019, Knut Arild Hareide, as I shall argue here. This was evident in the media appearances of Hareide outside the Storting hall. I will look into some of these appearances of Hareide and other parliamentarians outside the official Storting debates. That said, not every mention of the Bible within Norwegian politics is characterized by this cheerfulness. Moreover, the 2012 debate in the Storting also manifested the ability of the Bible to work as a textual source of a moral attack on the political opponent, although the effectiveness of such an attack seemed tempered by the latent humour in the very idea or performative act of using the Bible for political purposes. On the Norwegian political scene, the political party that has been critical, and at times even hostile, towards the presence of Islam in Norway is the Progress Party. The early 2000s saw the appearance of a Bible that would generate provocation rather than laughter and division rather than unity. In that sense it was a Bible with a notably different function than the cultural Bible of the ceremonial setting that reminded us of an ancient wisdom, or the cheerful Bible from the parliamentary setting that played with the very act of using the Bible for political purposes. A different Bible appeared, not least thanks to the particular dynamics created by mediatized politics.

6 The Mediatized Political Setting: The Bible as a Device for Division The political utterances that take place outside the proceedings of the Norwegian parliament and are transmitted in the media are expressed under conditions different from those inside the Storting hall. First, they often have more impact on public opinion, since they reach a larger audience, and a higher share of the vot34 R. S. Sugirtharajah, “Loitering with Intent: Biblical Texts in Public Places,” BibInt 11 (2003): 569.

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ers, than the Storting debates. Second, they are by nature more fragmentary, since the media does not allow the politicians to express themselves by means of long arguments. Third, they are more often intended to communicate directly to the voters rather than to other decision-makers, and therefore often lead to contestations of arguments rather than negotiations of real policies. Fourth, they occur in a wide range of political spaces such as interviews with journalists, political manifestations in public arenas, or even in religious meetings. In this section, some examples of biblical reception conditioned by the mediatization of Norwegian politics will be discussed. What these examples have in common is they have gained the national media’s attention during these last two decades, but the selected examples also serve to highlight some of the diversity of this kind of biblical reception. The hypothesis to be defended, and that guides the argument here, is the assumption that the presence of the Bible in the political setting in Norway facilitated by various media in the two last decades is primarily caused by two factors. First, the higher frequency of parliamentary debates about religious issues can partly be explained by the Progress Party’s turn to religion in its argumentation against immigration. Gradually, the country’s major anti-immigration party became an outspoken defender of the national identity in Norway as Christian. Second, the fact that the religiously most active Christians in Norway have voted for the Christian Democrats and that this party officially builds on what it considers to be the “the values” of the Bible has triggered some of the other parties’ leading spokespersons to employ the biblical arguments against the Christian Democrats. Oliver Roy affirms in his Is Europe Christian? that “in Europe, ‘values’ have probably never before been mentioned so frequently in discourse and political debates as they have since the 2000s.”³⁵ In this sense, the shift observed in Norway’s political landscape away from a wide political consensus on religion to a deep disagreement about it reflects a tendency that can be observed all over Europe. Unlike the culture wars in the United States, however, the right-wing parties in Europe that see national Christian identities threatened by the religious “other” (crystallized in the figure of the Muslim) projected onto the migrants are not always on the side of religious conservatives.³⁶ On a question like abortion, the Progress Party maintains a liberal stance, in contrast to the Christian Democrats’ conservative stance, while insisting that they are defending Christian values more eagerly and efficiently than the Christian Democrats. Political scientists have observed a more positive attitude to the right-wing anti-immigration Progress Party among the religiously most active

35 Olivier Roy, Is Europe Christian?, trans. Cynthia Schoch (London: Hurst, 2019), 103. 36 Roy, Is Europe Christian?, 105.

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Christians since the 1997 election.³⁷ This tendency was strengthened in the election four years later, since the Progress Party had become more attuned to religious sensibilities. In the summer of 2004, the party leader Carl I. Hagen accepted an invitation to give a talk in the Christian community Levende Ord, a branch of Norwegian Pentecostalism. Probably aware that the talk was filmed and would circulate in the Norwegian media, Hagen included himself in a Christian “we” as distinct from the Muslim “them” through a stark contrast between the benign Bible and the dangerous Quran: We are all of equal worth, even though we are sinners. One of the good things about Christianity is forgiveness. But that does not mean we automatically have to lie flat, or equate the Quran and the Bible. For the content is quite different in quite a few areas. We Christians are very concerned about children. ‘Let the little children come to me,’ Jesus said. I cannot imagine that Muhammad might have said the same. [Laughs] In case he might have said the same, it would be ‘Let the little children come to me so that I can utilize them in my fight to Islamize the world.’³⁸

The contrast was further elaborated with Christians’ concern about children, which (according to the right-wing populist Carl I. Hagen) would be inconceivable in the Quran.³⁹ Muhammed could simply not have said the same as Jesus, Hagen stated, implying that such an affinity would be ridiculous. Through a paraphrase of Jesus’ words (Matt 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16), Hagen invented a Muslim version of the words that are read in a common Lutheran baptismal ceremony that is chosen by the majority of Norwegians for their children. The Muslim “version” of Christian concern for children was, in Hagen’s words, aimed solely at the “Islamization of the world.” Having spoken of Islamist terror and fundamentalism as expressions of this Islamization, the invented words of an imagined Muhammed concerned with children gained headlines and provoked immediate criticism from various public actors. Moreover, it was unusual for a politician from the Progress Party to choose this context to address his message, since politicking in Christian churches is rare in Norway.

37 Sunniva E. Holberg, “Kampen om de kristne velgerne: Mellom tro og tradisjon,” in Norske velgere. En studie av stortingsvalget 2005, ed. Bernt Aardal (Oslo: Damm, 2007), 235. 38 Carl I. Hagen translated in Anders Ravik Jupskås and Cathrine Thorleifsson, “Defending the Endangered Nation: Nordic Identitarian Christianism in the Age of Migration,” in Contested Hospitalities in a Time of Migration: Religious and Secular Counterspaces in the Nordic Region, ed. Synnøve Bendixsen and Trygve Wyller (London: Routledge, 2019), 50. 39 The argument that the Progress Party has populist traits is sustained by Anders Ravik Jupskås. See Anders Ravik Jupskås, “Populisme på norsk,” in Populisme, ed. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (Oslo: Dreyers forlag, 2019), 7−21.

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The idea of the Bible as the Good Book and superior to the Islamist Quran produced the political division upon which Hagen’s anti-immigration populism was dependent. Hagen’s infamous biblical warning against the Islamization of Norway and the world functioned as preamble to the innovative political concept of Hagen’s successor as party leader from 2006, Siv Jensen. As the media archive “Atekst” can show, 2009 saw a dramatic increase in the concept of “Islamization by stealth,” snikislamisering, after one of Jensen’s speeches against what she saw as a dangerously secret process of Islamization of Norway that had already begun. Unlike Hagen, however, Jensen disentangled her warning against Islamization from the idea of the civilized and benign Bible. The Progress Party politician who restored Christianity to the center of the Norwegian debate about immigration, and to some degree reintroduced the biblical in it, was Sylvi Listhaug. Listhaug was elected vice-chairman of the party in 2019 and served in several ministerial posts in the government led by the Conservative Party from 2013. In 2021, she became the leader of the party. The refugee crisis in Europe in 2015, primarily caused by the civil war in Syria, prompted new disputes over immigration policies in Norway. When the governing minority coalition, consisting of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party, presented a national budget proposal that channelled revenues from the foreign aid budget (historically targeted at the third world) to the receiving of immigrants at home in Norway, representatives of civil society reacted. The bishops of the Church of Norway were perhaps the most prominent among them. They joined the chorus together with the opposition on the political left and criticized the government. In November 2015, Listhaug met the leading bishop of the Church of Norway, Helga Byfuglien. While Byfuglien was hesitant to use biblical arguments for her call for receiving a greater number of immigrants, Listhaug did not hesitate on the question about what the biblical character Jesus would do: “What Jesus cared about is you should help as many people as possible – and that’s not as many as possible in Norway,” Listhaug affirmed.⁴⁰ By that she meant that immigration to Norway should be restricted and the money spent on receiving immigrants should instead be given to refugee camps near Syria. Listhaug’s Jesus figure would provoke further political division and calls for discussing the question of Jesus’ will and the Bible’s legacy. An interesting cultural dynamic could be observed when the most prominent Muslim politician in the “Liberal Party,” Venstre, confronted Listhaug with her rhetoric about migrants 40 Listhaug quoted in Max Bearak, “Norway’s Immigration Minister Donned a Full-Body Wetsuit in an Attempt at Solidarity with Refugees,” Washington Post, April 20, 2016, https://www.wash ingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/20/norways-immigration-minister-donned-a-fullbody-wetsuit-in-an-attempt-at-solidarity-with-refugees/.

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and her own Christian faith: “As I know the story of Jesus, he was a radical caregiver, extending a hand to all those in need. I guess the best Christians among us will follow Jesus’ example, not Listhaug’s vocabulary,” the Liberal parliamentarian Abid Raja affirmed. Raja is a Muslim and he also stated that Listhaug should read the Bible more in detail.⁴¹ Raja’s idea was evidently that the Bible does not allow for Listhaug’s rhetoric and that the Bible’s Jesus would be an interrogatory figure, rather than an ally for the right-wing populist in the Norwegian society of today.

7 The Hesitance of the Christian Democrats to Use the Bible As I have mentioned, my claim here is that the second factor that prompts the use of Bible in the Norwegian political sphere is the presence of a political party that presents itself as embodying its values: The Christian Democrats. In spite of this official ideology, the party rarely resorts to religious arguments in the public debate. Its leader, Kjell Magne Bondevik, was Norway’s prime minister for two periods (1997−2000, 2001−2005), but most often limited himself to what he saw as “Christian cultural heritage” as well as the humanistic values of Norway, which are often imagined to have appeared in Norwegian history outside the domain of religion. On a few occasions, he made himself a spokesperson for the continuous ethical validity of the Ten Commandments, regardless of one’s religion. It was telling, however, that one of Bondevik’s successors as the leader of the party from 2011 until 2019, Knut Arild Hareide, dropped the references to the Ten Commandments and introduced self-irony based on his own and the party’s presumed religious belief into a habit in public debates in the media, often to the acclamations of political commentators. Asked about the possibility that his party would win the Norwegian elections, he dismissed this on one occasion with the ironical statement that “it is more likely that Jesus will return in the next ten years than the Christian Democrats will govern alone.”⁴² In January 2016, Hareide contributed to the abovementioned disputes about immigration and commented on Sylvi Listhaug’s claim that the Norwegians who were unconcerned about the immigration were lying. At a meeting with the national board of the party, broadcast online, Hareide did

41 The author’s translation of Raja in Magnus Braaten, “Raja om Listhaug: En dårlig representant for kristendommen,” Verdens Gang, February 6, 2016, https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/bpR4e/ raja-om-listhaug-en-daarlig-representant-for-kristendommen. 42 Translation of Hareide in Silje Rognsvåg, “Hareides Humorperler,” Dagen, https://www.dagen. no/nyheter/hareides-humorperler/.

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not argue directly against this claim. Instead, the Christian Democrat affirmed that Listhaug was causing the damaging and demotivating impression that “we are not up to this,” that is, the task of receiving immigrants and integrating them into Norwegian society. Then Hareide quoted “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” which are words of Jesus from the Gospel of John (14:1) before he reduced, or even neutralized, the seriousness of Jesus’ admonition, and its possible consequences for Norwegians’ reactions to the task of integration of immigrants, with a joke.⁴³ The joke with what appeared to be serious words from Jesus for the believers in the Christian Democratic party indicated that it was scarcely possible for a Christian Democrat to put forward a serious argument with biblical language. What was more appropriate, and indeed popular, was to make fun of one’s own Christian faith. A similar humour with regard to the Christian Democrats’ religion and the Scripture of that religion had also been seen in the previous year at the national convention of the Socialist Left Party.

8 Biblical Parody from the Left Audun Lysbakken is Kristin Halvorsen’s successor as the leader of the Socialist Left Party and has, together with his former allies in the center-left-government (2005 −2013), been a keen opponent of any liberalization of Sunday shopping. The Christian Democratic Party preserves Sunday as a public holiday (meaning, shops are closed) as part of their party platform. In 2015, however, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party were the two parties that constituted the parliamentary power base of the minority government (the Conservative Party and the Progress Party) which had launched their plans for a liberalization of the rules regarding the opening hours of shop on Sundays. The Party was therefore caught in a dilemma: They had installed a government which enforced a liberalization that their own Party fiercely opposed. One of the arguments against such a liberalization, especially from Norwegian unions, is that the workers employed in the shops would be forced to work more on Sundays, the days traditionally reserved for rest, on the basis of the biblical idea of the seventh day, on which the Christian calendar is constructed. Moreover, these unions affirmed that their members would have less time to spend with their families, a core issue for the Christian Democrats. When Lysbakken’s Party held their national convention in March 2015, he knew

43 “Knut Arild Hareides tale til KrFs landskonferansen 2016,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= q1fJDmB-PA.

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how to poke fun at this delicate situation for his opponents in the Christian Democrats, and the delegates responded with laughter and applause: Consider that it was the Christian Democratic Party who would bless more working on Sundays, up to three Sundays in a row. The holy day: Now 75 % less sacred! As it is said in the Bible: In six days the Lord made the earth and the sea and all that is in them. The seventh day he rested. But [that was] only because he had worked Sunday duty the previous three weekends.⁴⁴

Upon hearing their leader proclaiming “as it is said in the Bible,” the delegates laughed, as if it was absurd to hear a leader of the Socialist Left Party quoting the Bible. The Party is known for the high percentage of secular humanists in its ranks, and one of the last things to be expected from its leader during a party meeting was a Bible reading. Here, Lysbakken juxtaposes a quotation of Exod 20:11 with a replacement of the second part of the verse. He replaces the biblical words “therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it” with the consequence of the liberalization policies of the government: “But [that was] only because he had worked Sunday duty the previous three weekends.” The speech can be deemed effective on several levels. Lysbakken is using the Bible against what is supposed to be the biblical political party. By parodying the Bible, he avoids presenting his own politics as biblical or as religiously based, which would be politically unfortunate for a Nordic left-wing party. However, Lysbakken employs a parody, parasitic in nature, where the parodic mime unavoidably makes fun of and pays respect to the biblical original at the same time. With his parody, he reveals that the policies he is against are unbiblical, and this in turn necessarily implies that what he is fighting for is biblical. Though his parody may cause more damage to his Christian Democratic counterparts, his own image is not unaffected by the parody. He does, however, succeed in nearly portraying the very liberal policies he opposes as grotesque, since his words contain the classic elements of a satire, in the sense that what is commonly held as high and worthy is degraded and made fun of. In a classical manner, Lysbakken degrades the heavenly-inspired word of the Bible with mundane Norwegian politics. God’s rest on the seventh day is not without conditions imposed by the Norwegian government of the Conservatives and the Progress Party. The idea implied in the politician’s saying is absurd and therefore humorous.

44 The author’s translation. The speech can be seen on NRK: “Åpnet landsmøtet med bibelvitser og miljøspark,” 2016, http://www.nrk.no/norge/apnet-landsmotet-med-bibelvitser-og-miljospark-1.12257601.

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A similar biblical attack from The Christian Democratic Party against Lysbakken would have been unlikely. Unlike the Christian Democrats, Lysbakken’s political party had not claimed to be biblical a priori. The Bible could hardly be used against them, or at least, not in the same manner. In addition, the Socialist Left Party actually fought for what the Christian Democrats believed to be biblical: A special day during the week for rest. A similar appeal to the Christian Democrats’ Bible could be perceived when the sole representative in the Storting for the left-wing party Red (elected in 2017), Bjørnar Moxnes, challenged the stance taken by the Christian Democrats in January 2018 on the basis of Scripture. After Knut Arild Hareide had argued for his Party’s support for the rightist government with a reference to the Christian cultural heritage and humanistic values, Moxnes reacted with a quotation from the Bible: The scripture says, in Matthew 6:24, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” While this God issue remains unclear, it is certainly obvious that the new government wants to serve Mammon, not least the welfare profiteers.⁴⁵

While admitting that he had not reached full clarity with regard to this biblical God, Moxnes underscored that he understood very well the meaning of mammon in this context. According to Moxnes, the newly elected government (in 2017) was determined to serve mammon instead of God, particularly by giving good conditions for the private producers of welfare services in Norway. Since these private companies profit from on the welfare services they supply, this political Party has consistently referred to them as “welfare profiteers.” And so, in the same pattern as Lysbakken, Moxnes is criticizing the supposedly biblical politics of the Christian Democrats, by using resources from within their own Bible. Like Lysbakken’s argument with the Bible, Moxnes’ reasoning is also parasitic in the sense of acknowledging some truth in the original, the Bible. Nevertheless, the idea of God is somewhat “unclear,” according to Moxnes, as if he would be hesitant to accept the meaningfulness of the concept of a divine being.

9 Conclusion Biblical texts or characters are seldom mentioned in Norwegian politics. Overall, the Bible is not an important book as an explicit source of legitimacy or political 45 “Møte Onsdag Den 31. Januar 2018 Kl. 10,” Stortinget, 2018, https://www.stortinget.no/global assets/pdf/referater/stortinget/2017-2018/refs-201718-01-31.pdf.

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reasoning for Norwegian parliamentarians. Nonetheless, when biblical texts are used by certain parliamentarians, religion and politics intersect in interesting ways that illustrate what sort of Bibles might be useful in Norwegian politics and more concretely, how these Bibles can be used in various political settings. First, there is a cultural Bible that can be used in uncontroversial ways in a ceremonial political setting in Norway, as exemplified by the biblical reception that went under the radar of Norwegian journalists in the speech of the former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. This is a Bible that makes sense for Norwegians without any reference to, or belief in, the supernatural forces or the divine being that are commonly associated with the religion that has created the biblical canon: Christianity. Second, within the setting of parliamentary debates in the Storting, this cultural Bible may be said to work as well, when we consider the 2012 Storting debate with most likely the highest number of biblical references from the last two decades. In this specific debate, Norwegian parliamentarians can be said to have explored some of the possibilities and the limits of this Bible. Through quotations of Bible verses that did not contain implied notions of the supernatural, these parliamentarians were able to appropriate the biblical texts as a moral reservoir to justify one’s own political discourse, while attacking the political opponent. In the Storting, however, this kind of biblical rhetoric manifested its own limits through the fairly regular puncturing of the seriousness of the debate with humorous remarks about the very fact of mentioning the Bible in the Storting. It appeared as if the very act of quoting the Bible in a Storting debate was itself being questioned through these cheerful remarks. This seems to be confirmed by the observed need to pour scorn on the idea that biblical miracles could appear in today’s world. The fact that the same frequency of biblical citations cannot be detected in the archive’s documentation of Storting debates confirms the impression of the 2012 debate as a sort of rhetorical experiment on the part of the parliamentarians. Third, the same rhetorical dynamic seemed operative in the mediatized setting, where parliamentarians’ arguments informed by the Bible were transmitted in more fragmentary forms but with a more direct and significant impact on public opinion. This dynamic could be seen in the hesitance of Christian Democrats to argue with the Bible, although this Party is the only one represented in the parliament that proclaims that it bases its political program on the Bible. The rhetorical logic from the 2012 debate, in which all the seven parties in the Storting participated, seemed to repeat itself in the example of the Party’s leader Knut Arild Hareide, when he abrupted his own biblical reasoning with self-ironic humour. And when the leftist parliamentarian Audun Lysbakken used biblical texts, his need for the Bible seemed to be derived from the desire to rhetorically

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attack the Christian Democrats with the opponent’s own book: the Bible. Moreover, Lysbakken attacked the presumably biblical party by ridiculing the idea that the Christian Democrats had a biblical politics. The idea of the Bible as the property of the Christian Democrats in Norwegian politics has nevertheless been contested by a political party that, in the media setting, rejects the very same ironical distance to the potential biblical meanings of the Christian canon. The rightist parliamentarians Carl I. Hagen and Sylvi Listhaug have implicitly and forcefully challenged the Christian Democrats’ claims to ownership of the true meaning of the Bible. Their explicit justification of policies with the use of the main biblical character for Christianity, Jesus, seems to work without the assumption of supernatural events or divine beings. Nevertheless, for these rightist politicians, a moral can be derived from the Bible. And for these politicians from the Progress Party, in contrast to those from the Christian Democrats, there appear to be biblical values or meanings that are threatened within today’s political circumstances and that must be protected by politicians themselves. In other words, the real meaning of the Bible cannot be reduced to something that a small minority of particularly religious Norwegians care about. The biblical message, and its values, are something that is at stake in the political disputes over migration or debates about Islam. At these intense political moments, in the mediatized setting, there is no room for humour in relation to the Bible. The act of introducing the Bible is not questioned per se. On the contrary, it is understood as an existential necessity for the nation of Norway. At these moments, biblical meanings seem sacralised through politics, while at other moments, the whole idea that the Bible has a shared common meaning for all is questioned, and even mocked.

III The Bible in New Nordic Translations and Versions

Søren Lorenzen

To Honor or Respect Your Parents? The Reception of an Ancient Commandment in Contemporary Danish Media and Nordic Bible Translations In Bibelen 2020, the most recent Danish translation of the Bible, a guide to wellknown biblical texts is tucked between the table of contents and the Book of Genesis. While the New Testament dominates the list of 19 texts, there are five references to the Hebrew Bible: the two creation narratives, Noah’s aquatic adventures, the proud tower-builders of Babel, and the Ten Commandments as presented in Exodus. The reader is not left many page flips to find these passages. Four of the five references are all within the first eleven chapters of Genesis, while the most page flips lead to the Ten Commandments in the second book of the Bible (Exod 20:2–17). For this study, the fifth commandment will serve as a point of departure to analyze how a biblical law is received normatively at various times and places. The study progresses from situating the commandment of honoring one’s parents in its ancient context, through its reception in Luther’s Der große Katechismus (“Large Catechism”) before turning to recent receptions in Danish media and Nordic translations of the Bible. As the title of this contribution indicates, Bibelen 2020 has recently changed the imperative in the commandment from honor to respect, and this change indicates a contemporary shift in what it means to honor one’s parents. By comparing the translations in Bibelen 2020 with other Nordic Bibles and recent English translations, it is asked whether there is a particularly Nordic reception of the commandment.

1 The Methodology On the interhuman level, there are two roles involved in the commandment to honor one’s parents: a subject that performs an action, and an object what receives that action.¹ To explore these roles and to guide the study, I ask two questions:

1 In its biblical context, the commandment also involves a theological dimension since God, through Moses, conveys the commandments to the Israelites. An in-depth analysis of the theological dimension exceeds the limits of this article. However, as the article will show, present-day rehttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-010

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What kind of action is demanded by the subject? And, why is the object worthy of this action? The answers to these questions depend on how a person is conceptualized and which cultural codes and values are salient in the times and places in which the text is received. But why does this happen? According to Paul Ricoeur, a text is always distanciated from its author, and the fixation of words removes the text from its author’s context and intentions.² As a result, the text establishes a world of its own, i. e., the world of the text, and the interpretation of the text reveals more about the world in front of the text, i. e., the temporal and spatial context in which the reader is situated. In Ricoeur’s words: “[T]o interpret is to explicate the type of being-in-the-world unfolded in front of the text.”³ This unfolding is also true for the fifth commandment that has seen an array of different receptions that are disconnected from the world behind the text, i. e., Ancient Israel. Another facet of the reception of biblical texts is that most readers engage translations, i. e., a translator’s interpretation of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words.⁴ Furthermore, the translator is embedded in a society filled with already established receptions that necessarily flavors the translator’s choice of vernacular words. For this reason, and to clarify the world in front of the text, this study engages Bibelen 2020 in accompaniment with an overview of how the commandment has been received in the past 30 years in Danish newspapers. However, before contemporary receptions are engaged, it is helpful to clarify the commandment as it appears in the Masoretic Text and elucidate its assumed function in Ancient Israel in order to provide a pointer to which the modern receptions and translations can be compared.

ceptions of the commandment does (perhaps as expected in a secular age) downplay the theological dimension. 2 Paul Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation,” in From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II, trans. Kathleen Blamey and John B. Thompson (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2007), 75–88. 3 Ricoeur, “Hermeneutical Function,” 86. Cf. Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Pattern of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 280. 4 For the process of translating Bibelen 2020, see Else K. Holt, “The Lord is My Shepherd? On the Translation of Old Texts for New Readers,” in Fromme und Frevler: Studien zu Psalmen und Weisheit: Festschrift für Hermann Spieckermann zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Corinna Körting and Reinhard Gregor Kratz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 339–49.

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2 Honor in the Hebrew Bible In the fifth commandment, “honor” is translated from the imperative of the root ‫כבד‬, a root that commonly concerns material wealth (e. g., Gen 45:13; Isa 23:8–9), not an abstract social value.⁵ For example, in Num 22:16–18, the Moabite king Balak offers the prophet Balaam honor to curse the Israelites. Balaam, however, answers that even if he did receive silver and gold, i. e., honor, he cannot speak against YHWH. Therefore, ‫ כבד‬concerns the material domain of physical weight, and this source domain of heaviness can in some instances be metaphorically transferred to the more abstract target domain of a person’s social importance, or a person’s “social weight” (2 Sam 6:22; Est 6:3–11).⁶ As both tangible materiality and more abstract recognition, honor defines the social boundaries of a person, and it concerns the objective side of the person as it is visible to oneself and others.⁷ Honor thus makes it possible to hierarchically categorize a person within a society. While the biblical wisdom traditions pave the way for a more universalized honor in the eyes of God,⁸ honor is primarily understood as a limited good, i. e., not everyone can have an equal amount. Jan Dietrich has identified different forms of honor in the Hebrew Bible, and one of these forms provides an answer to why parents are worthy of receiving it: Statusehre (“honor of status”). Statusehre is an honor that comes with one’s position in the social hierarchy, and it differs from Ruhmesehre (“honor of fame”) that comes through laudable deeds.⁹ The fifth commandment implies that the parents’s Statusehre makes them worthy of honor and that their specific behavior is irrelevant to this entitlement. With this basic definition of honor, attention can be turned to the center of the Decalogue and the honorable action of the exhorted subject.

5 David Lambert, “Honor: I: The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,” EBR 16:330. E. g., Gen 45:13; Num 24:11; Est 6:3. 6 Klaus Neumann, “Ehre,” Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe zum Alten und Neuen Testament, 138. 7 Bernd Janowski, Arguing with God: A Theological Anthropology of the Psalms, trans. Armin Siedlecki (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 264. 8 Jan Dietrich, “Über Ehre und Ehrgefühl im Alten Testament,” in Der Mensch im Alten Israel: Neue Forschungen zur alttestamentlichen Anthropologie, ed. Bernd Janowski and Kathrin Liess (Freiburg: Herder, 2009), 447. 9 Dietrich, “Ehre,” 429–30.

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3 The Fifth Commandment in the Torah The fifth commandment is found in both Exod 20:12 and Deut 5:16. The version in Deut is slightly larger and contains an additional relative clause (“that YHWH your God has commanded you”) and an extended rationale for performing the command (“that it may go well for you”). The shortest version of the commandment serves as the first step on the itinerary toward Bibelen 2020. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long on the land that YHWH, your God, is giving you (Exod 20:12).¹⁰

Exod 20:12 is the first commandment on the “second table” of the Decalogue, i. e., the table that concerns the socio-ethical relations between human beings. The commandment bridges the previous four religious commandments (exclusive relation to YHWH, idolatry, caring for the deity’s name, and the Sabbath) with the socio-ethical commandments because the rationale for honoring one’s parents “points back to the obligations to God.”¹¹ The commandment is formulated positively, begins with an imperative (‫כבד‬, piel), and flips YHWH’s 1st person speech to YHWH being addressed in the 3rd person halfway through.¹² The change in person indicates that the Decalogue is a redacted unit and a “citable text” made up of different laws that were deemed salient to the authors and redactors of both Exod and Deut.¹³ The commandment varies from the other commandments because the included rationale clarifies the benefit for the person who performs it. The obeying person will experience fertility because the days are to be long on (‫ )על‬the agricultural land (‫ )אדמה‬that YHWH provides. Therefore, the commandment is within a theme of material blessing, which turns this study to the heart of the matter: What action is involved in obeying the commandment? Within the context of material blessing, and the general conception that ‫כבד‬ concerns materiality, the activity of honoring your parents’ concerns physical care-

10 All translations from biblical texts and Danish sources are mine. 11 Jan Christian Gertz, “The Legal Texts of the Pentateuch,” in T&T Clark Handbook of the Old Testament, ed. Jan Christian Gertz et. al. (London: T&T Clark), 285; cf. Thomas G. Long, “The First Commandment with a Promise: Recent American Preaching on ‘Honor Your Father and Your Mother’,” JLR 31 (2016): 174. 12 The Catholic and Lutheran traditions follow Augustine and combine the first two commandments (no other gods and the image prohibition) into one commandment (Gertz, “Legal Texts,” 285). 13 Gertz, “Legal Texts,” 286.

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taking of the parents in their old age, i. e., maintaining their heaviness. It is about providing food, clothing, and a place to live for the ones who did the same to you.¹⁴ The commandment is thus aimed at adult children, and it bestows responsibility on them, primarily the oldest son, to ensure that the parents are materially taken care of as their vitality fades.¹⁵ As a result, one’s days will be long when one’s children take care of you as you have taken care of your parents, and this “culture of care” will ideally extend throughout society.¹⁶ Here, it is important to stress that the commandment is not concerned with children’s obedience to their parents (cf. Deut 21:18–21), neither does it directly command a specifically positive evaluation of them and their deeds. These observations shed light on the laws in Exod 21:15 and 21:17 that demand the punishment of death to the one who hits and curses his parents. These laws are not aimed at small children but at adults who neglect their parents and fail to follow the familial responsibilities in protecting them. The verb for “cursing” in Exod 21:17 is ‫ קלל‬that, similar to ‫כבד‬, stems from the source domain of weight since the qal-stem in its basic form is translated as “be light”. Cursing is thus an action that has the opposite results of honoring. In other words, cursing is the removal of heavy life-preserving goods.¹⁷ In sum, the subject, i. e., the adult child, is to take care of the aging parent’s physical needs, and the object, i. e., the aging parents, is worthy of honor due to its parental status. Several biblical (e. g., Mark 7:1−12; Matt 15:1−9; 1 Tim 5:3; Eph 6:2) and extra-biblical stops that reiterate and reinterpret the roles of subject and object could be taken on the way to contemporary Denmark in order to clarify established receptions. However, since a satisfying study of the various receptions require several sheets of paper, the itinerary toward Danish receptions and Bibelen

14 Bernd Janowski, Anthropologie des Alten Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 132. The commandment appears altered in Lev. 19:3, but the exhortation is to “fear” (‫ )ירא‬your parents. Fearing, however, is also connected to service and thus parallels physical caretaking (Lambert, “Honor: I,” 331). 15 Janowski, Anthropologie, 132. 16 Long, “The First Commandment,” 177. 17 In Mark 7:1−12 (cf. Matt. 15:1−9), Jesus reiterates the Torah when he contrasts the act of honoring with the act of cursing one’s parents. When someone neglects one’s parents by giving a templegift, one is practically and materially cursing them. See Joseph Plevnik, “Honor/Shame,” in Handbook of Biblical Social Values, ed. John J. Pilch and Bruce J. Malina (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998), 108; cf. C. S. Mann, Mark (New York: Doubleday, 1986), 314; Richard Rohrbaugh, “Honor: II. New Testament and Greco-Roman Antiquity,” EBR 16:333−37). In 1 Tim 5:3, the congregation is exhorted to honor (τίμα) pious widows, an exhortation that conceives honor as physical care.

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2020 will take a leap through millennia and pause at an important moment for the Lutheran countries in the north: The Reformation.¹⁸

4 The Fifth (or Fourth) Commandment in Luther’s Der große Katechismus Following the Augustinian counting of the commandments, Luther treats the activity of honoring your parents as the fourth commandment in his Der große Katechismus. Luther puts the commandment in the highest regard because God “nicht bloß gebietet, die Eltern lieb zu haben, sondern zu ehren.”¹⁹ In other words, although one is commanded to love one’s sister, brother and neighbor, parents are differentiated because they are to be honored, which is the highest level of esteem a person can give to another. But what prompted Luther to explicate the commandment? In a time of upheaval, Luther turned to the commandment and utilized it as an argument for inferiors, i. e., the ones who inhabit the role as child, to obey and honor their superiors, i. e., the ones who inhabit the role as father, Vaterstand. ²⁰ In the slipstream of the Peasant Wars (1524–1525), Luther found that the interpretation of Christian freedom in his earlier writings “could spur a rebellion against social inequality, resulting in the disintegration of social order.”²¹ For this reason, clarification of an ordered society was fitting, and what better way to do this than placing the stipulations in religious education for the family?²² For Luther, honor primarily meant the divine-given right to govern others. Although everyone is equal in the eyes of God, the interhuman relations are characterized by inequality and a distinction between authoritative roles, roles that are to be maintained to have a well-functioning society.²³ For the present purposes, one maintains these roles in the household when one honors one’s parents, which is,

18 For a succinct overview of the Medieval conception of honor, see Sasja Emilie Mathiasen Stopa, “Honor: IV. Christianity – B. Medieval Times and Reformation Era.” EBR 16:346–50. 19 Martin Luther, Der große Katechismus (Cologne: Anaconda, 2017), 38. 20 Luther, Katechismus, 46–7; cf. Sasja Emilie Mathiasen Stopa, “’Honor Your Father and Mother’: The Influence of Honor on Martin Luther’s Conception of Society,” in Lutheran Theology and the Shaping of Society: The Danish Monarchy as Example, ed. Bo Kristian Holm and Nina J. Koefoed (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 107. 21 Stopa, “Honor Your Father,” 115. 22 Luther’s Der kleine Katechismus (“Small Catechism”) that was meant for the household contains the same instruction to honor and obey one’s parents. 23 Stopa, “Honor Your Father,” 116.

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according to Luther, to hold them in distinction above all else, to speak modestly to them, to yield to them in silence, and to take care of them in their sickness and old age.²⁴ While the attitudes of the child take considerable space in the reformer’s instructions, the commandant is, above all, utilized as a reminder to every household that there is a divinely mandated obedience, Gehorsam, to authority, especially one’s parents. What is clear in Luther’s reiteration of the commandment is that it is the role that a person inhabits in a society that matters. For the one who inhabits the role of a child, various actions, especially obedience and humble attitudes, are entailed. For the one who inhabits the role of a parent, one’s entitlement to honor is disconnected from one’s deeds.²⁵ So, while one could fail to act according to the duties of one’s role, the entitlement to honor was constant. Luther acknowledges that the commandment is not explicitly aimed at parents, but he strongly urges them to act according to their role, behave well, take care of the family, and educate their children since they ultimately have to provide God with an account of their deeds.²⁶ In sum, the subject who honors is exhorted to obey submissevely. The object of honor, i. e., the diverse authorities in society, are placed there by God and thus worthy of honor.²⁷ This interpretation of the commandment echoes Ephesians 6:2, where honoring appears in a household code that concerns obedience to, not physical caretaking of, one’s father.²⁸ Luther, however, had a much larger scope than the pious household. As will be seen in the subsequent section, Luther’s exposition of the commandment is an established reception that can be identified in several voices in contemporary Denmark. There is, however, also different nuances that are worth exploring.

5 “Honor your Parents” in Present-Day Denmark The fifth commandment occasionally appears in various public discussions in contemporary Denmark. Several approaches could be pursued to identify these recep-

24 Luther, Katechismus, 38–39. 25 Cf. Stopa, “Honor Your Father,” 122. 26 Luther, Katechismus, 50. 27 Stopa, “Honor Your Father,” 119. 28 In Sir 3:1–16, the use of the commandment resonates with the household codes in Ephesians as it is understood to command both material support and a specific attitude towards the status of one’s parents. This combination continues within Rabbinic Judaism. See David Lambert, “Honor: III: Judaism,” EBR 16:338–39; cf. Scott M. Langston, Exodus Through the Centuries, BBC (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 186–89.

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tions, but in order to keep the present study within reasonable limits, and to keep the public voices in focus, the scope is limited to articles in Danish newspapers (and the newspapers’ online outlets) published between 1990 and 2020 in which the commandment appears. By searching for the commandment on Infomedia,²⁹ the contours of how different persons have received and utilized the commandment in the last 30 years can be drawn. Several national newspapers have published articles containing the commandment in varying genres, but most articles have been published in Kristeligt Dagblad, a national newspaper that focuses on faith, ethics, and existence. Although many articles published in Kristeligt Dagblad refrain from being concerned with explicit Christian themes, it is not surprising that the discussion of, or reference to, the commandment primarily has occurred in a newspaper read by priests, theologians, and people from various Christian denominations, i. e., groups that possibly are more accustomed to biblical references. As for all newspapers, some articles are polemical debate articles, some are rants against unruly youth behavior, and other articles are scholars’s, priests’s, and laymen’s clarifications of the commandment as it appears in the Bible. A glance at the articles reveals that many receptions are influenced by the economic, cultural, and religious changes in Western society that have occurred since the Reformation. The modern democratic world is radically different than a society that is stratified between peasants, priests, and princes. Several nuances of the societal shifts could be accentuated but there are three developments that especially have affected the reception of the commandment: (1) The universalization of human worth, (2) the welfare state, and (3) a heightened focus on the individual’s merit. Before turning to the reception of the commandment in Danish newspapers, a brief overview of the three developments must be traversed. (1) One way to describe the universalization of human worth is by following the distinction between honor societies and dignity societies proposed by sociologist Peter Berger in 1970.³⁰ In his article, Berger refrains from creating a sharp separation between these kinds of societies, since honor is found in various forms within dignity societies. However, he clarifies how one’s worth in an honor society

29 Infomedia collects contents from all newspapers published in Denmark. The search words were “Ær din mor”; “Ær din far”; “Ær dine forældre”; “Du skal ære din mor; “Du skal ære din far”; “Du skal ære dine forældre”. The time frame was set to January 1990–December 2020. The search resulted in 138 relevant articles. 30 Peter Berger, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor,” European Journal of Sociology 11 (1970): 339–47. Francis Fukuyama has recently paralleled Berger’s presentation of dignity societies by tracing the “democratization of dignity” that happened in the nineteenth century in Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (London: Profile Books, 2018), 91–104.

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tends to be connected with a position in the social hierarchy, whereas one’s worth in a dignity culture rests on one’s intrinsic value as a human being. Put a bit caricatured, the present-day Western world is predominantly characterized as a collection of dignity societies, whereas Ancient Israel, in large parts, resembles an honor society. From the perspective of a person living in a dignity society, it is difficult not to see the developments that have happened since the Enlightenment as something positive, and this leaves honor societies in the dust of Western progress. For this reason, honor receives connotations of archaic patriarchalism and oppressive hierarchical structures that are more than difficult to introduce in egalitarian societies. Perhaps, it is even more difficult for the concept of honor to find a footing in the Nordic countries that are known for their preference for the so-called “feminine” values (“feminine” is the category social psychologist Geert Hofstede used to describe “cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life”) and low hierarchical structures.³¹ In the Nordic cultures, the limited good of Statusehre is thus, similar to other Western countries, minimized as the worth that is linked to the individual human being’s autonomy and dignity is universalized.³² (2) In addition to the egalitarian reputation of the Nordic societies, the increasing welfare state that developed in Denmark throughout the twentieth century has received international attention (for better and worse) in recent years.³³ In a social context where eldercare generally is outsourced to the public sector, the commandment to honor one’s parents, i. e., physically taking care of them, is difficult to apply as a normative rule. In Denmark, the reader is accustomed to a societal model of tax-paying nuclear families, living in homes apart from their parents, where the caretaking of family members partly is a government responsibility, or at least in theory. (3) The flattening of the honorable hierarchy in the Nordic societies entails that everybody, at least ideally, has the same intrinsic worth. Indeed, persons have radically different possibilities in life (economically, socially, etc.), but the idea that everyone is equally worthy of recognition is foundational. However,

31 “National Culture,” Hofstede Insights, https://hi.hofstede-insights.com/national-culture. Nordic countries also receive a low score on Hofstede’s dimension of the Power Distance Index that measures if less powerful members within a country expect that power is distributed unequally. This means that the less powerful in these countries generally understand themselves to have equal power to others. 32 The universalization is sedimented in the first part of UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 1: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” 33 Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, “Danes Make Welfare a Hot Election Issue as Cracks Show in Nordic Model,” Reuters, May 29, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-election-welfare-insightidUSKCN1SZ0IC.

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how does one address and measure such an abstract worth, and how does this affect the reasons for honoring someone? When the position in a social hierarchy no longer provides some tangibility to define the worth of the object entitled to honor, other scales on which the person is measured are accentuated in the collective mind. One such measure is merit. Merit is not always explicitly stressed in the analyzed articles, but it often lurks beneath the surface. In many articles, honor is something you earn, or something you have achieved because you have done something that deserves special recognition. With these three key cultural developments in mind, the various articles that contain the fifth commandment and its reception in Danish newspapers can be engaged. The following overview is parted in four sections as it is possible to recognize four different trends in using the commandment: (1) The subject’s obedience to authority, (2) the subject’s recognition of heritage, (3) the subject’s caretaking of the object, and (4) mutual recognition between object and subject.³⁴

5.1 Obedience Several voices understand the commandment as an exhortation to obey and submit to authorities, interpretations that resonate with the established reception found in Luther’s Der große Katechismus. Since the rules set by the parents are the first “laws” to which a person needs to submit, the fifth commandment is primarily understood to be aimed at children. The roles of parent and child are thus clearly demarcated in a social hierarchy, and these roles entail a behavior that fits them; parents make rules, children obey and live up to demands.³⁵ This reception is found frequently among conservative voices. For example, in 2008, Jens Bruun Kofoed, then adjunct at the independent theological school Dansk Bibel Institut, answered an online inquiry about the commandment by saying that it originally (i. e., in Ancient Israel) meant “to listen to and act according to the wise council that experienced leaders […] can give,” a meaning that, according to Kof-

34 Other themes of a person’s relationship with one’s parents could have been found by additional search criteria. However, this study has intentionally limited itself to articles in which the fifth commandment is explicitly referenced. 35 E. g., Kathrine Lilleør, “Stil dog krav til ungerne,” B.T., January 13, 2001, 14; Else Marie Nygaard, “At ære kan sætte dig fri,” Kristeligt Dagblad, July 25, 2014, 2; cf. Nana Hauge, “Gud kalder os til orden med det fjerde bud,” 2006, https://www.kristendom.dk/de-ti-bud/gud-kalder-os-til-ordenmed-det-fjerde-bud. On a similar reception in North America, see Long, “The First Commandment,” 178.

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oed, is relevant for the present.³⁶ There are both secular (i. e., only authority, no God) and religious versions of this reception, and the voices that explicitly mention God accentuate that blind acceptance of superiors’ views or behaviors are not commanded because God is the ultimate authority. For example, in a clarification of the commandment, the priest Henrik Højlund refers to the 12-year-old Jesus who leaves his unaware parents in despair to go to the temple (Luke 2:41−52) and states that “the relationship to God precedes the relationship to the parents.”³⁷ In other words, one should obey God before obeying one’s parents. In this reception, there is an implicit, sometimes explicit, exhortation to the parents. Especially in the more secular receptions, parents are commanded to make rules and take the responsibilities of parenting seriously, i. e., raising children to be decent members of society.³⁸ For example, in a reprimand to a (in her opinion) too soft-handed contemporary parenting, the priest Kathrine Lilleør states that the Ten Commandments are “not equal to Christianity but they function as moral guidelines” and that to honor is for the subject “to behave decently [opføre sig ordentligt], no matter how one feels about one’s parents.”³⁹ The emphasis on raising religious members of society, and the parents’ accountability to God presented by Luther is thus minimized in Lilleør’s reiteration of the commandment, and she, like others, uses it as a secular guide for the bettering of society.⁴⁰ So, there might not be a God that judges one’s parenting, but the eyes of human others will certainly judge you if your children are, in Lilleør’s words, egotistical brats, møgunger. In Denmark, the obligation to raise one’s children has a specific flavor because local governments are intricately involved in rearing children due to the time a child spends in public institutions away from home.⁴¹ The shared responsibility has raised difficulties in identifying who is responsible for instilling “correct” val-

36 Jens Bruun Kofoed, “Hvad vil det sige at ære sine forældre?” 2008, https://www.religion.dk/ spørg-om-kristendom/hvad-vil-det-sige-ære-sine-forældre. 37 Hauge, “Gud kalder os til orden.” 38 E. g., Katrine Winkel Holm, “Foragten for det fjerde bud.” Kristeligt Dagblad, July 28, 2004, 9; Ebbe Paludan, “Ordet,” Kristeligt Dagblad, July 3, 2013, 8; cf. Arne Kusk, “Husk Regler,” 2008, https://nordjyske.dk/nyheder/husk-regler/32ed9d05-80c6-4e22-bc71-da518eb803ad. 39 Lilleør, “Stil dog krav.” 40 In general, the theologically grounded rationale for honoring one’s parents in Exod 20:12 is downplayed in most contemporary receptions. 41 Information provided by Danmarks Statistik reveals that 87 % of Danish children between 3 and 5 were in full-time care (up to 52 hours per week) outside the home in 2018 (cf. “Børnepasning,” https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/boernepasning/boern-og-personale and “Befolkningstal,” https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/befolkning-og-valg/befolkning-og-befolknings fremskrivning/folketal).

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ues in children.⁴² In this debate, the commandment has been utilized as a reason for following the values instilled by the responsible parents, and that institutions, especially teachers, should keep from imparting values in other people’s children. This viewpoint accentuates the parents’s authoritative role more than it does another institution or God. However, raising children is not only a duty that befalls the parents in the Danish welfare state, and the dilemma of outsourcing familial responsibilities to a tax-subsidized “someone” will reappear in the debate concerning eldercare. In sum, in this reception, the act of honoring is to obey authorities and to exhibit a somewhat vaguely defined, but definitely not egotistical, behavior that befits civilized children in Denmark. The object of honor is to be obeyed because they have a superior authoritative role. However, as an authority, the object has to perform in this role by raising their children responsibly, i. e., making reasonable demands that one’s children can fulfill. In the end, this reception is nudged by the established reception found in Luther’s work but the commandment is often aimed at secular goals where the religious overtones are minimized.

5.2 Recognition of Heritage The second category of receptions concern the recognition of heritage. Here, the commandment is aimed at the subject, not necessarily a child, who is exhorted to acknowledge the people who have paved the way for one’s possibilities in life. A common sentiment that appears in this group of articles is that the subject has to recognize that one “received life from their parents.”⁴³ The action of honor is thus to exhibit an attitude of gratefulness of belonging to something larger than oneself.⁴⁴ The subject is not urged to perform a specific activity but is asked to have an attitude of humbleness that can be expressed in symbolic gestures, e. g., words of thankfulness. This attitude of gratefulness is not solely aimed at the subject’s parents but at anyone who has engaged with a similar activity as oneself. For example, a recent article in the Danish music magazine Gaffa utilized the commandment as an argu-

42 Agnete Raahauge, “Da børnene kom til magten,” Jyllands-Posten, June 5, 2000, 9. 43 E. g., Jens Glebe-Møller, “Jødisk etik under lup,” Berlingske Tidende, February 8, 1990, 6; cf. Bjørg Tulinius, “Bent Lexner: Det er ikke op til mennesket at vurdere, om andre har livsværdi,” 2015, https://www.kristendom.dk/de-ti-bud/bent-lexner-det-er-ikke-op-til-mennesket-vurdere-om-andrehar-livsvaerdi. 44 E. g., Ginna Sørensen, “Den lykkelige balance mellem generationerne,” JP Århus, April 7, 2009, 17; Nygaard, “At ære kan sætte dig fri.”

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ment for younger rappers to recognize, and not patronize, earlier generations of rappers for what they have done for the music genre.⁴⁵ The younger rappers are thus indebted to the older rappers, and this debt is paid with recognition of their deeds. In sum, the subject is to exhibit gratitude toward existence, or to recognize one’s predecessors. The object is worthy of honor, or recognition, because they have made life, a specific line of thought, or an occupation, available to younger generations.

5.3 Caretaking The third category of reception echoes the Torah as it concerns the responsibility of adult children in the caretaking of elders. In three articles published between 2006 and 2009, Jan Lindhardt (bishop of Roskilde Diocese, 1997−2008) utilized the commandment to direct attention to the familial responsibilities in the caretaking of aging parents.⁴⁶ The articles appeared in the slipstream of hidden camera recordings from a Danish retirement home in 2006 that portrayed the harsh realities of a “caring” institution.⁴⁷ Several viewers became upset, but Lindhardt critiqued the angry voices because they, in his view, believed that eldercare was a government issue, not their own.⁴⁸ In this way, Lindhardt brought attention to the idea that the subject evades direct responsibility by outsourcing eldercare through paid taxes. Lindhardt’s critique coincided with the growing awareness of the high old-age dependency ratio (vernacularly called the non-flattering “burden of elders,” ældrebyrden), a persistent subject at the turn of the millennium. As the large group of baby boomers was approaching retirement, the population of people aged 65

45 Peter T. Aagard, “Respekten Stinker – F*ck hvor er det ufedt at være gammel hiphopper,” Gaffa, February 21, 2020, 6. 46 Jan Lindhardt, “Udnyt plejehjem bedre,” Kristeligt Dagblad, June 30, 2006, 23; Jan Lindhardt, “Etisk talt: Skylden,” Information,. February 16, 2007, 20; Jan Lindhardt, “Vrisne gamle mænd: De ti bud opdateret,” Ekstra Bladet, February 8, 2009, 48; cf. Jan Lindhardt, Katekismus i Kristendom: Børnelærdom for voksne (Copenhagen: Rosinante, 2009), 32. 47 These recordings are discussed concerning a similar and recent case in Erica Bernsten Strange, “TV 2 meldt til politiet: Brugte skjult kamera på aarhusiansk plejehjem,” Jyllands-Posten, February 1, 2020, https://jyllands-posten.dk/aarhus/ECE11914572/tv-2-meldt-til-politiet-brugte-skjult-kamerapaa-aarhusiansk-plejehjem/. 48 An article from 1991 supports the idea that the modern (Danish) society should be able to take care of its elders, not the family (Herluf Cohn, “Teologers uvidenhed om Bibelen,” Berlingske Tidende, September 16, 1991, 9.

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and older would potentially become an economic burden to the welfare system. In this discussion, the commandment was used in a purely secular version about political and economic realities. For example, during a public strike in 2008 that resulted in a shortage of caretakers for the elderly, an editorial utilized the commandment as an introduction to discuss responsibilities in eldercare.⁴⁹ The editorial describes how the then Minister of Welfare, Karen Jespersen (Venstre, Denmark’s Liberal Party), suggested that families should have a duty mandated by law to participate more in the care of one’s aging family members, a duty called pårørendepligt, “duty of relatives,” that would result in diminished public spending. That this suggestion could be the theme of a newspaper’s editorial speaks of a general public understanding that the welfare system is expected to care for one’s elderly parents. In sum, the act of honoring is for the subject, i. e., the adult child, to actively care for one’s previous caretakers, not simply through paid taxes. The object, i. e., the elderly parents, are worthy of honor because they took care of their children. On the more political level, the reasoning for honoring, i. e., taking care of, one’s parent is far more practical and economic as the elders should not be a burden to the welfare system.

5.4 Mutual Recognition The fourth category of reception is distinctly modern as it concerns mutual recognition between two equal individuals. In this reception of the commandment, honor becomes interchangeable with recognize, and it exhorts two equal individuals to acknowledge each other’s strengths and weaknesses regardless of social status.⁵⁰ There are two variants of this reception: The first variant falls in line with the ideal dignity society and concerns recognition of the individual’s intrinsic worth. The second variant concern recognition of deeds, i. e., it concerns appreciation based on the individual’s merit. I provide examples of both variants below, beginning with the first variant. References to the fifth commandment are frequently found in articles in which children, especially adult children, are urged to recognize the hard work

49 “Pårørende-pligt,” Fyens Stiftstidende, April 24, 2008, https://fyens.dk/artikel/pårørende-pligt2008-4-24https://fyens.dk/artikel/pårørende-pligt-2008-4-24; cf. Jakob Birkler, “Jeg har skubbet din barnevogn, så nu må du skubbe min kørestol,” Politiken, December 24, 2014, 5. 50 Lisbeth Smedegaard Andersen, “Ær din far og din mor, for at du må få et langt liv på den jord, Herren din Gud vil give dig,” Kristeligt Dagblad, June 6, 2002, https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/ ordet/“ær-din-far-og-din-mor-du-må-få-et-langt-liv-på-den-jord-herren-din-gud-vil-give-dig.

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that child-rearing entails. The children are exhorted to accept that parents are merely human, for better and for worse, and thus resemble themselves.⁵¹ While merit can become an implicit factor in these articles, it is a recognition of an intrinsic worth that is aimed at. For example, by referring to the commandment, columnist Katrine Wiedemann questions Danish authors who put their dead mothers in an unflattering light (e. g., Leonora Christine Skov’s award-winning novel Den, der lever stille) and stresses that “parents are humans who have acted on reasons that one does not fully know.”⁵² In other words, parents are not simply parents, they are humans, individual agents, and there is more to the parent than meets the child’s eye. The parents’s rationalizations for doing what they have done are thus made by a human that needs recognition, and the choices, even the hurtful ones, are still to be handled with respect. Although the parents have a responsibility in child-rearing, the commandment receives, in these contexts, a more therapeutic tone, and the hierarchical model of honoring is flattened to an egalitarian relationship of respect between parent and child. This falls in line with an article published in 2017 in which theologian Eberhard Harbsmeier suggests that the fifth commandment should swap the word honor with either recognize or respect.⁵³ This suggestion fits well with a welfare state in which many have the possibility to pursue their own goals and in which one’s familial dependence is limited.⁵⁴ This independence is captured better when Harbsmeier states that “there is no reason to force one’s lifestyle on other people.”⁵⁵ Honoring is thus understood very differently from the Torah, because honoring can become an act of separation from others’ different ways of life, a separation that makes it possible to keep a healthy relationship between the generations of independent individuals. This reception is taken to its limit when the commandment is used as a springboard to talk about honoring yourself by setting boundaries, i. e., keep a physical and emotional distance between individuals.⁵⁶ One priest comments that it is an act of honor, or honorable, to pull out of relations

51 Ulrik Høy, “Til Salg: De 10 Bud i præstegården,” Weekendavisen, February 22, 2008, 4; cf. Jens, Esbensen “Du skal ære din far og din mor,” in Familien – En Udfordring: En Debatbog om Børn, Forældre, Parforholdet og Fællseskabet, ed. Henrik Sommer (Valby: Unitas Forlag, 2000), 17. 52 Katrine Wiedemann, “Tal ordentligt om din mor,” Information, February 21, 2020, 2. 53 Eberhard Harbsmeier, “Ikke lydighed – men at ære sine forældre,” Kristeligt Dagblad, May 26, 2017, 9. 54 Fukuyama, Identity, 37–41. 55 Harbsmeier, “Ikke lydighed.” 56 Niels Højlund, “Sæt grænser for din søn,” Ekstra Bladet, December 19, 1993, 22.

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to one’s parents if it is hurtful for oneself.⁵⁷ This might be a pastorally fruitful suggestion but it is far removed from the commandment in the Torah. The other category of this form of reception concerns merit. It is frequently the recognition of deeds, not one’s intrinsic value, that dominates the pages when the commandment is referenced. For example, for the parent, the commandment is implicitly, or explicitly, aimed at how they have raised their children.⁵⁸ Several articles in Kristeligt Dagblad’s series on the commandment from 2014 concerned the parents’ essential role in the psychological well-being of the child.⁵⁹ In the articles, attention is turned to how the parent acts (or should act) around the child for the child to feel safe and be able to communicate feelings. For example, one reader of Kristeligt Dagblad writes that parents are to act in such a way that it makes it possible for the children to honor them.⁶⁰ The authoritative status of parents thus dwindles and gives way to enhanced attention to their agency, and the parents are set on a path toward earning their children’s actions of honor. In sum, the act of honoring is a recognition of the other individual’s intrinsic value and/or deeds. The object of honor is ideally entitled to honor because of a universal human worth. However, many articles taste of merit as they turn to actions to determine the person’s entitlement to honor.

6 Bibelen 2020 and the Fifth Commandment As noted in the receptions above, the three key societal changes, i. e., universalization of value, the welfare state, and the focus on merit, have bent the commandment in different directions. An important question is whether translations of the Bible should reflect ancient customs as closely as possible, or let the normative text speak from the vantage point of contemporary society. Most people in Denmark see the socio-ethical commandments of the Decalogue as normative,⁶¹ but as the word honor has dwindled from use, the wording of the commandment has lost

57 Vibeke Bidstrup, “Hvad betyder det egentlig at elske og ære?” 2019, https://www.kristendom.dk/ hvad-betyder-det-egentlig-elske-og-aere. 58 Jens Rebensdorff, “Jeg er opvokset med, at man aldrig aldrig siger ens forældres fornavn. Det kunne man ikke drømme om,” Berlingske, December 27, 2018, 18. 59 E. g., Else Marie Nygaard, “Forældrerelationen påvirker parforholdet,” Kristeligt Dagblad, July 26, 2014, 4; Else Marie Nygaard, “Hver tredje voksen har et belastet forhold til sine forældre.” Kristeligt Dagblad, July 25, 2014, 1. 60 “Glæden ved fællesskab på tværs af generationer,” 2013, https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/spørgom-livet/glæden-ved-fællesskab-på-tværs-af-generationer. 61 Klaus Ebbesen, “Folket og Kirken,” Berlingske Tidende, December 9, 1999, 20.

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its normative flavor. What should a translator do, if the commandment is to speak to contemporary society? The translator of Exod for Bibelen 2020, Allan Rosengren, updated the commandment by choosing “Respect your father and mother”, Du skal respektere din far og din mor, over “Honor your father and your mother,” Ær din far og din mor, as seen in the authorized Danish version from 1992. He made his decision by putting himself in the shoes of the imaginary intended reader, the 16-year-old Patrick from Herlev. Patrick would not use the word honor but respect, a word that he, according to Rosengren, would use when he instructs his friends or younger siblings to speak politely to his parents or when he applauds the school’s winning football team.⁶² These two examples can be used as a base for placing the newly translated commandment within the four receptions in Danish newspapers. By using Patrick as an avatar, the commandment is easily understood as being addressed to children or teenagers who need to speak respectfully to other people, not solely their parents (cf. Patrick’s instruction to his friends). Although the idea of decent behavior toward parents is recognized in this explanation, the nuance of obedience to authority is not prominent. Recognition of one’s heritage is reduced in Rosengren’s explanation, and the subject of eldercare is absent. The second example of the winning football team accentuates that the subject’s respect is triggered by an object’s laudable deeds.⁶³ With the latter example, Rosengren’s explanation to translate honor with respect primarily mirrors the understanding that honor concerns something you give to another due to the other’s merit. However, Rosengren’s translation opens the door for several other interpretations since respect has a different semantic value than honor. For example, respect can be used to demarcate oneself as separate from another. It is possible to state: “I respect your opinion, but I disagree” or “I respect my parents, but I have my own life to live.” In this way, respect can be used to set oneself apart from the relation to one’s parents, something that resembles the use of honoring yourself by pulling out of toxic relationships (cf. section 5.4). In this way, the act of respect is when a subject maintains a separateness from the other as a form of preservation of both individualities. For example, in 2020, a columnist in the Danish newspaper Politiken used the theme of “respect for elders,” albeit in a more critical tone.

62 Allan Rosengren, “Bibelen 2020: Skal jeg ikke ære min mor og far mere?” 2020, https://www. bibelselskabet.dk/bibelen-2020-skal-jeg-ikke-aere-min-mor-og-far-mere. 63 Rosengren correctly states that ‫ כבד‬concerns weighty matters, but he erroneously refers to Mal. 1:6 as an example where ‫ כבד‬is to be understood as an abstract concept of respect. This verse is in a context of offerings, and the lexemes ‫ כבד‬and fear (‫ )מורא‬that appear here concern the service to YHWH, i. e., the food-offerings the deity demands in the temple (cf. Mal. 1:7) (Lambert, “Honor I,” 331).

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The author blamed the older generations (especially politicians) for neglecting environmental issues. He stated that it is true “that we shall respect the old people, but we must expect that the respect goes both ways.”⁶⁴ In other words, respect keeps the categories of young and old in their separate individualities and demarcates who is responsible for specific deeds. This use of respect thus correlates with the reception of the fifth commandment as mutual recognition. So, is Rosengren correct in choosing respect as a translation of ‫ כבד‬in Bibelen 2020? As a mirror of contemporary society, then yes, as a mirror of Ancient Israel, then no. Unlike the sheep-metaphor that has disappeared in Bibelen 2020’s version of Psalm 74:1 so that the meaning of caretaking from behind the text is maintained,⁶⁵ the translation of the fifth commandment reflects a world in front of the text. By reflecting present-day society, Rosengren keeps an element of normativity in the commandment that is not easily found with honor. The semantics of respect simply contain a stronger element of mutuality that fits a dignity society. As noted, the Nordic countries have similar models of society, and a pressing question is if other Nordic translations parallel Rosengren’s translation in Bibelen 2020.

7 The Fifth Commandment in the Nordic Bibles Bibelen 2020 is not the authorized Bible-translation used in the state church of Denmark, but it is intended to reach the common Danish person as a “contemporary version” of the Bible, similar to modern English translations (e. g., New Living Translation). For this reason, the translation might be a well-known reference in the coming years. This being said, most authorized Nordic translations of Exod 20:12 use the local equivalent to honor. The Danish translation (1992) reads ær, the more recently translated Norwegian (2011) reads hedre, the Icelandic (2007) reads heiðra while the Finnish translation (1992) reads kunnioita. Only the Swedish translation has changed hedra in the previously authorized translation (1917) to vis aktning, “show reverence,” in the most recent authorized translation (1999). The Bible Society of Sweden desired that the new translation was to be more idiomatic for the Swedish language, an approach that resembles the one chosen when the Bible Society of Denmark set out to make Bibelen 2020. This approach is meant to shift the language from archaic sounding words to more contemporary ones, and the choice of vis aktning resembles the choice of respect. Similar to re-

64 Espen Holte, “Det store generationssvigt får lov at fortsætte,” Politiken, October 23, 2020, 7. My italics. 65 Cf. Holt “Shepherd,” 347.

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spect, vis aktning aims more at respectful attitudes than it does caretaking or obedience. However, is the move away from honor a specifically Danish and Swedish one? This is not likely. Various English translations, such as the Amplified Bible (revised in 2015), the Contemporary English Version (1995), and the Easy-to-Read Version (revised in 2015), have in Exod 20:12 either changed “honor” to “respect”, or added supplementary words such as “obey” and “care for”.⁶⁶ The Message (1993–2002) and the New Living Translation (1996) translate Jesus’ reiteration in Mark 7:10 with respect but keeps honor in the Decalogue.⁶⁷ All these English versions aim for an updated language, and they all reflect a contemporary understanding where honor is interchangeable with respect. In short, respect seems better to harness dignity cultures’ understanding of what it means to honor someone, but a comprehensive analysis of the use of honor, respect, and the fifth commandment in the respective societies might reveal more nuances. These possible analyses are left for future writings.

8 Conclusion Is there a difference between honoring and respecting one’s parents? As presented above, the conceptions of honor and respect frequently overlap in contemporary Danish society, and Bibelen 2020 reflects this conflation. Some voices find that the recent translation takes the “depth” out of the commandment,⁶⁸ but Rosengren’s decision to choose respect over honor correctly harnesses how the readers in front of the text understand the commandment. Respect does not provide a better image of Ancient Israelite society, or the world behind the text, but it shows that honor in present-day Denmark is conceptualized more as mutual recognition than obedience or eldercare. In other words, the translation clarifies more about contemporary society than an ancient one. Tracing the reception of the fifth commandment reveals the sprawling life of the world of the text. Moving from caretaking of elders, with a minimized view on respectful attitudes (the Hebrew Bible), through obedience to authority (Luther) to an accentuated focus on mutual recognition between equal individuals (contemporary receptions), touches on the preeminent role of the reader in front of the text, and the various ways an ancient law has been conceived. 66 The Amplified Bible adds words to “amplify” the text. 67 This choice demands an investigation in itself. Why are the laws of the Hebrew Bible different when Jesus quotes the Torah? 68 Jens From Lyng, “Ny skabelsesberetning er et knæfald for klimapolitiske overvejelser,” Kristeligt Dagblad, April 6, 2020, 6.

Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Karin Neutel

“God Speaks Our Language”: Recent Scandinavian Bible Translations and the Heritagization of Christianity 1 Introduction “… God speaks modern Danish. Can God speak Danish? Of course. God speaks the language that we speak.”¹ The press release for the new Danish Bible translation, published in 2020, neatly sums up the issue that we explore in this chapter: to what extent do the most recent Bible translations in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, which came out over the last two decades, present the Bible as part of their respective national cultures and heritages?² This question arises out of the recognition by scholars that practices, objects, and traditions associated with Christianity as the majority religion in European and other Western countries, are increasingly reconfigured as culture and heritage, rather than as being predominantly religious. If we want to get a better understanding of this development, the Bible is an obvious subject to explore, particularly in a Protestant context such as the Nordic one that is central to this volume. Yet scholars have so far not examined the possible connections between the Bible and tendencies of heritagization and culturalization, and Bible translations are an understudied topic within reception studies of the Bible more generally. This chapter therefore constitutes a first exploration into this topic that can set the agenda for a new avenue of research. We will draw particularly on the work of Lori Bea1 Translation by the authors. The Danish quote sounds: “I Bibelen 2020 taler Gud moderne dansk. Kan Gud det? Selvfølgelig. Gud taler det sprog, vi taler.” See “Pressemeddelelse: Danmark Får Ny Bibel,” Bibelselskabet, 2020, https://www.bibelselskabet.dk/sites/default/files/files/pressemeddelelse_ bibelen_2020.pdf. 2 Given the exploratory nature of this article, we have limited ourselves to these three translations. It will be worthwhile to expand our scope in future to also include the 2007 Icelandic translation and the Finnish New Testament translation for smartphone users, UT2020, from 2020, as well as the Northern Sami translation, Biibbal 2019, that we only briefly touch on in this article. Northern Sami is a language shared between the Sami populations in Northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. Given the scope and costs of these projects, the fact that the production of a new Bible was seen as viable and relevant in each of these countries is in itself worth noting. It may contradict the image of the Nordic region as highly secularized, with Christianity being a negligible social factor. See “Biblía 21. aldar – 2007,” Hið íslenska Biblíufélag, https://biblian.is/icelandic-bible-society/; “Finnish Bible Society,” Piplia, https://www.piplia.fi/briefly-in-english/. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-011

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man on culturalization, and of Birgit Meyer and Marleen De Witte on heritagization, and will bring in aspects of Bible production and marketing that are relevant to these new translations. Before turning to the three Nordic Bible translations and their framing of the Bible as national culture and heritage, we begin with a brief discussion of theoretical approaches and insights.

1.1 The Transition of Religion to Culture In her recent analysis of the ways in which practices that were previously seen as religious are now increasingly presented as cultural, Lori Beaman distinguishes four developments that have led to a changing social landscape in Western countries.³ The first is that people increasingly describe themselves as “nonreligious.” These “nones” form a significant and complex group, which includes “a broad spectrum of belief, unbelief and worldviews.”⁴ A second simultaneous development is the decline in affiliation with organized religion, in the sense that a much-reduced number of people regularly participate in religious services and rituals when compared to previous decades. The third factor is increased migration, which brings with it “an acceleration of numbers of minority religious groups.”⁵ The final factor is the increased visibility of Indigenous peoples when it comes to considerations of spiritual diversity. Although Beaman is not specifically focused on the Nordic context, it seems that all of these developments apply to Denmark, Sweden and Norway to a significant extent.⁶ According to Beaman, these factors have created the context within which a reshaping of previously (and arguably still) hegemonic religion is being recast as culture and as vital to the heritage of some countries. This reimagining of religion can be found within social institutions such as law, education, media and in broader public discourse. It occurs particularly in relation to practices and symbols that occupy space, literally or figuratively, in the public sphere, such as the presence of crucifixes and crosses and the practice of prayer at public meetings and in legislative bodies.⁷

3 Lori Beaman, The Transition of Religion to Culture in Law and Public Discourse (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 3−4. 4 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 1. 5 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 2. 6 See Anders Bäckström, “Religion in the Nordic Countries: Between Private and Public,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 29 (2014): 61−74. 7 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 3−4.

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Although Beaman does not specifically reference the Bible, it certainly fits the definition of an object that occupies literal and figurative space in the Nordic public sphere, more so in fact than the examples that are given here. The reshaping of hegemonic religion as culture is then a defensive and protective strategy, in response to the changing religious landscape. Because religious freedom is safeguarded and no religion can claim special status within a human rights framework, reframing religious practices as heritage allows them to become exempt from challenges from both other religions and from the nonreligious. Unlike religion, cultural objects and practices can claim special protection and support from government and law.⁸ In examining this process of mutation, the object is not to have religion show what it “truly” is, or to argue that religion is or is not cultural. Rather, as Beaman notes, it is important to ask “what does this shift in the production of a particular set of symbols, practices and techniques enable? What are the consequences of such a shift? What is the work this configuration does on the ground?”⁹ The possible impact of such a shift that privileges majority religion as national heritage is that religious minorities and the nonreligious, in particular, “are excluded from the narrative of ‘we’ in the public sphere, and as contributors to nation in the present tense, the past, and potentially the future.” Those elements of the past that are worth preserving and protecting do not belong to these groups and do not originate with them. This discourse therefore has important repercussions for the construction and maintenance of boundaries of belonging.¹⁰ Beaman distinguishes six markers of this pattern of fabrication of culture and heritage from majoritarian religious practices and symbols, each of which we will draw upon in our discussion of Scandinavian Bibles: 1. the constitution of a religious practice or symbol as culture and heritage in need of protection (by the state) and defence (by citizens) 2. an identification of and reliance on shared values to justify the continuation of the practice or presence of the symbol 3. pronouncements on the nature of the society in question 4. an insistence on the universality of the message being conveyed by the symbol or practice 5. a convoluted interpretation of state neutrality that positions the protection of human rights and culture and heritage against each other

8 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 4−5. 9 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 9. 10 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 19.

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a subtext of a radical other who is a threat to the precious heritage under attack¹¹

While all these factors may be relevant to some extent, markers 1 through 4 seem particularly promising, and will therefore receive specific focus in our analysis below. The role of the state, ideas of shared values, the nature of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish society, and the universality of the message are all plausible aspects of the framing of recent Scandinavian Bibles.

1.2 The Significance of Heritage Since the notion of heritage appears several times in Beaman’s analysis, it is helpful to look more closely at this concept and see how critical heritage studies may contribute to our understanding of the symbolic meaning of the Bible as an object. Heritage offers a way to look at the politics of the past, both at what is officially listed as heritage, and at more informal, discursive processes. In heritage studies, heritage is seen as a process “whereby objects, events, sites, performances and personalities, derived from the past, are transformed into experiences in and for the present.”¹² This is a process not only of remembering, but also of forgetting; of preservation and conservation, but also “active decisions to delist or cease to conserve particular forms of heritage once their significance to contemporary and future societies can no longer be demonstrated.”¹³ Birgit Meyer and Marleen De Witte describe heritage formation as a “complicated, contested political-aesthetic process” in which objects are imbued with, or divested of, meaning and sacrality.¹⁴ Relevant in the context of the Bible is that Meyer and De Witte identify two processes that are central to the interplay between heritage and religion: First, the heritagization of the sacred: how religious traditions become represented and recognized (or contested and rejected) in the framework of ‘heritage.’ And second, the sacraliza-

11 Beaman, Transition of Religion, 22. 12 Gregory Ashworth, “Preservation, Conservation and Heritage: Approaches to the Past in the Present through the Built Environment,” Asian Anthropology 10 (2011): 2. 13 Rodney Harrison, “Forgetting to Remember, Remembering to Forget: Late Modern Heritage Practices, Sustainability and the ‘Crisis’ of Accumulation of the Past,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 19 (2013): 580. 14 Birgit Meyer and Marleen De Witte, “Heritage and The Sacred: Introduction,” Material Religion 9 (2013): 275.

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tion of heritage: how certain heritage forms become imbued with a sacrality that makes them appear powerful, authentic, or even incontestable.¹⁵

This first process of the heritagization of the sacred can be applied to the Bible as a religious object of the past that is transformed into an experience for the present. These two perspectives set out so far—the heritagization of aspects of the religious past and the transition of religion to culture—will guide our analysis of recent Nordic Bible translations. We will focus on the presentation of these translations in how they connect to shared values, to national identity, and construct privileged aspects of the past.

2 Scandinavian Bible Translations Since the year 2000, new Bible translations have appeared in Swedish (Bibel 2000), Norwegian (Bibel 2011), and Danish (Bibelen 2020). Interestingly, in Sweden and Norway these translations overlap to some extent with the process of the separation of church and state, which was completed in Sweden in the year 2000 and in Norway in 2017. In Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church continues to be the national church.¹⁶ The production of these Bible translations does not directly correspond to these various state–church relationships, however, since the Norwegian and Danish translations are the product of independent Bible societies, while the Swedish translation was in fact initiated and funded by the state. In this part of the article, we will look at these three cases to explore their differences and similarities. While it would be possible to examine the content of the translations in connection with processes of culturalization and heritagization, the focus here will mainly be on the way these translations as a whole are described and marketed, especially by those responsible for producing them. The presentation and reception of the translations in connection with the national language and culture will be our main concern.

15 Meyer and De Witte, “Heritage and The Sacred,” 275. 16 See Lene Kühle et al., “Religion and State: Complexity in Change” in Religious Complexities in the Public Sphere, ed. Inger Furseth (New York: Palgrave, 2018), 81−136.

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2.1 Sweden The Swedish Bibel 2000, initiated and financed by the Swedish government, was the third official Swedish translation, after the Gustav Vasa Bible in 1541 and the 1917 Kyrkobibel. These two previous translations, as well as the various revised editions which appeared in the centuries between, were all initiated and approved by reigning kings and involved official translators and committees.¹⁷ When dissatisfaction with the 1917 translation grew within the Lutheran Church after only a few decades, it was therefore self-evident that the Church Assembly would turn to the Swedish government to request a new translation. However, it was the perceived societal need and the influence of political actors which eventually led the government to install committees focussed on the translation of the Old and New Testaments.¹⁸ According to the introduction to Bibel 2000, this translation, unlike its predecessors, is not sanctioned by royalty, but was instead undertaken “on behalf of the Swedish people, because it was decided by the Riksdag,” the Swedish parliament.¹⁹ The introduction states that while the translation was handed over upon completion to those who commissioned it, “it will not be confirmed by a special state decision.” Rather, the translation will achieve its purpose “when it is taken into general use by the Swedish people” as “the main text for the Bible in the Swedish language area.” The mandate for this translation may have rested with the government, yet by the time it was produced, it was apparently no longer up to the Swedish state to sanction a particular form of the biblical text given the changed relationship of church and state. The new translation started out as a church concern in a context where Sweden still had a state church, and was considered a task for the government in response to religious and societal needs, but it is as heritage that Bibel 2000 is seen to earn its legitimacy as a “people’s translation” fifty years later.²⁰

17 Chas. A. Williams, “The 1917 Translation of the Swedish Bible,” Scandinavian Studies and Notes 6 (1920): 82−86; Birger Olsson, “A New Bible Translation for Sweden: Ten Years of Preparation,” BT 24 (1973): 422−30. 18 For a more detailed description of this process, see Richard Pleijel, Om Bibel 2000 och dess tillkomst: Konsensus och konflikt i översättningsprocessen inom Bibelkommissionens GT-enhet (Skellefteå: Artos, 2018), 97−114, Olsson, “A New Bible Translation for Sweden,” 422−25. 19 Bibelkommissionen, “Bibelkommisionens förord,” Bibeln (Stockholm: Verbum, 2004), 9−10, 9. Our translation from Swedish. 20 The connection between national and religious identity as a background for the government’s approach to the Bible translation is also discussed by Tobias Harding in his thesis “Nationalising Culture: The Reorganisation of National Culture in Swedish Cultural Policy 1970–2002,” (PhD diss., Linköping University, 2007), 163.

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According to the introduction, this particular Bible is thus validated only by its wide audience and general use. The new translation responds “to a general cultural need for a reliable translation,” rather than only a specific church related or religious need. It is focused “on the demands of the present and the future without therefore excluding tradition.” The use of the text is also explicitly identified as being both inside and outside church contexts, in private and public reading, in singing and education, “from the pulpit, on stage and in the studio.” The glowing description imparts almost a magical quality to this all-purpose text, which is “so faithful to the original’s changing styles and so sensitive to contemporary forms of expression that it can be used by those seeking historical knowledge and literary appreciation.” The Bible Committee itself acknowledges that there are “many, high and incompatible ambitions” in what it aimed to realize.²¹ This broad national significance is confirmed by how the translation was received. In an op-ed article for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Anders Piltz, priest and emeritus professor of Latin wrote that people who identify as non-religious and are therefore “voluntarily ignorant” of the Bible, no longer have an excuse with this new translation. They now have access to a text which inspired “cathedral buildings and works of art, poetry, drama, dance, academia, legislation, mission, conquests, wars, revolutions, conversions, formations and schisms, heroic sacrifices, charity, everything.”²² The broad relevance of the Bible, its connection to “everything”, means that everyone should have knowledge of it, or risk being counted as wilfully ignorant. The idea that we find in this discourse, that it is precisely this ancient text which should be intelligible to contemporary Swedes, its original content and style rendered faithfully in present day Swedish, of course bestows a unique status on the Bible. It is singled out as a religious object of the past like no other, and is transformed into an experience for the present by the investment of many hours of expert labour and significant public funds. The Swedish public in turn are imagined as having almost a duty to engage with this text, in order to be informed citizens, who appreciate where they and their culture and society come from.

2.2 Norway Since 1816, several different Bibles and New Testaments were published in Norway in all three national languages: Bokmål, Nynorsk (New Norwegian), and Sami. Lan-

21 “Bibelkommisionens förord,” 9. 22 Anders Piltz, “Bibeln nu komplett – så långt det går,” Svenska Dagbladet, September 23, 2001.

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guage politics, and recently also concerns for Indigenous rights and democracy, have played a role in the various translation processes. The most recent translation is Biibbal 2019, which came out after 30 years of cooperation between Norway, Sweden, and Finland. This first full translation into Northern Sami was celebrated as an important political event.²³ It is interesting that this translation was financed by the Norwegian government—similar to the Swedish financing of Bibel 2000— and was a cooperation between the three countries in which Northern Sami people live. The Bible became a tool to give the Sami people an important cultural symbol across national borders, acknowledging their claims to Scripture as previously granted to the majority populations with other mother tongues.²⁴ The political and identity aspects of Biibbal 2019 deserve a more extensive discussion and will be the subject of future research. Our main focus here, therefore, will be on the most recent translation into Norwegian Bokmål, which offers a more comparable case to the Swedish and Danish translations. In 2011, the Norwegian Bible Society launched its new translation in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, Bibel 2011. The work started in the year 2000, as a revision of the 1978 version.²⁵ According to the Bible Society’s website, the translation involved 48 people and cost 30 million Norwegian kroner (appr. 3 million Euro).²⁶ The Society describes the Bible as “the most frequently sold and read book in the world, and the most important book in our culture.” The aim of the Society is to give people “the word of God in a language they understand and for a price they can afford.”²⁷ When the Bible Society celebrated its 200-year anniversary in 2016, the motto for the celebrations was “The Bible—the book that shaped our culture” (“Bibelen— boken som formet vår kultur”). Busses drove around Oslo with the slogan “The Bible for everyone.” The process that led to this translation involved a range of people from within the Lutheran Church and other Christian communities, as well as other cultural actors. The Bible Society specifically involved prominent and well-known authors and poets in its translation process.²⁸ These authors, including Karl Ove Knausgård, published about their participation in turn, in a collection entitled Bibelsk

23 “Biibbal 2019 – Bibelen på Nordsamisk,” Bibelselskapet, https://bibel.no/om-bibelen/laer-om-bi belen/bibelutgaver-i-norge-i-200-%C3%A5r/biibbal. 24 “Bibelfest i Sápmi,” Bibelselskapet, https://bibel.no/nyheter/bibelfest-i-s%C3%A1pmi. 25 “Bibelutgaver i Norge i 200 år,” Bibelselskapet, https://bibel.no/om-bibelen/laer-om-bibelen/bi belutgaver-i-norge-i-200-%C3%A5r. 26 “Det du trenger å vite om Bibelen,” Bibelselskapet, https://bibel.no/om-bibelen#les-bibelen-her. 27 “Bibelselskapets historie,” Bibelselskapet, https://bibel.no/det-norske-bibelselskap-og-verbumforlag/bibelselskapets-historie. 28 “Bibelutgaver.”

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(“Biblical”), creating further interest in the translation.²⁹ When Bibel 2011 came out, famous actors gave public readings from the translation with bishops, royal representatives and celebrities in the audience. Through the Societies’ deliberately broad and inclusive approach, both in the time during which the translation was developed and during the festivities and the period after its launch, the contributors and audience involved reached far outside the church or the Christian community. In line with the translation strategy, Bibel 2011 was published in a number of different formats, to appeal to different groups. The following year, the “literary edition” of the new Bible—produced as three separate parts rather than a single book, and with a continuous text, without the verse numbers, footnotes, or cross references typical of a traditional Bible—won the gold medal for the most beautiful book of the year in the category “Fiction for adults” (“Skjønnlitteratur for voksne”).³⁰ When one of the state theatres located in Oslo, Det norske teater, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2013, the Bible was elected as the basis for the main play, leading to a six-hour performance of the Old and New Testament.³¹ In the following years, the Bible continued to be a bestseller.³² This combined course of events worked to present the new Bible translation as a collective national moment rather than as a primary religious one. The new Bible translation became a symbol and a space, using Beaman’s terms, it illustrates the Norwegian Bible’s transition from religion to culture.

2.3 Denmark The situation in Denmark, where a new Bible translation came out in 2020, has several interesting parallels with the Norwegian case when it comes to national identity and heritage. Yet while Norway has had a slow process of separation between church and state, which was only completed after Bibel 2011 appeared, Den-

29 Karl Ove Knausgård, “Hjelpemann på Bibelen,” in Bibelsk, ed. Christine Amadou and Anders Aschim (Oslo: Bibelselskapet, 2011), 33−58. 30 “Vinnere Årets vakreste Bøker 2012,” Årets vakreste Bøker, https://www.grafill.no/avb/nyheter/ vinnere-2012. 31 See one review here: Tove Stoeckel, “ʻBIBELEN’ Det Norske Teatret,” Dagsavisen, 2013, https:// www.dagsavisen.no/kultur/2013/02/02/bibelen-det-norske-teatret/. 32 This news also reached the international media, see Alison Flood, “Bible Becomes 2011 Bestseller in Norway,” The Guardian, January 3, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/03/bible2011-bestseller-norway.

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mark still has a state Church.³³ Not surprisingly then, the Queen was supposed to be present when the new Bible was launched in March 2020—like the Norwegian and Swedish royal heads of state, she serves as the protector of the national Bible Society—however, these events were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Another difference between this new Danish translation and those in Sweden and Norway, is that Bibelen 2020 is not an official Danish translation, but made for a specific modern audience, in so-called Nudansk. The process leading to a new official Danish translation is currently almost underway.³⁴ In the press release presenting the new Bible, general secretary of the Bible Society Birgitte Stoklund Larsen describes the Bible as containing “essential stories in our culture.” They must therefore be available and accessible for us today, so that contemporary readers can experience them as relevant. The fact that the new translation is also, for the first time, available as an audio book, means that even more people will have access “to the Bible’s culture-bearing stories” (“Bibelens kulturbærende fortællinger”).³⁵ According to the title of the press release, it is Denmark that gets a new Bible— on the Society’s website this is even expanded to “All of Denmark gets a new Bible” (“Hele Danmark får en ny bibel”)—as if the entire country will have an equal interest in this new book, regardless of religious belief or affiliation. The Lutheran Church or other religious groups are not mentioned as specific target groups of the new translation, although here, as in Norway, the Bible Society has a clear Christian mission. When the general secretary refers to God, it is to make the point about language quoted above: “God speaks the language we speak.”³⁶ The specific approach to language, it appears, is very important for this new translation into contemporary Danish. The translation deliberately avoids Christian coded terms or church language, in favour of more generally used Danish. Interestingly, this choice is framed as actually bringing the reader closer to the original text, since both Nudansk and the original Hebrew are said to lend themselves particularly well to reading out loud, thereby returning the contemporary Danish speaker to the original use of the text.³⁷ The new Bible is specifically adapted to a new cultural environment, when it comes to values such as democracy, individualism and gender.³⁸ As the press release explains, “dear friends” is preferred over

33 See Kühle et al., “Religion and State,” 120. 34 “Pressemeddelelse.” 35 “Pressemeddelelse.” 36 “Pressemeddelelse.” 37 “Bibelen 2020,” Bibelselskabet, https://www.bibelselskabet.dk/bibelen2020. 38 See Birgitte Stoklund Larsen, Når Bibelen Oversættes (København: Bibelselskabets Forlag, 2019). See also Thomas Reinholdt Rasmussen, “Anmeldelse. Bibelen Anno 2020: Kristendommen er en

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“dear brothers,” instead of “honour” the translation uses “respect.” God should no longer be “obeyed” but instead people should “do what God says,” and “to rule” the earth is replaced with “to take responsibility” for it.³⁹ The words and concepts that are used, fit well into the Danish preference for “hygge”; “flow and understanding” are in focus, as is stated in the press release.⁴⁰ This can be seen in contrast to the growing cultural trend of Nordic Noir, where in particular crime series and films are known in the international context for renewing the genre. “Hygge” is the opposite: it is the cosy and relaxed atmosphere supposedly associated with Scandinavian social democracy and equality, love of nature and cool atmosphere. In this way, the Bible is made at home in the Denmark of 2020, and God speaks Nudansk.

3 Analysis: The Bible as Heritage and Culture The discourse surrounding the new Scandinavian Bible translations can be seen to re-cast, reshape, and re-imagine the Bible as a marker of culture and heritage, rather than as a primarily religious Christian source. Rather than refer to the Bible as “the Christian Church’s Holy Scripture” (“den kristne kirkes hellige skrift”), or as the “foundation of the Church’s faith and teaching” (“fundament for kirkens tro og lære”)—descriptions used by the Norwegian Church and the Danish Folkekirken respectively, on their websites—the sources that we examined in this chapter choose to frame the Bible as primarily a text with national significance.⁴¹ The Bible is thereby transformed from a specifically religious object to a more broadly majoritarian practice and symbol, whose appearance in a new contemporary guise becomes a shared national cultural event. Seen through the discourse analysed here, the Bible seems to confirm Beaman’s observations about the shift from religion to culture of aspects of Christianity and Christian tradition, as a response to the changing religious landscape. In the following we will employ the analytical dimensions introduced at the beginning of this article, of shared values and national identity, as well as the process of heritagization, and bring additional attention to the aspect of Bible production and economy, including the role of the state.

oversættelse,” Kristeligt Dagblad, 2019, https://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/kultur/kristendommen-eren-oversaettelse. 39 For more on this, see Lorenzen’s chapter in this book. 40 “Pressemeddelelse.” 41 “Bibelen,” Den Norske Kirke, https://kirken.no/nb-NO/kristen-tro/kristen-tro/bibelen/; “Bibel,” Folkekirken, https://www.folkekirken.dk/aktuelt/liturgiarbejde/bibel.

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3.1 Shared Values and National Identity When it comes to the fabrication of culture and heritage from majoritarian religious practices and symbols, the second of Beaman’s markers is particularly evident in connection with these new translations: Identification of and reliance on shared values to justify the continuation of the practice or presence of the symbol. In the discourses around each of the three translations, it is emphasized that the Bible is “ours.” It is highlighted that “we” get a new translation, in “our” own language: this is a new text for all of Denmark, for the people, for everybody. It is argued that the Bible is foundational to Nordic society, as “the most important book in our culture,” “the book that shaped our culture” as the Norwegian Bible Society puts it.⁴² In the Danish context, the accessibility of the Bible in contemporary language is presented as a significant task given the foundational nature of biblical stories for Danish culture. Being able to read the Bible in a language that is easily intelligible is needed in order to understand the past and navigate the present, since it represents, or rather symbolizes, shared values. A good illustration of this need to continue a shared cultural process can be seen in the Swedish discussion, where having knowledge of the Bible is presented as being of essential value, in order to be a good participant in society. The Bible is the symbolic key needed to unlock Sweden, to grasp its shared past and culture. Similarly in Norway and Denmark, the new translations rely on and reinforce assumptions about what it means to be part of this particular national culture. Celebrities and royals guarantee the symbolic shared-ness and generate the public attention which adds to the experience of the Bible translation as an event of national significance. Although all three countries experience continued immigration and increasing religious diversity, including growing numbers of people who identify as non-religious, the rhetorical “we” that dominates the discourse seems oblivious to this reality. It is not one group among many of the existing religious communities that receives its holy scriptures in a new translation, but rather the country and language as a whole. There are historical reasons for this dominant discourse of Christianity, making it less likely that a new translation of the Qur’an or the Bhagavad Gita into any Scandinavian language would receive a similar reception. Yet the fact that the Bible is not understood as particular, as relevant only for some select few practicing Christians, but rather for the nation as a whole, means that the reality of religious affiliation plays a minor role. The Bible is no longer primarily seen as

42 “Bibelselskapets historie.”

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part of religion in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but instead reshaped and reimagined as cultural heritage. Interestingly, Beaman’s third marker “[p]ronouncements on the nature of the society in question,” seems to be less evident. While there is a strong emphasis on what is shared, as just argued, the actual content of the values and cultural character in question remains vague. When it is stated that the Biblical stories are significant bearers of culture, it is left open what this culture is or how stories in the Bible actually transmit culture. The nature of the biblical message receives very little attention. In fact, the justification for the Danish translation choices that consciously hide the patriarchal nature of biblical language and society, shows that the Bible does not necessarily reflect the few contemporary values that are actually made explicit. By deliberately choosing gender inclusive translations or ignoring male pronouns and the generic use of the word “man,” the Bible is adapted to ensure that it does not offend current sensibilities.⁴³ The discourse examined thus emphasizes the Bible’s significance for society as a symbol, without making clear pronouncements on its content.

3.2 Bible Translations as Heritagization Meyer and De Witte’s point about the heritagization of the sacred seems to be confirmed by the new Nordic Bible translations of the last two decades. The Bible is most definitely a privileged aspect of the past, which is represented and recognized in the framework of “heritage.”⁴⁴ The focus on the Bible as the most important text for “our” culture, but also as a key to understand the past, are evidence of this. As we pointed out above, in critical heritage studies, heritage is seen as a process “whereby objects, events, sites, performances and personalities, derived from the past, are transformed into experiences in and for the present.”⁴⁵ Such experiences are formed in many different ways, whether listening to the Bible as an audio book, seeing it performed on stage in a theatre, or reading it in an exclusive literary edition. What we see with these new translations is an illustration of this process of heritagization in which the past all but disappears: the Bible is updated to sound modern, to reflect contemporary values, to let God speak Swedish and Danish as a Swede or Dane would today. Unlike other religious scriptures which resist translation or are treated as venerable objects with a rich history, the 43 Note also a similar gender inclusive choice, when the Norwegian Bibel 2011 replaces “Brødre” (brothers) with “Søsken” (siblings). 44 Meyer and De Witte, “Heritage and The Sacred,” 275. 45 Ashworth, “Preservation, Conservation and Heritage,” 2.

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Bible in this revised form is no longer allowed to show its age or origin—a 2000year-old Middle Eastern text. Instead, it might be mistaken for the product of famous authors whose other books are already on your bookshelves.⁴⁶ We can identify something of a paradox here: it seems imperative for the success of these translations that the text should not sound or feel like the past. Rather, God should speak like us today. This is even reflected in the names of these translations: Bibel 2000, 2011, 2020. It apparently is the year that matters, unlike previous Bibles which were often named after kings or included references to God or the church. This probably also means that these Bibles will need to be updated frequently, and as noted, a new Swedish translation is already under way, while a Danish one is about to be started. The Bible appears not so much as an element of the past that could present something different and new to the present, but primarily as a reflection and confirmation of a shared contemporary experience. The motivation for this emphasis may also lie in the connection between language and national identity: in a global context, the three languages involved here are very small. It is important to make sure the national language stays alive, and having a shared text that is widely read, can be an important tool in this. Yet this process privileges certain aspects of the past, not only when it comes to language: in the context of increasingly multicultural societies and religious diversity, the new Bible translations mark the connection between each country and its Christian roots. Although it is not explicitly addressed, it may also play a role in this process that a majority culture, when facing a religious or cultural other, feels the need to recognise and confirm what is “ours,” even if many people may not identify as Christians or belong to any Church. To have an updated Bible in our own language may give a feeling of confidence and continuity. In another study, we have shown how biblical figures can be used to argue against religious diversity and in particular Islam in a contemporary European context.⁴⁷ Having a new translation of the Bible at hand may be experienced as an indirect guard against other religions.

46 Rolf Nøtvik Jakobsen, “Er forfattarane dei nye teologane?” Arr, December, 2013, https://arrvev. no/artikler/er-forfattarane-dei-nye-teologane. 47 Karin Berber Neutel and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, “Neighbours Near and Far: How a Biblical Figure is Used in Recent European Anti-Migration Politics,” BibInt 29 (2021): 358−80.

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3.3 Bible Production, Economy and the State Since in contrast to several other objects and practices involved in heritagization and religious tradition, the Bible is a commercial product that is manufactured and sold, some reflections on these economic aspects are also in place here. The three translations were initiated and conducted in different political and economic contexts over considerable periods of time. In Sweden, the same decades during which the Swedish parliament initiated and supported a new translation, state and church underwent a long separation process. In the mid-twentieth century, it was still a task for the Swedish government to take care of a new Bible translation, to finance it and to take ownership of the process. When it was finalized, however, the roles had changed, and now it is the Swedish Bible Society which has the formal ownership and copyright of the text and which is in fact currently initiating a new translation. In Norway and Denmark, the state was not involved in similar ways, and the translations were initiated and sponsored by Christian Bible Societies. In both countries, the new translations have been a success when it comes to marketing and sales. In Norway, the involvement of cultural figures in the translation process and in the subsequent reception nevertheless shows that not only the Church feels ownership of the text, but a broader audience as well. This also means that while in Sweden the initiative for the translation was political and the aim predominantly societal, in Denmark and Norway Christian faith and the aim of spreading the word of God were important motivators for the Bible Societies, in addition to economic calculations about audiences and sales. In spite of the differences between the three countries, it is interesting that the discourses surrounding the Bible in these updated versions are remarkably similar. In each case, the Christian relevance of the Bible is given a back seat, and the text is instead discursively presented as belonging to all, as representing shared narratives and values. In the case of Sweden, this framing makes sense in light of the separation between church and state and the political motivations behind the translation. In the Danish and Norwegian context, the decision may have made good business sense: the national market is bigger than the Christian market, after all. The fact that there was an awareness that such a market existed, and that it was worth aiming the lengthy and costly translation process at this market, confirms that the developments of culturalization and heritagization of the Bible not only make sense academically, but are confirmed economically as well. It is worth presenting the Bible as a national text, because there is the potential to thereby heighten its prestige and relevance, and boost sales, because it confirms how the Bible is currently perceived. The rhetorical positioning and commercial success of future

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translations will therefore offer an important measurement for the persistence of the process of heritagization and culturalization of the Bible.

4 Further Questions The three new Scandinavian translations reshape and reimagine the Bible as not primarily sacred scripture, but as an important part of culture and heritage. The Nordic countries are presumed to be one of the most secular regions of Europe and the world.⁴⁸ While our exploration has shown that Christianity and its holy book are not gone, they definitely appear in a new form. The old majority religion takes central stage again, but with a new cover: it is redesigned this time as culture and heritage. In this process, a new and problematic national “we” is constructed, which ignores religious and other forms of diversity. This outcome allows us to identify a number of issues for further research. A significant question relates to the dynamics between these three Bible translations into majority languages in Scandinavia, and the new translation into Northern Sami, Biibbal 2019. The “we” constructed in the Sami case crosses borders, and interacts in complex ways with issues of past assimilation politics towards an Indigenous people and their rights to their own language and religious freedom. How does the Bible as heritage and culture operate in a Sami context? In addition, we observe a diversification in the marketing of the Bible, where the publishers change covers, layout and paratextual material, in order to reach different segments of potential audiences. A future study of materiality and paratexts in these new Bibles would be able to draw a much more complex picture of how the “same old text” can be made relevant and appealing to new audiences, especially of younger generations. A final intriguing question that we have not been able to address in this article, is the extent to which these new Bibles are actually read. Perhaps they are primarily part of a stylish Nordic interior, as a coffee-table artefact, rather than a book to be opened and studied? As we have seen in this chapter, recent Bible translations are an excellent lens through which to explore processes of culturalization and heritagization. In the Scandinavian context of the last two decades, the Bible appears as a complex site where Christianity is negotiated and reshaped and where even those who do not believe in God seem to appreciate that God speaks “our” language.

48 See, e. g., Ronald F. Inglehart, Religion’s Sudden Decline: What’s Causing it, and What Comes Next? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 30−32, David Thurfjell, Det gudlösa folket: De postkristna svenskarna och religionen (Stockholm: Norstedts, 2019), 17−23.

Louise Heldgaard Bylund

The Bibleness of Children’s Bibles: Paratextual and Material Aspects of Nordic Children’s Bibles 1 Introduction: Children’s Bibles and Bibleness Children’s bibles are a well-known genre in the Nordic countries. In many ways, they look like every other children’s book: they are richly illustrated, include a great number of animals, and the font is large and easy to read. However, when one takes a closer look at the material form and paratexts of Nordic children’s bibles, it becomes clear that they prepare the reader by underlining the close connection between children’s bibles and the biblical tradition.¹ Children’s bibles invoke a sense of “Bibleness,” a term which was coined by Timothy Beal to designate the general expectations and associations induced by the Bible as a cultural icon: “… an immaterial, amorphous inarticulate condensation of cultural meaning and value, a symbol whose outline is vague, impossible to pin down to a particular image or thing.”² As a cultural icon, the Bible does not have a specific material form. Most people associate traditional Bibles with books in black leather binding and golden letters, but the Bible as a cultural icon is not tied to that specific image. The iconicity is flexible in its visual-material vagueness. Instead, Beal defines this sense of Bibleness with the following terms: authoritative, univocal, practical, accessible, comprehensive and exclusive.³ These terms embrace the iconic cultural meanings of Bibleness, according to Beal. In this connection, it is important to note that Beal is describing the idea and associations

1 This article is the first comparative study of children’s bibles from the four Nordic countries. In my previous work, I have studied Danish children’s bibles and made a comparative study between a Danish and a Norwegian children’s bible. See Louise Heldgaard Bylund, “Børnebibler som traditionsformidling: En litterær og teologisk undersøgelse af fem populære danske børnebibler fra 2010’erne” (PhD diss., Aarhus University, 2021) and “Udvandringen fra Egypten er som et 17. majoptog uden bunader og flag − Børnebiblers interaktion med den kulturelle kontekst,” Prismet 70 (2019): 109–24. 2 Timothy Beal, “The End of the Word as We Know It: The Cultural Iconicity of the Bible in the Twilight of Print Culture,” in Iconic Books and Texts, ed. James W. Watts (Sheffield: Equinox, 2015), 210. 3 Beal, “The End of the Word,” 210. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-012

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of Bibleness, not the actual biblical texts and universe. The actual Bible could be described by using opposite terms such as multivocal, unpractical, and inaccessible. After a short introduction to the concepts and functions of materiality and paratexts as well as the four children’s bibles presented in this paper, this article will show how these children’s bibles express this sense of Bibleness by means of paratextual and material features. In this way, the children’s bibles take advantage of the authority and legitimacy of the biblical tradition and shape the readers’ expectations and reading strategies even before they open the book and start reading. The final part of the article will consider the way in which the four children’s bibles portray the Bible and the authority on which it is based in their paratexts.

1.1 Materiality and Paratexts The material and paratextual aspects of a text play a crucial role in shaping the reader’s expectations and guiding their reading experience. The materiality of the text includes various aspects of the physical object such as the medium used and its weight, tactility, and smell. Literary critic N. Katherine Hayles insists on the impact of the materiality of a text. A text is always embodied. Without this embodiment, the text could not exist in the world.⁴ Readers can only interact with a text if they can sense its materiality: “Materiality thus cannot be specified in advance; rather it occupies a borderland—or better, performs a connective tissue —joining the physical and mental, the artifact and the user.”⁵ Paratexts have a similar connective function. The term paratext was coined by literary theorist Gérard Genette and designates the texts that surround and introduce a text such as its title, page numbers, foreword and PR material.⁶ Genette compares the connective function of paratexts with thresholds or airlocks: “The

4 N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002), 31. 5 N. Katherine Hayles, “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis,” Poetics Today 25 (2004): 72. After 500 years with the printed book as the consolidated medium for communicating texts, the development of electronic texts has become an eye-opener for literary scholarship, according to Hayles (Hayles, “Print Is Flat,” 87). However, Marshall McLuhan has underlined the important constructive role of the medium of a text since the 1960’s, for instance in the famous statement: “The medium is the message.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (London: Routledge, [1964] 2001), 13. 6 Genette distinguishes between two types of paratexts, depending on the spatial location of the text in question. Peritexts are texts that are in the same literary work as the text to which they are attached, for instance on the cover of a book. Epitexts are texts that are outside of the text, such as PR material and reviews. See Gérard Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 5.

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paratext provides an airlock that helps the reader pass without too much respiratory difficulty from one world to the other, a sometimes delicate operation, especially when the second world is a fictional one.”⁷ In this way, paratexts and materiality help the reader to navigate, and they frame the reader’s reading expectations. The materiality and paratexts of children’s bibles thereby explicitly and implicitly present the work and the context of the work to the reader. In this article, I will study the materiality and paratexts, not the narrative content, of four Nordic children’s bibles. I am interested in the representation and reception of the biblical tradition of children’s bibles in its most concise and focused form. This is exactly what we find in the framing of the material and paratextual aspects. Before we turn to the analysis of the material and paratextual aspects of children’s bibles, let me briefly introduce the four Nordic children’s bibles that constitute the object of research in this article.

1.2 Four Nordic Children’s Bibles The objects of analysis in this study are four contemporary children’s bibles, one from each of the four Nordic countries Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.⁸ Children’s bibles are a well-known genre in each of the four countries, with Nordic publishing houses publishing new children’s bibles on a yearly basis. Some are translations of international children’s bibles. Others are new works produced by Nordic writers and illustrators. Private individuals buy these children’s bibles as presents for family members and godchildren, and the Nordic churches donate them to children when they visit church on various occasions, for example baptism or Sunday school. In this article and this anthology, the field of study is the contemporary Nordic reception of the Bible and the biblical tradition. My criteria for the selection of children’s bibles are therefore their Nordic origin, and their availability on the market today. I have excluded international bibles that have been translated into the Nordic languages—my aim is to gain the clearest possible impression of the reception of children’s bibles in the Nordic countries. With these two criteria, the selection of children’s bibles for analysis is obvious in three out of the four Nordic countries. In Finland, Sweden and Norway, most

7 Genette, Paratexts, 408. 8 In the Nordic context dominated by a Christian, Protestant perspective, I define a children’s bible as a collection of retellings from both the Old and the New Testaments intended for children and their families as the target audience. There are no contemporary children’s bibles originating from Greenland and Iceland.

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of the contemporary children’s bibles are translations of international works, for example works of Dutch or English origin.⁹ In Finland, the only work that fits the two criteria is Suomen lasten Raamattu, “The Bible of Finland’s Children,” published in 2009. Priest and journalist Jaakko Heinimäki is the author. The illustrator and graphic designer Christel Rönns has produced the illustrations. Suomen lasten Raamattu is published by the secular publishing house Otava.¹⁰ The Swedish children’s bible fitting my criteria is Barnens Bästa Bibel, “Children’s Best Bible,” by bishop and PhD Sören Dalevi and illustrator Marcus-Gunnar Pettersson.¹¹ Speja, a secular publisher of children’s literature, published Barnens Bästa Bibel in 2020. The Norwegian contribution is Bibelfortellinger for barn, “Bible Stories for Children,” written by actor Svein Tindberg and illustrated by Magnus Tindberg. The secular publishing house J.M. Stenersens Forlag published Bibelfortellinger for barn in 2017.¹² Whereas in Norway, Sweden and Finland the majority of children’s bibles are translations, the situation is different in Denmark. International children’s bibles are available in translation, but the most popular works in Denmark are of Danish origin, and new Danish children’s bibles have been published every year for the last twenty years.¹³ The choice of the Danish children’s bible for this study is there-

9 See for example the Norwegian translation Min bildebibel of the Dutch Prentenbijbel by Marijke ten Cate from 2017, and the Swedish translation of the same Bibeln för små och stora from 2013 or the Finnish translation Lasten oma Raamattu of the Australian My First Bible by Marion Thomas (Marijke ten Cate, Prentenbijbel (Heerenveen: Jongbloed, 2008); Marijke ten Cate, Min bildebibel, trans. Bodil Engen (Oslo: Bibelselskapet, 2017); Marijke ten Cate, Bibeln för små och stora, trans. Kristina Reftel (Varberg: Argument Förlag, 2013); Marion Thomas, My First Bible (Strathfield: St Pauls Publications, 2015); Marion Thomas, Lasten oma Raamattu, trans. Milla Löfman (Helsinki: Aurinko Kustannus, 2019)). 10 Jaakko Heinimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu (Helsinki: Otava, 2009). 11 Sören Dalevi, Barnens Bästa Bibel (Sävedalen: Speja, 2020). Barnens Bästa Bibel is the first original Swedish children’s bible in 30 years. Dalevi mentions this fact as part of the marketing of this publication. According to the PR material, the Swedish origin has the advantage that its content has been adapted to the Swedish context (“Barnens Bästa Bibel,” Svenska Kyrkan, January 7, 2022, https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/karlstadsstift/barnens-basta-bibel-). In 2007, Dalevi published his dissertation on children’s bibles, focusing on the theology, Christology and view of the child in two Swedish translated children’s bibles See Sören Dalevi, Gud som haver barnen kär? Barnsyn, gudsbild och Jesusbild i Barnens bibel och Bibeln i berättelser och bilder (Stockholm: Verbum, 2007). 12 Svein Tindberg, Bibelfortellinger for barn (Oslo: J.M. Stenersens Forlag, 2017). 13 Examples of Danish translations of international children’s bibles are the Danish translation Klassiske Bibelhistorier of Illustrated Bible Stories by Marion Thomas, and the Danish version Historiefortællerens børnebibel of the American The Lion Storyteller Bible by Bob Hartman. See Mari-

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fore not as self-evident as the other three Nordic children’s bibles mentioned above. The Danish children’s bible Bibelhistorier, “Bible Stories,” from 2016 is the most recent of all the popular works of the 2010s.¹⁴ For this reason, Bibelhistorier will be taken as the representative of Danish children’s bibles. Fictional writer Ida Jessen is the author of Bibelhistorier, and Hanne Bartholin has produced the illustrations. It is published by the Danish Bible Society. This brief introduction makes it clear that the authors and publishing houses of the children’s bibles presented here have quite different profiles and backgrounds. We will return to this in the analysis of paratexts. The four children’s bibles that constitute the empirical field of research in this article are therefore as follows: the Finnish Suomen lasten Raamattu, the Swedish Barnens Bästa Bibel, the Norwegian Bibelfortellinger for barn, and the Danish Bibelhistorier. ¹⁵ In the comparative analysis of the paratexts and materiality of these four works below, I will focus on the similarities between these children’s bibles in terms of the way they present the biblical tradition and a feeling of Bibleness. When significant differences occur, I will discuss the possible reasons and consequences of these differences.

2 Material Bibleness The four Nordic children’s bibles are all published as books (paper sheets bound together and protected by a cover). This may sound self-evident, but other media would have been possible and perhaps obvious ways of retelling biblical stories on Thomas, Illustrated Bible Stories (London: Malcolm Down Publishing Ltd, 2017); Klassiske Bibelhistorier, trans. Charlotte Ekstrand and Niels Roesgaard Mose (Frederiksberg: Eksistensen, 2017); Bob Hartman, The Lion Storyteller Bible (Oxford: Lion Hudson Ltd., 2018); Bob Hartman, Historiefortællerens Børnebibel, trans. Søren Hestbæk Sørensen (Frederiksberg: Eksistensen, 2021). For a mapping and presentation of the most popular contemporary Danish children’s bibles and a register of all published Danish children’s bibles in the years 2008–2021, see Bylund, “Børnebibler som traditionsformidling,” 25−35, 234−39. 14 Bylund, “Børnebibler som traditionsformidling,” 26−28. Danish children’s bibles were published in 2020 and 2021, as well: Bibelen for Nysgerrige by Sara Nørholm, and Barnets Bibel by Kim Fupz Aakeson, but their popularity and impact are not yet apparent, whereas Bibelhistorier has achieved a good deal of popularity and market share. Sara Nørholm, Bibelen for Nysgerrige (Frederiksberg: Eksistensen, 2020); Kim Fupz Aakeson, Barnets Bibel (København: Carlsen, 2021). 15 The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages are quite similar, and I have produced the English translations of the quotes from these three children’s bibles myself. Finnish, on the other hand, belongs to the Uralic family of languages and is very different from the Scandinavian languages. I owe thanks to my colleague Associate Professor Elisa Uusimäki, who has done the translations from Finnish into English.

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to contemporary children (e-books, apps or audio books, for instance). However, the favorite medium for children’s bibles is the book or (to use a technical term) the codex, which has been the traditional medium used for the Bible by contrast with the medium used for Jewish sacred texts for liturgical use, which are written on scrolls. In other words, different religious texts typically prefer different media. The children’s bibles presented here continue to use the medium used by their own religious tradition.¹⁶ All four children’s bibles are voluminous, heavy, genuine books that signal exclusivity. They contain more than 200 pages each in hardback covers, reflecting the gravity and solidity of their materiality. These characteristics make them look and feel like traditional Bibles and appear comprehensive, a feature that Beal found to be defining for the sense of Bibleness. For comparison, one could consider Mini-Bibelen, “The Mini Bible.” Mini-Bibelen is a Danish children’s bible with a revealing title (it measures a mere 12 x 12 centimeters). Tine Lindhardt, a Danish bishop, wrote the text, and the Bible Society publishes it. It has colorful illustrations and retells the traditional and popular biblical narratives.¹⁷ In this way, Mini-Bibelen shares several of the characteristics of the most popular Danish children’s bibles. However, it is not among the most popular children’s bibles on the market.¹⁸ This may be due to its humble size, which might not reflect the right sense of Bibleness. Exclusivity is another defining characteristic of Bibleness, according to Beal. The titles on the covers of all four children’s bibles are printed in a shiny, metallic gold color. Golden titles are a trademark of the traditional materiality of the Bible. On a broader scale, gold is traditionally the color of divine presence (the halo, for instance). In this way, the golden titles of these children’s bibles are a strong signal of Bibleness. The Norwegian Bibelfortellinger for barn and the Swedish Barnens Bästa Bibel have a golden title on the front cover as well as on the spine. The spine of the Norwegian Bibelfortellinger for barn underlines the biblical look with a dark red color. The title on the spine of the Danish Bibelhistorier is golden on a black cloth background. Standing on a bookshelf, these two golden titled 16 Some children’s bibles make use of other media as a supplement to their book format. Tindberg has written plays and songs as an appendix to his children’s bible Bibelfortellinger for barn for the children to perform and thereby engage in the biblical stories (Tindberg, Bibelfortellinger, 202−40). A Danish example of a multimedial children’s bible is Sigurd fortæller Bibelhistorier. On the cover of this book, the reader finds a link and a password that give access to movie clips (Sigurd Barrett, Sigurd fortæller Bibelhistorier (København: Politiken, 2021), 1). I know of only one children’s bible that does not exist in the form of a book but only as an app: the Danish Bibelen for banditter, “The Bible for Rascals” (Joan Nørremark, Bibelen for banditter, http://bfb.azurewebsites.net/#/http://bfb. azurewebsites.net/ - /)). 17 Tine Lindhardt, Mini-Bibelen (København: Det Danske Bibelselskab, 2013). 18 Bylund, “Børnebibler som traditionsformidling,” 27−28.

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spines would look very much like traditional exclusive Bibles. The Finnish Suomen lasten Raamattu has a shiny metallic title, as well. However, the color has undergone a modern twist, as the title is in a metallic blue instead of the traditional gold. Still, the metallic foil results in an exclusive look and gives the impression that someone has put a good deal of effort and thought into the materiality of this work. The feeling of exclusivity corresponds to the purchase price of these children’s bibles. With a price of EUR 47, the most expensive of the books is the Danish Bibelhistorier. The Finnish Suomen lasten Raamattu costs EUR 45, and the Norwegian Bibelfortellinger for barn EUR 39. The cheapest children’s bible of the four is the Swedish Barnens Bästa Bibel at a price of EUR 29.¹⁹ All four books convey an exclusive, comprehensive, and genuine image, thereby creating a sense of Bibleness. The tendency continues in the paratexts, to which we shall now turn.²⁰

3 Paratextual Bibleness Paratexts function as a guiding set of directions for the reader to engage with any given text. One important paratext is the title of the text in question. Genette has identified a set of standard functions of titles. The first and obligatory function of a title is to identify the work.²¹ But do the titles of the children’s bibles presented here fulfill this obligatory function? All the children’s bibles analyzed in this study and beyond have titles that include the word “Bible.” Often one of the words “children” or “story” is included as well. This means that it can be quite difficult for readers to distinguish between different children’s bibles and identify a work by its title alone. This is remarkable. In the paratextual presentation of the children’s bibles, it seems more important to underline the connection with the biblical tradition than to focus on the peculiarities and trademarks of each individual work. These generic titles claim explicitly that the children’s bibles presented here are legitimate representatives of the biblical tradition. According to their ti-

19 “Bibelhistorier,” Bibelselskabet, https://www.bibelselskabet.dk/webshop/bibelhistorier. “Suomen lasten Raamattu,” Akateeminen, https://www.akateeminen.com/kirja/suomen-lasten-raamattu/ 9789511284123/. “Bibelfortellinger for barn,” Ark, https://www.ark.no/boker/Svein-Tindberg-Bi belfortellinger-for-barn-9788272016349. “Barnens Bästa Bibel,” Akademibokhandeln, https://www. akademibokhandeln.se/bok/barnens-basta-bibel/9789188167477/. 20 A final traditional material feature of the children’s bibles is the ribbon bookmark attached on the top of the spine on three of the children’s bibles (Jessen, Bibelhistorier; Dalevi Barnen Bästa Bibel; Heinimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu). 21 Second, titles can designate the subject matter of a text, and third, they can tempt the reader (Genette, Paratexts, 76).

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tles, the children’s bibles are presented as eternal texts, quite uninfluenced by their specific context, rather than being unique works.²² Another important paratext providing the first impression of a text is the name of the author. The author is responsible for the content of the text and his or her name has an influence on the expectations of the reader.²³ In the four children’s bibles of this study, we see two opposite tendencies regarding the name of the author. Usually the name of the author is to be found on the front cover of a work. However, on the front cover of the Finnish Suomen lasten Raamattu and the Swedish Barnens Bästa Bibel, there is no information about the author. As a reader you have to turn the pages until you reach the title page or the colophon to find the name of the author, or alternatively turn the book to the spine of Barnens Bästa Bibel or the back cover of Suomen lasten Raamattu.²⁴ By omitting the name of the author on the front cover, these children’s bibles use the biblical tradition as their most important origin and blur the actual line of production where the author is in fact creator of the text. In this way, the attention and expectation of the reader is once again directed toward the biblical tradition. This is also underpinned in the marketing of Barnens Bästa Bibel. Barnens Bästa Bibel is referred to not as a retelling but as a translation, and Dalevi even mentions his work with the original texts in Greek and Hebrew.²⁵ This framing of the production process once again underlines that the work has a biblical origin and downplays the creative role of the author. However, we find another strategy regarding the name of the author in the Danish Bibelhistorier and the Norwegian Bibelfortellinger for barn. On the front cover of Bibelhistorier below the title, it says in smaller black letters “af Ida Jessen og Hanne Bartholin,” i. e., by Ida Jessen and Hanne Bartholin, the writer and the illustrator. Similarly, Svein Tindberg’s name is printed on the front cover of Bibelfortellinger in red letters just above the larger golden letters of the title. In these

22 The inclusion of the word Suomen in the title of the Finnish Suomen lasten Raamattu, “The Bible of Finnish Children,” might be an exception to the other titles in terms of the lack of context. Here the nationality of the children is stated explicitly. In the other cases, the language of the work only implicitly indicates the nationality of the addressee. Apart from that, we find the words lasten, “children,” and Raamattu, “Bible,” which are typical Finnish words for children’s bibles. These words are part of the titles of translated Finnish children’s bibles on the market, as well. See for example Thomas, Lasten oma Raamattu, “Children’s Own Bible,” or another work with an identical title: Dawn Mueller, Lasten oma Raamattu (Päivä, 2014). 23 Genette, Paratexts, 37−41. 24 Dalevi, Barnens Bästa Bibel, 5−6; Heinimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu, 5−6; back cover. 25 “En översättning är alltid ett svek,” Svenska Kyrkan, https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/karlstads stift/en-oversattning-ar-alltid-ett-svek.

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two cases, the paratexts indicate that the reader should pay some attention to the name of the author. When comparing the four children’s bibles, two different strategies seem to be at play: the children’s bibles either hide or show the name of the author. Beal mentions this dilemma regarding the role of the author in the publishing process of Bibles. When the author of a biblical work is a celebrity, a compounding of value takes place: “The Bible adds value to the author even as the author adds value to the Bible.”²⁶ All four writers of the children’s bibles presented here are well known: Dalevi is a bishop, Heinimäki a priest and journalist. Jessen is a best-selling and prizewinning fiction author, and Tindberg is a famous actor. However, there is a difference in the environments in which the authors are famous. Dalevi and Heinimäki are religious authorities who are primarily known within the church. Jessen and Tindberg, on the other hand, have a more widespread and common celebrity status outside of the church and theological environment. This difference may be the reason for including their names on the book cover. The fiction writer and the actor increase the market value of the product to a higher degree than the bishop and the priest. Notwithstanding this point, on all the front covers the word “Bible” is the largest, so the attention of the reader is primarily drawn to the biblical nature of the work.²⁷ A final example of paratexts that arouse a sense of Bibleness is the pages that divide the two parts of the children’s bibles, namely, the Old and the New Testaments. Three of the children’s bibles have this traditional division of the two testaments. On the pages that mark the beginning of a testament, it says “The Old Testament” (in Danish: Det Gamle Testamente, in Norwegian: Det Gamle Testamentet and in Finnish: Vanha Testamentti). This phrase signals the comprehensiveness of the following narratives.²⁸ What the reader is about to read, according to the paratext, is not a selection from the Old Testament or retellings of the Old Testament narratives, but the actual Old Testament, in its entirety.

26 Beal, “The End of the Word,” 219. 27 Another solution regarding the statement of the author’s name is also found in several Danish children’s bibles: the phrase Genfortalt af, “Retold by,” and then the name of the author on the front cover. See, for instance, Johannes Møllehave, Børnebibelen (København: Bibelselskabet, 2016); Aakeson, Barnets Bibel. This phrase presents the author as a mediator rather than an originator. The result is the same: the paratexts turn the focus of the reader towards the biblical origin. 28 Jessen, Bibelhistorier, 9; Tindberg, Bibelfortellinger, 9; Heinimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu, 10. Barnens Bästa Bibel has a more untraditional structure as it begins with the birth of Jesus. Jesus as a child then listens to the stories of the Old Testament alongside with the child reader. Barnens Bästa Bibel continues with the story about the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple and the rest of the New Testament (Dalevi, Barnens Bästa Bibel).

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With these three paratexts, the titles, the name of the author and the dividing pages, the four Nordic children’s bibles presented here create a sense of Bibleness corresponding to the material aspects of the works. The biblical tradition is the primary origin of the works, and the works can thereby function as authoritative and legitimate entry points into this tradition.

4 The Bibleness of the Cultural Bible As we have seen, the children’s bibles studied here present themselves as biblical by evoking the feeling of Bibleness in their paratexts and materiality. The focus of the reader is drawn to the biblical origin, and the biblical tradition is used as an authoritative legitimation of the children’s bibles. A final question regards what the children’s bibles define as the spirit or relevance of the biblical tradition to which they constantly refer. What should the reader expect to meet when passing the thresholds of paratexts and materiality and entering the content of the children’s bibles? The answer to this question is not primarily “the Word of God” or “the realm of God,” as one might expect of a children’s bible. In fact, the reader should not expect to meet the transcendent and foreign. Rather, according to the paratexts, the reader should expect to meet the well-known. In these cases, the wellknown is the points of connection between the biblical universe and the reader’s contemporary culture and its universally human themes and values. In Suomen lasten Raamattu, connections between the original biblical universe and contemporary Western and more specifically Finnish culture are underlined. On the front flap of the dustjacket it says, “The Bible is a classic of oriental literature, which has influenced Western culture more than any other book.”²⁹ A concrete example of this influence is found on the back cover, where the author asks: “Did you know that the saying “Solomon’s judgement” used by the ice hockey commentator comes from the Bible?”³⁰ Ice hockey is an integrated part of Finnish culture, and the Finnish addressee is expected to know the phrase “Solomon’s judgement,” but not the origin of the phrase. When reading the children’s bible and thereby becoming introduced to the biblical tradition, all these connections will appear to the reader and the Bible will be introduced as a cultural cornerstone. In Bibelfortellinger and Barnens Bästa Bibel, according to the paratexts, the main reason for reading is the connecting points between contemporary human

29 Henimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu, 1. 30 Henimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu, back cover.

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life and the biblical tradition. This connection appears in the shape of universally human values, themes and emotions: “It is about courage, friendship and betrayal. It is a story about human beings like you and me.”³¹ Similarly, Tindberg writes: “Faith and doubt, envy, hatred, love, grief, happiness and of course death are central themes that children are engaged with as well. The stories of the Bible touch upon everything.”³² In this way, the biblical tradition is described as a reservoir of stories about the complexity and pluriformity of human life. It can serve as a source of insight into interpersonal relationships and social life. God is not introduced as the main character of the children’s bibles or as the main reason to enter the biblical tradition in the paratexts. Instead, the paratexts emphasize the points of connection between contemporary human life and the biblical tradition. The quotations above show that the children’s bibles presented here are in many ways representatives of the view of the Bible that Jonathan Sheehan has called the cultural bible. The cultural bible as a term designates a new view of the Bible in the Enlightenment fostered by paradigmatic changes in science and increasing secularism. The Bible was no longer interpreted primarily as God’s eternal word, but as the crucial cornerstone of cultural heritage upon which Western culture was now constructed.³³ In his research, James Crossley has shown that this view of the Bible is not only relevant for understanding the authority of the Bible in the Enlightenment, as the view of the Bible as a cultural bible is very influential in a contemporary British political context.³⁴ As the examples above show, this view of the Bible as a cultural bible can also be detected in the way the authority and the legitimacy of the Bible are framed in the paratexts and materiality of the Nordic children’s bibles. When the children’s bibles presented here establish the feeling of Bibleness and indicate that the biblical tradition is their origin, this is done within the framework of a particular view of the Bible. Beal defines the associations around the Bible as a cultural icon in the following way: “The Bible as cultural icon is the Book of books, the authoritative, authorial, univocal, comprehensive, final, graspable and readable Word of God.”³⁵ In the children’s bibles presented here, the paratexts and materiality create the feeling of Bibleness and present the Bible as a cultural icon. However, the iconicity of the Bible, according to the

31 Dalevi, Barnens Bästa Bibel, 7. 32 Tindberg, Bibelfortellinger, back cover. 33 Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), x−xiv. 34 James G. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014); James G. Crossley, “God and the State,” in History, Politics and the Bible from the Iron Age to the Media Age: Essays in Honour of Keith W. Whitelam, ed. J. West and J.G. Crossley (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 146−62. 35 Beal, “The End of the Word,” 210. My italics.

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children’s bibles, is not connected primarily with the Bible as God’s Word. Instead, the authority of the Bible is anchored in its iconic role as a cultural cornerstone for Western culture and a reservoir of narratives about the universally human. In this way, the children’s bibles introduce the reader to the Bible as a cultural bible.

5 Concluding remarks Paratexts and materiality function as thresholds for the reader to cross at the start of the reading process. The paratextual and material aspects of the four Nordic children’s bibles presented here prepare the reader by highlighting their affiliation with the biblical tradition, thereby generating a feeling of Bibleness. The children’s bibles are presented as biblical in their material form as genuine, comprehensive, and exclusive books. The use and size of the word Bible on the front cover, the location of the author’s name and different paratexts on the back covers and in the forewords make the biblical origin clear to the reader as well. The focus on the biblical origin means that the reader’s expectations are shaped in this direction. Readers prepare themselves to interact with the biblical tradition with all the authority this entails. The reader should not expect to meet the word of God, but will instead encounter something even bigger, one might say: universal human truths and the foundational cornerstone of Western and Nordic societies. It is clear that the Bible is perceived and presented as an important authority in the children’s bibles presented here. Nevertheless, the reason for the legitimacy and relevance of the Bible is interpreted in accordance with the view of the Bible as a cultural bible. This tendency is revealing in terms of the status of the Bible in the Nordic societies. It would have been possible to blur the biblical origin by downsizing or changing the title, highlighting the celebrity author to a higher degree, avoiding the golden fonts and publishing the work as a small-scale paperback. Instead, the authors and publishers highlight the connection to the biblical tradition and use this as an asset to shape the expectations of the reader. In fact, I know of only one children’s bible on the international market in which the biblical affiliation is significantly downplayed: Tiny Bear Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones.³⁶ This book is covered in plush like a teddy bear. The title is printed in an extremely small font on the pocket of the teddy bear’s pants. Buyers of this book could be forgiven for thinking that it was in fact a cuddly toy and not a children’s bible at all. In every other children’s bible, the biblical kinship of the work is highlighted as it is in the four Nordic children’s bibles presented here. This tells us

36 Sally Lloyd-Jones, Tiny Bear Bible (Oxford: Lion Hudson Ltd, 2012).

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that the biblical origin is seen and used as an asset when the publishers promote the children’s bibles. Children’s bibles are a product of their time. They mirror the view of the Bible as a cultural bible that researchers find in other contemporary contexts such as the public or political discourse. The target group for children’s bibles consists of contemporary children and their families, who might have some connection with the church having attended church on special occasions (a baptism, for instance). But they are not necessarily regular visitors to the church, and they are not necessarily familiar with theological language. By presenting children’s bibles as cultural bibles, publishers and authors can introduce the reader to the biblical tradition as a recognizable tradition and not as something foreign or fundamentalistic. In this way, the thresholds which readers have to cross are lowered and the reader will feel safe when entering the biblical universe. At the same time, when children’s bibles mirror the view of the Bible as a cultural bible, they also reproduce and reconstruct this view. One of the downsides to this constant reproduction could be that the publishers and the public discourse in general never reach a point of asking whether the view of the Bible as a cultural bible is still useful, or whether there are problems connected with this framing of the biblical tradition. For instance, could hijacking the biblical tradition originating in Middle Eastern antiquity and framing it as the core foundation for democratic Nordic welfare states be regarded as an expression of imperialistic thinking? This framing of the biblical tradition has the consequence that the Bible and the spirit of the Bible are presented in opposition to the Quran and the spirit of the Quranic tradition (for instance), whereas in many ways the biblical and Quranic traditions actually have more in common as regards their origin in similar cultural and historical contexts than contemporary Nordic societies and their original biblical context. As long as the cultural bible is the default and “natural” view of the Bible in, for example, the paratexts of children’s bibles, these reflections will never reach the surface. Until now, in the materiality and paratexts of Nordic children’s bibles, the authors and publishers have presented their works as authoritative introductions to the biblical tradition within the frame of the cultural bible. And readers are told that they should not fear that the Bible will be a boring acquaintance, because the authors promise: “It is exciting, sometimes it is revolting and often amazing,”³⁷ and that it is “… a great adventure!”³⁸

37 Dalevi, Barnens Bästa Bibel, 7. 38 Heinimäki, Suomen lasten Raamattu, back cover.

IV The Bible in Multicultural and Secular Nordic Societies

Riikka Tuori

Jewish Reception of the Finnish Bible: Negotiating Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland 1 Introduction The Jewish community of Finland is one of the established ethnoreligious minorities in the country, often portrayed as a highly acculturated part of Finnish society.¹ There are two Jewish congregations in Finland with approximately 1200 members, one in Helsinki and another one in Turku.² The congregations are officially Orthodox and conduct their synagogue services in Hebrew. Most Finnish Jews do not follow the Orthodox version of halakhah (Jewish law) in their daily lives but nonetheless choose to be members of the congregation, displaying the secularizing tendencies characteristic of all Nordic societies.³ This article examines the reception of the Finnish Bible in the context of contemporary Finnish Jewish identity negotiations in the twenty-first century. The small community has not produced a Finnish-Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) of its own. Instead, translators and authors affiliated with the community have used excerpts from the Old Testament of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland in their works. While the Tanakh is a shared sacred text of both Judaism and Christianity, Christian Bible translations contain significant departures from the Hebrew original and reflect Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.⁴ How should one contextualize the reception of the Fin1 The term ‘minority’ may induce alienation, although members of the Finnish Jewish community often use it to describe their status in Finland; see Riikka Tuori, “Being Jewish in Contemporary Finland,” in Finnishness, Whiteness and Decolonization, ed. Josephine Hoegaerts et al. (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2022). Acculturation typically entails balancing between two (or several) cultures and adapting some features of the predominant one. More on Jewishness and Jewish identity in Finland, see Svante Lundgren, Suomen juutalaiset: Usko, tavat, asenteet (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 2002); Mercédesz Czimbalmos, “Intermarriage, Conversion, and Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland” (PhD diss., Åbo Akademi, 2021). 2 In addition, there are hundreds of people living in Finland who identify as Jewish but who do not belong to any official Jewish congregations. 3 Cf. the Introduction of this volume. 4 Any translation is obviously interpretation. Examples of different interpretation in various Christian translations of the Hebrew Bible include certain Christologically important passages, e. g., ha-almah as a ‘virgin’ in Isa 7:14 (‘young woman’ in Hebrew); see, e. g. the King James https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-013

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nish Bible among the Finnish Jewish community against the multifaceted history of Jewish Bible translation? How does the community, explicitly or implicitly, reflect on the use of the Bible produced within Finnish-Christian society? What do these reactions reveal about Nordic-Jewish identities in contemporary Finland?⁵ As an attempt to answer these questions, I study two religious works published in the early 2000’s, both meant for a Finnish Jewish audience: the Sidur Helsinki (Helsinki: Helsingin juutalainen seurakunta, 2006), the first Hebrew-Finnish prayer book that contains dozens of Finnish Bible excerpts, and Tooran kertomuksia juutalaisen perinteen mukaan (“Stories of the Torah according to Jewish tradition,” Helsinki: Kirjapaja, 2003) by Norit Steinbock-Vatka, a textbook paraphrasing the narrative arc of the Torah. The focus is on the way the Finnish Bible is used in these markedly Jewish literary contexts.⁶ While my methods are mostly philological, I also draw from previous research based on interviews of members of the Jewish community, and what they communicate about Jewish identity/identities in contemporary Finland.⁷

2 The Jewish Community in Contemporary Finland The Jewish community of Finland first emerged in the early nineteenth century after Finland’s annexation to Russia. Several Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish

Bible: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin (ha-almah) shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” In addition, the books in the Christian Old Testament are organized in a different order, the last book of the OT, Malachi, representing a messianic turn towards the New Testament. 5 The reception of local translations of the Bible by Nordic Jewish communities has not been previously studied. To my knowledge, none of the Jewish communities in Sweden, Norway, or Denmark have produced Jewish translations of the entire Bible, and if in need of vernacular translations, they have used the ones available in their countries or translated brief excerpts from Hebrew. 6 The Sidur Helsinki is a physical object meant for daily use during the synagogue liturgy in Helsinki; looking at it merely as a text does not do it justice. Perspectives of lived religion, however, lie outside the scope of this article. On social contexts of prayer and rituals, see, e. g., Lawrence A. Hoffman, Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987). 7 Semi-structured ethnographic interviews of the research project Minhag Finland in 2019–2020 (n = 101); see Ruth Illman, “Researching Vernacular Judaism: Reflections on Theory and Method,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 30 (2019): 91–108; Czimbalmos, Intermarriage; Tuori, “Being Jewish.”

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soldiers known as Cantonists⁸ were stationed in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland among the Russian troops. Most Jewish soldiers came from the Pale of Settlement, the western area of Russia where Jews were allowed to live after the late eighteenth-century partitions of Poland. Several Jews decided to stay in Finland after their release from the army, but their occupations and residence remained restricted due to xenophobic attitudes of local officials.⁹ After gaining independence in 1917, Finland was among the last countries in Europe to grant civil rights to Jews. Although the Cantonist/Russian Jewish background is always mentioned as a major trope for the community, by the early 1900’s it had absorbed other Jewish immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe. Three synagogues were built in Helsinki (Helsingfors), Turku (Åbo), and Viipuri (Viborg), and many community members worked in textile industry in urban areas.¹⁰ During the Second World War, Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union in the Continuation War (1941–1944). The Finnish Army was unique among armies on the side of the Axis powers in that it drafted Jewish soldiers, as well as Jewish women in paramilitary troops. Although Jews with Finnish citizenship were not deported, several Jewish non-citizens (refugees and prisoners-of-war) were turned over to Germans and murdered. After the war, many Finnish Jews felt that they had “redeemed their place in Finnish society”;¹¹ the war continues to be an intrinsic part of the identity building of the community, reflecting its national memorialization in the rest of Finnish society.¹²

8 Boys drafted by the statute of Czar Nicholas I (1827) and educated in Canton schools. 9 Taimi Torvinen, Kadimah: Suomen juutalaisten historia (Helsinki: Otava, 1989), 31–101. 10 Laura Ekholm, “Jews, Second-hand Trade and Upward Economic Mobility: Introducing the Ready-to-wear Business in Industrializing Helsinki, 1880–1930,” Business History 61 (2019): 73–92. More on the history of the Finnish Jews, see Torvinen, Kadimah; Laura Ekholm, “Boundaries of Urban Minority: The Helsinki Jewish Community from the End of Imperial Russia until the 1970s” (PhD diss., University of Helsinki, 2013); Simo Muir, Yiddish in Helsinki: Study of a Colonial Yiddish Dialect and Culture (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2004). 11 Simo Muir, “‘Mother Rachel and Her Children’: Artistic Expressions in Yiddish and Early Commemoration of the Holocaust in Finland,” East European Jewish Affairs 48 (2018): 288. 12 Laura Ekholm, “Suomenjuutalaiset: Tehty sopiviksi vaan ei näkyviksi,” in Kotiseutu ja kansakunta: Miten suomalaista historiaa on rakennettu, ed. P. Markkola (Helsinki: SKS, 2014), 173–75; Simo Muir, “The Plan to Rescue Finnish Jews in 1944,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 30 (2016): 81–104; Ida Suolahti, Yhteiset sotavangit: Suomen ja Saksan vankiluovutukset jatkosodassa (Helsinki: Gummerus, 2017).

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2.1 Diversity and Jewishness in Finland The Finnish Jewish community is small, numbering less than 0.03 % of the population.¹³ While the leading figures of the community typically come from AshkenaziCantonist backgrounds, many current members do not have any genetic connections to this heritage. Since the 1970’s, a significant number of “new”¹⁴ members come from Ashkenazi and Sephardic/Mizrahi (Middle Eastern and North African) background especially from Israel and the former Soviet regimes.¹⁵ The official Orthodoxy of the community is visible during the synagogue service where men and women are separated. Only a fraction (1–3 %) of the members follows Orthodoxy outside the synagogue (e. g. kosher rules or keeping the Sabbath).¹⁶ Like in other Nordic countries, the number of intermarriages between Jews and non-Jews is high (95 %), and the community also has a significant number of converts, a phenomenon which has increased among ethnic Finns during the 2000’s.¹⁷ In the community newspaper, Hakehila, the Orthodox nature of the community has been debated, especially from the perspective of gender equality: some members wish for a shift towards an umbrella organization in the style of the Stockholm Jewish community center, where Jews of all denominations can convene under the same roof. Others fear that abandoning Orthodoxy will make the con-

13 Approximately 25,000 Jews live in Sweden, and 7,000 in Denmark. In Norway, the community is smaller than in Finland (approximately 800); see World Jewish Population, 2018, No. 23, ed. Sergio DellaPergola, Arnold Dashefsky and Ira Sheskin (Berman Jewish Databank, 2019). 14 As many of the non-Cantonist Finnish Jews have lived in Finland most of their lives or were born here, referring to them as “new” members is in fact misleading. 15 On the diversity of the community, see Mercédesz Czimbalmos and Dóra Pataricza, “Boundaries of Jewish Identities in Contemporary Finland,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 30 (2019): 1–7. 16 Cf. Elina Vuola, “Intersections of Gender and Minority Status: Perspectives from Finnish Jewish Women,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 30 (2019): 55–74. This mirrors the secularization common in Nordic societies, cf. the Pew Research Survey quoted in the introduction of this volume. The Jewish congregation in Oslo is also formally Orthodox but most of the members in practice are not; see, e.g., Tyson Herberger, “Jews and Judaism in Norway Today,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 29 (2018): 36–42. 17 On a recent study on intermarriages and conversions, see Czimbalmos, Intermarriage; on parallel developments in other Nordic Jewish communities, see, e. g., Lars Dencik, “Kosher and the Christmas Tree: On Marriages between Jews and Non-Jews in Sweden, Finland, and Norway,” in Jewish Intermarriage Around the World, ed. Shulamit Reinharz and Sergio Della Pergola (London: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 75–87.

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gregation lose the connection to its Ashkenazi past, exceptionally uninterrupted among East European Jewish communities obliterated during the Holocaust.¹⁸ The congregation in Helsinki operates a synagogue, a community center, and a coeducational school. Youth and women’s organizations and religious associations gather members in all age groups. Worldwide Jewish youth organizations such as Bnei Akiva and BBYO, affiliated with the Helsinki congregation, and the independently functioning US-based Orthodox organization Chabad Lubavitch have become popular in bolstering the Jewish identity of the locals. Transnational connections to other Jewish communities are further strengthened by family ties. The Internet has significantly increased the options for Jewish lifestyle such as the availability of kosher food,¹⁹ and in social media members form new subgroups interested in spirituality, feminism, or social activism. On the whole, the community faces the same challenges as all citizens of the Nordic countries in their culturally diverse, rapidly changing societies.²⁰

2.2 Multilingualism among the Finnish Jewish Community Multilingualism is part of the lived experience of the Finnish Jewish community. While the first generations of Ashkenazi Jews in Finland spoke Yiddish, Swedish and Finnish have been the predominant languages of the community for decades. These vernaculars have accumulated an ethnolinguistic layer of Yiddish and (modern and literary) Hebrew words and phrases.²¹ While Finland is officially a bilingual country where 5 % of the citizens speak Swedish as their first language, as many as half of the Finnish Jews are either fluently bilingual in Finnish and Swedish or speak Swedish as their first language.²² Sweden has also been the natural

18 Riikka Tuori, Simo Muir, and Ruth Illman, “Arjessa eletty uskonto: Suomen juutalaisten muistitietoa keräämässä,” in Muistitietotutkimuksen paikka: Teoriat, käytännöt ja muutos, ed. Riikka Taavetti and Ulla Savolainen (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2022), 73–87. 19 On Finnish Jewish food culture, see Dóra Pataricza, “Challahpulla: Where Two Wor(l)ds Meet,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies 30 (2019): 75–90. 20 Interviews, Minhag Finland. 21 On Finnish-Jewish ethnolect, code-switching and multilingualism, see Simo Muir, “Jiddišistä ruotsin kautta suomeen: Helsingin juutalaisten kielenvaihdoista ja etnolekteistä,” Virittäjä 113 (2009): 533–56. 22 Lundgren, Suomen juutalaiset, 35.

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location to acquire Jewish literature for the community’s religious needs (e. g., prayer books and textbooks).²³ Members who have joined the congregation especially from the 1990’s onwards or who were born into multilingual families often speak Hebrew, Russian, or English as well as Finnish and/or Swedish. Until very recently, the community hired its rabbis from abroad, and they delivered their sermons in Yiddish, Swedish, or English.²⁴ The situation changed during the 2010’s, when the latest chief rabbi and deputy rabbi, both native speakers of Finnish, were hired. Still, English in particular is on the rise as the lingua franca of the community specifically among those members who have moved to Finland as adults, have received Jewish education outside of Finland, or have non-Finnish partners.²⁵

3 Bible Translation in Jewish Tradition(s) Bible translations—like all translations—reflect their own time and place and can therefore be studied from various perspectives, including their philological and grammatical features as well as their political, cultural, or societal implications.²⁶ Naomi Seidman²⁷ has problematized any model that “views Jewish translation as an essential phenomenon.” Rather, there have been historically distinct Jewish and Christian approaches to translated sacred texts.²⁸ In Jewish practice, Bible translations are not used as “texts in their own right but rather as aids to comprehension.”²⁹ The first Jewish Bible translations were those parts of the Tanakh that were used in liturgical settings (the Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms and the

23 Steinbock-Vatka, Tooran kertomuksia, 16–17. The connections to Sweden have been strengthened by joint youth activities such as Bnei Akiva and Skandinaviska Judiska Ungdomsförbundet (SJUF). Many Finnish Jews also have family in Sweden. 24 See Simo Muir and Riikka Tuori, “The Golden Chain of Pious Rabbis: The Origins of Finnish Orthodoxy,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 30 (2019): 8–34. 25 The interviews of the Project Minhag Finland were made in six different languages; English was the second most common language after Finnish. 26 Naomi Seidman, Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 9. 27 Seidman, Faithful Renderings, 30. 28 Interestingly, in the 1998 Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies Bible translation is discussed in two separate articles, one about Jewish and another about Christian translation. In its 2008 edition the topic is discussed in one article with the title “Bible, Jewish and Christian.” 29 Michael Alpert, “Torah Translation,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker and Kirsten Malmkjær (London: Routledge, 1998), 270.

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Five Scrolls).³⁰ Early rabbis proposed that the Torah be read twice in the synagogue and its Aramaic translation (targum) once, highlighting the importance of the time spent with the original text.³¹ In Christianity, by contrast, translated Bibles have held a central place as “second originals,” characteristically even overriding the originals in Hebrew and in Greek.³² Since late antiquity Bible translation has also functioned as a religious identity marker: when the Septuagint—a Greek translation made by Jews for Jews—was adapted as the Old Testament of the emerging Christian movement, its use among Jews diminished.³³ In Jewish tradition multiple and even conflicting interpretations of the Bible are accepted, and translation is just one arena for debate and discussion. Bible commentaries and rabbinic midrash, a vast literary genre that examines intricate webs of scriptural meaning, eventually made it “difficult to separate [Jewish translation] from exegesis.”³⁴ Yet Tanakh translations were never purely “secondary.” Having the Torah as a ubiquitous ritual object in liturgical settings does not mean that all Jews of all times have understood Hebrew or known biblical grammar.³⁵ In the medieval period the Tanakh continued to be translated (or paraphrased) for the use of various Jewish populations in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.³⁶ Translations made religiosity more accessible to those Jews who were not proficient in Hebrew, especially women, but most likely Jewish Bible translations have benefitted all members of Jewish communities.³⁷

30 Abigail Gillman, A History of German Jewish Bible Translation (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 6. 31 Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 8a. 32 Gillman, A History, xiv. The Latin Vulgate, for example, is the official Bible of the Catholic Church. 33 The problem was not with the act of Bible translation itself: Aquila again translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek for Jewish recipients in the second century CE (Seidman, Faithful Renderings, 26). The Septuagint was actually used in Jewish settings five hundred years after the birth of Christianity: it is therefore exaggerated to claim that it was immediately rejected due to its status in Christianity; see Leonard Greenspoon, Jewish Bible Translations: Personalities, Passions, Politics, Progress (Lincoln: The Jewish Publication Society, 2020), 2. 34 Alpert, “Torah,” 270. Modern Jewish Bible editions typically contain classical commentaries translated into the vernacular, especially by the medieval French commentator, Rashi (d. 1105). In popular websites such as Sefaria, the Tanakh is hyperlinked with all available commentaries as well as to early rabbinic texts (some of them provided with English translation). 35 Gillman, A History, i. 36 Greenspoon’s Jewish Bible Translations (2020) is the first work to cover the vast history of Jewish Bible translation in as many as eleven languages in pre-modern and modern times (Arabic, Aramaic, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish). 37 As pointed out by Gillman (A History, 8), pre-modern Yiddish works, for example, were read by both women and men, but in the prefaces of their translations, the authors used women as a

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Bible translation has also played a significant role in modernizing Jewish communities. Motivated by the ideas of Jewish Enlightenment—and also by Protestant Christian attitudes towards the Bible in vernacular—the Tanakh was translated into German several times from the late eighteenth century onwards.³⁸ Following the mass immigration of East European Jews to the west, Bible translation had a double mission: the Tanakh in American English, for example, turned out to be an educational tool and also a model for how to become an American citizen.³⁹ Jewish Bible translations, paralleling the Christian Bible’s status as “second originals,” became engrained in the programs of progressive Jewish movements, whereas in Orthodox Judaism—itself a diverse movement that defies easy categorizations—the Hebrew original has held its place as the core of the synagogue service. In the past century, large-scale Jewish translations into English (e. g., the Jewish Study Bible, Jewish Publication Society, New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh) have originated from Reform and Conservative quarters, and even these translations are typically published in bilingual editions, highlighting the role of the original Hebrew.⁴⁰ During the 2000’s, Israeli translators have produced Modern Hebrew translations of the Tanakh aimed for Israeli Jews, although these have been contested as unnecessary as the Bible is taught at schools in Israel in its original language, and even under an assumption that Modern Hebrew speakers easily understand biblical Hebrew.⁴¹

“smoke-screen:” “Hebrew was considered the language in which men read, Yiddish the women’s vernacular. In reality, scholarly literature was in Hebrew, popular literature in Yiddish.” The late sixteenth-century Yiddish paraphrase of the Torah and haftarot (prophetic texts), Tsene urene, was known as the Women’s Bible and enhanced Ashkenazi women’s literacy. 38 On Jewish Bible translations in German-speaking lands by modern Jewish thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn and Samson Raphael Hirsch, see Gillman, A History. During the nineteenthcentury, Jews living in the United Kingdom produced more than a dozen Jewish Bible translations in English, most of them now forgotten. For a Jewish translation of the Bible in French (1899, 1906), published with the translated commentary by Rashi, see https://www.sefarim.fr/ 39 Seidman, Faithful Renderings, 15. 40 The first large-scale English Jewish translation of the Tanakh was published in 1892–1917 by the Jewish Publication Society of America. When in need of an English translation of the Bible, Orthodox Jews have used either various Jewish Bible translations available or resort to the King James Bible. 41 See Tanakh (Tel Aviv: RAM Publishing House, 2010) by the Israeli translator Avraham Ahuvya; on the Israeli reception of this translation, see Hilla Karas, “On the (Non?) Reception of the Ram Bible,” Hebrew, a Living Language VII (2016): 367–86. [in Hebrew]. Modern Hebrew translations of the New Testament are aimed for Christian missionary activities in Israel; see, e. g. the Hebrew New Testament (1991) by the Bible Society in Israel (https://www.biblesocietyinisrael.com/).

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3.1 Finnish Bible Translations (1933 & 1992) and the Jewish Community The Jewish community in Finland has used the “Finnish Bible” received (and produced) by several generations of Finnish Lutheran Christians.⁴² When I talk about the “Finnish Bible,” I refer to the Finnish translations of the Bible commissioned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. This “Finnish Bible” includes both the Old Testament and the New Testament, published in 1933/38 and in 1992, and prepared by translation committees appointed by the Church.⁴³ These versions represent the cultural product and the object of study and of religious worship—and sometimes even of scorn—that the Finns mostly refer to when they talk about the “Bible.”⁴⁴ Edward L. Greenstein writes: “[E]ach version of translation means something different. Not only different understandings of the text, but different methods of translating change the face of Scripture.”⁴⁵ Two modes in the (initially Christian/ Protestant) Bible translation are frequently—somewhat simplistically—juxtaposed: the “literal translation mode” (formal equivalence type) and the “dynamic translation mode” (functional equivalence type).⁴⁶ This division can be criticized, for example, for strengthening an artificial dichotomy between form and content and for assuming that the literal mode is “mechanical word-for-word reproduction” while idiomatic mode produces sense-for-sense.⁴⁷ Literal translation type, which was the most frequent type of all Bible translation until the twentieth century, aims for formal correspondence by replicating (at least some of ) the formal elements of the source: hence meaning is bound with form, for example by translating every case of the biblical conjunction vav

42 Cf. the introduction of this volume confirming how “[c]ontemporary Bible reception is […] reception of receptions.” 43 On the history of Bible translation in Finland, see Aarre Huhtala, “Raamatunsuomennokset,” in Suomennoskirjallisuuden historia 1, ed. H.K. Riikonen et al. (Helsinki: SKS, 2007), 48–56. 44 The Finnish Orthodox Church (in 2020 with 55.572 members) has also used this translation although some of its interpretations of the Bible differ from Protestant ones. Independent Christian congregations such as the Pentecostal churches in Finland also use Lutheran Finnish translations of the Bible. 45 Edward L. Greenstein, “Theories of Modern Bible Translation,” Prooftexts 3 (1983): 9. 46 See Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation, With Special Reference to Bible Translating (Leiden: Brill, 1969). 47 Greenstein, “Theories,” 10. Waard adds two more types of Bible translation: interlinear translation that follows the syntax and semantics of the source language; and philological translation (characteristically scholarly interpretation that uses footnotes); see Jan de Waard, “Chronology, Typology and the History of Bible Translation,” HSK 3:2340.

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(“and”).⁴⁸ Translators who aim for functional equivalence, in contrast, strive for the text to be understood by contemporary readers, for example, by avoiding all archaisms.⁴⁹ The reader should comprehend the text the same way the original readers did but also be able to recognize the grammar and language of the text: the word is seen as a vessel for meaning, ready for a relatively smooth transfer into another language.⁵⁰ The 1930s translation represents the formal equivalence type. Aarre Huhtala⁵¹ adds that it is also an outcome of linguistic layers built by centuries of earlier Finnish Bible translations. In preparing the 1992 translation, the committee that had launched the work in the 1970s aimed for functional equivalence, where the genre and the style of the source text are part of the message conveyed by the translation.⁵² When in doubt about the “original” meaning of a biblical verse or term, the 1992 version usually reflects majority decision.⁵³ When the latest Finnish Bible translation was published in 1992, public debates about the new translation reflected the indelible impact of the Bible and its language on Finnish-speakers. Translations that formally follow the sacred text still stir emotions of “authenticity” about the way the Bible should sound, occasionally even at the expense of intelligibility.⁵⁴ By choosing a particular Finnish translation an individual or a group may take a stand within (or without) the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, increasingly torn between liberal and conservative forces. The conservative section of the pietistic Laestadianism continues to use the 1776 Bible (the Old Church Bible) quoted by the founder of the movement, Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861), in his sermons.⁵⁵ Also, it was probably not a consequence that Päivi Räsänen, MP of the Christian Democratic Party in Finland, 48 Waard, “Chronology,” 3:2341–42. 49 The change in attitudes towards Bible translation was in response to the growing Christian trend to translate the Bible into non-European languages and putting the emphasis on understandability of the text; Lynell Zogbo, “Bible, Jewish and Christian,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 2nd ed., ed. Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha (London, New York: Routledge, 2008), 23. 50 Waard, “Chronology,” 3:2343. 51 Huhtala, “Raamatunsuomennokset,” 56. Certain syntactic forms entered Standard Finnish through translations of the Bible, e. g., Hebrew double infinitivus absolutus for emphasis (kuolemalla kuolla from ‫)מוֹת ָתּמוּת‬, forms that are foreign to the linguistic structure of Finnish. 52 Huhtala, “Raamatunsuomennokset,” 55. 53 Waard, “Chronology,” 3:2343. One interesting example of doctrinal choices in the 1992 version is the famous passage in Isa 7:14: ha-almah, translated into Finnish as “virgin” in both 1933 and 1992 versions. In the 1992 version, however, a footnote explains that this Christologically weighty translation is based on the Septuagint, and in the Hebrew original the word means ‘young woman.’ 54 Greenstein, “Theories,” 28. 55 Huhtala, “Raamatunsuomennokset,” 53.

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posted an image of the 1938 translation of the Letter to Romans (1:24–25) in her tweets condemning the Church’s stance on homosexuality.⁵⁶ According to a famous rabbinic saying, the Torah has “seventy faces”: Jewish exegesis typically creates new meanings from biblical words, lexical roots, and even from individual letters.⁵⁷ Tanakh translations stem from and coexist with these multifaceted exegetical traditions. The (Jewish) reader of the Tanakh in translation is more inclined to turn towards the source text, for example, in reading the bilingual editions where the source is always seen side by side with the translation. Some even argue that Jewish Bible translations naturally tend towards the literal model.⁵⁸ The Finnish Jewish authors, too, are interested in the perceived proximity of the translation to the original text. As will be discussed next, in Jewish works published in the early 2000’s, authors and editors vacillate between the “literal” and “dynamic” Finnish Bible translations. There are also some signs that the authors have used Tanakh translations in other languages (most likely English) to find suitable resolutions.

4 The Finnish Bible in Jewish Contexts The two works in focus, the Sidur Helsinki and Tooran kertomuksia, are indigenous Finnish Jewish works that paraphrase the Finnish Bible or directly extract from it using the latest translation of the Old Testament (1992 OT). The works were in the making at the same time in the early 2000’s, and Steinbock-Vatka, the author of Tooran kertomuksia, was also involved in the preparation of the Sidur Helsinki. ⁵⁹ When using English translations of the Tanakh, I quote from the new 1999 JPS translation (NJPS).

56 Räsänen is under hate speech investigation as of 2021; see Niko Huttunen’s and Outi Lehtipuu’s chapter in this volume. 57 Leviticus rabba 13:16; see also Stern, The Jewish Bible, 3; Greenstein, “Theories,” 19. 58 Seidman, Faithful Renderings, 17. Gillman (A History, 2) evokes the Jewish-Christian difference between letter and spirit: Jews “had a monistic view of the sacred text (and of the human being)” while Christians separated the two, hence the differences in approaches to translations of the Bible. 59 Hasenson, “Seurakunnan sidur-projekti on viimeistelyvaiheessa,” Hakehila 1 (2006): 35.

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4.1 The Sidur Helsinki: The First Hebrew-Finnish Prayer Order The bilingual Sidur Helsinki: Nusach Ashkenaz ⁶⁰ (2006, 560 pp.) contains the complete services for regular weekdays, the Sabbath, and major festivals. It was independently published by the Helsinki Jewish congregation in 2006 for the 100th anniversary of the synagogue. The prayer book has a dark blue artificial leather cover with gilded letters, and liturgical texts in Hebrew are printed on the right side of the layout, accompanied by a Finnish translation on the left. Hebrew texts are not transliterated, apart from a few major blessings (Kaddish, grace after meals, Yizkor, Adon olam, etc., pp. 273–83).⁶¹ There are no illustrations or decorative typography in the Sidur. The names of the translators and editors are not included in the Sidur Helsinki; the brief foreword is signed by an anonymous “administrative council” of the Helsinki congregation. Benny Hasenson, the leader of the project, lists the individuals involved in the project in his article in the community newspaper⁶² and adds that the group was supervised by an outsider academic expert, Tapani Harviainen from the University of Helsinki.⁶³ Until the publication of the Sidur Helsinki, the synagogues in Turku and in Helsinki had used prayer books that follow the Ashkenazi nusach: the all-Hebrew Kol-Bo ⁶⁴ and prayer books published in Sweden.⁶⁵ According to Hasenson, as most members of the community used Finnish in their everyday lives a bilingual Hebrew prayer book was welcome: “a Sidur with

60 Nusach is a version of a Jewish liturgical tradition (rite), roughly divided into Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Hasidic, and Yemenite rites. 61 The development of the Finnish liturgical traditions in Helsinki and Turku and their indebtedness to the Ashkenazi roots of the community are beyond the scope of this article; briefly about this history, see Muir and Tuori, “Golden Chain.” 62 Hasenson, “Seurakunnan sidur-projekti,” 35. Benny (Benjamin) Hasenson (1947–2016) was a lay member of the Helsinki congregation. As the Sidur is silent about the identity of the translators, I will also refer to them anonymously. 63 Professor of Semitic languages, Harviainen had also been involved as an expert member in the Finnish translation of the Bible of the Evangelical Church in the early 1990’s. The Sidur Helsinki also contains two translations by Harviainen: the Mishnaic collection of wisdom literature, The Sayings of the Fathers (Pirke avot, pp. 180–99) and other rabbinic texts (e. g. Bame madlikin on the ritual of receiving the Sabbath, pp. 86–87). 64 Siddur u-mahzor kol-bo (Vilna: Romm, 1905). In Turku, Kol-Bo is still in liturgical use. 65 E. g., Siddur ʻavodat ha-bore: bö nbok fö r synagoga, hem och skola (Malmö, 1950). Before the publication of the Sidur, the former Chief Rabbi of the community, Moshe Edelmann, had collected a draft of the Helsinki prayer order; see Moshe Edelmann, The Traditional Order of Synagogue Service in the Jewish Community of Helsinki (Helsinki: unpublished, 2001).

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a Finnish translation had been the goal of the congregation for years”; the goal was also to get a “flawless and functional siddur with a Finnish translation.”⁶⁶ The Sidur Helsinki is a late scion of the Jewish liturgical tradition that consists of extra-biblical Hebrew prayers formed in late antiquity and early Middle Ages. Central prayers are filled with biblical allusions but typically avoid direct biblical quotations.⁶⁷ Daily prayer services include the Amidah (Eighteen Benedictions) and the Shema prayer, the essential elements of the service together with the liturgical reading of the Torah.⁶⁸ Extended quotations of biblical passages are embedded into the liturgy and function either as prayers or as proof-texts buttressing “a theological statement of a prayer.”⁶⁹ Because liturgical texts are in constant intertextual relationship with the Tanakh, any translator of a bilingual prayer book must either translate a hefty number of biblical texts by herself or use the available Tanakh translation in the target language. The project to publish the Sidur Helsinki is best examined as part of a global trend of prayer book industry, a rapidly growing field since the 1970s. Today a Jewish individual may choose from a wide array of liturgical aids, from Orthodox Hebrew Siddurim to all-English Reform editions. Prayer books may be targeted to specific Jewish communities or modified into gender-inclusive versions.⁷⁰ The Internet is an unlimited source for digital, hyperlinked prayer books. Many Jewish consumers increasingly wish not only for updated translations but also for transliterations of Hebrew texts. The most popular (mainly Hebrew-English) versions are currently published by American ArtScroll and Israeli Koren, both of them Orthodox publishing houses.⁷¹ Israeli influence is also a factor in the production of prayer books: according to an informant involved in the Finnish translation project, the

66 Hasenson, “Seurakunnan sidur-projekti,” 35. 67 Ruth Langer, “Biblical Texts in Jewish Prayers: Their History and Function,” in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into its History and Interaction, ed. Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard (Boston: Brill, 2007), 68. 68 On the study of Jewish liturgy, see Ruth Langer, Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015). 69 Langer, “Biblical Texts,” 63. 70 The ‘Lord’ of the older English translations, for example, becomes the “Eternal” in nongendered versions of the prayer book; Langer, Jewish Liturgy, 15. 71 On ArtScroll, the popular American Orthodox publisher of Judaica, see Jeremy Stolow, Orthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics, and the ArtScroll Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). See also Julie Wiener and Peretz Rodman, “How to Choose a Siddur, or Jewish Prayer Book,” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-to-choose-a-siddur/.

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Sidur Helsinki follows the model of the popular Israeli prayer book, the Modern Orthodox Rinat yis’rael. ⁷² As mentioned above, the majority of the biblical quotations in the Sidur Helsinki are extracted from the 1992 OT, many of them without any significant changes.⁷³ Non-masoretic verses are consistently omitted.⁷⁴ Sometimes, however, it is not immediately clear why a passage has been modified. For example, several possessive pronouns (minun, sinun, hänen, “my,” “your,” “his”) have been deleted from the Sidur Helsinki rendition, perhaps simply to save space.⁷⁵ In addition, the editors sometimes omit commas or break a long sentence into two. In the following I have chosen examples that are most representative of the use of the Finnish Bible in the Sidur Helsinki. My focus is on the longer biblical quotations embedded into the liturgy, not in the post-biblical prayer texts and their biblical allusions, although the translations of these texts would absolutely deserve a study of their own. One intriguing detail, for example, is the omission from the Finnish translation of the controversial blessing in the morning prayer of a Jewish male thanking God for not being born a woman. The congregants in Helsinki are aware of this particular omission, and it is occasionally ironically mentioned. It is very probable that Nordic ideals of gender equality and women’s status are behind this remarkable omission from the Finnish translation, although in the Hebrew original the passage has not been touched.⁷⁶

72 Interviews conducted by Simo Muir in the Performing the Jewish Archives project, University of Leeds. Rinat yis’rael (Shelomo Tal, 1st ed., Jerusalem, 1976) has appeared in several Hebrew-only editions and nusachim since 1970 and originated from Israeli religious Zionist circles. It also translates the difficult Hebrew and Aramaic passages to Modern Hebrew. On Rinat yis’rael, see Reuven Gafni, “The Rinat Yisrael Siddur: Creation, Innovation and Influence,” Alei Sefer: Studies in Bibliography and in the History of Printed and the Digital Hebrew Book 28 (2018): 175–210 (in Hebrew). 73 Longer quotations are marked with the biblical source, but some of the shorter excerpts (cf. p. 2 from Hos 2:21–22, or p. 23 from Isa 6:3) or ones that contain a compilation of verses (cf. p. 3, beginning with Num 24:5, Ps 5:8, etc.) are unmarked. 74 Cf., e. g., Ps 143:13 in the Sidur Helsinki, p. 165 retains only the Masoretic text of the 1992 OT. 75 See, e. g., Sidur, 117, Ps 92:6, 92:10. 76 See the Sidur Helsinki, 4, in Hebrew: ‫“( ָבּרוְּך ַא ָתּה ְי ָי ֱאל ֵֹהינוּ ֶמֶלְך ָהעוָֹלם ֶשׁלּ ֹא ָע ַשׂ ִני ִא ָשּׁה‬Blessed are Thou… for not making me a woman”). The Finnish translation omits this line, and only contains the verse meant for women: ‫“( ָבּרוְּך ַא ָתּה ְי ָי ֱאל ֵֹהינוּ ֶמֶלְך ָהעוָֹלם ֶשָׁע ַשׂ ִני ִכּ ְרצוֹנוֹ‬Blessed are Thou… for making me in according to his will”). More on the role of the blessing and the unease it stirs in in modern Jewish communities, see, e. g., Shoshana Ronen, “From Exclusivism to Inclusivism in Jewish Prayers. The Case of the Morning Prayer: Blessed are You, Lord, for Not Having Made Me a Woman,” Studia Religiologica 50 (2017): 267–77.

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4.1.1 Changes in the 1992 OT: Back to the Sources Biblical names and places in Bible quotations appear in the Sidur Helsinki in their conventional Finnish forms (Mooses, not Moshe, Abraham, not Avraham, etc.).⁷⁷ One interesting exception exists: in the Finnish translation of the Scroll of Esther,⁷⁸ the names of the main protagonists have been changed into their Hebrew form: Ahasveros instead of Kserkses, Vashti instead of Vasti, and Mordechai instead of Mordokai. This choice reflects the high status of the Scroll during its annual readings in the original Hebrew in the synagogue on Purim.⁷⁹ Common religious terms and ritual objects appear in their Finnish form.⁸⁰ There are a few exceptions: for example, the word pappi (“priest”) appears in its Hebrew form, kohen, more familiar to its Jewish audience.⁸¹ Occasionally, a wording is slightly changed but in Finnish: the noun hamets (“leavened food”)⁸² in Exod 13:7 is translated as hapan or hapan leipä (“leaven bread”) in both Finnish Bible translations. In the Sidur Helsinki (p. 2, Exod 13:7), the term appears as hapatettu leipä: ⁸³ instead of the adjective hapan (lit. “sour”), a passive participle of the same root is used (hapatettu). The use of the passive participle perhaps conveys the message about the process of leavening better to the Jewish audience of the Sidur Helsinki. One biblical term is occasionally changed into Finnish: both 1933 and 1992 OTs render the tetragrammaton in Finnish as Jahve (although also as Herra, “the Lord”). As the use of the tetragrammaton in traditional Judaism is avoided, the name is rendered into Finnish as Herra in the Sidur Helsinki. ⁸⁴

77 This is an interesting choice on part of the editors of the Sidur. Tooran kertomuksia (discussed below) and a 1989 textbook for the Jewish School, Juutalaisuus: uskonto ja perinne, both use (Modern) Hebrew names for people, places, and ritually central terms (e. g. Moshe instead of Mooses etc.). 78 Pp. 261–72 in the Sidur Helsinki. 79 Early rabbinic tradition requires that the Scroll must be heard in its original language by every Jew on Purim (Mishnah, Megillah 2:1). 80 E. g. lehtimaja instead of Heb. sukka in Lev 23:42–43, p. 231; sapatti instead of Heb. shabbat in Lev 23:15–16, p. 77. 81 Lev 6:3 and 6:5 in the shaharit for weekdays, p. 8. The change is not consistent; in Ps 132 (Sidur, p. 179), the word pappi has been retained. 82 The word appears in its Hebrew form hamets on p. 244, in the rabbinic text of bedikat hamets (search for foods with leavening agents before Pesah). 83 In the same verse, se’or (hapan taikina in 1933 and 1992 versions), is also translated with the passive participle, hapatettu taikina. 84 See e. g., p. 122–13, Exod 15:3.

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The Biblical Hebrew infinitive ‫“( ֵלּאמֹר‬to say”) has typically been omitted as repetitive in the dynamic translation of the 1992 OT. The 1933 OT translates it, slightly awkwardly for the Finnish linguistic structure: Exod 13:1: Ja Herra puhui Moosekselle sanoen (‫“( …) ֵלּאמֹר‬And the Lord spoke to Moses saying…”).

In several cases of verses with this infinitive, the Sidur Helsinki follows the Finnish translation of the 1933 version, although the rest of the quotation (cf. Exod 13:2–10, the Sidur Helsinki, p. 2) is drawn directly from the 1992 OT. The result as well as the rationale for this choice is probably the more biblical “echo” in Finnish: the perceived proximity to the source language and its style.⁸⁵

4.1.2 Kabbalat Shabbat in the Sidur Helsinki One example of major changes in the Sidur Helsinki’s rendition of the Finnish Bible is found in the weekly ritual of kabbalat shabbat (receiving the Sabbath),⁸⁶ where the translations of Psalms 95 and 96 appear heavily modified.⁸⁷All the verses in Psalm 95 and nine out of thirteen verses of Psalm 96 have been changed. Some of these changes show a desire to “return” to the original text, but some of them seem to be theologically motivated. The verses Ps 95:3 and Ps 96:4 both contain the word elohim (‫ֱאל ִֹהים‬, “god” in plural).⁸⁸ In the 1992 OT these divine beings, competing with the one God, are translated as “gods”: kaikkien jumalien ylin valtias (Ps 95:3, “the highest ruler above all gods”) and hän on jumalista korkein (Ps 96:4, “He is the highest of 85 Exod 13:1–10 (from parashat Bo, the consecration of the first-born) is quoted in the beginning of the Morning Prayer (Shaharit). The 1933 translation of ‫ ֵלּאמֹר‬is also retained elsewhere in the Sidur but not systematically (see, for example, the Sidur Helsinki, p. 8, Exod 30:17 and Lev 6:1, and p. 9, Num 28:1). Otherwise, cases of 1933 version in the Sidur Helsinki are rare or somewhat enigmatic, e. g., the translation of Ps 92 on page 139 is extracted verbatim from the 1992 version, all but one half-verse (92:11b): ‫ ַבּלּ ִֹתי ְבּ ֶשֶׁמן ַרֲע ָנן‬, “I am soaked in freshening oil”) is taken from the 1933 version (in passive voice minut voidellaan tuoreella öljyllä instead of the 1992 in active voice sinä voitelet minut tuoreella öljyllä). 86 The ritual of receiving the Sabbath is a sixteenth-century innovation to the Jewish liturgy and includes hymns and Psalms (including Psalms 95 and 96) recited before the beginning of the Sabbath on Friday evening. 87 The Sidur Helsinki, 80–81. There are several similar examples of changes in the Finnish translations of the Psalms in the Sidur Helsinki (cf. the rendition of Ps 143 on page 165). 88 Ps 95:3: ‫ ; ִכּי ֵאל ָגּדוֹל ְיה ָוה וֶּמֶלְך ָגּדוֹל ַעל ָכּל ֱאל ִֹהים‬NJPS: “For the Lord is a great God, the great king of all divine beings”; Ps 96:4. ‫ ;נוֹ ָרא הוּא ַעל ָכּל ֱאל ִֹהים‬NJPS: “He is held in awe by all divine beings”.

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gods”). In the Sidur Helsinki, the word elohim is rendered as “divine powers/forces” (taivaalliset voimat).⁸⁹ This solution is supported by previous Jewish exegetical traditions: early exegetes such as Abraham ibn Ezra (d. 1167) and David Kimchi (d. 1235) both interpret elohim of the verses as referring to “angels,” and the seventeenth-century exegete David Altschuler in his popular Bible commentary (Metsudat David) calls them “heavenly bodies.”⁹⁰ Also, the verse in Ps 96:5, using the word elilim (“idols”; “gods”) has been modified: Ps 96:5, Hebrew: ‫ִכּי ָכּל ֱאל ֵֹהי ָהַע ִמּים ֱאִליִלים ַויה ָוה ָשַׁמיִם ָע ָשׂה‬ NJSP: “All the gods of the peoples are mere idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” 1992 OT: Eivät ole jumalia (elilim) toisten kansojen jumalat, mutta Herra on taivaitten luoja. English: “The gods of other peoples are not gods (elilim), but the Lord is the creator of the heavens.” SH: Kaikki kansojen jumalat ovat pelkkiä epäjumalia (elilim), mutta Herra on tehnyt taivaat. English: “All the gods of peoples are mere idols (elilim), but the Lord has made the heavens.”

The Finnish editors of the Sidur Helsinki are probably cautious of using the 1992 OT translation of elilim as “gods”, and their choice, “idols” (epäjumalat), better emphasizes the absolute contrast between one God and “mere idols.” Their choice of translation is also very close to the English translation in the NJPS version (quoted above), which begs the obvious question whether the editors of the Sidur Helsinki have consulted other Jewish translations of the Tanakh. Other small changes in these two psalms again show a tendency to go “back” to the sources. The Hebrew verbal forms in Ps 95:1–2, for example, are cohortatives in the first person plural (“we shall sing/shout/come”: ‫ ְנַק ְדָּמה‬,‫ ָנ ִריָעה‬,‫) ְנ ַר ְנּ ָנה‬. In the 1992 OT these verbs appear as second person imperatives as a result of the dynamic translation mode (in plural: laulakaa, tulkaa, kiittäkää, “[you] sing”, “come”, “give thanks”, etc.). The Sidur Helsinki renders all these verbal forms as requests in first person plural (laulakaamme, kohottakaamme, tulkaamme, kiittäkäämme), following the style of the Hebrew original.

89 This is close to the choice of the New Jewish Publication Society’s 1999 translation, which also renders elohim as “divine beings”. 90 See the hyperlinks to their commentaries in Sefaria (Ps 95:3, Ps 96:4).

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4.1.3 Deut 6:4–9 in Shema Prayer The Shema (Hear, o, Israel) prayer is recited daily during the morning and evening service.⁹¹ It consists of three biblical passages (Deut 6:4–9, Deut 11:13–21, and Num 15:37–41) that define the main elements of Jewish relationship with God and lists the essential ritual objects (tefillin, mezuza, and tallit).⁹² The prayer pertains to the monotheistic nature of the divinity and is widely discussed by all major medieval and modern Jewish commentators.⁹³ Deut 6:4–9, Hebrew: ‫ ְוָהיוּ ַה ְדָּב ִרים‬.‫א ֶדָך‬ ֹ ‫ ְוָאַהְב ָתּ ֵאת ְיה ָוה ֱאל ֶֹהיָך ְבָּכל ְלָבְבָך וְּבָכל ַנְפ ְשָׁך וְּבָכל ְמ‬.‫ְשַׁמע יִ ְשׂ ָרֵאל ְיה ָוה ֱאל ֵֹהינוּ ְיה ָוה ֶאָחד‬ ָ‫ ְו ִשׁ ַנּ ְנ ָתּם ְלָב ֶניָך ְו ִד ַבּ ְר ָתּ ָבּם ְבּ ִשְׁב ְתָּך ְבֵּביֶתָך וְּבֶלְכ ְתָּך ַב ֶדּ ֶרְך וְּב ָשְׁכ ְבּך‬.‫ָהֵא ֶלּה ֲא ֶשׁר ָאֹנִכי ְמַצ ְוָּך ַהיּוֹם ַעל ְלָבֶבָך‬ .‫ וְּכַתְב ָתּם ַעל ְמ ֻזזוֹת ֵבּיֶתָך וִּב ְשָׁע ֶריָך‬.‫פת ֵבּין ֵעי ֶניָך‬ ֹ ‫ וְּק ַשׁ ְר ָתּם ְלאוֹת ַעל ָי ֶדָך ְוָהיוּ ְלטָֹט‬.‫וְּבקוֶּמָך‬ NJPS: 4. Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. 7. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. 8. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead. 9. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 1992 OT: 4. Kuule, Israel! Herra on meidän Jumalamme, Herra yksin. 5. Rakasta Herraa, Jumalaasi, koko sydämestäsi, koko sielustasi ja koko voimastasi. 6. Pidä aina mielessäsi nämä käskyt, jotka minä sinulle tänään annan. 7. Teroita niitä alinomaa lastesi mieleen ja puhu niistä, olitpa kotona tai matkalla, makuulla tai jalkeilla. 8. Sido ne merkiksi käteesi ja pidä niitä tunnuksena otsallasi. 9. Kirjoita ne kotisi ovenpieliin ja kaupunkisi portteihin. SH, p. 24 (variations to the 1992 OT in italics): 4. Kuule, Israel! Herra on meidän Jumalamme, Herra, yksi ja ainoa (‫)ֶאָחד‬. 5. Rakasta Herraa, Jumalaasi, koko sydämestäsi, koko sielustasi ja koko voimastasi. 6. Hallitkoot sydäntäsi (…‫ְ⬚ָהיּו‬ ‫ְלָבֶבָך‬-‫ )ַעל‬nämä käskyt, jotka sinulle tänään annan. 7. Teroita niitä alinomaa lastesi mieleen ja puhu niistä, olitpa kotona tai matkalla, makuulle mennessäsi ja ylös noustessasi (‫וְּב ָשְׁכ ְבָּך‬

91 In the Sidur Helsinki, 24–25. I only deal with the first part of the Shema but there are changes to the Finnish Bible translation in the rest of the prayer, too. These include, for example, tekhelet, the cord to be attached to the corner of the garment in Num 15:38, which is sinipunainen (“bluish red”) in the 1992 translation, but sinertävä (“bluish”) in the Sidur Helsinki. 92 Langer, Jewish Liturgy, 15. 93 On the English translations of the Shema and their theological implications, see, e. g., Naomi B. Sokoloff, “Reading the Shema: Jewish Literature as World Literature,” in New Directions in Jewish American and Holocaust Literatures: Reading and Teaching, ed. Victoria Aarons and Holli Levitsky (New York: Albany State University of New York Press, 2019): 103–18.

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‫)וְּבקוֶּמָך‬. 8. Sido ne merkiksi käteesi ja pidä niitä tefilineinä (‫פת‬ ֹ ‫ )ְלטָֹט‬otsallasi. 9. Kirjoita ne kotisi ovenpieliin (‫ )ְמ ֻזזוֹת‬ja […]⁹⁴ portteihisi.

The Sidur Helsinki’s rendering of the Shema contains quite remarkable emendations to the 1992 OT. Peculiarly, in the Sidur Helsinki the word ‫“( ֶאָחד‬one”) in verse 4 is rendered into Finnish with two words: Herra on yksi ja ainoa (“…the Lord is one and only”).⁹⁵ Naomi Sokoloff delineates different connotations of the English translations of the Shema: for example, the Lord alone “focuses on exclusive fidelity to God” while Lord is one “expresses the idea of a unity than encompasses all the diverse and conflicting aspects of the world and of human experience.”⁹⁶ The editors of the Sidur Helsinki have decided to transmit several meanings of the word: they do not want to compromise between the varied theological imports of this significant passage. More intriguing changes occur in the rest of the verses. In verse 6, the editors of the Sidur Helsinki have noticed that the 1992 OT is idiomatic in its translation: Pidä aina mielessäsi nämä käskyt (“keep these commandments in your mind” for ‫ְלָבֶבָך‬-‫) ְוָהיוּ ַה ְדָּב ִרים… ַעל‬. In the Sidur Helsinki, the word “heart” of the Hebrew is retained: Hallitkoot sydäntäsi (“Take to heart…”).⁹⁷ In verse 7, the editors of the Sidur retain the infinitives of the Hebrew original shown to express movement (‫וְּב ָשְׁכ ְבָּך‬ ‫)וְּבקוֶּמָך‬: makuulle mennessäsi ja ylös noustessasi (“when you lie down and get up”), also used in the 1933 translation. In the 1992 OT, (olitpa… makuulla tai jalkeilla, “whether you are lying down or on your feet”) the translation conveys the status of being instead of movement. In verse 8, the enigmatic biblical word totafot (‫ )טָֹטפֹת‬has been rendered in Finnish as tefilinit (“tefillin”),⁹⁸ the phylacteries worn by Jewish men on their foreheads and arms during weekday prayer. The Jewish interpretation of this word as tefillin is early: it was translated as such already in the Aramaic Targum Onkelos. ⁹⁹ To my knowledge, the choice to translate totafot into the vernacular as tefillin is a

94 The word “city” (kaupunkisi portteihin, “on the gates of your city”) in the 1992 translation has been deleted from the Sidur Helsinki as it does not appear in the original Hebrew. 95 The 1933 Finnish translation of the ending of the verse 4 is Herra on yksi (“…the Lord is one”), and the 1992 Herra yksin (“…the Lord alone”). 96 Sokoloff, “Reading the Shema,” 104. 97 Similarly, in the continuation of Shema, in the quotation of Deut 11:18, the Sidur translation retains the word “heart”’: 1992: “Painakaa tarkoin mieleenne [in your mind] nämä käskyt…”; Sidur: “Painakaa tarkoin sydämeenne [in your heart] nämä sanani…” 98 1933 OT: muistolause (“memory verse”); 1992 OT: tunnus (“symbol”); in NJPS, “symbols”. 99 For rabbinic interpretations of totafot as tefillin, see, e. g. the Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 3b; see also Rashi’s eleventh-century commentary for Deut 6:8.

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unique decision on the part of the editors of the Sidur Helsinki. ¹⁰⁰ In the next verse, the Hebrew word mezuzot, however, appears in the Sidur Helsinki in Finnish as ovenpielet (“doorposts”) like in the 1992 OT despite mezuzot also being an every-day ritual object: perhaps it would be confusing to understand this biblical imagery as small cases containing biblical verses and affixed to the doorposts. The Sidur Helsinki is the first Finnish translation of the Jewish prayer book, containing a wide array of biblical and post-biblical Jewish texts in Finnish. Its editors freely draw their biblical translations from the Finnish Old Testament (1992) although they are not always systematic in their use of this source. Some of their changes to the 1992 OT reflect a conscious process of rendering the Sidur into a Jewish Finnish version of the Bible: the editors go “back to the sources” in order to show the linguistic characteristics of the original Hebrew text effaced in the Finnish Lutheran Bible, or turn towards Jewish interpretations of a theologically ambiguous passage. As shown above, significant partings from the 1992 OT appear in culturally important biblical texts recited on Purim or on the Sabbath, or during daily liturgy (e. g., the Shema prayer).

4.2 Tooran kertomuksia (Stories of the Torah, 2003) Norit Steinbock-Vatka’s Tooran kertomuksia juutalaisen perinteen mukaan (Stories of the Torah according to Jewish tradition, 2003, 153 pp.) recounts the stories of the Torah and aims to supplement religious instruction at the Jewish School,¹⁰¹ where the author worked as a teacher of religious subjects. The focus of the book is on the biblical narrative from the creation of the world to the death of Moses. Halakhic (legal) aspects of the Torah are omitted. The stories follow the traditional division of the Torah into parashot (a selection of thirty-four out of fifty-four): promises to the patriarchs, circumcision, Ten Commandments, and major blessings, each listed under their Hebrew names (Bereshit, Lekh-lekha, etc.). Not surprisingly, more than third of the book is dedicated to the narrative arc of Genesis.¹⁰² A few biblical verses are printed both in Hebrew and in Finnish, the bilingual format highlighting

100 Even Steinbock-Vatka’s rendition of the Shema in Tooran kertomuksia (p. 143) retains the 1992 OT version of the Finnish, “tunnus”, instead of calling them tefillin. 101 The Jewish School in Helsinki teaches children between the ages 7 and 16. Jewish religious education is allotted 1–2 weekly hours; see Raija Urama, “Juutalaiseksi kasvamassa: Juutalaisen uskonnon opetus Helsingin juutalaisessa yhteiskoulussa” (MA thesis, University of Helsinki, 2019), 29. 102 The selections taken from the rest of the books pertain to the Jewish festivals (e. g. Emor), commandments (Yitro), and major blessings (such as the Priestly Blessing in Naso).

Jewish Reception of the Finnish Bible

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major passages from the Torah.¹⁰³ The bright blue cover of the book shows Marc Chagall’s painting Paradise (1961) with Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden. The idea to publish stories from the Torah for Finnish Jewish audience has few precedents.¹⁰⁴ Fascinatingly, Tooran kertomuksia is published by Kirjapaja, an outlet of mainly Christian literature. The back cover takes the potential Christian/non-Jewish audience into consideration by informing that the book—though intended for the Jewish School—will also “open a window to the world of Jewish culture and the mythical early days of humanity.” In her foreword, Steinbock-Vatka explicitly delineates her book’s Jewish character, also evident in the choice of the title: “According to Jewish tradition, we talk about the Torah or Humash (five books), not about the Books of Moses used in the Church Bible, which is based on the German Bible of Luther.”¹⁰⁵ Thus, the stories “and their spirit” follow Jewish interpretation and tradition.¹⁰⁶ Before the author’s introduction, the book begins with a foreword by professor Tapani Harviainen, who also consulted the editors of the Sidur Helsinki. Harviainen writes that in textbooks used in (Lutheran and Orthodox) religious education in Finland biblical stories are “viewed through the New Testament, as it has traditionally been instructed [to do] in Christian tradition of teaching” and adds that foreign-language materials have not been helpful for the Jewish School, either,

103 For example, God’s curse after the expulsion from Eden in Gen 3:19, p. 25, or the Priestly Blessing in Num 6:23, p. 120. 104 Some textbooks the school has used are originally American or British books that were translated and modified for Finnish environment and published by the Finnish National Agency for Education, see, e. g., Ruth Kozodoy, Juutalaiset juhlapäivät (Helsinki: Opetushallitus, 2001), and Janina Hasenson, Juutalainen maailmani (Helsinki: Opetushallitus, 1997). In addition, Israel Jakob Schur (Helsinki, 1879–1949) wrote popularized books on major biblical figures (Moses and Elijah) and rabbinic stories in Swedish. Before the 2000’s, the community has published several religious works and textbooks, e. g., Gitta Hammerman, Ruth Jakobson and Rafael Wardi, Haggada shel Pesah (Helsinki: Helsingin juutalainen seurakunta, 1991), and Ove Schwarz, Hillel Skurnik and Dave Weintraub, Juutalaisuus: Uskonto ja perinne (Helsinki: Juutalainen koulu, 1989). 105 Steinbock-Vatka, Tooran kertomuksia, 15. The names of the five books of the Torah in Jewish tradition, unfamiliar to non-Jewish readers, are based on the first word of each book, not numbers (Bereshit, Shemot, Va-yikra, Be-midbar, and Devarim). 106 She also lists the following American and Swedish Jewish books on the Torah in her foreword (p. 16–17) as the inspiration for the book: Nosson Scherman’s The Chumash (New York: Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1996), J.H. Hertz’s The Pentateuch and Haftoras (London: Soncino Press, 1973), and The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text. A New Translation (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1955), and books on biblical history published by the Stockholm Jewish congregation, including Den vackra lustgården och andra bibliska berättelser by Elma Ehrlich Levinger (Stockholm: Mosaiska församlingen, 1962).

216

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due to “linguistic and cultural reasons.”¹⁰⁷ Both Steinbock-Vatka and Harviainen are straightforward about the use of Finnish Bible translations and how the author occasionally changes the existing translations or how she presents the stories with her own words. Harviainen writes: [T]he text is based on the current official translation of the Bible [1992], but occasionally the author has found a closer Jewish interpretation in the previous, more literal translations from the 1930s.¹⁰⁸

The reason for choosing between the translations—between the “literal” 1933 OT and the “dynamic” 1992 OT—is made apparent: the author chooses the version she considers to be more in line with Jewish tradition. Because Steinbock-Vatka re-narrates the Torah, her relationship to Finnish Bible translations is more complex than that of the Sidur Helsinki. On page 24, for example, Steinbock-Vatka rewrites the narrative of Eve’s seduction in Genesis: the snake in the Garden of Eden is viekkain (“most cunning” Gen 3:1, ‫)ָערוּם‬,¹⁰⁹ instead of the Finnish kavalin (“shrewdest”) of the 1933 and 1992 OTs. Likewise, the phrase ‫ ֵאל ַק ָנּא‬from the Decalogue (p. 103; Exod 20:5) is in her Finnish rendition mustasukkainen Jumala (“jealous God”) instead of kiivas Jumala (“hot-tempered God”) of the 1933 and 1992 OTs. Her rendition of the famous passage in Exod 34:6–7 (p. 108), listing divine attributes, is closer to the English translation of the NJPS than either of the Finnish OT translations: God is in her paraphrase hidas vihastumaan (‫ֶא ֶרְך ַא ַפּיִם‬, “slow to anger,” cf. NJPS) and not pitkämielinen (“long-suffering,” 1933 OT) or kärsivällinen (“patient,” 1992 OT). Such lexical changes in the rewritten narrative undoubtedly rise from author’s personal preferences. A few linguistic elements of the book represent a turn towards (Modern) Hebrew and transnational Jewish influences.¹¹⁰ Certain words appear in their Hebrew form familiar to the Jewish audience of the book, for example, pasuna (“trombone,” 1933 OT) and torvi (“horn,” 1992 OT) of Exodus 19:16 is shofar in Toor-

107 Tapani Harviainen, “Taustaksi” in Steinbock-Vatka, Tooran kertomuksia, 11–14. 108 Steinbock-Vatka (Tooran kertomuksia, 17) says that she has used the 1989 translation proposal, which is practically the same version. Harviainen (“Taustaksi”, 12–13) perhaps cautiously adds that the book does not aim to be “a new translation of the Bible” (italics mine). 109 NJPS: “Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made.” 110 Especially American Jewish and Israeli Jewish influences. In the Jewish school, Modern Hebrew is part of the weekly curriculum, and Modern Hebrew pronunciation of liturgical texts has almost replaced most of the local Ashkenazi pronunciation previously based on Yiddish. For a similar process in Sweden, see Patric Joshua Klagsbrun Lebenswerd, “Jewish Swedish in Sweden,” in Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present, ed. Benjamin Hary and Sarah Bunin Benor (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter Mouton, 2018), 431–52.

Jewish Reception of the Finnish Bible

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an kertomuksia (p. 103, Exod 19:16). Instead of the standard Finnish sapatti, the Sabbath is shabat, (p. 104, Exod 20:10), and pesah is preferred over the Finnish pääsiäinen (“Passover,” p. 95). To avoid the unnecessary use of the divine name, God is written not in its Finnish full form, Jumala, but as J-la, a spelling common in religious Jewish books in American English (G-d). Steinbock-Vatka explains this usage as a Finnish equivalent for the Hebrew Ha-Shem or Adonai. ¹¹¹ While the Sidur Helsinki uses conventional Finnish names for biblical places and characters, Steinbock-Vatka prefers transliterated Hebrew names that reflect Modern Hebrew pronunciation: Rivka instead of Rebekka, Moshe instead of Mooses, Jam Suf instead of Kaislameri (the Reed Sea), jisraelilaiset instead of israelilaiset (Israelites), and Mitsrajim instead of Egypti. Harviainen in his foreword identifies the use of biblical names and place names in their “(Modern) Hebrew form” as the most special feature of the book: “Colored by Hebrew names the story receives […] a new, more original look.”¹¹² He notes that this is the way the names have “always” been known among Jews. Steinbock-Vatka also explains the choice of using the Hebrew names as a turn towards authenticity: she “wanted to keep them the way they originally were as names of living people.”¹¹³ It should be added that the author follows Modern Hebrew conventions, not the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Cantonist (Finnish Jewish) tradition the source of which was Yiddish. In the paraphrase of the Decalogue, the author brings out several linguistic details of the original biblical Hebrew that were omitted in the 1992 OT. The mechanism is very similar to the one seen above in the Sidur Helsinki. While the 1992 OT (Exod 20:3) leaves out the word ‫ ָפּ ָני‬-‫“( ַעל‬before me”, in the Finnish 1933 OT minun rinnallani, Engl. “besides me”), Steinbock-Vatka follows the 1992 OT but adds the word rinnallani: ‫ ָפּ ָני‬-‫יְִה ֶיה ְלָך ֱאל ִֹהים ֲאֵח ִרים ַעל‬-‫ל ֹא‬ NJPS: You shall have no other gods besides Me. 1933 OT: Älä pidä muita jumalia minun rinnallani. (English: “Do not have other gods besides me.”) 1992 OT: Sinulla ei saa olla muita jumalia. (English: “You shall not have other gods.”) Tooran kertomuksia (p. 103): Sinulla ei saa olla muita jumalia rinnallani. (English: “You shall not have other gods besides me.”)

111 Steinbock-Vatka, Tooran kertomuksia, 16. Worried about taking God’s name in vain led to the replacement of the name with Adonai in Jewish liturgy; Langer, Jewish Liturgy, 15. 112 Harviainen, Tooran kertomuksia, 13. 113 Steinbock-Vatka, Tooran kertomuksia, 16.

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Another interesting example of differences in translation of the Decalogue is the verb tappaa (“to kill”), used in the Finnish OTs for the commandment forbidding killing, in Finnish: Älä tapa (“Do not kill”). Steinbock-Vatka, for her part, chooses the Finnish verb murhata (“to murder”), which is also the primary meaning of the word in Modern Hebrew (the root ‫)רצח‬: Älä murhaa (p. 104, “You shall not murder”). The most noticeable differences to the 1992 OT can be found in Steinbock-Vatka’s use of direct Bible quotations. On page 25, for example, the following biblical quote is modified in Tooran kertomuksia (from Gen 3:19): ‫תּאַכל ֶלֶחם ַעד שׁוְּבָך ֶאל ָהֲא ָדָמה ִכּי ִמ ֶמּ ָנּה ֻל ָקְּח ָתּ ִכּי ָעָפר ַא ָתּה ְוֶאל ָעָפר ָתּשׁוּב‬ ֹ ‫ְבּ ֵזַעת ַא ֶפּיָך‬ NJPS: By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground for from it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. 1933 OT: Otsasi hiessä sinun pitää syömän (‫תּאַכל‬ ֹ ) leipäsi, kunnes tulet maaksi jälleen, sillä siitä sinä olet otettu. Sillä maasta sinä olet, ja maaksi pitää sinun jälleen tuleman. 1992 OT: Otsa hiessä sinun on hankittava (‫תּאַכל‬ ֹ ) leipäsi, kunnes tulet maaksi jälleen, sillä siitä sinut on otettu. Maan tomua sinä olet, maan tomuun sinä palaat. Tooran kertomuksia (p. 25): Otsasi hiessä sinun on syötävä (‫תּאַכל‬ ֹ ) leipäsi, kunnes palaat (‫ )שׁוְּבָך‬jälleen maaksi, sillä maasta sinut on otettu. Maan tomua sinä olet ja maan tomuun sinä palaat (‫) ָתּשׁוּב‬.

Both the 1933 OT and Tooran kertomuksia translate the verb ‫תּאַכל‬ ֹ (lit. “you shall eat”) as “you must eat your bread” (sinun on syötävä leipäsi), while in the 1992 OT the verb is translated as “getting bread” (hankittava leipäsi) (cf. NJPS you get bread to eat). The verb “to return” (‫)שׁוְּבָך‬, likewise, is used in Tooran kertomuksia in the meaning of ’returning’, while in the 1933 and 1992 OTs the Finnish translation rather connotes “to turn into earth” (tulla maaksi jälleen; NJPS: “return to the ground”). Both these examples show that the author of Tooran kertomuksia wishes to retain the “original” meanings of biblical words when compared to the Finnish Bible translations of the Old Testament. Tooran kertomuksia offers a Finnish-language retelling of the Torah aimed for Jewish children’s education and drawing from previous Jewish traditions of Bible interpretation. The author’s relationship towards Finnish Bible translations is cautious, and she is conscious of its limits in a Jewish context. As shown above, the author brings back some of the linguistic and lexical characteristics of the original Hebrew text that are not retained in the 1992 OT, much like the editors of the Sidur Helsinki. The author also prefers Hebrew names over traditional Finnish biblical names as more authentic versions, suitable for a Jewish textbook and in line with the community’s recent turn towards Israeli-Jewish cultural influences.

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5 Conclusion The Sidur Helsinki is the official prayer book of the Jewish community in Helsinki, following the traditional Ashkenazi rite of the community. Tooran kertomuksia is the first Finnish-language paraphrase of the Torah aimed for the Jewish School in Helsinki. Both works were compiled in the early 2000’s exclusively for Finnish Jewish use, and both draw their Tanakh quotations from recent Finnish translations of the Old Testament. Whereas the Sidur Helsinki stays closer to the Finnish-language Bible translations, Tooran kertomuksia represents several Modern Israeli Hebrew and American Jewish influences in its search for authenticity, for example in its use of biblical names in Hebrew and the divine name (J-la: “G-d”). The community is fairly comfortable with using Finnish translations of the Old Testament.¹¹⁴ In the Orthodox service of the Helsinki synagogue, any translations of the Bible are secondary: they do not replace the weekly Torah portions, prophetic texts, and prayers read in Hebrew. The Finnish translation of the Sidur Helsinki functions merely as an aid, not as a main source for daily liturgy. Still, the editors, authors, and translators of these Jewish works are hardly passive receivers of a readymade Finnish Bible. There is self-awareness about the limits of the use of the Finnish (and obviously Christian) Bible translations: authors and editors of the Jewish works occasionally change a wording that poses a challenge to Jewish interpretation(s) of a verse, or they restore some of the formal aspects of the source text, effaced in the Finnish Old Testament (going “back” to original verbal forms, adding omitted words, etc.). The Finnish Bible is used in these Jewish settings only after a thorough reappraisal. Emendations to the Finnish translation of the Shema prayer in the Sidur Helsinki, in particular, are substantial—though hardly surprising taking into consideration the prayer’s pivotal role in Jewish liturgy. Furthermore, examining these works, various angles on Nordic Jewish identity and religiosity emerge: the authors operate within Jewish religious beliefs and cultural concepts rooted in a language that could be called “Jewish Finnish,” a topic meriting a study of its own in the future. The use of the Finnish Bible translations also functions as a bridge towards Finnish-Christian society: the works were made in cooperation with an academic advisor outside the community or edited with a publishing house with close ties to the Evangelical-Christian Church. Within the

114 In 2018, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE produced a radio program on Jewish sacred scriptures. The repertoire included the Pentateuch and a selection of Talmudic texts translated into Finnish for the first time. The Chief Rabbi of Finland ruled that using the 1992 OT, commissioned by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, is adequate for the purpose.

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multifaceted historical phenomena of Bible reception, the Jewish community negotiates its Finnish and Jewish identity. What will be the next steps of the indigenous Finnish-language Jewish culture(s)? Presently the linguistically diverse community stands at crossroads, as many of its active members—Finnish-speakers included—opt for popular and easily available (often online) English translations of Judaica literature or are able to read the original Hebrew/Aramaic texts. Still, there is a need for new, up-to-date Finnish translations of major religious texts. In 2021, the community commissioned a new bilingual edition of the prayer book, deciding to translate the Hebrew-English prayer book directly from English to Finnish. This translation is based on the Orthodox prayer book published by the popular Israeli editing house, Koren Siddur, but it will also be modified to fit with the original Finnish Ashkenazi tradition(s). The reception of the Finnish Bible by this vibrant community continues, closely connected with worldwide Jewish trends.

Timo R. Stewart

Using the Bible to Interpret the Qur’an: Finnish Christian Revivalist Narratives on Islam 1 Introduction In recent years, immigration has become a politically significant and hotly contested topic of debate in Finland, just as it has in the rest of Europe. Anti-immigration movements in particular have focused on immigrants and refugees with Muslim backgrounds and raised claims about the incompatibility of Islam with European culture and values. This article contributes to the study of this debate by outlining Finnish book publishing trends on Islam and amongst self-identified Christian or church-affiliated publishers and by analysing the narratives on Islam found in literature coming out of the Finnish Christian Revivalist or Evangelical tradition. Although the most visible manifestations of anti-Muslim attitudes are connected to the rise of populist political movements, there is evidence that points to a linkage between Christian practice and identity with negative attitudes towards Islam. For example, a survey by the Pew Research Center published in May 2018 found that “Christian identity—irrespective of level of religious observance—is associated with higher levels of nationalist, anti-immigration and anti-religious minority sentiment.”¹ In each of the 15 surveyed countries, a significantly higher proportion of self-identified Christians (both church-attending and non-practicing) than of religiously unaffiliated believed that “Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our country’s culture and values.” The likelihood of holding this view significantly increases for those who attended church regularly.² On the surface, this is perhaps not entirely surprising. After all, there is a long history of Islamophobia in Europe and often enough the political and military antagonisms of the day have also been translated into religious language. Studies in the United States also show a significant relationship between Christian nationalist

1 “Being Christian in Western Europe,” Pew Research Center, May 29, 2018, http://www.pewforum. org/2018/05/29/being-christian-in-western-europe, 51. To establish Christian identity, Pew simply asked respondents how they identified themselves. In Finland, 77 % identified as Christian. “Being Christian in Western Europe,” 81. 2 “Being Christian in Western Europe,” 21. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-014

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ideology and biblical literalism with negative views of Muslims.³ However, the style of European and American narratives on Muslims is very different.⁴ Such narratives are also anything but monocausal. Another study looking at both the United States and Europe found that political conservatism and older age predicted antiMuslim attitudes, while religion was a clear-cut indicator only in France.⁵ Nevertheless, the linkages between nationalism, anti-immigration and antiMuslim views and their relationship to Christian identity raise interesting questions. This is particularly the case in Finland, where as many as 67 % of church-attending Christians—the highest proportion of any of the countries included in the Pew survey—believed Islam and Finnish culture and values to be incompatible. The interlinkages and causal relationships are certainly complex: Finland also had the highest proportion of religiously unaffiliated, 54 %, who believed in this incompatibility.⁶ A possible explanation is simply a strong historical linkage between Christian belief and exclusivist nationalism, which would certainly not be far-fetched in a Finnish context. This may line up with a broad dichotomy between “closed” and “open” views of Islam. The more essentialist and monolithic interpretations of Islam in the closed view differ drastically from the open view of an internally diverse Islam whose adherents are seen capable of engaging in constructive dialogue.⁷ The essentialism of the ‘closed view’ perhaps shares something with primordial nationalism, the belief that nations have old and more or less permanent objective distinctions. Both emphasise unchanging essences in identities, whether national or religious, instead of viewing them as highly contingent and adaptable.

3 Allyson Shortle and Ronald Keith Gaddie, “Religious Nationalism and Perceptions of Muslims and Islam,” Politics and Religion 3 (2015): 435–57. 4 John R. Bowen, Blaming Islam (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012). See also Erik Love, Islamophobia and Racism in America (New York: New York University Press, 2017); Jocelyne Cesari, “Islamophobia in the West: A Comparison between Europe and the United States,” in Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century, ed. John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 21–43. 5 Christine Ogan et al., “The Rise of Anti-Muslim Prejudice: Media and Islamophobia in Europe and the United States,” International Communication Gazette 76 (2013): 27–46. 6 “Being Christian in Western Europe,” 21. 7 “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” The Runnymede Trust, 1997, https://www.runnymede trust.org/companies/17/74/Islamophobia-A-Challenge-for-Us-All.html, 4–12; Todd H. Green, The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 10–19.

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Certainly, traditions of seeing Islam as the quintessential ‘Other’ have a very long pedigree in Europe.⁸ One could even see such ideas as a key ingredient in the construction of a common European identity from the early Middle Ages onwards.⁹ The attributes and fears attached to the Islamic Other have taken different forms over the centuries. In recent decades, and particularly after the 9/11 attacks, it is the old enemy imagery that has resurfaced. To be clear, this is so overwhelmingly the case that to speak of contemporary European popular portrayals and narratives about Islam and Muslims is to speak of negative images and stereotypes, or even Islamophobia, i. e. “the fear, dislike, or hatred of Muslims and Islam.”¹⁰ Despite the controversy surrounding the term, it can be a useful concept for revealing structures and strictures applying to Muslims.¹¹ Another approach to understanding resurgent Islamophobia is focusing on the narratives that construct it. Several studies have taken this track and examined European attitudes through research on textbooks,¹² scholarly texts¹³ and media studies.¹⁴ This article aims to use the same approach of narrative analysis, but chooses

8 John V. Tolan, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2013); John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York: Columbia University Pres, 2002); Richard Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent: Christianity and Islam from Muhammad to the Reformation (New York: Viking Penguin, 2004); Gerdien Jonker, “The Longue Durée of the Islam Narrative: The Emergence of a Script for German History Education (1550–1804),” in Narrating Islam: Interpretations of the Muslim World in European Texts, ed. Gerdien Jonker and Shiraz Thobani (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010), 11–39. 9 Franco Cardini, Europe and Islam, trans. Caroline Beamish (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 1–3. 10 Green, The Fear of Islam, 10. 11 AbdoolKarim Vakil, “Who’s Afraid of Islamophobia?,” In Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives, ed, S. Sayyid and AbdoolKarim Vakil (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 271–78. 12 Benoît Challand, “Intertwined Identities: A Gender-based Reading of the Visual Representations of Contemporary Islam in European Textbooks,” in Jonker and Thobani, Narrating Islam, 120–50; Gerdien Jonker, “Imagining Islam: European Encounters with the Muslim World through the Lens of German Textbooks,” in Perceptions of Islam in Europe, ed. Hakan Yılmaz and Çağla E. Aykaç (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 125–45. 13 Mercè Viladrich-Grau, “Representations of Muslim Andalus in the Scholarly Historical Texts of Catalonia (1714–1900),” in in Jonker and Thobani, Narrating Islam, 40–61. 14 Teemu Taira, “Islamin muuttuva julkisuuskuva: Tapaustutkimus Helsingin Sanomista 1946– 1994,” in Islam Suomessa: Muslimit arjessa, mediassa ja yhteiskunnassa, ed. Tuomas Martikainen, Tuula Sakaranaho and Marko Juntunen (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2008), 200– 24; Pentti Raittila and Mari Maasilta, “Silmäyksiä islamin esittämiseen suomalaisessa journalismissa,” in Martikainen, Sakaranaho and Juntunen, Islam Suomessa, 225–43; Karin Creutz-Kämppi, “Islam Suomen ruotsinkielisissä sanomalehdissä,” in Martikainen, Sakaranaho and Juntunen, Islam Suomessa, 244–65; Sabine Schiffer, “Islam in German Media,” in Islam and Muslims in Ger-

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its subject matter to cast light on possible explanations for the Pew survey’s results. To do so it analyses publishing trends on books on Islam by mainstream and Finnish Christian publishers. For reasons outlined in more detail below, the analysis will focus more specifically on the narratives in Christian Revivalist or Evangelical publications, in other words the Lutheran revivalists, Pentecostals and the Free Church. I build on the assumption that if there is indeed a linkage between Christian practice with negative attitudes towards Islam in Finland, as the Pew study found, it is likely to be reflected in the prevalence and contents of Christian literature on the topic. More specifically, such a linkage might suggest that Christian literature has dealt with Islam frequently and that this literature also contains negative attitudes towards Islam. I will test this thesis by analysing overall publishing patterns using the catalogue of the national imprint as well as conducting a close qualitative analysis of selected books on Islam by Christian Revivalist publishers. For the latter, I will employ narrative analysis that places the concerns of the texts in their contexts, as uses of the Bible in Finnish Protestant Christianity, and seeks to understand them as action. In other words, I focus on what particular interpretations do in a Finnish Christian context to gain a deeper understanding of them.¹⁵ Furthermore, my methodology involves analysing the portrayals of Islam against a widely used categorisation of aspects of a closed view of Islam.¹⁶ This approach is not able to assess the broader attitudes of Finnish Christians towards Islam or the precise impact of individual Christian texts on such attitudes. Such assessments would require methodologies involving surveys and interviews. However, it does afford an insight into the extent that Islam is seen as an important topic in Finnish Christian literature and the kind of publishers and authors who have addressed the topic. It also enables an analysis of the function of the chosen Finnish Christian narratives as Biblical interpretations. In other words, it looks at what the selected narratives do as examples of Nordic Biblical interpretation and Finnish Christian thinking on Islam.

many, ed. Ala Al-Hamarneh and Jörn Thielmann (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008), 423–40; Suvi Keskinen, “Islam ja sukupuolistuneen väkivallan uhka suomalaisessa mediakeskustelussa,” in Islam, hallinta ja turvallisuus, ed. Tuomas Martikainen and Marja Tiilikainen (Turku: Eetos, 2013), 55–77. 15 Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics 1: Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3. 16 “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” 1997, 4–12; Green, The Fear of Islam, 12–19.

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2 Quantitative Outlines of Finnish Christian Literature and Islam 2.1 The Christian Media Subculture In addition to numerous mainstream publishing houses, Finland has a large number of what are considered to be Christian publishers. A formal expression of this is the Association of Christian Publishers,¹⁷ which has thirteen members. Additionally, there are at least twenty entities that are not members of this association but are either religious institutions that have directly published books with a Christian religious focus, are publishers that designate themselves as Christian publishers, or do not self-designate in this way but nevertheless publish mostly or exclusively explicitly Christian books.¹⁸ Some of the aforementioned Christian publishers have only published a few titles from one author, some have operated for a limited time while others are large and active. In addition to publishing books written originally in Finnish, many also publish translations, usually from English or other major Western European languages. These books are typically sold either in special Christian bookstores, for which there is also an association,¹⁹ directly by Christian organisations and nowadays also increasingly online. It should be noted that “Christian” is here understood in the same vein as in Pew’s aforementioned survey, primarily through self-identification. The listed Christian publishers cover a very broad spectrum of the Christian communities in Finland, from organisations belonging to or affiliated with the large Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland to small, independent religious communities or parachurch organisations.

17 “Kristilliset kustantajat ry,ˮ https://vuodenkristillinenkirja.fi/shortcodes/. Its members are: Aikamedia Oy (formerly known as Ristin Voitto, RV-kirjat and Aika Oy Kristilliset kirjat), Bergvikin Säätiö sr, Fontana Media Ab Oy, Herättäjä-Yhdistys, Karas-Sana Oy, Lasten keskus ja Kirjapaja Oy (Publiva Oy), Kuva ja Sana Oy, Kustannus Oy Uusi tie, Päivä Osakeyhtiö, Perussanoma Oy, Sley-Media Oy, Suomen Pipliaseura, Suomen Lähetysseura. 18 Other Christian publishers and Christian organisations that have published books include: Ajanteos Kustannus Oy, Ari-kustannus, Armokustannus, Avainmedia Lähetysjärjestö ry, Concordia ry, Helmi Media, Itätuuli-kustannus, Kirkkohallitus, Kristillinen Kirja- ja Musiikkikustannus, Kustannusliike Kirjaneliö, Lähetysteologinen instituutti, Lähetysyhdistys Kylväjä ry, Mikkelin kansanlähetys, Ortokirja ry, Rukous-Kustannus Oy, Suomen Rauhanyhdistysten Keskusyhdistys ry, Suomen teologinen instituutti, Suomen vapaa ulkolähetys (Fida International), TV7 Kustannus, Uskon Sanan Kustannus Oy, Valamokustannus. 19 “Kristilliset kirja- ja musiikkiliikkeet ry,ˮ https://www.kristillisetkirjakaupat.fi/.

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Another distinction associated with the titles produced by Christian publishers is that they are not found in regular bookstores and many of the authors are not well-known in mainstream media. Instead, the books are reviewed, their authors interviewed, and their topics discussed in Christian newspapers and magazines, in some cases also on a Christian radio station (Radio Dei) or the Finnish revivalist television station TV7. The numerous Christian weeklies, other papers, radio, and books, together with numerous Christian churches, organisations and institutes, create a distinctive Finnish Christian media subculture. It may be more accurate to use the plural and talk about several subcultures, as most of the organisations mentioned are linked to a particular denomination or Lutheran revival movement. Either way, there is significant overlap amongst them. Despite the existence of a small Orthodox and an even smaller Catholic community, the Christian media subcultures in Finland are almost exclusively Protestant. Although there is also overlap with mainstream Lutheranism as well as with organisations and individuals active in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Christian media subculture leans heavily towards Lutheran revival movements, Pentecostalism, the Free Church and other non-Lutheran Protestant denominations. Collectively they bear many similarities to what is known internationally as Evangelicalism, but it should be noted that in Finland the term is prone to create confusion, as Evangelical is included in the name of the Lutheran church itself. I shall refer to them collectively as Christian Revivalist movements. This revivalist flavour requires a caveat. Membership in Free Church and Pentecostal congregations is low. Even combined, their official membership amounts to only half a percent of the total population. At the same time, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland still counts two thirds of Finns as its members.²⁰ Although the revival movements within the Evangelical Lutheran Church do not register members and estimates are problematic, it is safe to say that only a minority of church members are active. Although this is the case, the media subcultures affiliated with Lutheran revival movements or the non-Lutheran communities are disproportionately active and visible. This may be related to a high level of non-practicing Christians, which leaves the field open to the relatively few practicing Christians. According to Pew only 10 % of Finns attend a religious service at least monthly.²¹ The Finnish Christian media subculture is varied and diverse, and it certainly does not reflect the views and preferences of all who consider themselves Protestants

20 “Uskonnolliseen yhdyskuntaan kuuluminen iän ja sukupuolen mukaan, 19902020,” Statistics Finland, https://pxnet2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/StatFin__vrm__vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11rx.px/. 21 “Being Christian in Western Europe,” 96.

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in Finland, but at least when it comes to Christian books, Revivalism is disproportionately visible. It should also be added that while mainstream Finnish publishers also publish books about religious topics and religions, it is generally easy to distinguish them from books by Christian publishers. In addition to visual giveaways in cover art, Christian publishers use distinctly confessional language. This makes them easy to spot for a Finnish reader, as confessional phrasing is easily recognisable and avoided by mainstream publishers. As the differences between Christian and mainstream publishers are relatively straightforward in a Finnish context, it is possible to examine books by Christian publishers as a distinct category.

2.2 Bibliographical Methodology All books published in Finland are entered into the Finnish National Bibliography, a “statutorily accrued and preserved archive repository of the national imprint.”²² It can be searched through the National Library Search service. Although the search function turns up certain minor problems, such as dual entries and a generally uneven level of data entered, it is reasonably reliable. Once dual entries and obvious false positives are cleared out, there is a total of 551 overall hits on books related in any way to Islam or Muslims published in Finland and in the Finnish language by any publisher until the end of 2020.²³ The earliest title, an account of missionary work among Muslims, dates from 1903.²⁴

22 “National Collection,” National Library of Finland, https://www.kansalliskirjasto.fi/en/collec tions/national-collection. 23 The National Library Advanced Search, https://kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi/Search/Advanced?lng= en-gb. Search done for the words islam* OR muslim* OR allah* OR koraani* in all fields (title, author, subject, description etc.). Search limited by language to Finnish only. Search limited by content type to books only. The time range for the search is capped at 2020. The collection is limited to “Fennica” (the National Collection). The results are then edited to remove dual entries or later, non-revised editions of the same work. Eliminating other false positives is trickier, but they include books actually published outside of Finland, books published in a language other than Finnish, as well as books in which the search terms appeared in the author’s name (for example Helena Allahwerdi) but not in the title or subject tags, or the contents. It must be noted that the contents and subject tags have not always been included in all book entries in the National Collection, particularly when it comes to older books. This means that some relevant books may not have been found. 24 Abraham Amirchanjanz, Lähetystyö muhamettilaisten keskuudessa, trans. F.W. Lönnbeck. (Parkano: P.R. Wiitanen, 1903).

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After omitting the relatively small number of self-published works,²⁵ fiction,²⁶ government reports and school textbooks,²⁷ this leaves a total of 488 non-fiction titles. Due to the search methodology and despite the corrective measures done manually, the inclusion criteria of the works remain problematic. For example, some of the included books deal exclusively with Islam and Muslims, while others refer to the topic only tangentially, for example in the contexts of cooking or travel. Keeping this in mind, it is nevertheless possible to use the data for detecting general publishing trends. Looking at the overall picture, the publications can be divided into the five broad categories according to type of publisher: 1. 50 publications by various NGOs and CSOs (10 %) 2. 65 publications by universities as well as scientific and educational institutions (13 %) 3. 67 publications by Islamic communities in Finland (14 %) 4. 106 publications by Christian publishers (22 %) 5. 200 publications by commercial publishers and intended for the general public (41 %)²⁸ The first category includes an assortment of 37 different organisations, from museums to trade unions, the Finland-Pakistan association, and one publication each from the Iraqi and Iranian embassies. The most active was the Finnish Peace Committee. These are not generally publications that would be found in any bookstore or hope to reach a broad readership. The second category includes works published directly by various Finnish universities, such as the universities of Helsinki, Tampere and Turku, and the National Defence University. They include dissertations and studies, but also some works that could conceivably have been published by commercial publishers. The many dissertations and other studies not listed as books in the Finnish National Bibliography are not included. As the output of academics, scholarly articles and unpublished dissertations, is for the most part not listed as books in the national repository, this category cannot be considered particularly representative.

25 32 works on a wide variety of topics. 26 13 works chiefly from large commercial publishers. Although the search allows using non-fiction as a category, test searches showed it was not completely consistent, for which reason the works of fiction have been categorised manually. 27 18 works published by government agencies and ministries, the Helsinki municipality or the Finnish National Agency for Education, or clearly published as school textbooks. 28 The largest publishers in this category include Basam Books, Gaudeamus, Into, Like, Minerva, Otava, SKS, Tammi, Vastapaino and WSOY.

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The third category includes a wide range of publications for educational, confessional and proselytising purposes published by Muslim communities based in Finland.²⁹ They are also not distributed in mainstream bookstores. We shall leave these three categories and focus instead on the two largest categories listed above, namely the Christian and mainstream publishers, in order to contextualise the Christian publications on Islam within the broader, commercial book publishing scene.

2.3 Stable Christian Participation in a Growing Interest in Islam and Muslims The number of books on Islam or Muslims published in Finland increases markedly from the early 1990s onwards, although there were some well-known books on the topic available in the Finnish language already before then. A Finnish translation of the Qur’an was published by a mainstream publisher in 1957 and some books had by then already been published by Finnish scholars on the history of Islam, the life of the Prophet Muhammad and on Islamic beliefs and customs.³⁰ However, it is clear from the Finnish National Bibliography, Fennica, that 90 % of all the non-fiction books on Islam or Muslims have appeared since 1992. This is only to a very limited extent a reflection of a modest gradual increase in the number of annually published works, as the increase in books on Islam and Muslims has been much faster. Looking at the commercial publishers in isolation, only four such books were published in the 1970s and six in the 1980s, but 36 in the 1990s, 69 in the first decade of the twenty first century, and 76 in the second. A possible explanation for this is a change in demographics. Apart from the few hundred members of the Finnish Tatar community, there were almost no Muslims living in Finland until the arrival of refugees from Somalia starting from 1990. Even then, the overall number of new arrivals was small.³¹ By the end of the decade there were some 6,000 speakers of Somali in Finland, while the total population stood at 5.1 million in 2000. However, the psychological effect of the new arrivals was tangible, as they were undoubtedly seen to represent something new.

29 They included Helsingin Muslimit, IQRA – islam yhdistys, Islamin Ahmadiyya -seurakunta, Islamin neuvontakeskus, Resalat islamilainen yhdyskunta and Suomen islamilainen yhdyskunta. 30 Harri Holma, Muhammed (Porvoo: WSOY, 1917); Harri Holma, Arabian suuri profeetta: Piirteitä Muhammedin elämästä ja Islamin alkutaipaleelta (Helsinki: Suomen Kirja, 1943); Armas Salonen, Allahin kansat: Islamilaisten kansojen historia vuoteen 1950 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1950). 31 Yusuf M. Mubarak, Eva Nilsson and Niklas Saxén, Suomen somalit (Helsinki: Into, 2015).

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After all, there were only 26,255 foreign citizens living in Finland in 1990.³² By the end of 2019, there were an estimated 110,000–120,000 Muslims in Finland, most of them immigrants.³³ Among other things, curiosity towards the Muslim newcomers probably contributed to a new popular demand for Finnish language books on Islam, as what had hitherto been a foreign phenomenon could now be encountered particularly in the streets of Helsinki.

Figure 1: Non-fiction books on Islam or Muslims published in Finnish in 1990–2020.

A further increase can be seen from the beginning of the 21st century. In addition to domestic, immigration related reasons, this may in part be due to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent war on terror declared by the George W. Bush administration. Books on this topic published by Christian publishers amount to half the total number of those published by mainstream publishers, thereby contributing a third of the total of these two groups. Whereas there is a more noticeable although uneven overall increase in the number of books by mainstream publishers, peaking in 2015, the number of books by Christian publishers remained fairly steady at 3–4 per year.

32 “Foreign Citizens,” Statistics Finland, https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/maahanmuutto/maa hanmuuttajat-vaestossa/ulkomaan-kansalaiset_en.html. 33 Uskonnot Suomessa, https://uskonnot.fi/raportit/.

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Just over half (53 %) of all the books on Islam and Muslims by commercial or Christian publishers were originally written in Finnish, while the rest were translations. A somewhat larger share of the books by Christian publishers were originally written in Finnish (58 %) compared to books by mainstream publishers (51 %). Two thirds of all translations were from English, followed by French, Swedish, Arabic, German, Italian, Norwegian and other languages. As mentioned, Finnish Christian publishers have different profiles and the books on Islam and Muslims published by them vary in genre and content. Looking exclusively at the books published between 1990 and 2020, the most active publishers include the interdenominational revivalist Kuva ja Sana (14 books), general Christian publishing brand Kirjapaja (13 books), the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission – Felm (10 books) and the Institute of Mission Theology or Lähetysteologinen instituutti of the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s Mission Centre (5 books), the Lutheran revivalist Perussanoma (9 books), Suomen Teologinen Instituutti (4 books) and Uusi tie (3 books), the Finnish Free Church’s Päivä (6 books), the Pentecostal Suomen Vapaa Ulkolähetys (3 books), Aikamedia (3 books) and Avainmedia (2 books), as well as Pentecostal preacher Pekka Sartola’s Ajanteos (4 books). Typical topics in books originally written in Finnish include exposés of Islam, books on intercultural and interreligious dialogue, accounts of Muslims in various countries and Islam in current political developments, particularly in relation to Israel and European immigration. All of these topics are also dealt with in books published by commercial publishers. As the latter were able to draw on greater resources and distribution networks, one must ask why Christian publishers are consistently willing to continue to contribute to an increasingly crowded field of books on Islam. There is at least one topic that has been relatively popular with Christian authors, but has, rather understandably, been left untouched by commercial publishers. This is comparisons between Islam and Christianity. Beyond that observation, it becomes necessary to dig deeper into the actual narratives presented in Christian books on Islam to discover the functions they have played.

3 Qualitative Analysis of Christian Revivalist Readings of Islam 3.1 Three Publishers, Four Books and Five Authors In light of the overall publishing subcultures and trends outlined above, it is impossible to offer a shortlist of non-fiction Christian books on Islam and Muslims

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that would be fully representative. The simple reason for this is that there is too much variety and too many distinct Christian publishing subcultures. Also, there are no grounds for assuming that books approaching Islam through a Christian lens would necessarily all participate in the same narratives or interpretative frames. Keeping in mind the inherent limitations of any sample, it is nevertheless possible to deepen insights through qualitative analysis. Since revivalist publishers predominate in the field of Christian publishing, at least in their number and the number of titles published, I will examine four works that come out of that subculture. As a consequence, the narratives are specifically Finnish Christian Revivalist narratives. They may be familiar outside revivalist circles but will certainly differ from narratives in books written for example by liberal Lutheran authors. They most definitely do not offer the only Finnish Christian view on their topic. They are, however, representative of a vibrant revivalist current within the Finnish Christian media subculture. The particular books were chosen because they are all written by relatively well-known Finnish Christian authors, namely Martti Ahvenainen, Juha Ahvio, Timo Keskitalo, Seppo S. Kosonen and Pekka Sartola. They have all published several other books as well and come from diverse backgrounds within the strands of Finnish protestant revivalism. Ahvenainen is a Pentecostal Bible teacher, Kosonen and Keskitalo are Lutheran pastors, while Sartola is a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church of Finland. Ahvio holds a doctorate in theology and the title of docent from the University of Helsinki and works as Research Director at Patmos Lähetyssäätiö, an independent evangelical mission organisation. All five authors are men, which reflects the authorship of Finnish Christian Revivalist books on Islam, at least amongst those originally published in Finnish. Two of the books are published by one of the most prolific of the Christian publishing houses, interdenominational revivalist Kuva ja Sana,³⁴ the third is by the Pentecostal Aikamedia,³⁵ both based in Helsinki, while the fourth is by a smaller publisher, Ajanteos Kustannus,³⁶ based in Turku and devoted to publishing Pekka Sartola’s works. All four books have been published after 9/11, in 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2016 respectively. As with other books published by Christian publishers, none of these works are found in the large bookstore chains, but are carried by smaller, sometimes specifically Christian bookstores and are available for purchase online. However, all of the four books are also available in multiple copies in the 34 Seppo S. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota: Hengellistä kilvoittelua vai kiihotusta väkivaltaan? (Helsinki: Kuva ja Sana, 2008); Juha Ahvio and Timo Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala: Onko islamilla ja kristinuskolla sama Jumala? (Helsinki: Kuva ja sana, 2016). 35 Martti Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa (Helsinki: Aikamedia, 2014). 36 Pekka Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? (Turku: Ajanteos Kustannus, 2006).

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public Helsinki City Library network and presumably also in other public libraries around Finland. It is clear that despite the theological and stylistic differences between the authors and their works, the books examined have a great deal in common and share in a joint narrative tradition. This is evident from the similarity of the contents, but also from cross references and commonalities in their bibliographies.³⁷ All are familiar with more mainstream Finnish language literature on Islam, but also draw heavily on foreign, almost exclusively English language books, particularly those written by the American critic of Islam Robert Spencer, as well as various websites and YouTube videos. It is also clear from the covers and titles of the books that they have all chosen their topic due to a particular concern they have with Islam. It is worth translating the titles in the following chart: Table 1: An overview of the four books. Author(s):

Title (and its English translation):

Publisher

Year

Seppo S. Kosonen

Jihad, islamin pyhä sota: Hengellistä kilvoittelua vai kiihotusta väkivaltaan? ( Jihad, Islam’s Holy War: Spiritual Exercise or Incitement to Violence?)

Kuva ja Sana

2008

Juha Ahvio & Timo Keskitalo

Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala: Onko islamilla ja kristinuskolla sama Jumala? (Allah of the Qur’an or the God of the Bible: Do Islam and Christianity Have the Same God?

Kuva ja Sana

2016

Martti Ahvenainen

Islam Raamatun valossa (Islam in the Light of the Bible)

Aikamedia

2014

Pekka Sartola

Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? (Islam: Friend or Foe?)

Ajanteos Kustannus

2006

At least in the case of Sartola and Kosonen, the cover art gives some clues to the answer to the questions posed in the titles. Islam: Friend or Foe? features the World Trade Center’s twin towers in flames on its back cover, while Kosonen’s Jihad, Islam’s Holy War: Spiritual Exercise or Incitement to Violence? appears against a background of flames and under a masked fighter pointing a gun at

37 Pekka Sartola and Seppo S. Kosonen both mention each other in their bibliographies (Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen?, 351, Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 177), while Ahvenainen only refers to Sartola (Ahvenainen, “Islam Raamatun valossa,” 475).

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the reader. Ahvenainen’s book features a veiled woman, with only her eyes uncovered, while Ahvio and Keskitalo’s cover image is more enigmatic still, with a Muslim at prayer and an empty cross. As will become clear, the questions asked in the titles are more conclusively answered inside each book. For this, we turn to narrative analysis.

3.2 Analytical Tools: Distinctions of Islamophobia Negative attitudes towards Islam and Muslims are often addressed through the concept of Islamophobia. The concept gained currency particularly with the release of the British race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust’s 1997 report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, which defined Islamophobia as “unfounded hostility towards Islam.”³⁸ The definition invites the question of how to determine what unfounded hostility is. In recent years, writers such as Robert Spencer have self-identified as Islamophobes but argue that their hostility to Islam is not unfounded.³⁹ Many liberal authors, such as the French satirical journalist Stéphane Charbonnier, have also defended the right and even the obligation of criticising and ridiculing ideologies, worldviews and religions, like Islam.⁴⁰ The Runnymede Report attempted to address the question of the limits of legitimate and illegitimate criticism by introducing a dichotomy between closed and open views of Islam. The closed view sees Islam as static, monolithic, separate, inferior, aggressive, and manipulative, while the open view perceives Islam as diverse, dynamic, similar, equal, a cooperative partner and sincere. The problem with this dichotomy is that even though the closed view is supposed to be monolithic and static, and the open view diverse and dynamic, even the latter seems to run the risk of a different kind of essentialism by insisting on Islam’s inherently positive qualities.⁴¹ The Runnymede Report’s definition of Islamophobia hinged on the following eight distinctions it attributed to a closed view of Islam: 1. Islam seen a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to new realities. 2. Islam seen as separate and other—(a) not having any aims or values in common with other cultures (b) not affected by them (c) not influencing them.

38 “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” 4. Another definition is also offered: “dread or hatred of Islam – and (…) fear or dislike of all or most Muslims”. “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” 1. 39 Robert Spencer, Confessions of an Islamophobe (New York: Bombardier Books, 2017). 40 Stéphane Charbonnier, Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2016). 41 See for example Green, The Fear of Islam, 23–25.

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Islam seen as inferior to the West—barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist. Islam seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, engaged in ‘a clash of civilizations’. Islam seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage. Criticisms made by Islam of ‘the West’ rejected out of hand. Hostility towards Islam used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. Anti-Muslim hostility accepted as natural and ‘normal.’⁴²

The open views of Islam were defined as, more or less, the opposite of the closed views. While this dichotomy is useful in some instances, it is easy to see how the listed distinctions are designed to capture aspects of “unfounded hostility towards Islam” in particular. As I shall demonstrate in the following sections, even a cursory reading of the selected four works reveals that the narratives they exemplify would easily fit into the Runnymede Report’s definition of a closed views of Islam. The Pew Research Centre’s question on the compatibility between western values and Islam would certainly be answered in the negative by all five authors. Indeed, as we shall see, that Islam is not compatible with the Christian West is one of the central messages they wish to communicate to their readers. For a closer analysis, I will use the Runnymede Report’s distinctions of a closed view of Islam as an analytical tool in approaching the selected Christian books. More specifically, I will use the first five more ideologically oriented distinctions, while ignoring the last three, which presuppose interaction of some kind and are not significantly addressed in the books. The following five subsections are organised according to these five distinctions, and a summary is provided in section 4.

3.3 The Real Islam: Monolithic and Static The first of the Runnymede Trusts’ distinctions of Islamophobia is “Islam seen a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to new realities.” Although the authors are aware of the large global population of Muslims, their geographical distribution and cultural diversity, the long history of Islam as a religious tradition and significant divides in practice and doctrine, all of them still see Islam as having a clear, unchanging essence. This is to a limited extent unavoidable in any general description of a religious tradition. To describe Islamic doctrines, practices, traditions etc. is to make at least tacit linkages based on commonalities, of what it

42 “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” 5.

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means to be Islamic, and to create or strengthen shared narratives. If one includes Iranian Ayatollahs and Nigerian Sufis under the same umbrella, even to demonstrate diversity, doing so obviously also makes a statement about what they have in common. Essentialism, on the other hand, is played out on a far narrower field. Mainstream non-fiction books in Finland have often taken great pains to broaden public perception of religious traditions. Take for example the recent The Many Islams of Our Times. ⁴³ At the same time the Christian Revivalist works generally follow an approach in which Islam is presented as a unit and even personalised and treated almost as having an independent identity that can be either “friend or foe”, to quote from the title of Pekka Sartola’s book. This essentialism comes across in numerous descriptions of Islam in which the authors seem to attribute agency or at the very least a high level of dogmatic consistency to Islam itself. Islam is described as having an essence that can be known.⁴⁴ Although it can seem diverse and contain contradictory tendencies, writes Kosonen, “ultimately there is only one Islam, which is doctrinally grounded in the Qur’an.”⁴⁵ This “true nature of Islam’s doctrine and beliefs”, as Sartola puts it, is sanitised by Muslims and must therefore be uncovered.⁴⁶ Islam’s “ideology is allowed to exert its influence.”⁴⁷ “Islam as a doctrine” attacks Christian values.⁴⁸ Islam “feels.”⁴⁹ “Islam’s goal” is the conversion of the world.⁵⁰ It is a “political religion, which aims at subjugating all religions, cultures and societies to serve Islam.”⁵¹ Although Ahvio & Keskitalo speak more of “Islamic faith” than “Islam” and insert caveats to specify that they refer particularly to Sunni Islam and more specifically to its Ash’ari legal school, the same tone pervades: “the Islamic faith cannot and does not differentiate between mosque and state.”⁵² Sartola acknowledges a “confusing array” of contradictory rules and teachings in Islam but uses it to detract from the credibility of true Islam.⁵³ Kosonen makes more of the diversity in Islam than the other authors, but he too tends towards

43 Tuomas Maristo and Andrei Sergejeff, Aikamme monta islamia (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2015). 44 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 27–28, 356. 45 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 39. Translations from the Finnish sources in this and later instances by Timo R. Stewart. 46 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 10. 47 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10. 48 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 13. 49 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 14. 50 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 41. 51 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 334. 52 Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 45. 53 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 343.

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essentialising views. He writes at the beginning of his book that he is not dealing with “peaceful Islam” but rather “Islamism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, for which Jihad is a central concept.”⁵⁴ Nevertheless, this is not consistently borne out by the rest of the book, which usually speaks of Muslims and Islam in general, not Islamists in particular. Although Kosonen actually compares Islam to a rainbow that includes contradictory tendencies,the claim is made in the context of establishing that warlike doctrines are part of “real Islam.”⁵⁵ The reason to argue for this arises from equally essentialising claims that Islam is a religion of peace, which Kosonen sets out to refute. Although he leaves plenty of ambiguity in his text, the quotes Kosonen has picked all paint a picture of Islam that contains such threatening elements, that it is justified to fear it.⁵⁶ Ahvenainen also sees Muslim claims of Islam being a religion of peace as being intentionally misleading, which can be discovered by reading the Qur’an, as he does.⁵⁷ This implies that one’s own reading of the Qur’an is a more reliable source of knowledge about Islam than the testimonies of Muslims, an essentialising position. Another expression of this essentialist understanding is absolutely central to the reason for writing these Christian exposés of Islam in the first place. All the authors share the view that Islam is being misrepresented to the public—for example, the claim that it is a religion of peace—and it is their responsibility to reveal its true nature. Books written by scholars, Finnish or otherwise, who have devoted their professional lives to studying Islam, are not seen as merely in need of supplementary, Christian perspectives. Indeed, these secular scholars are sometimes represented as actively hiding the true nature of Islam. This true nature is not something that the Revivalist authors believe can be legitimately disagreed on. It is simply the essence of real Islam, which for one reason or another is being hidden from the public.⁵⁸ The insistence on essentialising Islam as something monolithic and static, almost having an agency of its own, is not argued using any particular Bible verses, it is more a question of using a familiar Biblical interpretative tradition. The authors presuppose that their own reading of the Qur’an, and in some cases also the traditions known as the Hadith, is sufficient to arrive at an understanding of the true nature of Islam. Ahvenainen quotes 1 Thess 5:21 as justification to “test everything,” which he proceeds to do by quoting the Qur’an hundreds of times and

54 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 14. 55 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 39. 56 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 40–42, 101, 140, 161. 57 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10. 58 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 9, 101, 136–37; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 10, 13; Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10.

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then comparing many of these quotes with the Bible.⁵⁹ This extends to the most minute details, such as whether Allah taught Adam the names of everything in the world, as in the Qur’an (2:31–34), or whether Adam himself gave animals their names, as in the Bible (Gen 2:19–20).⁶⁰ Sartola finds an exhortation to test the Qur’an from within it (4:82), concluding that any fundamental contradictions will show that the Qur’an did not originate from the Christian God.⁶¹ This literalist approach is not altogether surprising, as it closely mirrors an interpretation of Christianity that at least the authors and presumably also their readers share to some extent. Finnish Revivalists, whether inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church or in the Free Church or Pentecostal movements, tend to emphasise a literalist approach to the Bible. This works to narrow greatly the scope for legitimate disagreement in interpretation and on the sources of religious authority. In other words, it privileges essentialist understandings. In all four books, this essentialising, monolithic, and static understanding of Christianity is reflected in a similar understanding of Islam. However, a key difference between how the authors approach the Qur’an and how they approach the Bible is their outsider’s view with regard to the former. The belief that they are engaging in a literal reading of a religious text tends to downplay or even completely deny the necessity of ongoing interpretation in any tradition. The interpretative frameworks of Protestant Revivalists, even if believed to be literal and whether acknowledged or not, allow for resolving or overlooking sections of the sacred text which others might find problematic. Kosonen, a Lutheran pastor, writes, for example, that “the Old Testament and the New Testament contain much material that can be bypassed as historical vestiges, as both the Jews and the Christian Church have done.”⁶² Ahvenainen seems to believe in a stricter literalism, which he sees as confirming Biblical but not Qur’anic credibility: “Every book of the Bible is in harmony with itself and other Biblical books. The Qur’an contradicts both itself and the Biblical prophets.”⁶³ Applying a literalist hermeneutic to another tradition’s text without the interpretative strategies that protect it from contradictions leaves it open to readings with which insiders might not agree. This essentialism also provides the Revivalist authors with a perceived epistemological advantage over others. It gives a reason for why one should bother reading about Islam from books written by people who could be described as selftaught popularisers in the field of Islamic studies. It also explains why books writ59 60 61 62 63

Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 11. Quotes throughout the book. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 141–42. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 12. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 105. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 165.

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ten by people who are widely recognised scholars of Islam are felt to be somewhat unsatisfactory by many Revivalist Christians. If it is assumed that there is such a thing as a monolithic and static true nature of Islam, then books that appear to fudge or complicate the issue will appear unsatisfactory. In this view Islam—as well as many other things in the world—can only truly be understood “in light of the Bible,” as indicated in the title of Ahvenainen’s book. For this to work, there has to be a specific light that the Bible shines on such things, and a specific thing that is being illuminated. Essentialism in this context is not simply an idiosyncrasy, it is the essential ingredient of what is seen by Revivalists as a Christian worldview and what imbues it with certainty. How then, can the true nature of Islam be known? What exactly is held up to the light of the Bible? Again, it hardly comes as a surprise that Protestant literalists would insist on a familiar, scriptural approach. The question of interpretation is not addressed directly, presumably because of a presupposition of literalism. If a verse in the Qur’an or the Hadith says something, its meaning is assumed to be evident, just as the Bible is assumed to be sufficiently clear for anyone to read and understand. As the Christian reader of the Qur’an is unafraid of drawing an unflattering picture, such an approach is portrayed as neutral.⁶⁴ The authors do not reflect in any way on the possibility of drawing unflattering pictures of the Bible if it were to be approached in a similar way. It is doubtful that the authors would consider such attempts legitimate. For example, while Kosonen concedes that Christianity has also in some instances been spread by the sword, “no support for the use of the sword can be found in Christian doctrine.”⁶⁵ A question related to interpretation does arise, however, when considering the actions or words of real-life Muslims and the differing circumstances in Muslim majority states. The authors observe differences in behaviour but address these principally with explanations that do not acknowledge any impact of different interpretations of particular textual or doctrinal traditions. A key interpretive tool is a division, familiar from Revivalist Christian contexts, between true believers and those who are believers only in name. The former actually follow or attempt to follow what their religion teaches, the latter may profess to do so, but actually do not.⁶⁶ Ahvenainen puts it this way: “There are indeed moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.”⁶⁷ He cites the Qur’an in calling nominal Muslims “hypocrites” (9:73, 97).⁶⁸ According to him, simple ignorance may also contribute 64 65 66 67 68

Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 10. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 159. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 155–56. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 294. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 376.

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to this moderation as “the vast majority of Muslims do not know the Qur’an.”⁶⁹ Consequently, in a Revivalist understanding only the true believers are worth observing and listening to if one wants to understand the true nature of a religion. This view opens up the possibility of employing circular reasoning to limited observation. If one has a preconceived notion of how true believers of a particular religious group act and then one observes people who act that way, it can be deduced from their actions that their religion is of a certain kind. This is particularly relevant to views of Islam as violent based on examples of violence involving Muslims.

3.4 God and Allah: Separate and Other As shown in the previous section, in all four works, the authors approach their own Christian faith and that of Muslims in ways that have two important formal aspects in common. The first is an essentialist understanding of religion. Both religions, in their view, have a real core and identity, which some people understand, while others do not. The second commonality is an interpretative tradition that tends towards literalism. This, however, is where the similarities end and most of the books spend considerable time in arguing that any other apparent similarities of content are not in fact what they seem. This brings us to the second of the Runnymede distinctions of Islamophobia, namely Islam seen as separate and other. All the authors seem to feel it is important to refute claims made by Muslim proselytisers about the fundamental unity of their faith and the Christian faith. This is most clearly symbolised in the insistence of referring to Allah instead of God. At least Ahvenainen is aware that treating Allah as a proper name not to be confused with God is unfortunate for millions of Arab Christians, as “they are accustomed to calling God Allah.”⁷⁰ Indeed for Arabic speakers, whether Christian or Muslim, Allah is the word they use to denote their deity. Still, according to Ahvenainen nothing can be done about it: “Allah is not the God of the Bible.”⁷¹ Keskitalo and Ahvio emphasise the same point: “Allah of the Qur’an and the God of the Bible are not the same God.” Indeed, their whole book is dedicated to disproving any connection between the deities.⁷² Kosonen also agrees: “We serve a different God.”⁷³ Sartola says the same and actually has his words underlined to make 69 70 71 72 73

Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 375. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 250. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 251. Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 9. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 168.

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sure he is not misunderstood.⁷⁴ While insisting on separate identities for the deities in the Bible and the Qur’an is a logically valid position, the terminological emphasis employed by all the authors is problematic. This becomes apparent when imagining an Arabic translation of their books. As the authors are all using the Finnish language, they are accustomed to calling God Jumala, the exact same word used both in the Finnish translations of the Bible and of the Qur’an. The insistence on Islam’s separateness has an important practical consequence in that it effectively undermines a shared monotheistic basis for dialogue aimed at increased mutual understanding. It is one thing for Muslims and Christians to discuss their differing views of the one God and completely another to start the dialogue from the assertion that one religion serves God and the other a false god. Ahvio and Keskitalo say it explicitly: “Allah of the Qur’an is a false god.”⁷⁵ Indeed, Ahvio and Keskitalo seem to be worried about dialogue and especially conversions to Islam.⁷⁶ One of the methods employed to establish the separate identities of God and Allah is by reading Quranic descriptions and comparing them to Biblical ones. For example, according to Ahvenainen, God only creates good (1 Tim 4:4; James 1:17) while Allah creates both good and evil. God does not change (Mal 3:6; James 1:17) but Allah changes his mind constantly. God forgives those who repent (1 John 1:9) but Allah only forgives whom he wants.⁷⁷ If God and Allah are words that describe two different beings, to what or whom does Allah refer? As mentioned, Ahvio and Keskitalo wrote that Allah was a false god. In the same context they refer to pre-Islamic religious practices connected to the Kaaba in Mecca and note their continuity in Islam. One of the objects of worship was the Morning star, which they associate with its Latin name, Lucifer, which in turn carries diabolical references in Christian mythology.⁷⁸ Sartola writes about the Kaaba as well and speaks of Allah as a moon god.⁷⁹ Ahvenainen also sees the Kaaba as providing the key to its chief deity, Allah. He also refers to Allah as a false god and a moon god, and notes its similarities with Baal, a deity infamous to readers of the Old Testament.⁸⁰ It follows from all this that the Bible and the Qur’an are seen very differently as well. The Bible is the word God, while

74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 320. Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 105. Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 117. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 241. Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 108. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 98. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 242–51.

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the Qur’an is not.⁸¹ This means that it makes sense to determine the Qur’an’s meaning and worth by examining it in the light of the Bible, as Ahvenainen does. The Bible becomes the standard against which the Qur’an is compared. Indeed, he goes as far as to say that the Qur’an can only be understood through the Bible.⁸² Such an approach is unapologetically normative and follows a timehonoured comparative approach found in Christian theology. Religion scholar William E. Paden has noted five ways in which Christians have historically accounted for foreign religions from a normative point of view. The first approach on Paden’s list posits the involvement of supernatural but evil forces in other religions. The Finnish Revivalist authors certainly allude to this through references they make to Lucifer and Baal. As we shall see shortly, it also looms behind interpretations of the revelatory process of the Qur’an.⁸³ As Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, he is also personally examined in light of the Bible. For example, Ahvenainen interprets Rev 22:18–19 to rule out the possibility of Muhammad being a prophet of God.⁸⁴ Islamic tradition holds that the angel Gabriel (Jibril) had a role in revealing the Qur’an. Ahvenainen takes this at face value and turns to Luke 1:26–38 to show that Gabriel had previously announced Jesus to be the Son of God, which is not an Islamic teaching. This establishes a contradiction in light of the Bible. Ahvenainen and Sartola both quote Gal 1:8–9 to argue that whatever spiritual being spoke to Muhammad, it was not delivering a message from God, as the message was different from the true one.⁸⁵ Several of the authors also call into question the reliability of the Prophet Muhammad by impugning his character and actions with recourse to the Bible. Ahvenainen in particular focuses on this. Muhammed’s participation in raids makes him a robber, and 1 Cor 6:9–10 therefore indicates he will not inherit the kingdom of God.⁸⁶ Furthermore Muhammed’s status as a prophet is seen to be impossible due to discrepancies between his message and previous Biblical revelation (1 Cor 4:6; Gal 1:8–9), his moral failings, including violence and polygamy (Matt 7:15–20; Matt 5:38; Luke 6:27–29; 1 Tim 3:2), his lack of accurate predictions of

81 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 328. 82 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 11–12. 83 William E. Paden, Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 16–18. 84 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 29. 85 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 30–31; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 47. 86 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 43.

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the future (Deut 18:21–22) and his failure to instruct people to avoid evil (Jer 23:15– 22).⁸⁷ Sartola quotes Hadiths that describe the Prophet Muhammad’s condition when receiving the Qur’an, saying that “several medical experts” think Muhammad suffered from a neurological disease, like epilepsy. He also quotes 2 Peter 1:20–21 on how true prophecy is transmitted to establish that this is not what happened with the Qur’an. He also suggests that Jesus cured people with a condition like the one Muhammed suffered (Matt 4:24).⁸⁸ After citing Luke 6:37 and its exhortation not to judge or condemn others, Sartola concludes that Muhammad, who judged others, is “a false prophet according to Biblical revelation.”⁸⁹ Such evaluations of Muhammad are typical of Paden’s fourth category of Christianity’s historical approaches to other religions: the attempt to demonstrate their inferiority through comparison.⁹⁰

3.5 Legalism and Sexism: Islam as Inferior In addition to not serving the one true God and being based on revelation that is not from God and therefore delivered by a false prophet, Islam is portrayed as having several additional shortcomings compared to Christianity. The third Runnymede distinction of Islamophobia focuses on ideas of the inferiority of Islam and its barbarism, irrationality, primitiveness and sexism. The authors make numerous claims of this kind. Islam is legalistic and it is oppressive.⁹¹ It is cold, as the personal relationship Christians have with God is unfathomable for Muslims.⁹² Islam requires submission.⁹³ It is intolerant.⁹⁴ It is anti-Semitic.⁹⁵ If a Muslim would like to convert to another religion, Islam teaches that he or she should be killed for it. Even when this does not happen, converts face at least discrimination.⁹⁶

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 63, 70, 73. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 57. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 186. Paden, Religious Worlds, 22–24. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 28–29; Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 167–68. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 322. Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 34–35. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 282. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 66–72, 138. Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 333, 341; Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 277–78.

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In addition to being portrayed as a completely unattractive and fearsome religion, the authors present Islam as being fundamentally incompatible with core western cultural values. Islam cannot accept democracy,⁹⁷ it is hostile to freedom of speech and the media,⁹⁸ it does not separate between mosque and state,⁹⁹ it does not support a scientific worldview¹⁰⁰ and it discriminates against women and sexual minorities.¹⁰¹ In the case of treatment of women, Ahvenainen underlines his argument of Christian superiority with Biblical references, such as Gal 3:28 and 1 Peter 3:7, as well as examples of Jesus’ treatment of women (Luke 4:39; 8:42– 48; John 8:1–11).¹⁰² “We have good reason to ask,” writes Kosonen, “are we losing the values on which a democratic society rests, and replacing it with a partially barbaric, Medieval doctrine, which should have no place in today’s society?”¹⁰³ Barbaric is also the term Sartola uses to describe Islamic practice.¹⁰⁴ The authors do indicate that there is, in their view, something positive to be found as well. At least Kosonen thinks Christians could learn from the love that Muslims have towards their families, as well as their refusal to indulge in alcohol and the self-discipline they show during fasting.¹⁰⁵ The narrative of an Islam that is inferior to western civilization, legalistic, ritualistic, focused on blind obedience and bent on cruel domination of women and the persecution of homosexuals, is certainly not unique to Christian Revivalist authors. Indeed, in addition to ancient comparative approaches aiming at demonstrating Christianity’s moral superiority, they are tapping into a modern and vibrant tradition of anti-immigration and anti-Islam narratives found across Europe both in Christian Revivalist as well as populist and nationalist movements.¹⁰⁶ However, it is noteworthy how Western values and civilization are por-

97 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 170. 98 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 170. 99 Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 45. 100 Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 44. 101 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 62, 252; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 170; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 158–59. 102 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 268–69. 103 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 14. It is ambiguous whether “partially” refers to the degree to which democratic society is replaced or whether Islam is partially barbaric. “Voimme hyvällä syyllä kysyä: Olemmeko menettämässä ne arvot, joihin kansanvaltainen yhteiskunta nojaa, ja korvaamassa sen osittain barbaarisella, keskiaikaisella opilla, jolle ei tämän päivän yhteiskunnassa tulisi olla mitään sijaa?” 104 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 348. 105 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 167. 106 Paden, Religious Worlds, 22–24; Jocelyne Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam: An Exploration of Muslims in Liberal Democracies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 6–10.

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trayed in these narratives. For example, Kosonen speaks of “values, that are important to us in western civilization,” which include democracy, tolerance, pluralism and the right to go on strike.¹⁰⁷ These values are presented as having grown out of Christianity and to be compatible with Christianity. According to Ahvenainen “Western laws are in large part based on Biblical principles, even though they do not directly mention them.”¹⁰⁸ This rewriting of western history stops just short of describing Western values as exclusively Christian values. Nevertheless, the Western values that need a defence in the face of an aggressively advancing Islam, are portrayed as products of Christian societies and Christians are the ones calling out the need to defend them. As Kosonen puts it, “all around the world Christianity has furthered the strengthening of democracy as well as the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.”¹⁰⁹As noted by religion and politics scholar Jocelyne Cesari, the somewhat ahistorical conflation of Christian and Enlightenment values as juxtaposed to Islam has been a feature of recent European anti-Islam rhetoric. Perhaps tellingly of Christian narratives, Cesari’s examples of exponents of such views include a chairman of the Protestant Church in Germany and an editor of a Norwegian Christian paper.¹¹⁰ This comes with its own paradoxes. Revivalist Christians are not, at least in a Finnish context, seen as the foremost defenders of women’s rights and sexual minorities, or even as champions of science and pluralism. For example, many Revivalists have opposed female priesthood and railed against gay marriage rights and feminism in favour of what they have seen as traditional family values. However, the threat of Islam seems to offer an opportunity for realignment. Although Revivalist Christians might in fact share some social concerns with immigrants from conservative Muslims backgrounds, such as a hesitation towards to gay rights, a patriarchal attitude towards women and worries about perceived marginalisation of family values in liberal secular societies, the authors have opted for another approach. By portraying Muslims as having the most conservative and militant positions imaginable, conservative Christians appear liberal in comparison. Even though a large majority of Finns have some Christian affiliation, chiefly as non-practising members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Revivalists have stood out even amongst the minority of practising Christians as conservative or old fashioned. By drawing attention to an Islamic threat to Western society, Revivalist Christians can attempt to realign themselves from the margins to the core. 107 108 109 110

Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 170. Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 270. Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 105. Italics added. Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam, 6–7.

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By claiming mainstream liberal democratic values as specifically Christian, Revivalist are effectively underlining the otherness of Muslims in order to position themselves as belonging squarely in the cultural mainstream. More than that, they are laying claim to that mainstream as being specifically Christian in origin and essence.

3.6 Islam’s Jihad: Violence and Oppression The fourth Runnymede distinction of Islamophobia, Islam seen as violent, aggressive, threatening and supportive of terrorism, is very clearly present throughout the examined books. The true nature of Islam, as revealed by Christian authors looking at it in the light of the Bible, is interpreted as one of violence, oppression, submission and enmity. This is supported both by direct reference to Islamic writings and by the actions and words of various Muslims. Jihad is a central concept for many of the authors and indeed Kosonen named his book Jihad, Islam’s Holy War. It is this aspect of Islam that the authors feel has been most neglected by secular scholars. They believe Islam’s inherent violence and oppression is being actively covered up in the name of political correctness or at the very least naively ignored.¹¹¹ Violence committed by Muslims is seen as flowing directly from Islam. The logic is that “every tree is known by his own fruit” (Luke 6:44).¹¹² There are indeed many examples of violence available, and several authors devote much time to belabouring the point with horror stories from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. Beyond that, violence is seen as something inherent to Islam and required by the Qur’an.¹¹³ According to Kosonen: “Jihad is a living reality in the lives of millions of Muslims and in the coming years it will expand to cover the entire globe.”¹¹⁴ He became “convinced, that the terrorist attacks in the Muslim world” were not due to particular grievances, but rather “they rise from the holy book of the Islamic faith, the Qur’an and its interpretation, which serve as a catalyst in spreading Islam throughout the world.”¹¹⁵ Kosonen, Ahvenainen and Sartola all refer to several verses of the Qur’an in order to prove their point. The cited verses include 2:44; 2:216; 2:218; 4:84; 4:104;

111 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 8–9; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 10. 112 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 86. 113 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 152–57. 114 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 138. 115 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 15.

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8:12–13; 8:59–60; 8:65; 8:74–75; 9:5; 9:13–15; 9:29; 9:93–107.¹¹⁶ The three authors have included references to many of the same verses, such as 2:190–191: And fight in the way of God with those; who fight with you, but aggress not: God loves not the aggressors. And slay them wherever you come upon them, and expel them from where they expelled you; persecution is more grievous than slaying. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they fight you, slay them—such is the recompense of unbelievers.¹¹⁷

Another verse found in all three books—Kosonen, Ahvenainen and Sartola—is 5:33: This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.¹¹⁸

Some of the authors express concern that what they are doing could be considered offensive and insist that this is not their objective.¹¹⁹ Although such assurances may appear facetious in light of the obviously antagonistic tone of the books, they are probably offered quite seriously. The books are meant as guides for Christians who are encountering Islam and the authors aim to present themselves and Christianity as a good example. There is also evidence of hopes, very explicit ones in the case of Ahvio and Keskitalo, that their books could be used in evangelising Muslims.¹²⁰ It is in this context that the familiar approach of literalism yields additional dividends. Insisting on the importance and primacy of the actual words of the Qur’an or the Hadiths provides a strong shelter from accusations of causing offense. After all, the words are not one’s own, they are the true, unfiltered content of Islam. The reverse cherry picking that this approach engenders is not seen as consisting of an interpretative practice. In this it closely mirrors how a Christian literalist theology is not seen by adherents as consisting of interpretation. In

116 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 294–318; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 39–48; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 152–62. 117 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 298; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 40; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 152–53. English translation of the Qur’an by A. J. Arberry. 118 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 295; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 40–41; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 157. English translation of the Qur’an by A. J. Arberry. 119 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 10; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 10, 14; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 14. 120 Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 17–18.

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both cases, the messages are thought to be clear and unambiguous, leaving no need or indeed room for interpretative action. This understanding allows one to treat Muslims as either conforming with the correct understanding of their religion, or not really following their religion. The comments of the former can be taken as further confirmation of the literalist interpretation. If these seem extreme, it is no fault of the Christian author.

3.7 Islam: A Manipulative Political Ideology The fifth Runnymede distinction of Islamophobia relates to viewing Islam as a political ideology that is used for political or military advantage. The authors of the selected Christian Revivalist books on Islam approach their subject as a religion, but also as an all-encompassing way of life and political ideology. Although the term Islamism is sometimes used by the authors, no consistent distinctions are made between Islam as religion and Islamism as a political ideology. Indeed, in Ahvenainen’s words Islam itself is a “political religion, which aims at subjugating all religions, cultures and societies to serve Islam.”¹²¹ Ahvio and Keskitalo focus on faith, not politics, but they too underline how “the Islamic faith cannot and does not differentiate between mosque and state.”¹²² This understanding of Islam means that Muslim immigrants are not only potential proselytisers, but also advocates for a completely different political system. The fact that this is not seen in Finland, is explained through demographics and power dynamics. For example, Kosonen quotes Peter Hammond, a Christian missionary, who sees attitudes of Muslims towards non-Muslims as a function of their power relationship. According to Hammond, Muslims are generally peaceful and tolerant as minorities, but intolerant as majorities.¹²³ Instead of connecting this with broader sociological patterns of behaviour, it is given a doctrinal explanation, which also provides for wilful deception by Muslims in minority positions to disguise their true intentions. According to Sartola, Islam grants believers the right to take liberties with the truth.¹²⁴ Kosonen also explains how Muslims believe they are allowed to mislead and lie to unbelievers.¹²⁵ Fortunately for Christians, they do not need to rely on Muslims to find out about Islam.

121 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 334. 122 Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 45. 123 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 25–26. Kosonen refers to Peter Hammond’s 2005 book Slavery, Terrorism and Islam. 124 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 319. 125 Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 56–57.

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They can access Islamic texts directly to see what they say, as the authors of these Revivalist Christian books have done.

4 Islam, Christianity and the Core of the Western Culture Finnish Christian interest towards Islam has been at a constantly high level for decades, as demonstrated by the relatively large number of books on the topic that have been produced by the Christian publishing subculture. The attitudes surveyed by Pew are indeed reflected in Finnish Christian publishing to the extent that Islam has been a relatively popular topic and that a number of the authors dealing with the subject have expressed negative views of Islam. This is particularly true of the Christian Revivalist or Evangelical scene, which is here taken to encompass Lutheran revivalists, Pentecostals and the Free Church. Although this is definitely a minority, it is not insignificant. Indeed, the attitudes of the Lutheran non-practicing majority as well as the potential connections of Islamophobic Christian literature with this majority and anti-immigration populist movements would certainly provide interesting topics for further research. The extent to which the four books analysed here are representative of broader Finnish Revivalist narratives is also a question left for further research. From the substantial similarities between the books, it seems safe to assume that they at the very least represent a recognisable narrative on Islam within Finnish Revivalist Christianity. This narrative could be summed up as Islam being a false religion that promotes a totalising worldview and an enemy with designs for domination that should be taken seriously and opposed. As we have seen, this narrative closely mirrors The Runnymede Report’s first five distinctions of Islamophobia, namely Islam as a monolithic bloc, Islam as separate and other, Islam as inferior to the West, Islam as violent, and Islam as a political ideology. Although the authors do not justify discrimination or hostility, as mentioned in the other Runnymede distinctions, their messages fit in easily into the first five categories of a closed view of Islam. This seems to suggest a linkage with the international Islamophobic narratives the definitions were created to describe. Indeed, the Finnish authors quote a large number of foreign critics of Islam as sources for their own work, including Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye’or and Robert Spencer. All of these share a similar outlook, which although originally hailing from the extreme right, has in recent years gained access to mainstream discourse. According to Jocelyne Cesari, the two key perceptions focused on in this discourse are Islam as “in-

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compatible with Western values” and Islam’s role as an “external enemy.”¹²⁶ As we have seen, both are amply in evidence in the books analysed here. A key distinction, however, is that unlike secular Islamophobic narratives, the Revivalist narrative attempts to make its case through the use of ample Biblical quotations. It is in effect an attempt to read the Qur’an in light of the Bible. In practice this takes the form of normative comparisons, in which the standard for truth and morality is found in the Bible and any discrepancy in the Qur’an is taken as evidence of untruth and immorality. Even more fundamental to this approach is the interpretative strategy that the Revivalist authors take towards the Qur’an. As they see their own Biblical interpretative approach as more or less literalist, they project the same approach on the Qur’an. To read the Qur’an, to quote Sartola once more, is to see “precisely the image, which Islam itself has created of itself in the Qur’an and the Sunnah.”¹²⁷ This reading of the Qur’an is, for the authors, in and of itself an act of Biblical interpretation carried out in the form of their Biblical interpretative tradition. However, unlike their approach towards their own sacred texts, in the case of the Qur’an this approach is not tempered by rich layers of religious interpretation and complexity. The Christian Revivalist’s “literal reading” is unlikely to be accepted as such, or even as legitimate, by Muslims, as it is made, as it were, in bad faith. It is interesting to note that despite its obvious methodological differences, this way of using the Bible to interpret the Qur’an shares so much of its practical conclusions with more secular Islamophobia. While it is clear that the examined Finnish works drew heavily from a broad existing anti-Islam literature, which is mainly secular in nature, the direction of influence could, in a more fundamental way, also go in the other direction. I am not suggesting that Christian Revivalist readings of Islam have necessarily influenced Western Islamophobic narratives, although this may also be the case. However, the Protestant Revivalist or Evangelical style of literalism may be employed as a default interpretative strategy beyond its religious origins. At the very least this secular fundamentalism, as it might be called, could provide an interesting angle for further research into Islamophobic narratives. An additional important observation is that in the case of the analysed Finnish Revivalist works, Western values and Christian values are portrayed as the same thing. This is certainly not inevitable. Quite the contrary, it might come across as somewhat surprising. A possible explanation may arise from considering what would be accomplished were this equation to be accepted and by looking at mo-

126 Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam, 6–12. 127 Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 346.

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tives for wanting to achieve it. In other words, looking at what this interpretation does. By rekindling old narratives of the threat of Islam, the authors are emphasising an equally ancient Christian triumphalist theme. It recalls a long tradition of juxtaposition between Christendom and Islam. By invoking this past, the authors are implicitly positing Revivalism’s confessional Christianity as the heir of Christendom. Moreover, viewing Islam in the light of the Bible means that only the Bible believing Christians are able to see Islam for what it is. Only they are unwilling to give up on the hard-won fruits of western civilization. Only they remember the true spiritual underpinnings of their societies. It is worth remembering that these accounts of Islam were written in a society in which there are relatively few Muslims and consequently in which Islam is not a central topic of social debate. As comparisons between Christianity and Islam, or exposés of Islam in light of Biblical interpretation, the books inevitably also deal with Christianity as well as Islam. The focus on Islam’s incompatibility with Western culture and values, the very question asked by Pew, and the conflation of these values with the core of Christianity, functions to elevate the relevance of Revivalist Christians. All this gives purpose and direction. Speaking of a perceived threat when others find it more convenient to be silent might be recognised by Revivalist readers as something akin to fulfilling the ancient role of the prophets. The authors of the analysed books explain their motivations as flowing from an obligation to defend Biblical values and recommit to them, to win people over to Jesus, to clearly state the truth of the otherness of Islam, and to wake up to its threat and to oppose it.¹²⁸ Indeed, recent Finnish Christian Revivalist narratives on Islam rise out of such concerns, but they are best explained as a Revivalist rallying cry and a connected Revivalist attempt at social repositioning as the guardian of Western culture and values.

128 Ahvenainen, Islam Raamatun valossa, 454–45; Sartola, Islam: Ystävä vai vihollinen? 348–30; Kosonen, Jihad, islamin pyhä sota, 169–70; Ahvio and Keskitalo, Koraanin Allah vai Raamatun Jumala, 116–17.

Mikael Larsson

Confession, Masculinity and Biblical Reception in Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built The House that Jack Built (2018) features a serial killer who chronicles a life of murdering women, children and a few men.¹ The film’s protagonist, Jack, tells his story to a character named Verge, while descending into hell.² Arguing that one should understand his deeds as works of art, Jack claims to be an “icon-builder,” along with dictators like Hitler and Stalin. Danish director Lars von Trier is known as a polarizing figure in cinema.³ This time also, many viewers think he has gone too far, staging misogyny in an extreme form; others consider the film a self-absorbed gesture, an empty provocation.⁴ Often, critics have dismissed the religious material as irrelevant or have found the use of allegory more outrageous than the violence. These reactions to the religious aspects of the movie challenge me to explore how the movie makes use of biblical themes and motifs. The purpose of the current investigation is to explore the significance of “biblical” traditions in the film’s conceptualization of masculinity and to discuss its broader gender political implications. I here understand biblical tradition in the widest sense of the word, going beyond the use of specific intertexts.⁵ In The

1 I am indebted to Valérie Nicolet (New Testament, Paris), Oulia Makkonen (Global Christianity, Uppsala) and Klara Goedecke (Gender studies, Stockholm) for valuable comments on early and late versions of the chapter. 2 The role of Verge corresponds to that of Vergil in Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy (1472). 3 Linda Badley, Lars von Trier (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 1. 4 Ramin Setoodeh, Variety, May 14, 2018, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/lars-von-triers-thehouse-that-jack-built-causes-walkouts-and-outrage-at-cannes-1202810582/. Richard Brody, “Review: Lars von Trier’s Empty, Repugnant Provocations in ʻThe House That Jack Built,’” New Yorker, December 13, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-lars-von-triers-empty-re pugnant-provocations-in-the-house-that-jack-built. 5 In previous studies of Antichrist (2009) and Nymphomaniac (2013), I have explored the use of specific intertexts. See Mikael Larsson, “Whose enemy? Lars von Trier’s Antichrist in Dialogue with Biblical Creation and Passion Narratives,” in Der Widersacher Gottes – L’Adversaire de Dieu: Internationales Symposion der Theologischen Fakultäten Strasbourg-Tübingen-Uppsala, ed. Michel Tilly (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 305–27 and Mikael Larsson, “Sakraliserad sexualitet: Om bruket av religiösa traditioner i Nymphomaniac,” in Samhällsteologi: Forskning i skärningspunkten mellan akademi, samhälle och kyrka, ed. Jenny Ehnberg and Cecilia Nahnfeldt (Stockholm: Verbum, 2019), 209–35. The House shares a number of structural and thematic parallels with Nymphomaniac, an issue that I will not pursue in this context. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-015

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House that Jack Built (henceforth The House), biblical reception is often implicit and mediated through popular culture. First, The House reworks Dante’s The Divine Comedy (henceforth Comedy), a western classic imbued with canonical material.⁶ Second, biblical traditions permeate the movie through concepts (guilt, forgiveness), practices (confession, allegorical reading) and artefacts (icons, bible illustrations). In this vast material, I concentrate on practices, foremost confession and, to a lesser extent, certain aspects of allegorical reading.⁷ The focus on masculinity is prompted by the film’s staging of men’s violence to women and its legitimation. In looking beyond the obvious re-use of biblical material and in considering why scriptural archives matter outside the academy, the study is an example of reception criticism.⁸ In relationship to this volume, it investigates how sexual politics, as they are evidenced in the film, are shaped by biblical themes. Connecting gender politics to global politics, the study proceeds to interrogate whether The House constitutes a symptom of the re-sacralization of masculinity in our time. In order to do so, I divide the investigation in three main parts. By way of introduction, I present the film in terms of its plot and structure. I then point out key aspects of Raewyn Connell’s definition of masculinity that inform the study, such as the notions of change and hegemony.⁹ I also relate the film to the Nordic context, with regard to feminism, secularization and forerunners in film. In the second part, I survey some elements of more explicit biblical reception, like the names, the notion of call and the use of allegory. I then proceed, in a third part, to a more elaborate analysis of confession from three different angles: confession of sin versus confession of faith, confession as spectacle, and confession as contest. Michel Foucault’s work in the first volume of History of Sexuality is helpful in presenting confession as an arena for subject formation and in describing confession

6 The phenomenon of “great books curriculums” at American universities manifests the interdependence between the literary and religious canons. See Mikael Sjöberg (Larsson), Wrestling with Textual Violence: The Jephthah Narrative in Antiquity and Modernity (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006); Z.G. Baranski, “Dante’s Biblical Linguistics,” Lectura Dantis 5 (1989), 105–43. 7 The focus on practices aligns with Yvonne Sherwood’s call for feminist biblical studies, see “Introduction,” in The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, ed. Yvonne Sherwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3. 8 No consensus pertains to the task, terminology, methodology or theoretical foundations for reception studies. See Mikael Larsson, “Model of Modesty? Sexual Politics and/in/after the Book of Ruth,” Biblical Reception 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015), 177–79, and Emma England and William John Lyons, eds., Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice (Bloomsbury: London, 2015). 9 Raewyn Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

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as ubiquitous in Western society.¹⁰ Masculinity as competition, collective practice and spectacle are further elements from Connell’s theory that play a role in the analysis. The biblical material helps in constructing the distinction between “confession of sin” and “confession of faith”, and a few forays into practical theology provide ground for comparison between the film’s depiction of confession and the practice of confession in America.¹¹

1 Introducing The House that Jack Built 1.1 Synopsis and Structure After productions that mainly stage complex women—from Medea (1988) to Nymphomaniac (2013)—The House appears like a change of direction for von Trier.¹² The women in The House are hyperbolic caricatures of a single aspect, like stupidity, and the male protagonist is not the weak idealist recurrent in the director’s earlier films, but a cold-blooded psychopath.¹³ Yet the thematic correspondences with von Trier’s œuvre are undeniable. For example, The House also features the war between sexes, the relationship between guilt and freedom, or good and evil. Aesthetically, the director not only alludes to, but includes, clips from his previous films.¹⁴ The House begins with a dialogue on the rules of narration. It is set in darkness, at the chronological end of the story. Jack seeks guidelines for his storytelling and Verge, his interlocutor, doubts Jack’s artistic capacity. The account spans over twelve years of Jack’s life (1970’s and 80’s). It is structured in five chapters (“inci-

10 Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: History of Sexuality 1, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin Books, 1998). 11 Jonathan Stotts, “Obedience as Belonging: Catholic Guilt and Frequent Confession in America,” Religions 10, (2019): 370. 12 Complex women figures in von Trier’s films include, e. g., Medea in Medea (1988), Bess in Breaking the Waves (1996), Karen in The Idiots (1998), Selma in Dancer in the Dark (2000), Grace in Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005), the Woman in Antichrist (2009), Justin and Claire in Melancholia (2011), and Joe in Nymphomaniac (2013). 13 Naïve idealists are, e. g., Fisher in Element of Crime (1984), Leopold Kessler in Europa (1991), Tom in Dogville (2003), or the Man in Antichrist (2009). 14 In the fourth incident, to Element of Crime (1984), Riget (1994, 1997), Dogville (2003), Antichrist (2009), and Nymphomaniac (2013).

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dents”) and an epilogue (“katabasis”).¹⁵ Each “incident” conveys a paradigmatic killing, recounted as follows: (1) Jack smashes the head of a hitchhiker, (2) strangles a widow, (3) hunts down a mother and her two sons, (4) mutilates an alleged love interest, and (5) stabs a weapons’ dealer and shoots a police officer. Jack meets Verge at the end of the last “incident.” They are in Jack’s walk-in freezer, where he keeps the corpses of his victims. Encouraged by Verge, Jack builds a “house” of the corpses. Entering this structure, the two men plummet into a black hole and thereby magically escape the police. The epilogue presents their descent through the circles of hell. When they reach the last, deepest one, Jack falls to his death. The film shifts between two levels of narration: the mimetic showing of Jack’s crimes and the discursive quarrel over their interpretation. The real drama resides within the latter: will Jack be able to convince Verge (himself, the viewer) that the killings are indeed works of art (and thus legitimate)? A wide range of digressions occurs at this diegetic level. They concern the arts (music, architecture, poetry, photography, icons), Jack himself (childhood memories and his psychiatric diagnoses), and various cultural aspects of decomposition or destruction (viticulture, ruins, hunting, genocide). When the two levels of narration merge in the epilogue, diegesis transforms into mimesis, as the staging of the present replaces the commenting of the past.

1.2 Masculinities, Feminism and the Nordic Context Given my focus on masculinity, it is necessary to point out a few particularly relevant aspects of Connell’s influential theory of multiple masculinities before the analysis.¹⁶ I also share some considerations about the film’s Nordic context. Two elements of Connell’s definition of masculinity can be identified as being at play in The House. Connell defines masculinities as “configurations of practice structured by gender relations.”¹⁷ Change is constitutive of masculinity, which emerges

15 Cf Jeff Hearn’s empirical study, where informants label their acts of violence as “incidents,” see The Violences of Men: How Men Talk About and How Agencies Respond to Men’s Violence to Women (London: SAGE Publications, 1998), 84–85. 16 Stephen M. Wilson, “Biblical Masculinity Studies and Multiple Masculinities Theory: Past, Present and Future,” in Hebrew Masculinities Anew, ed. Creangă, Ovidiu, (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2019), 21. Mikael Larsson, “Reinventing the Wheel? Or Imagining Collaborative Spaces at the Intersection of Masculinity Studies and Feminist Studies in Biblical Scholarship,” AABNER 1 (2021), 109–44. 17 Connell, Masculinities, 44, 71.

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from historical and political processes. As a “place in gender relations” rather than a stable object (character, behavior, norm), masculinity appears as a moving target, always manifesting in relation to femininity.¹⁸ Instead of affirming the much-repeated trope of masculinity in crisis, Connell prefers to speak of a crisis of the whole gender order.¹⁹ Jack struggles not in isolation. His performance of masculinity takes place in interaction mostly with women and representatives of male power (Verge, the police). Connell elaborates on the power dynamics of the gender order by describing hegemonic masculinity as embodying “the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees […] the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (my emphasis).²⁰ Whereas the material structures of patriarchy (executive power, financial resources, monopoly of violence) largely remain intact, the legitimacy of this order is breaking down.²¹ This problem of legitimacy informs the precedence of diegesis over mimesis in The House. It is Jack’s attempts at rationalizing his crimes (through religion, culture, science) that spark controversy, rather than his access to weapons or money (which make dominance possible).²² Furthermore, his responses to perceived threats from feminism echoes the misogynous rhetoric of politically reactionary movements, an issue to which I will return.²³ Lars von Trier’s work itself sparks controversies around gender politics. In a Nordic context of alleged “state feminism,” this is particularly sensitive.²⁴ Because von Trier persistently thematizes women’s suffering under patriarchy, gender critics debate whether he reifies or exposes mechanisms of power.²⁵ Faced with accusations of sexual harassment, von Trier seems to cultivate, rather than dissipate,

18 Connell, Masculinities, 43–44, 71. 19 Connell, Masculinities, 88. 20 Connell, Masculinities, 77. 21 Connell, Masculinities, 226. 22 On the connection between masculinity and rationality, see Connell, Masculinities, 177. 23 Cf. Connell, Masculinities, 128–30. Johan Fernqvist et al., “Hope, Cope and Rope: Incels i digitala miljöer,” FOI memo 7040 (Stockholm: The Swedish Defense Research Agency, 2020). 24 As of June 2021, all Nordic countries except Sweden had women as prime ministers. Anette Borchorst and Birte Siim, “Woman-friendly Policies and State Feminism: Theorizing Scandinavian Gender Equality,” Feminist Theory 9 (2008): 207–24; Connell, Masculinities, 204–05, 250. 25 Mikael Larsson, “Whose Enemy?,” 305, 324. Hilary Neroni, “Lars von Trier’s Fantasy of Femininity in Nymphomaniac,” in Lars von Trier’s Women, ed. Rex Butler and David Denny (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 215–18; Badley, Lars, 1–16.

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the enmeshment of persona and œuvre. ²⁶ Furthermore, the director stages a tension between the local and the global, by setting The House in the US while filming it in Denmark, Sweden, England and Italy.²⁷ In American politics, the Nordic welfare state sometimes appears as a rhetorical trope; appreciated by liberals as a progressive model for gender equality, criticized by conservatives for weakening the traditional family. Within Scandinavia, the deeds and writings of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik acutely manifest the stakes of the conflict.²⁸ The Nordic #Metoo movements also point to the dissonance between the ideals and the practice of equal rights. Von Trier’s films also challenge a related, somewhat paradoxical aspect, of the Nordic context, namely the notion that Scandinavia is the most secularized region in the world, despite 500 years of Lutheran state churches.²⁹ Three decades of engagement with biblical traditions simultaneously put von Trier at odds with Nordic self-perception and mark continuity with a tradition of Nordic filmmakers, as is most evident with the Dane Carl Theodor Dreyer and the Swede Ingmar Bergman.³⁰ For these three directors, complex female characters and struggle with a religious heritage constitute common denominators.³¹ Critics recurrently understand such wrestling with tradition as denigration of religion. John Caruana and Mark Cauchi give voice to similar sentiment when they label von Trier’s works as “atheist” and “nihilist.”³² In this article, I wish to present a corrective to such

26 See e. g. James Barfield, “Lars Von Trier Denies Inappropriate Behavior With Bjork And Thinks #MeToo Is A ‘Brilliant Idea’,” The Playlist, May 19, 2018, https://theplaylist.net/lars-von-trier-bjorkmetoo-20180519/; Badley, Lars, 1–16. 27 The film was shot in Copenhagen and Gribskov (Denmark), Trollhättan (Sweden), Peak District (England) and Montemerano (Italy). Elsa Keslassy, “Lars Von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built’: New Details Emerge,” Variety, May 14, 2016, https://variety.com/2016/film/global/lars-von-triers-thehouse-that-jack-built-new-details-emerge-1201774572/. 28 See Jorunn Økland, “Death and the Maiden: Manifesto, Gender, Self-canonization and Violence,” in The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, ed. Yvonne Sherwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 15–44. 29 Inger Furseth, “Introduction” and Inger Furseth et al., “Changing Religious Landscapes in the Nordic Countries,” in Religious Complexity in the Public Sphere: Comparing Nordic Countries, ed. Inger Furseth (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1–7, 40–42. 30 For the most comprehensive survey, see Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen, Lars von Trier’s Renewal of Film 1984–2014: Signal, Pixel, Diagram (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2018). The Norwegians Edward Munch and Henrik Ibsen are also important influences; Badley, Lars, 3–4. 31 Dreyer in films like The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Day of Wrath (1943) and The Word (1955), Bergman e. g. in The Seventh Seal (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), and the “God trilogy” (Through a Glass Darkly [1961], Winter Light [1963] and The Silence [1963]). 32 John Caruana and Mark Cauchi contrast von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) with Terence Malick’s Tree of Life (2011) in “What is Postsecular Cinema? An Introduction,” in Immanent Frames: Postsec-

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interpretation, and point to the intricate ways in which von Trier engages biblical traditions.³³ Theologians and bible scholars have taken great interest in von Trier’s films with obvious “Christ figures,” like Breaking the Waves (1996).³⁴ While less obviously recognized as a “Jesus movie,” his latest film is equally relevant to the guild.³⁵ The House interrogates the nature of man and the intricacies of interpretation. The film also indicate the extent of entanglement between biblical traditions and western artistic culture, in this case Dante and nineteenth century painters.

2 Biblical traditions in The House that Jack Built In this first part of the analysis, I survey more general elements reminiscent of biblical tradition, like names, setting and allegory.

2.1 The Protagonists and the Setting In the Hebrew Bible, names and naming often function as a way of defining characters, most evidently with Adam for “man” and Eve for “life,” but also with singletrait types like Orpah (“neck”) or complex figures like Jacob (“heel”/“deceive”).³⁶ In The House, the names of the main characters display a similar logic. A medieval diminutive of John (possibly influenced by Jacques), “Jack” early on served as a reference to any “man,” but the film’s title also recalls an English nursery rhyme, where the name is used in such a manner.³⁷ The modern expression “Jack of all trades, master of none” fits the film’s protagonist, as someone who is crafty but excels at nothing (except killing). Today, “Jack” can occur as a short name for Jaqueline (although Jackie remains more common). This is the name given to the

ular Cinema between Malick and von Trier, ed. John Caruana and Mark Cauchi (New York: New York State University, 2018), 1, 6. 33 Larsson, “Whose,” 309. 34 Badley, Lars, 69–100; Larsson, “Whose,” 305–07. 35 Adele Reinhartz, Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2013), 57–82. 36 On naming as exertion of power, see Mieke Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), 73–77, 106–07, 129–30. 37 “Jack” may stem from the French name Jacques (and thereby James and Jacob). C.T Onions, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). The title plays on the British rhyme, “This is the House that Jack Built.” Other examples are “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Jack Sprat.” James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England: Collected Chiefly from Oral Tradition, 4th ed. (London: John Russell Smith, 1846), no. 398, 175–78.

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only named victim (fourth “incident”). Jack renames her “Simple,” as part of the violence she undergoes in his hands, and thereby breaks their suggested interconnectedness.³⁸ “Verge,” an abbreviation of the Latin name Vergilius, occurs in colloquial French, most commonly for “penis,” less frequently for “incomplete virgin.”³⁹ The ambiguity of the term corresponds to the director’s characteristic mixing of fine arts and popular culture, and to the unisex aspect of “Jack.” Together, the two names suggest unstable masculinity as a key topic, staging generic man in dialogue with a representative of divine phallic power.⁴⁰ “Jack” invokes biblical tradition by analogy, presenting a collective (mankind) as an individual (Adam), whereas “Verge” specifically points to Dante’s Comedy. The setting of the film is suggestive of certain strands from biblical traditions that I here wish to point out, without developing them fully. Descent into hell serves as the narrative frame for Jack’s and Verge’s conversation. The film here connects to apocalyptic motifs and the concept of final judgement, although mediated through popular culture. Images of red lava and drowning people, the buzzing sound (from the cries of damned souls) and the bad taste (of sulphur) in Jack’s mouth all belong to stock conventions of doomed afterlife. The film deviates from biblical apocalypticism, however, in presenting Jack’s downward journey as a uniquely individual experience. It also omits the dualism between good and evil as well as the prospect of a final upheaval of the world order. The name of the epilogue—katabasis—invokes the frequent mythological theme of the hero who travels down to the netherworld to retrieve a loved one or gain access to new knowledge, like Orpheus, Odysseus and Aeneas.⁴¹ In the New Testament, the gospel of John can be read through the reciprocal movements of katabasis (the Word descending to earth) and anabasis (the Word returning to God at the crucifixion).⁴² It also appears in popular culture, where it denotes the

38 The name “Simple” echoes the story of Nabal in 1 Sam 25:25. The generic and gender-inclusive aspects of “Jack” constitute a further link to “Joe” in Nymphomaniac (2013). 39 D-Maul, “Verge,” August 8, 2018, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Verge. 40 Gabriel appears as a biblical namesake to Verge, on philological and narrative grounds. The Hebrew term ‫ ֶגֶבר‬signifies “man” and “warrior,” while retaining a secondary sexual meaning (Judg 5:30). In Rabbinic Hebrew, it becomes the regular term for “(powerful) penis.” See Hans Kosmala, “‫ ָגַבר‬,” TDOT 2:378. In Dan 8−9, Gabriel plays the role of powerful interpreter; in Luke 1, he brings the news of pregnancy. See Tyler Myfield, “Gabriel I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,” and Dale C. Allison, “Gabriel II. New Testament,” EBR 9:859–60. 41 From the Greek κατά “down” and βαίνω “go.” Homer, Od. 10:504–11:50. Vergil, Aen. 6:125–55, Ovid, Metam. 4:432−79. 42 Cf. the figure of Lazarus (Joh 11:1–12:7).

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hero’s descent into the dark side of society or into its subconscious.⁴³ The founder of the mythopoetic men’s movement, Robert Bly, offers an example of such usage in Iron John. ⁴⁴ To Bly, katabasis represents the young man’s experience of humiliation and shame, a necessary phase before the goal of mature manhood. The House differs from both classical and contemporary usages of the concept by only staging the downward movement and by holding the viewer in suspense as to what Jack achieves through this journey.

2.2 The Call Jack’s and Verge’s relationship is constituted by speech and their ongoing verbal battle serves as an arena for performing masculinity. In the following, I will show how they emerge as speakers infused by biblical tradition.⁴⁵ First, one can read the scene of their first encounter as a variation of the call narrative. Appearing only at the end of the fifth “incident,” the meeting takes place in darkness, in the suddenly unlocked inner room of Jack’s walk-in freezer. The repeated interpellation (“Jack, Jack”) coming seemingly out of nowhere, the transformation of the mundane (empty freezer) into a site of revelation and Jack’s initial bewilderment (silence, intimidation) are all consistent with prophetic protocol.⁴⁶ Unlike vocation stories in the Bible, however, no new or external assignment is given. Jack’s concern, once he regains his voice, is whether someone will stop him. For Verge, the act of commissioning consists in modifying Jack’s course of action, persuading him to proceed from the immediate task (killing) to the ultimate one (building a house). Verge establishes himself in a position of dominance vis-à-vis Jack through gentle nudging and indulgence with Jack’s lack of resolve. Verge’s manner of speech is reminiscent of YHWH, in the call of Moses, and of Vergil in the Comedy. ⁴⁷ Jack confirms his subordinate position by first lashing out, even if not at the quest,

43 Judith Fletcher, Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 44 Robert Bly uses a fairy tale by the Grimm brothers to model the development of ideal masculinity, in Iron John: A Book about Men (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1990). 45 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 79–110; David Clines, “Dancing and Shining at Sinai,” in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, ed. Ovidiu Creangă (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010), 56. 46 Cf. Exod 3:4; 1 Sam 3:10. Uriel Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives; trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 51–58. 47 Exod 3:1–4:17. Dante, The Divine Comedy, e. g. Purgatory 3:23–24, 66; 4:46–47; 5:10; 12:6; 15:120.

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and then doing what he is told. Both recalcitrance and self-doubt are common denominators with recipients of divine calls in the prophets.⁴⁸ The partly formal address of the first encounter occasionally resurfaces in Jack’s speech. For the most part, however, the interaction between the two men has a familial tone, manifesting through first name address and constant quarrel. Verge often speaks to Jack as if to a small or ignorant child, who needs encouragement and guidance, and is oblivious to what is best for him. Jack in turn alternates between seeking approval and protesting Verge’s authority. Usage of family language for other close, if hierarchical, relationships is common both in the Hebrew Bible and in Dante’s Comedy. In the Wisdom tradition, family language denotes the relationship between disciple and teacher.⁴⁹ In the Latter Prophets, marriage and parenthood are key metaphors for YHWH’s relationship with the people, assuming the subordination of the bride or of the child.⁵⁰ In Dante’s Comedy, the language of parent and child marks the relationship between Dante and Vergil in several ways. The two men recurrently address one another as “son” and “father.”⁵¹ Vergil’s physical care and protection of Dante is described as that of a mother and father with a small child.⁵² Although he abstains from using outright slander, Vergil incessantly rebukes Dante for his fear and tiredness and urges him to be strong.⁵³ Dante in turn, doubts his capacity and bemoans his cowardice. Vergil here emerges as a model (of masculinity) for Dante to imitate. These various echoes from biblical tradition, in part mediated through Dante, contribute to construct Jack’s and Verge’s relationship as hierarchical. They echo the teacher-disciple and parent-child dynamic, also through the inferior’s contestation of the superior party.

48 Moses and Jeremiah explicitly articulate self-doubt (Exod 3:11; 4:1, 10; Jer 1:6), whereas to Jack it appears implicitly (through concession of failure). 49 See, e. g., Prov 1:8, 10, 15; 2:1; 3:1, 11; 4:3, 10, 20; 5:1, 20; Eccl 12:12; Sir 7:3. Cf. 1 Sam 3:6, 16, and more ambiguously, 1 Sam 24:17; 26:17. Chris Caragounis,”‫ ” ֵבּן‬TDOT 1:671–77. 50 See, e. g., Susan E. Haddox, “Engaging Images in the Prophets: Feminist Interpretations of the Book of the Twelve,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospect 1: Biblical Books, ed. Susanne Scholz (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), 170–91, and Deryn Guest, Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012), 77–117. 51 Dante, The Divine Comedy, Purgatory 1:112; 13:34; 15:24, 124, 27:21. 52 Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno 19:124–130; 23: 37–42, 31:28–30, Purgatory 27:44. 53 Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno 24:52–54, 65–66; 29:22; 30:131–135, 139–143. Purgatory 3:23, 66; 9:48; 12:6; 15:120; 19:35, 53. The call to be strong and have courage (Inferno 17:81) resonates with YHWH’s near generic call to the people in the Hebrew Bible, “do not be afraid” (‫)אל־תיראו‬.

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2.3 Allegory Another, fundamental aspect of Jack’s and Verge’s interaction concerns the use of allegory. Although not originating in Jewish and Christian traditions, allegory is central to both, as compositional method and hermeneutical reading tool.⁵⁴ The House stages allegory on at least three levels.⁵⁵ First, as already established, the film evokes Dante’s Comedy, most clearly through its setting (hell) and the figure of the guide (Verge), but also through the notions of life as a journey facing impending judgement.⁵⁶ Whereas the Comedy steers upward, the film dramatizes descent. Like Dante’s Comedy, the movie allegorizes human struggle through religious categories. Yet, the effect of this usage of allegory is ambiguous. Is the viewer witnessing a re-enchantment of the secular man, or a parody of such re-enchantment? Through the practice of allegory, secondly, Jack inserts himself into yet another collective of authoritative males, namely, influential speakers in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. With figures like the Hebrew prophets, Jesus and Paul, allegorical speech serves as a means of exercising interpretative power, in communicating the divine word and in affecting the outlook and the fates of their communities.⁵⁷ Across literary genres, these speakers wield allegory in contexts of strife with other men. Jack has a smaller audience (Verge and himself ), but similarly high stakes. He shows little interest in saving his life, however, the interpretive battle concerns his perception of his death. Will Jack obtain the honor of his (alleged) peers or will he depart in disgrace? Third, the film recycles a series of motifs frequent in and distinctive of biblical allegory, such as the house, the wine and sickness. Jack leaves no one behind who could carry on his name, in contrast to the “houses” of patriarchs and Israelite kings.⁵⁸ His failure as a house builder exceeds even that of the foolish man in Matt 7:24–27. Tearing down every attempt at construction in his building lot, Jack finally assembles a house of corpses in his freezer, without foundation, a house by name only. Jack’s most elaborated allegory concerns viticulture, which 54 David Konstan and Ilaria Ramelli, “Allegory I. Greco-Roman Antiquity,” Ilaria Ramelli, “ Allegory II. Judaism” and Kenneth Hagen, “Allegory III. New Testament,” EBR 1:780–96. 55 I refrain from considering the biographical level, i. e., the film as an allegory for the artist himself. 56 Francesco Flamini and Freeman M. Josselyn, Introduction to the Study of the Divine Comedy (Boston: Ginn and Company, 2014), 67–90, 112–34. 57 E. g., Isa 6:9–10; Jer 1:10; Matt 21:45–46; Gal 4:21–5:1. 58 Jack leaves a non-existing household (bet). See Larsson, “Trouble in God’s Household: Children and Parents in the Frame of Isaiah,” in La Maison de Dieu /Das Haus Gottes /The House of God: 7e Colloque international, Strasbourg-Tübingen-Uppsala, ed. Christian Grappe (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 81–132.

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relates to various strands of biblical tradition. The art of growing grapes connects to the topic of Israel as YHWH’s vineyard in the prophets and to the identification of Jesus as the true vine in the Johannine tradition.⁵⁹ The expectation of good produce and the meticulous care of the farmer here constitute common denominators.⁶⁰ The film’s usage of this imagery implies Jack in the role of the wine grower, i. e. the Godhead, whose conscientious work (killing) yields the finest of crops (art). One additional element of the viticulture allegory, the notion of “noble rot,” recalls the representation of sin as physical disease. Whereas the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament attest, and protest against, the connection of sickness with transgression, Jack the viticulturist inverts the relation altogether.⁶¹ He presents rottenness as sublimity. The film challenges Jack’s claim, however, through shifts in focalization. On the one hand, archival material lends support to Jack’s self-perception as grandiose, through juxtaposition with tyrants that are authoritative for him. On the other hand, Jack’s condition is seen from outside, through projections of psychiatric diagnoses and childhood flashbacks. Pathology thus seem to make self-awareness possible and allow Jack to label himself as an artist or even as the ultimate work of art. At the same time, pathology most often appears as hyperbolic, whether by practicing empathy in the mirror or by giving in to cleaning obsessions at a crime scene. Alternating between the possibilities of condemnation and understanding, the film evokes the question of whether one can hold a sick person (or mankind?) accountable, even for the most outrageous actions.

3 Confession In a second step of the analysis, I investigate three different aspects of the motif of confession in the film.

3.1 The Concept of Confession The House introduces the notion of confession in its very first dialogue. Verge meets Jack’s seemingly casual set of questions—“Can I ask you something…”—

59 E. g., Isa 5:1–7; 27:2–5; Joh 15:1–6. 60 The threat of violence upon failed crops is another common feature, whereas Israel as the bad vine (Isaiah) and Jesus as the good one (John) constitute contrasts of allegorical usage. 61 See, e. g., Fredrik Lindström, Suffering and Sin: Interpretation of Illness in the Individual Complaint Psalms (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994); John T. Carroll, J. T., “Sickness and Healing in the New Testament Gospels,” Int 49 (1995), 130–42.

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with the general observation that “People are overcome with the need to confess along these tracks.” The context obviously connotes final judgement and Verge’s comment on the non-uniqueness of Jack’s predicament supports an eschatological understanding of the situation. Through Dante, the film invokes biblical traditions, where “confession” connotes an expression of faith as well as a recognition of sins.⁶² In the Hebrew Bible, both aspects restore the relationship between God and humans.⁶³ In the New Testament, the functions of confession are more heterogeneous: confession of faith as a boundary and identity marker, confession of sins relating to topics like eschatological judgment, conversion, healing and forgiveness.⁶⁴ Furthermore, the narrative frame of the film (a conversation about the significance of a person’s life works) points to the practice of confession. In what sense, then, would Jack’s tale qualify as confession? At a legal level, the staging of the “incidents” is itself a confession, since Jack admits to having perpetrated a number of crimes.⁶⁵ Still, his account cannot count as a confession of sin, since it is devoid of contrition and does not lead to penance. One could see Jack’s speech as a confession of faith, however, in the sense of a declaration of beliefs and worldviews, uttered in the face of impending death. A combination of idealist Romanticism and Nietzschean polemics constitute central components to Jack’s confession. In the second “incident,” Jack introduces William Blake’s two poems, “The Tyger” and “The Lamb,” to argue that the roles of victim and perpetrator are equally “perfect and necessary.”⁶⁶ He then identifies the artist with the tiger, someone who lives on “blood and murder.”⁶⁷ In the fourth “incident,” Jack elaborates on this imagery in terms informed by Nietzsche’s critique of religion: “Religion has ruined people […] Your God teaches people to deny the tiger in them, to be slaves.”⁶⁸ In an extreme consequence of such reasoning, Jack identifies mass-murderers as “icon-builders.” By the same logic, Jack speaks of God as the ultimate artist, named “The Great Architect.” This terminology recalls Christian thinkers like Thomas of Aquinas and John Calvin, but it also appears in Freemasonry, the world’s oldest, largest (exclusively

62 W.R.F. Browning, “Confession,” A Dictionary of the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Ugo Bianchi and René Gothóni, “Confession of sins,” ER 3:1883–90. 63 Elaine James, “Confession I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,” EBR 5:606. 64 Kobus Kok, “Confession II. New Testament,” in EBR 5:606–08. 65 Jonathan Law, “Confession and Avoidance,” in A Dictionary of Law, ed. Jonathan Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 66 William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (London: Printed by Catherine Blake and William Blake, 1789–1794, 1826). 67 Verge comments that Jack reads Blake “like the devil reads the Bible.” 68 See Larsson, “Whose,” 309 and Badley, Lars, 110.

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male) fraternal society, pointing to God as the Creator who controls the universe.⁶⁹ In Jack’s interpretation, “The Great Architect” stands above morality. The housebuilding allegory manifests Jack’s aspiration to identify with the divine qua artist, a display of his belief in his own Great Architect status. Jack’s practice of confession also evokes Michel Foucault’s work on confession. For Foucault, confession moves away from being a specific element connected to the sacrament of penance (codified at the Council of Trent in 1215) to become a dominant feature of secular society. Confession permeates everyday relationships to the point that Foucault famously designates “Western man (sic)” as a “confessing animal.”⁷⁰ Jack, representative of humankind and “confessing animal,” resists the disciplining aspects of confession. He seeks neither penance nor self-improvement. His preparation for judgment consists in articulating his convictions, rather than in self-scrutiny. Through speech, he negotiates his relationship with hegemony, thereby seeking to transform the quality of his actions and, possibly, to alter the accepted expressions of hegemony.

3.2 Confession as Spectacle Jack’s non-confession of sins and apologetic confession of faith raise two issues pertinent to masculinity, namely, its connection to violence and its function as a collective practice. In her case study of young unemployed men, Connell understands violence as an expression of marginalized masculinity.⁷¹ Staging hegemony in exaggerated ways is the group’s protest against deprivation and possibly serves as an attempt to regain the “patriarchal dividend.”⁷² This practice of “spectacular display” unites the fictional Jack with Connell’s group of marginalized men, while challenging the quiet assent that characterizes hegemony.⁷³ At the mimetic level of

69 The full title is “The Great Architect of the Universe.” See, e. g., Matthew Scanlan, in “Freemasonry I. Religious Movements,” EBR 9:693. 70 Foucault, The Will, 59, 61, 63. 71 Connell, Masculinities, 94–95, 98–99, 106–09. 72 Connell, Masculinities, 15–17, 111, 114–19. 73 Connell, Masculinities, 112–13. Cf Stephen D. Moore, God’s Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible (New York: Routledge, 1996). Spectacular killings abound in the Hebrew Bible, see, e. g., Judg 1:12– 13; 8:20–21; 11:39; 12:6; 14:19; 15:8, 15–16; 1 Sam 17; 18:26–27. Stephen M. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 101–02, 130–40. Whether men’s violence reinforces or subverts hegemony is contested by masculinity scholars and varies in different contexts. See e. g. Jeff Hearn, “A Multi-faceted Power Analysis of Men’s Violence to Known Women: From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men,” The Sociological Review 60 (2012): 595, 603.

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narration, Jack’s murders certainly are a manifestation of excess. The conscientiousness, with which he photographs his victims, sends pictures to the local press and thus creates a persona (“Mr. Sophistication”), points in the same direction. The grandiosity of such acts contrasts to Jack’s situation and his sense of deprivation in relation to women. At the same time, these gestures appear as attempts to legitimize the violence, i. e., to re-integrate explicit dominance within current hegemony.⁷⁴ Aesthetics lies at the heart of Jack’s and Verge’s interaction also at the diegetic level of narration. Already their first dialogue centers on the rules and artistic quality of speech. Jack’s account of the killings represents a mere fraction of the total number. The step involved in constructing the killings as “incidents” thus assumes selection and elaboration. Far from literally comprehensive, one can perceive the five incidents as paradigmatic examples of the whole. The emphasis lies on the form of the speech-act, rather than on its content.⁷⁵ Jack’s story appears as a case of creative “truth production,” not only providing an excess of information, but also in showing meticulous care concerning its outer shape.⁷⁶ The practice of “spectacular display” also manifests in the diligence of Jack’s interpretative efforts. A carefully crafted speech here becomes the means for transformation. In contrast to a confession of sin, however, the transformation is not about eradicating guilt. Rather, the sought metamorphosis consists in exalting ignoble crimes to the level of great works of art, thereby changing the rules of the game. Fitting his story of violent acts into a grander narrative of male heroism, Jack inserts himself in collectives of male tyrants and artists as figures of identification or competition.⁷⁷ Jack’s confession of faith, expressing a nostalgia for the time before feminism and democratic rule of law, makes penance impossible. Paradoxically, it might still fulfill a similar function; Jack’s laborious speech act serves as a plea for acceptance, and for redemption from a life of insignificance. The success of such an effort, however, is fundamentally uncertain.⁷⁸ Jack’s fate, like that

74 I am indebted to Klara Goedecke for clarifying the distinction between dominance and hegemony. 75 Jonathan Stotts identifies a similar emphasis in confessional practice in American Catholicism, where the ideal of “integral” confession has encouraged the superficial. See Stotts, “Obedience,” 2– 3, 10–11, 13, 16–17. 76 Foucault, The Will, 63–64. Hearn identifies informants’ talk about violence as a means of ‘selfdisclosure,’ see Hearn, The Violences, 84. 77 I am indebted to Oulia Makkonen for pointing out the exclusively male character of the art canon that Jack assumes, including works by e. g. Pablo Picasso, Eugène Delacroix and William Blake. 78 Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto serves a similar logic; see Økland, “Death,” 17–23.

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of the penitent sinner, lies in the hands of a higher power (here represented by the viewer). The occurrence of “mock” confessions provides further evidence of confession as spectacle, uniting the mimetic and diegetic levels of narration.⁷⁹ In the fourth “incident,” Jack tells both Jacqueline and a police officer that he is a killer. What appears as a terrifying statement of “truth” inside her apartment transforms into an implausible drama outside, through alleged exaggeration (“I have killed 60 people”) and generalization (“I’m a horrible person”). Veiling truth through hyperbole, these speech acts lack the remorse of a confession of sin. Asking for Jacqueline’s forgiveness here becomes an example of insincere penitence, to manipulative ends. Back inside, Jack shifts from dialogue to lecture. He laments the unfairness of men’s alleged guilt and women’s privileged status as victims, while he is mutilating Jacqueline. Jack thereby stages maximal disconnect between words and actions. I perceive his ramblings on gender as a rare example of a confession of faith at the mimetic level. The episode highlights Jack’s attempt to transform violence into discourse, and thereby demonstrates the interaction between violence and talk of violence.⁸⁰

3.3 Confession as Contest and Complicity In the following, I will analyze what impact confession has on the power struggle in Jack’s and Verge’s interaction. As a performative speech, confession “unfolds within a power relationship.”⁸¹ Foucault has shown that it has an impact both on the confessant and the confessor. The confessor as the authority who requires and prescribes the act intervenes through judgment, forgiveness or consolation.⁸² The confessant, in turn, modifies personhood by corroborating “truth.”⁸³ In the previous section, I have focused on the confessant, Jack, and the effect that confession had for him, here I propose to say a few words about the confessor, and develop more the interactions between the two men. Even though Verge obviously functions as the recipient of confession, he deviates from the role of the minister in several ways. First, he is ambivalent about his

79 Mock confessions also appear in the second and fifth incidents, as well as in Europa (1991) and The Boss of it All (2005). 80 Jeff Hearn conceptualizes violence and talk of violence as “material/discursive,” i. e. integrated “bodily happenings,” in his empirical study, The Violences, 66. 81 Foucault, The Will, 61. 82 Foucault, The Will, 61. 83 Foucault, The Will, 62.

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task, alternatively being a resisting and an interested listener. Focusing on the aesthetic aspects of confession, evident in his initial reserve and final acknowledgement, he still maintains the evaluative function that Foucault assumes.⁸⁴ Verge’s remarks are sometimes clearly sarcastic, more often ambiguous, expressing patronizing or appreciative judgement. Jack oscillates between accepting and challenging Verge’s authority. On the one hand, he seeks Verge’s approval by bragging about his killings. On the other hand, he accuses Verge of mediocrity and hypocrisy, even though it is Jack himself who fails to convince Verge through his own storytelling. Such bouts of hubris render visible the aspect of competition in their interaction. Jack only occasionally succeeds in provoking Verge to leave the position of unperturbed authority. This happens in the fourth “incident” when Jack and Verge have what I perceive as their sharpest disagreement. Calling Verge a “bitter old bastard,” Jack immediately elaborates on his belief in decomposition as a “way of salvation.” After labeling Jack as “Antichrist” and “entirely depraved,” Verge takes the edge off his criticism through an anecdote about concentration camps. Name-calling and accusations thus lead to more personal sharing, creating proximity, or complicity, rather than distance.⁸⁵ Verge demonstrates lack of self-control, but nothing indicates that he suffers proper dethronement. For Jack, the exchange of insults is part of the greater effort to demonstrate his manhood. The staging of emotional intensity between two presumably straight males is a feature that the film shares with the “bromance,” and its precedent, the “buddy film.”⁸⁶ Verge’s presence (and phallic name) points even further back, to the idealization of friendship between men among the ancient Greeks and Romans.⁸⁷ In presenting the relationship between the men as unambiguously a-sexual, however, the film departs from the recent development of the “bromance” genre in film.⁸⁸

84 Foucault, The Will, 64. 85 The effect accords with Foucault’s notion of “the basic intimacy of discourse.” Foucault, The Will, 62. 86 Michael DeAngelis, Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film and Television (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2014), 1, 10. Rachel Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan… and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 203–04. The House shares four of six criteria with the buddy film (a journey, marginalization of women, absence of a home, death of a protagonist). If not easily recognized as a “love story,” it departs from the standard Hollywood trajectory towards matrimony. 87 DeAngelis, Reading, 4. The nature of David and Jonathan’s relationship is a site of contestation in biblical scholarship, see e. g. Anthony Heacock, Jonathan Loved David: Manly Love in the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Sex (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 128–50. 88 DeAngelis postulates the tension between what must happen (intimacy) and what must never happen (sexual desire) as constitutive of the “bromance.” See DeAngelis, Reading, 1–10.

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The absence of sexual tension is consistent with the conspicuous displacement of sex by violence as the topic of Jack’s “confession.”⁸⁹ The emotionally charged contest signals interdependence, by preserving rather than challenging the status quo of their relationship. Discourse here constitutes a space for mutual, if not symmetrical, subject formation. These men offer and receive recognition from each other, securing their respective position in the gender order, and thereby authenticating the system. Verge, as the representative of hegemony, feeds on the challenge to bolster his authority. Jack, complicit and subordinate, thrives in the closeness to power.

4 Conclusion: Re-enchantment of Masculinity? Where then does Jack’s discursive frenzy finally lead him? At the very end of the film, Jack attempts the impossible, to climb past the abyss and out of hell. Verge’s warnings do not stop Jack. He dies without recognizing any fault, as the anti-hero par excellence. Is the literal fall into the lava an indication that his confession of faith has failed? The shift to negativity in the final image can be interpreted as confirmation of Jack’s conviction by the narratorial instance. Jack’s slightly premature death means a partial failure for Verge, who expected to deliver Jack a few circles higher. Acquiescing that the excursion was a “kind of favor,” Verge attests to the potency of Jack’s speech, even though, as a confession, it allegedly works in the “wrong” direction, since it affects the recipient rather than the confessant.⁹⁰ Jack’s death signifies different things in relation to confession. Since he offers neither confession of sin nor penance, he also does not receive absolution. His character undergoes no development; his status remains analogous to the unrepentant sinner. However, one could also see his death as the climactic ending of a confession of faith, which by analogy would place him in the company of martyrs. Being ready to die for one’s beliefs would then serve as the confirmation of faithfulness, and, for Jack, bolster his claims to hegemony. Facing death in the deepest circle of hell, remaining true to his ideals and with an esteemed superior as a witness, amounts to staging his exit as the ultimate drama, a last gesture of spectacular display. In a final ambiguous twist, the credits roll to Ray Charles’ song “Hit the Road Jack” (1962). While the song declares that Jack is not welcome

89 Cf. Foucault, The Will, 61, Stotts, “Obedience,” 10–13, Hearn, The Violences, 146–47. 90 Cf. Bob Plant’s critique of Foucault, in “The Confessing Animal in Foucault and Wittgenstein,” JRE 34 (2006): 554.

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back and that this is goodbye, it simultaneously affirms Jack’s place in popular culture’s hall of fame of male heroes (or anti-heroes). Situating the film in the 1970s and 80s points to the relation between past and present masculinities. Locating the film at a moment in history when the women’s movement seriously challenged the gender order allows von Trier to project the issues of the present to a more or less distant past.⁹¹ The attentive viewer is thereby invited to reconsider the common assumption of progress in gender relations. In the last decade, militant misogyny has gained new visibility through for example the alt-right and the Incel movements.⁹² Aggressive displays of power and indifference to violence or death appear also at the highest political level.⁹³ These phenomena underline the collective aspect of men’s violence, how the local and the global, the “extreme” and “mundane,” or, to speak with Connell, hegemonic and complicit, masculinities, intersect. They also indicate how gender politics impregnate the “general” political landscape. Furthermore, these developments are suggestive of masculinity as spectacle. The fictional Jack shares some common traits with the all too real Anders Behring Breivik. Both operate as a lone wolf but also insist on being part of a global ideological community.⁹⁴ In both cases, religious traditions offer material for rationalizing violence and for cultural belonging. Breivik presents himself as “righteous” and Jack insists on artistic “authenticity.”⁹⁵ Jack strives, through discourse, to qualify for the circles of infamous tyrants, canonical artists and authoritative speakers. Breivik claims a place among the warriors defending Christendom. The connection between the average man and the representatives of hegemony happens through both self-designated identification and pleas for external recognition.

91 Cf. Cecil B Demille’s treatment of cold war sentiments in The Ten Commandments (1956). See Reinhartz, Bible, 40–41, 43–44. 92 Fernqvist et al., “Hope.” Hanna Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel, The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right (London: SCM Press, 2020), 1–7. 93 E. g. Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, and Viktor Orban, in relation to issues like the pandemic, the “war on drugs,” and domestic violence. See, e. g., Susan Abraham, “Masculinist Populism and Toxic Christianity in the United States,” Concilium 2 (2019): 61–72. Eva Lundgren has pointed to the relation between “extreme” and “normal” men, in Gud og hver mann: Seksualisert vold som kulturell arena for å skape kjønn (Oslo: Cappelen, 1990). 94 See Økland, “Death,” 15–44, and Hanna Strømmen, “Christian Terror in Europe? The Bible in Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto,” JBRec 4 (2017), 147–69. 95 Strømmen, “Christian,” 155–62.

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Jack’s self-perception as the Great Architect accords with the logic of Mary Daly’s famous dictum: “if God is male, then the male is God.”⁹⁶ Whereas Daly assumes a direct and unadulterated relationship between the divine and human “male,” the film demonstrates the extent to which this relation is a matter of negotiation and contestation. In the end, the viewer needs to decide whether Jack’s claim to hegemony is successful.⁹⁷ Daly foresaw that “ideologies can die, though they die hard.”⁹⁸ I believe that goes for both religion and gender orders. Judging from sociological studies, it seems plausible that most Scandinavians would find Jack’s confession of faith counter-cultural in 2021.⁹⁹ At the same time, his tale aligns with the celebration of violent misogyny and “political incorrectness,” in subcultures as well as in the comment fields of mainstream media.¹⁰⁰ So is Jack’s tale really a re-enchantment of masculinity? Do the elements of uncertainty and spectacle provide grounds for perceiving the moving target of masculinity as a joke, to be laughed at as an ugly remnant from history, or as a veiled threat of what men truly are like beneath the surface, to be manifested when the “deplorables” take their revenge? Are we witnessing a disarmament of the critique against patriarchy or an exposure of misandry? The film offers no obvious resolutions to such queries. Rather, it reveals the difficulty of pinpointing a “currently accepted answer” to the problem of legitimizing patriarchy.¹⁰¹ I regard The House as a distorting mirror for our time, where toxic masculinity proves to be far from dead, no matter how many times we pronounce, or imagine, its fall into the deepest of hell.

96 Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Beacon Press: Boston, 1973), 19. Peter-Ben Smit, Masculinity and the Bible: Survey, Models, and Perspectives (Brill: Leiden 2017), 23. 97 Connell, Masculinities, 73–74. 98 Daly, Beyond, 13. 99 What Daly (Beyond, 13) perceived as a reified belief system in 1973 has morphed into the complex situation of postsecular society. See Furseth, “Introduction,” 13–22 and Furseth et al., “Changing,” 40–42, 60–66. 100 Fernqvist, “Hope,” 9–11. 101 Connell, Masculinities, 77.

V The Nordic Bible from the Outside

James Crossley

Contextualising the Nordic Bible(s): A Response As an outsider who has nevertheless spent much time in Nordic universities discussing the Bible, I am grateful to be able to respond to this fine collection of essays which make a significant contribution (theoretically and empirically) to the growing area of the reception of the Bible in political discourses. In this response, I want to use this volume to highlight some of the ongoing and shifting emphases in contemporary understandings of the Bible which have now become clearer in light of the essays. I do this in the spirit of the volume which recognises that what is assumed to be “the Bible” involves constantly changing assumptions about what the Bible means in negotiation with inherited understandings. The essays recognise that the meanings attributed to the Bible come from both local and national contexts, as well as broader Nordic and international contexts. Here I want to pick up on some of the internationally shared understandings of the Bible, particularly (but not exclusively) in British and American contexts, in order to show some of the dominant constructions of the meaning of the Bible in the twenty-first century without losing sight of culturally distinctive emphases. One of the most notable features about the varied Nordic Bibles to an outsider like myself is the influence of Lutheranism as part of the inherited authority, something that is considerably less evident in the UK, for instance. And yet there remain comparable and recognisable ways of constructing the Bible between the two contexts. When I encountered Larsen’s essay on political uses of “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17), I recognised one of the few biblical verses that can be found in contemporary English party-political discourse which likewise is used to discuss the importance and the limits of religion (including Islam). But the specific authorising rhetoric of the Lutheran spiritual and temporal kingdoms which Larsen shows in a Danish context would struggle for recognition in Britain and England. In English political discourse at least (other British nations have both similar and different traditions), the authority would come more from the “Bibleness” (to use Timothy Beal’s term referenced several times in this volume) of the King James Version. Nevertheless, the general similarities from Denmark to England are clear enough, and it is these sorts of connections I will explore further.

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1 Liberal and Cultural Bibles Among these general similarities are dominant, transnational constructions of the Bible now typically labelled as “Liberal Bible” and “Cultural Bible”—or variants such as the “Enlightenment Bible”—which take on local, national, or regional characteristics and are referenced throughout this volume. I will not repeat in any detail what has already been discussed, other than pointing out crudely that the Liberal Bible is a Bible assumed to be synonymous with (and the authority for) the values of democracy, rights, freedom, tolerance, etc., and that the Cultural Bible is assumed to be synonymous with (and the authority for) Western or national cultural heritages.¹ An increasingly common feature of this Bible, even in America (sometimes), is not to overdo any culturally strange “religious” elements that might be problematic for influential narratives of liberalism, secularisation, and progression. While the Cultural and Liberal Bibles commonly overlap in public and political discourses, we should note that they can also function in different ways. While political presentations of the Bible typically downplay anything deemed excessively “religious” or unusual, the Cultural Bible can absorb and promote this strangeness as part of the assumptions of a cultured reader able to pick up on violent or dramatic biblical or biblical-style allusions in a film, novel, television programme, play, poem, graphic novel, painting, etc. It is striking that explicit apocalyptic and eschatological themes in all their bleakness are present and explicit in von Trier’s film discussed by Larsson partly because the inherited “darkness chic” of such themes is understood to work well in the arts and popular culture.² The audience is, of course, not expected to believe in the reality of such things but this topic is a risky one for a politician to stray. If a politician on this side of the Atlantic talked about the realities of damning souls and descending into hell, then there might be problems. While a number of essays in this volume remind us that Christian Bibles are not standardised across traditions, what this collection also adds are other sacred texts with differing contents, whether the Jewish Bible/Tanakh or the Qur’an. The Tanakh/Judaism and the Qur’an/Islam can function in similar ways to the Liberal

1 See, e. g., Yvonne Sherwood, “Bush’s Bible as a Liberal Bible (Strange though that Might Seem),” Postscripts 2 (2006): 47–58; Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); James G. Crossley, Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014). 2 James G. Crossley, “The End of Reception History, a Grand Narrative for Biblical Studies and the Neoliberal Bible,” in Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice, ed. Emma England and William John Lyons (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2015), 49–52.

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or Cultural Bibles, whether in the presentations of culturally acceptable gender values in Jewish texts (discussed in Tuori’s essay) or essentialising Islam and the Qur’an as inherently positive, dynamic, diverse, etc (discussed in Stewart’s essay). As commonly noted, variants of the Liberal Bible are associated with the label “Judeo-Christian” as a catch all term for historically shared values between two religions (and sometimes in direct opposition to Islam). In the UK, Margaret Thatcher was keen to show how her liberal and neoliberal understanding of the Bible and Christianity was complemented by what she saw as Jewish values and the “Old Testament” (even if she maintained the superiority of Christianity and the “New Testament”). She also began to promote what would soon take off under Tony Blair, namely the idea that the Qur’an and Islam in their alleged purest or uncorrupted form are progressive, tolerant, democratic, lawful, etc. Similarly, the idea of sacred texts as relics of a global cultural and literary heritage (with little concern for religious content) has been promoted, notably in comparable remarks made during the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible in 2011.³ It is no surprise that in the same year as the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible in English, the new translation of the Bible in Norway was similarly lauded for its aesthetic qualities (see, e. g., the introductory article by Kartzow, Larsen, and Lehtipuu, and similar points raised differently in essays by, e. g., Elstad; Kartzow and Neutel; Bylund; Larsson). Any problems for secularism and liberalism in the illiberal oddities of religious discourse and behaviour can be smoothed over with a Bible that is understood more generally as part of a deep-rooted cultural heritage. This is why translation of the Bible or prayer books into a given language is important, as the essays by Lorenzen, Kartzow and Neutel, and Tuori show. The Bible can be seen to fit naturally with the history and assumed norms of the given cultural tradition (Kartzow and Neutel), with God in Jewish prayer books cast in gender neutral terms, and with Jewish theology brought in line with ideals about gender equality (Tuori). Likewise, new translations also help maintain the Bible’s position as an international bestseller or provide the means for tapping into the market for Jewish prayer books. For the cultured reader, the Bible can be as much a part of national or regional heritage as a Henrik Ibsen or an Eino Leino. Or, indeed, a Tove Jansson because this volume importantly incorporates children’s Bibles into the discussion. Certainly, there has been important work carried out on how the Bible gets framed in the formative years.⁴ However, this is not a major feature of the thriving discussions

3 For full discussion, see Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 11–14, 250–66. 4 E. g., Caroline Vander Stichele and Hugh Pyper (eds.), Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What Is in the Picture? (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012).

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around the construction of the cultural and political authority of the Bible. But it should be. Children’s Bibles and Bible stories are where many of us have framed and will frame, often nostalgically, our understandings for life. One of the important points to emerge from this volume is the importance of learning about the Bible as a child, in rites of passage and schooling in Nordic contexts (so, e. g., the essays by Elstad, Løland, and Bylund), as well as children’s Bibles, including a legacy of stressing the Bible as an ethical resource. As Bylund further argues, children’s Bibles set the stage for the values assigned to the Bible and its implicit cultural, moral, and political relevance and authority, as they present the aura of the Bible in distinctive and exclusive aesthetics associated with traditional physical copies of Bibles. This, along with the hymns and stories told in schools (as they are still in the UK)—and indeed in national settings where they are discouraged— seems to me an obvious route for future research into political and cultural understandings of the Bible. The Liberal Bible in frontline politics has typically been a Bible shorn of illiberal or culturally weird religious otherness, including a lack of reference to supernatural forces (including God), as Løland notes. It is a construction of the Bible where a given framework can nudge interpretation in the desired direction, including a modern version of an old and inevitable interpretative move we have already seen: translations made in line with cultural values. As Lorenzen shows, the recent Danish translation of the Bible, Bibelen 2020, ensures that the command to honour parents from the Decalogue directs the reader to a subtle change—respect parents—which in turn brings the Bible in line with assumed Danish values concerning mutual recognition rather than culturally alien notions of obedience. It is surely, then, no surprise that we have effectively arrived at an understanding of the Bible as the Hygge Bible (cf. Kartzow and Neutel), an especially marketable Nordic Bible if ever there was one. The flipside of this is where the overtly liturgical and religious themes do turn up in the various case studies in this volume —in Tuori’s discussion of Finnish Jewish Bibles and prayer books, for instance, the translations and editions are more closely connected with the synogogue, i. e. an expected “religious” setting for a “religious” text. Another feature of the Liberal Bible is that it has to deal with known “illiberal” interpretations. A common feature of this discourse in recent English-based political discourse is that overtly homophobic, sexist, racist, intolerant, or undemocratic readings of the text are a perversion of a purer original and that Jesus himself promoted equality of gender and sexuality. Indeed, in the UK, the leader of the Liberal Democratic party, Tim Farron, effectively lost his position because it was popularly (and almost certainly correctly) believed that he understood the Bible to be against “homosexual sex” (to use the common turn of phrase among

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journalists at the time).⁵ Further comparison with Nordic contexts could be fruitful here, such as Huttunen and Lehtipuu’s point that Päivi Räsänen’s condemnation of homosexuality through Rom 1 was still understood as provocative. This understanding of Rom 1 was condemned in the mainstream media, seen in opposition to the Lutheran church in Finland, understood as increasingly alien among younger generations, and recently received more criticism from Räsänen’s own party, all the while resonating among an audience of conservative sympathisers (as happened with Farron). Obviously, a similar logic is at play, namely competition over what is deemed to be the correct use of the Bible on issues of sexuality. What Huttunen and Lehtipuu’s essay shows is that varied constructions of the Liberal Bible are not only contested but when the details of biblical texts come to the fore, then so do the problems for politicians: which parts ought to be stressed, which parts ought not? As they indicate, even Räsänen’s claims to strict fidelity to the text on the question of homosexuality end up facing problems about the death penalty because there is always another problematic biblical text or interpretation. We can thus see why it can be useful for a politician to keep things vague and general when it comes to the Bible and its authority. To take Løland’s example, the Norwegian Prime Minister can predictably invoke the “non-political” cultural memory in a rare and carefully controlled use of the potentially explosive Bible. But what we will also see below is that we are in an era where this cultural logic is also behind an opening up of the controversial details of the Bible which can even work for certain politicians.

2 Does the Bible Really Matter? Sort of… While the generalisations about the Liberal and Cultural Bibles have proven useful over time and place, the ways they are constructed do, of course, change in light of, for instance, emergent ideological tendencies, specific national interests, and shifting public attitudes towards religion. While appreciating the differences within Nordic traditions and across (for instance) Europe, Oceania, and even North America, there is a well-known shared narrative of Christian decline in the sense that there is an ongoing trend of declining church attendance and identification with a once dominant Christianity. Coupled with this narrative and with these trends is the fate of the Bible and an apparently fading authority, including repeated claims about an ever-decreasing knowledge of the contents of the Bible or biblical

5 James Crossley, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans: Religion in Contemporary English Discourse (London: Pluto Press, 2018), 56–60.

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books (see, e. g., in different ways the essays in this volume by Kartzow, Larsen, and Lehtipuu; Elstad; Stenström; Løland). While it may be that in this century precise referencing of the Bible fades from popular memory, at this point the Bible remains an inherited authority in the aforementioned contexts. This tension between irrelevance and relevance has had an impact on assumptions about the Bible. Indeed, that the Bible is a bestseller (see, e. g., the introductory article by Kartzow, Larsen, and Lehtipuu) while much of its disputed contents do not appear well known is an indication of its ongoing iconic status and source of political and cultural authority—irrespective of whether anyone ever reads it. This iconic and yet detached understanding of the Bible means that it is especially suitable for politicians and prominent cultural figures to invoke its authority without appearing excessively “religious” and thus excessively “illiberal”; to add to our collection of Bibles, Stenström’s Secular Bible is especially apt here, as is Løland’s idea of the profanation of the Bible and the redirection of its power under the guise of politics. It is striking that Løland notes that playful uses of the Bible are shared in both British and Norwegian contexts because we should indeed expect a degree of ironic detachment from a collection of texts everyone really knows contains God, angels, and demons, and much more. Everyone also really knows that the Bible surely has archaicised or reverential language. But even if the language is updated accordingly, this language can add humour to a given witticism or grandeur to an allusion thereby making the Bible emphatically not the exclusive property of the Church (see Kartzow and Neutel). To bring all this together we might say that God indeed speaks Danish (see again Kartzow and Neutel) but his existence is irrelevant. This idea of respect for “culture” and ironic playing along with the idea of a Bible without really believing is crucial for understanding the contemporary perpetuation of ideology by claiming not to be too ideologically committed, as Slavoj Žižek argued.⁶ Stories about statues or buildings being destroyed by the Taliban (or, later, ISIS) for being idolatrous provoke outrage not because a deity has been offended but because of a perceived crime against a reified notion of cultural heritage. We do not really have to believe in the supernatural or dogmatic details of a statue or holy book to accept their cultural power.

6 E. g., Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 7–8.

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3 Neoliberalism, Protectionism, and the Welfare State The ways in which the Liberal Bible has been understood in dominant AngloAmerican political assumptions over the past fifty years has been tied in with the dominant political settlement, particularly neoliberalism which has been the shared political “common sense” across different governments and offered a sustained critique of welfarism. The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath opened up the possibility for nuances in the ways in which the Bible is constructed in political and wider cultural discourses in the 2010s. The rhetoric of unbridled neoliberalism and the assumptions about the Bible as the authority for the free market and charitable giving rather than state intervention and welfarism, has undergone some serious challenges in the 2010s. In the UK, for instance, this first involved an intensification of neoliberalism and the Neoliberal Bible (see the discussion in Stenström’s essay). Against the backdrop of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, the then British Prime Minister David Cameron provided his understanding of an intensified Neoliberal Bible. Not only were the “Judeo-Christian roots of the Bible” foundational for human rights and all things democratic, but welfare provision was praised as coming not from the state but from Christians (“from the role of the church in the first forms of welfare provision, to the many modern-day faith-led social action projects”).⁷ Unlike the understandings of state-led provision in dialogue with the Lutheran tradition and Christian welfarism (as shown, for instance, in Elstad’s essay), Cameron’s flagship programme, “Big Society,” was designed to outsource the state and get various societal groups involved in doing the work traditionally expected of the state. Not only were the Bible and Christian groups invoked as ever, but Cameron even quipped that Jesus himself was the founder of Big Society.⁸ However, the 2010s also saw this neoliberal political settlement and its accompanying Bible significantly challenged. Brexit, in its various forms, was an example of this. The cliched Brexit voters of Northern England became much sought after by major (and minor) political parties. The interests of these voters have been understood as favourable towards certain forms of welfare and state intervention in

7 David Cameron, “Prime Minister’s King James Bible Speech,” December 16, 2010, https://www.gov. uk/government/news/prime-ministers-king-james-bible-speech. 8 David Cameron, “Easter Reception at Downing Street 2014,” April 9, 2014, https://www.gov.uk/ government/speeches/easter-reception-at-downing-street-2014; David Cameron, “Easter 2014: David Cameron’s Message,” April 16, 2014, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/easter-2014-david-camer ons-message.

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revitalising post-industrial communities while at the same time being hostile to excessive immigration. While the comparisons between Trumpism and Brexit are often overstated and misunderstood, there were clearly some overlapping issues (at least in political and media discourse) concerning economic protectionism and border controls which contributed to the rise of Trump and Boris Johnson. On the Left, there was the re-emergence of socialism and accompanying positive understandings of welfarism and state intervention in economics, most notably in the cases of the movements led by Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. Amidst these competing understandings of the post-2008 world was, of course the Bible. Conservatives were even prepared to denounce the dangers of “untrammeled free markets,” claim they would protect those working in the gig economy, and reject the “cult of selfish individualism.”⁹ Corbyn more openly promoted the importance of the welfare state and indeed rose to leadership because he was a known advocate of welfarism. Where Thatcher had controversially invoked the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to promote wealth creation and charitable giving at the expense of the welfare state, Corbyn repeatedly and pointedly claimed that if Labour were in power then the country would not “walk by on the other side” because social housing would be provided to tackle the problem of rough sleeping.¹⁰ The Preface and Larsson’s essay, for instance, mention the international fascination with things “Nordic,” including the rhetoric about the Nordic welfare state model discussed even in American contexts. In terms of the Bible and welfarism, this is one discourse that seems to be more stable in Nordic contexts, or at least less likely to disappear from frontline politics for long periods of time than in (say) Britain and America. As Stenström firmly reminds us in her essay, neoliberal attempts to undermine the welfare state are hardly alien to Nordic contexts but Nordic welfarism of course remains an internationally known cliché. Put another way, the Nordic Bible provides a ready-made construction about the Bible promoting social and economic state intervention ready to be taken up and used elsewhere. Elstad’s essay outlines the development of the idea of the “Nordic model,” particularly in the post-War years, and its relationship with the Lutheran tradition—including a welfarist understanding of the Parable of the Good Samaritan that Corbyn would recognise. Corbyn would likewise recognise the Radical Bibles and Radical Jesuses associated with socialism and discussed in Stenström’s 9 The Conservative and Unionist Party, Forward, Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future, Manifesto 2017 (London: Conservative Party, 2017), 9. 10 E. g., Labour Party, “Jeremy Corbyn’s First Speech as Leader of the Labour Party,” September 12, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmgvhn13WPk#/. See further Crossley, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans, 22–26, 42–51.

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essay, including a comparable history of the Bible in socialism around the turn of the twentieth century. The story of Jesus in the temple was also central on the UK Left in the return of the Radical Bible, which Stenström shows has a wider and historic reception history. Yet socialism and pro-welfarism were on the fringes of Labour politics prior to 2015 (as they appear to be again post-Corbyn) but that they could return to frontline politics in Britain and even America is (or was) a striking development. Given that we know welfarism and socialism have been associated with Nordic countries, we might reasonably speculate that a “safe” and “credible” construction of the Bible was partly kept alive by this popular understanding of the Nordic world. And what this does point to is an avenue for future research, namely a thoroughgoing examination of the constructions and uses of the Nordic Welfare Bible outside Nordic countries. Elstad also notes the significance of the 1945 Labour government in Britain and the implementation of the reforms put forward in the Beveridge Report. What can also be added is that this report and its implementation was infused with biblical rhetoric and implicit authority. The quasi-apocalyptic language of building on the rubble of war and ridding Britain of the “evil giants” of “want,” “squalor,” “disease,” and “ignorance” with the building of the National Health Service and the development of a welfare state became part of Labour Party mythmaking. However, the fate of this language also tells us something about the fate of welfarism in Labour party politics. By the time, Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Labour was distancing itself from traditional policies of nationalisation and embracing the neoliberal revolution. But Blair was also at the forefront of the War on Terror and used the quasi-apocalyptic language of the 1945 Labour government to now justify the transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq through military intervention and convince Labour members of its supposed moral authority by appealing to party mythology.¹¹ Unlike the Nordic equivalent, the Welfare Bible was firmly out of favour in the UK until its temporary and surprising return with Corbyn in 2015. A future comparison between the Nordic and British (and American) contexts in this period, and the ways in which the Nordic welfare cliché functioned, would be instructive.

4 The Divisive Bible In the 1990s and 2000s, certainly in American and British political front bench or presidential discourse, the Bible was used consensually, at least among successful

11 Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 225–34.

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politicians. This vague and broadly agreeable (or not disagreeable) Bible with its rhetoric of love, kindness, and freedom often cut across party lines and was an attempt to include a potentially broad voting coalition.¹² This Consensual Bible began to break down in the 2010s, for reasons touched upon above. Perhaps the most famous example of this has been the Trump phenomenon. The introductory article to this volume noted the striking visual example of Trump holding a Bible at St John’s Church, Washington D.C., in full knowledge that this act would provoke his opponents and rally his supporters. When running for president in 2016, his response to a question about his favoured Bible verse might previously have been a sign of a failed presidential candidate unaware of the importance of a vague and consensual use of the Bible. His favoured verse in this instance did not involve “love thy neighbour” or the like but “an eye for an eye” (Exod. 21:23–27; Lev. 24:19–21). The context Trump provided for this is telling and, with hindsight, we can now see how it worked in a divided America: And some people—look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that. That’s not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us. And they laugh at our face, and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.¹³

In the UK, Johnson harked back to Thatcher’s divisive use of the Bible as she led her right-wing revolution. Indeed, she claimed in the 1979 General Election that “The Old Testament prophets did not say, ‘Brothers, I want a consensus.’ They said, ‘This is my faith. This is what I passionately believe. If you believe it, too, then come with me.’”¹⁴ Thatcher’s Divisive Bible worked in this context as neoliberalism, though initially controversial, was becoming dominant in English and British political discourse and Thatcher responded accordingly. Johnson successfully attempted the same sort of provocative tactic as he was vying to become the Prime Minister. As part of his argument to leave the EU, Johnson claimed that it was time for the then Prime Minister Theresa May to channel “the spirit of

12 See, e. g., Jacques Berlinerblau, Thumpin’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); Yvonne Sherwood, “On the Genesis between the Bible and Rights,” in Bible and Justice: Ancient Texts, Modern Challenges, ed. Matthew J. M. Coomber (London: Equinox, 2011), 35; Crossley, Harnessing Chaos, 12–13. 13 “Eye For An Eye Trump’s Favorite Bible Verse,” April 16, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=PeVzwzHi0jg. 14 Quoted in Bo Särlvik and Ivor Crewe, Decade of Dealignment: The Conservative Victory of 1979 and Electoral Trends in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 29.

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Moses in Exodus and say to Pharaoh in Brussels—LET MY PEOPLE GO.” Though he was talking about May, Johnson was widely credited as taking on the role of Moses and it was given a full front-page splash in the broadsheet, the Telegraph (25 March 2019). His combination of ironic and bumbling persona gave him a degree of plausible deniability while his opponents (and biblical scholars) were outraged, claiming an inappropriate use of the Bible. Nevertheless, the age of outrage worked for Johnson as it had for Trump with Johnson soon becoming Prime Minster and winning the General Election later that year by continuing the hard line on Brexit. But the potential for divisive uses is latent in the very smoothing over of the complex, contradictory, alien, and often illiberal contents or interpretations of the Bible and in mentioning the Bible in controversial areas of policy, as Løland implies. We also see the potentially influential audiences for this Divisive Bible at play in the case of Päivi Räsänen’s use of Rom 1 to condemn homosexuality, as discussed in Huttunen and Lehtipuu’s essay. What Huttunen and Lehtipuu’s essay also shows is another significant rhetorical feature of this discourse used by Trump and Johnson against their opponents: the limitation of free speech, with the assumption that the speech being limited is that of the traditional Christian nation and thus targeting specific voting demographics. Another major way the Bible has and is being used as a divisive text comes from the rhetorically benign Cultural or Liberal Bible where its provocative nature is present or latent in the very claims of representing a culturally stable entity. In certain Nordic contexts, a national Bible also has ramifications for Sami people, where a Sami translation can be seen in different contexts as both an act of inclusion and an act of cultural and religious domination and destruction. Furthermore, Nordic states are not ethnically, religiously, or even (as Tuori reminds us) linguistically homogenous, and so claims about the Bible and national heritage can likewise be seen in different contexts as both universal and exclusionary. Certainly, these contexts can be negotiated by minority groups, as Tuori shows in the case of Finnish Jews, or certain minority groups may be deemed unproblematic in dominant political and cultural discourses. However, in recent years, it is Islam and the Qur’an that have been most prominently constructed as incompatible with assumed Nordic Christian values, as Stewart’s article shows in detail in the case of Finland and certain Finnish evangelical and revivalist contexts. If Islam is presented as monolithic, violent, sexist, barbaric, tyrannical, illiberal, racist, excessively political, etc. then the Bible as its democratic, progressive, tolerant, and peaceful other immediately lends itself to divisive use. This leads us on to another transnational and transcontinental form of the Bible which has had a marked impact in the twenty-first century: the Bible of Western civilisation.

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5 Civilisation Bible As a number of the essays suggest, this Divisive Bible has always thrived on the right wing of national politics and on the far right, particularly when tied in with ideas of (for instance) a national, ethnic, European, or Western identity. Racial and racist claims to white supremacy, alongside antisemitism, of course remain in far-right discourses, alongside discourses with enhanced cultural prominence in the twenty-first century concerning Islam and Muslims. In certain political and cultural contexts (not least on the Right), Islam, Muslims, and the Qur’an have been understood to be antithetical to and a threat to the assumed “biblical” values of Christian Europe or a given Western nation. It has been a discourse that deliberately confuses opponents because, as some prominent advocates claim, it is about religion and ideology rather than race, even if some right-wing sympathisers can easily slip into more overtly racialised language. Again, this is hardly unprecedented, and it is grounded in historic understandings of the Liberal Bible and Cultural Bible, as a number of the essays show. Nevertheless, it is an understanding of the Bible that has come to prominence and has been utilised in the competing mainstream political assumptions in the 2010s and in responses to terrorist attacks (see, e. g. Larsen’s essay), though one that had been gathering momentum post-9/11 and belongs to older discourses about competing civilisations.¹⁵ We might think of discourses concerning Trump’s “Muslim ban” or Theresa May’s striking attempt (in direct contrast to her predecessor) to claim that Christmas belongs to “our traditions” whereas (the stereotypically “Asian”) Diwali, Vaisakhi and Eid were “their traditions,” traditions of a “minority” of Britons, a rhetorical tactic she would similarly employ elsewhere.¹⁶ The right-wing and far-right version of this narrative and this particular Divisive Bible has been further analysed by Strømmen, including a more explicitly violent version she labels the War Bible and associates with figures such as the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Moreover, alongside stereotypes about Nordic welfarism are discourses about Nordic culture as the epitome of European, Western, and even white culture, civilisation and (as Larsson further adds) masculinity

15 For discussion, see, e. g., Sherwood, “Bush’s Bible”; Hannah Strømmen, “Biblical Blood-Lines: From Foundational Corpus to Far Right Bible,” BibInt 25 (2017): 555–73; Hannah Strømmen, “Christian Terror in Europe? The Bible in Anders Behring Breivik’s Manifesto,” JBR (2017): 147–69. Hannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel, The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right (London: SCM Press, 2020). 16 “Oral Answers to Questions,” Hansard (September 14, 2016), volume 614, columns 897–89. See further Crossley, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans, 32–42.

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grounded in the Bible and Christianity, among other sources of authority (e. g., “paganism”). Such constructions of the Bible involve the construction of a threatening enemy which is typically represented by Islam, the Qur’an, and “Islamification,” as well as being associated with immigration, multiculturalism, political correctness, feminism, and liberal elites. But, as Strømmen also discusses, this is a transnational, transcontinental, and often interconnected phenomenon with comparable individuals, movements, and acts of violence happening in, for instance, Europe, North America, and the Antipodes, though such ideas do not always involve an explicit call to violence. A softer form of this involves what she calls the Civilisation Bible, namely, ideas of the Bible and Christianity as peaceful and the Qur’an as violent, a cliché deployed across far-right networks. Strømmen notes that there are differences between this cliché and Breivik’s War Bible but the civilisational differences are shared. Indeed, we can further add the connections with party political leaders and their versions of these Bibles. This contrast of a peaceful and tolerant Bible/Christianity versus a violent and intolerant Qur’an/Islam makes it a convenient construction that can be tweaked and redeployed in different ways and with apparent innocence among leading party-political figures justifying military intervention. Just as the Bible can be misunderstood as “perverted” when interpreted in an illiberal manner, so too with the Qur’an. The purer democratic, peaceful, and tolerant Qur’an, so the argument goes, has been perverted by groups like ISIS, akin to the blurry distinction made between “peaceful Islam” and “Islamism” noted in Stewart’s essay. This was a common trope during the War on Terror and a favoured explanatory device of British Prime Ministers this century. Because this perversion is deemed so dangerous, it has allowed political leaders to invoke the Bible (including the Parable of the Good Samaritan) and Jesus the Prince of Peace to authorise self-defence and justify British and Western states having the legitimate monopoly on violence against a violent other which is deemed neither truly religious nor truly a state. What this rhetorical move also does is to promote a Western and capitalist myth of innocence, where the wrong sort of violence is not a product of materialist conditions or foreign policy decisions but is rather a poisonous perversion of religion which can only be dealt with by violence. It likewise implies that the true Muslim subject will be supportive of the state and if not is perilously close to perverting their own religion.¹⁷ This may not be Breivik’s War Bible, but there are shared similarities in claims to legitimate violence in order to solve a problem of a threat which is almost metaphysical in origin and, if left unchecked, will spread like a disease.

17 For discussion, see Crossley, Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans, 51–55, 90–97.

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6 What next? The past few years would suggest that we will soon need to update our understandings of Nordic Bibles. During the Covid pandemic, we have not only seen (sometimes ironic) uses of apocalyptic language in the media but also how QAnon-related conspiracy theories have thrived globally and mixed or overlapped with the far right, strands of conservative evangelicalism, Christian nationalism, Trumpism, libertarianism, New Age thinking, and 4Chan trolling culture. New enemies have emerged in such discourses, notably Black Lives Matter, as well as a re-emergence of an old enemy—communism. Among these theories are a mixture of aesthetic, theological, and general ideological influences including appropriations of both Christianity and (what is deemed to be) Norse or Nordic symbolism and masculine values.¹⁸ We might add to this the next expected crisis that has been (and no doubt will be) cast in apocalyptic language: climate change. The Bibles we have seen so ably documented and discussed in this volume will soon need to be revisited and updated, as was effectively predicted through one of the driving ideas underpinning this volume, namely that constructions of the Bible may be inherited but they are constantly in flux and being updated in light of changing events, ideas, and material conditions.

18 See, e. g., Marc-André Argentino, “The Church of QAnon: Will Conspiracy Theories Form the Basis of a New Religious Movement?” The Conversation, May 18, 2020; Susannah Crockford, “Q Shaman’s New Age-Radical Right Blend Hints at the Blurring of Seemingly Disparate Categories,” Religion Dispatches, January 11, 2021.

List of Contributors Louise Heldgaard Bylund, Research Assistant, PhD, Aarhus University, Denmark. James Crossley, Professor, PhD, St Mary’s University, United Kingdom. Hallgeir Elstad, Professor, PhD, University of Oslo, Norway. Niko Huttunen, Docent, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Professor, PhD, University of Oslo, Norway. Kasper Bro Larsen, Professor, PhD, Aarhus University, Denmark. Mikael Larsson, Associate Professor, PhD, Uppsala University, Sweden. Outi Lehtipuu, Senior Lecturer, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland. Søren Lorenzen, Research Assistant, PhD, University of Bonn, Germany. Ole Jakob Løland, Associate Professor, PhD, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway. Karin Berber Neutel, Associate Professor, PhD, Umeå University, Sweden. Hanna Stenström, Senior Lecturer, PhD, University College Stockholm, Sweden. Timo R. Stewart, Senior Research Fellow, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland. Hannah M. Strømmen, Researcher (Wallenberg Academy Fellow), PhD, Lund University, Sweden. Riikka Tuori, Senior Lecturer, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-017

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Index of Names Aasen, Marianne 127 Aaserud, Rigmor 130 Adkins, Brent 57 Agamben, Giorgio 120, 129 Agricola, Mikael 3 Ahuvya, Avraham 202 Ahvenainen, Martti 232, 237, 248 Ahvio, Juha 232, 240, 247 Andersen, Dag Terje 129 Arvidsson, Stefan 102 Aspaker, Elisabeth 128

Cauchi, Mark 258 Cesari, Jocelyne 245, 249 Chagall, Marc 215 Charbonnier, Stéphane 234 Christiansen, Marianne 93 Coleman, Paul 62 Connell, Raewyn 254, 256, 266, 271 Conway, Colleen 10 Corbyn, Jeremy 282 Corden, James 13 Crossley, James 21, 56, 98, 101, 103, 114, 189

Bäckström, Anders 97 Bangstad, Sindre 46 Bartholin, Hanne 183, 186 Beal, Timothy 10, 19, 56, 179, 184, 189, 275 Beaman, Lori 164 f., 171, 174 f. Benhabib, Seyla 54 Berger, Peter 150 Berggrav, Eivind 28 Berg-Hansen, Lisbeth 130 Bergman, Ingmar 258 Bergström, Björn 112 Betz, Hans-Georg 42 Beveridge, William 25 von Bismarck, Otto 24 Blair, Tony 277, 283 Bly, Robert 261 Boer, Roland 9 Bolsonaro, Jair 271 Bondevik, Kjell Magne 135 Borchgrevink, Aage 47 Borghezio, Mario 47 Breed, Brennan 55, 122 Breivik, Anders Behring 15, 20, 39, 42 f., 45–47, 49, 54 f., 59, 258, 267, 271, 286 Brohed, Ingmar 29 Byfuglien, Helga 134 Bylund, Louise Heldgaard 18, 277 f.

Dalevi, Sören 182, 186 Deleuze, Gilles 57 Dietrich, Jan 145 Dreyer, Carl Theodor 258 Duterte, Rodrigo 271

Gadamer, Hans-Georg Genette, Gérard 180, Gillman, Abigail 201 Gottskálksson, Oddur Green, Åke 61 Greenstein, Edward L. Grundtvig, N.F.S. 88 Guattari, Félix 57

Cameron, David 281 Camus, Jean-Yves 43, 48 Caruana, John 258

Haarder, Bertel 88 Habermas, Jürgen 87 Hagen, Carl I. 133, 140

Edelmann, Moshe 206 Ekman, Mattias 48 Elstad, Hallgeir 15, 277 f., 280–282 England, Emma 55 Espersen, Søren 91 Fairclough, Norman 81 Fallaci, Oriana 49 Farron, Tim 278 Fitzmyer, Joseph 72 Foucault, Michel 81, 254, 266, 268 Fransson, Tomas 102 12 185 3 203

318

Index of Names

Halldin, Jan 107 Hallén, Harald 29 Halvorsen, Kristin 129 Hammond, Peter 248 Harbsmeier, Eberhard 157 Hareide, Knut Arild 131, 135, 138 f. Harviainen, Tapani 206, 215 Hasenson, Benny 206 Hayles, N. Katherine 180 Hedegaard, Connie 80 Heinimäki, Jaakko 182, 187 van den Hemel, Ernst 89 Hertzberg, Ebbe 24 Hertzberg, Mikael 27 Hirsch, Samson Raphael 202 Hofstede, Geert 151 Hornbech, Birthe Rønn 87, 89 Højlund, Henrik 153 Huhtala, Aarre 204 Huntington, Samuel P. 41 Huttunen, Niko 16, 279, 285 Ibsen, Henrik 277 Jansson, Tove 277 Jensen, Siv 134 Jespersen, Karen 156 Jessen, Ida 183, 186 Johnson, Boris 282, 284 Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland 18, 55, 100, 277 f., 280 Keskitalo, Timo 232, 240, 247 Khader, Naser 94 Klint, Stefan 100 Knausgård, Karl Ove 35, 123, 170 Koch, Hal 28 Kofoed, Jens Bruun 152 Kosonen, Seppo S. 232, 237 f., 246 Krarup, Marie 85, 91 Krarup, Søren 84, 90, 95 Laajasalo, Teemu 62 Lagerkvist, Pär 101 Larsen, Esben Lunde 88 Larsen, Kasper Bro 16, 55, 275, 277, 280, 286 Larsson, Mikael 20, 276 f., 282, 286

Le Pen, Marine 92 Lebourg, Nicolas 43, 48 Lehtipuu, Outi 16, 55, 277, 279 f., 285 Leino, Eino 277 Lewis, Bernard 41 Lidman, Sara 101 Lien, Tord 128 Lilleør, Kathrine 153 Lindhardt, Jan 155 Lindhardt, Tine 184 Lindqvist, Bengt 111 Listhaug, Sylvi 15, 40, 42, 50, 52 f., 55, 59, 134, 140 Løland, Ole Jakob 17, 278–280, 285 Lorentzon, Peter 112 Lorenzen, Søren 18, 277 f. Lunde, Niels 89 Lundgren, Eva 271 Luther King Jr., Martin 14 Luther, Martin 12, 29, 66, 83, 95, 108, 143, 148, 152, 215 Luz, Ulrich 7 Lyons, W. John 55 Lysbakken, Audun 136, 139 Maanselkä, Aimo 77 Mangs, Peter 15, 39 Martensen, Hans L. 27 Marx, Karl 30 May, Theresa 284 Maynard Keynes, John 124 McLuhan, Marshall 180 Mendelssohn, Moses 202 Meyer, Birgit 164, 166, 175 Mogensen, Joy 80 Moore, Stephen 58 Moxnes, Bjørnar 138 Muir, Simo 208 Nail, Thomas 57 Neutel, Karin Berber Nyberg, Robert 113 Nyman, Alf 115 Økland, Jorunn 44 Orban, Viktor 271

18, 100, 277, 278, 280

Index of Names

Paden, William E. 242 Paludan, Rasmus 39 Pettersson, Marcus-Gunnar 182 Piltz, Anders 169 Pind, Søren 88 Pipes, Daniel 249 Räisänen, Heikki 7, 123 Raja, Abid 135 Räsänen, Päivi 16, 61, 63, 69, 73, 77, 204, 279, 285 Rasmussen, Anders Fogh 79, 82, 87 Rasmussen, Lars Løkke 85, 87, 89 f. Ricoeur, Paul 144 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 114 Rönns, Christel 182 Rosengren, Allan 159 Roy, Oliver 132 Rydberg, Viktor 109 Salomonsen, Jone 43 Sanders, Bernie 282 Sartola, Pekka 231 f., 236, 238 Seidman, Naomi 200 Sheehan, Jonathan 13, 50, 56, 86, 100, 103, 120, 189 Sherwood, Yvonne 14, 50, 56, 86, 92, 95, 120, 254 Silverstrand, Bengt 111 Sjöberg, Lina 100 Skov, Leonora Christine 157 Söderblom, Nathan 108 Sørensen, Øystein 44 Sormunen, Eino 28 Spencer, Robert 48, 53, 234, 249 Steinbock-Vatka, Nurit 205, 215 Stenström, Hanna 17, 280–282

Stewart, Timo R. 19, 277, 285 Stoklund Larsen, Birgitte 172 Stoltenberg, Jens 123, 139 Stotts, Jonathan 267 Strømmen, Hannah 15, 286 Strømmen, Øyvind 44 Stubkjær, Henrik 94 Sugirtharajah, R.S. 130 Temple, William 25 Thatcher, Margaret 277, 282, 284 Thomas of Aquinas 265 Tindberg, Magnus 182 Tindberg, Svein 182, 186 Toiviainen, Raija 64, 75 von Trier, Lars 20, 253, 257 Trump, Donald 12, 284 Tuori, Riikka 19, 277 f., 285 Valen, Snorre 128 Vasa, Gustav 3 Vermund, Pernille 91 Vogt, Volraths 33 de Waard, Jan 203 Wagner, Richard 108 Warloe, Henning 130 Weber, Max 83 Wiedemann, Katrine 157 Wilders, Geert 40 de Witte, Marleen 164, 166, 175 Wøien, Anne Tingelstad 129 Ye’or, Bat 48, 53, 249 Žižek, Slavoj

280

319

Index of Biblical References Genesis Gen Gen Gen Gen Gen Gen Gen Gen

1:26 2:19–20 3:1 3:16 3:19 19:1–11 41 45:13

73 238 216 74 215, 218 66 124 145

Exodus Exod 3:1–4:17 Exod 3:4 Exod 3:11 Exod 4:1 Exod 10 Exod 13:1 Exod 13:1–10 Exod 13:7 Exod 15:3 Exod 15:3−6 Exod 19:16 Exod 20:2–17 Exod 20:3 Exod 20:5 Exod 20:11 Exod 20:12 Exod 21:15 Exod 21:17 Exod. 21:23–27 Exod 22:2−3 Exod 30:17 Exod 34:6–7

261 261 262 262 262 210 210 209 209 45 217 143 217 216 137 146, 153, 160 f. 147 147 284 46 210 216

Lev 23:42–43 Lev 24:19–21

209 284

Numbers Num Num Num Num Num Num Num

6:23 15:37–41 15:38 22:16–18 24:5 24:11 28:1

215 212 212 145 208 145 210

Deuteronomy Deut Deut Deut Deut Deut Deut Deut

5:16 6:4–9 6:8 11:13–21 11:18 18:21–22 21:18–21

146 212 213 212 213 243 76, 147

Judges Judg 1:12–13 Judg 5:30 Judg 8:20–21

266 260 266

1 Samuel 1 1 1 1 1 1

Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam

3:6 3:10 17 18:26–27 24:17 25:25

262 261 266 266 262 260

Leviticus Lev Lev Lev Lev Lev Lev Lev

6:1 6:3 6:5 18:22 19:3 20:13 23:15–16

210 209 209 66 147 66–68, 76 209

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110686005-019

2 Samuel 2 Sam 6:22

145

Nehemiah Neh 4:17−18

46

322

Index of Biblical References

Esther Esth 6:3 Esth 6:3–11

Jeremiah 145 145

Jer 1:6 Jer 1:10 Jer 23:15–22

262 263 243

Job Job 19:25−27

55

Daniel Dan 8−9

260

Psalms Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps Ps

5:8 92 92:6 92:10 95 95:1–2 95:3 96 96:4 96:5 132 143 18:34 74:1

208 210 208 208 210 211 210 210 210 211 209 210 45 160

Proverbs Prov Prov Prov Prov Prov Prov

1:8 2:1 3:1 4:3 5:1 25:11

262 262 262 262 262 128

Ecclesiastes Eccl 1:18 Eccl 4:5 Eccl 12:12

127 128 262

5:1–7 6:3 6:9–10 7:14 23:8–9 27:2–5 42:13

Hos 2:21–22

208

Malachi Mal 1:6 Mal 1:7 Mal 3:6

159 159 241

Sirach Sir 3:1–16 Sir 7:3

149 262

Matthew Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt

4:24 5:18 5:38 5:38–39 6:24 7:12 7:15–20 7:24–27 14 15:1−9 19:14 21:45–46 22:21

243 66 242 67 98, 107, 138 93 242 263 130 147 133 263 81, 92

Mark

Isaiah Isa Isa Isa Isa Isa Isa Isa

Hosea

264 208 263 195, 204 145 264 45

Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark

7:1−12 7:10 7:19 10:14 11:15−19 12:17

147 161 67 133 111 16, 81, 95, 275

Index of Biblical References

Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke Luke

1 Corinthians 1 1:26–38 2:41−52 4:39 6:27–29 6:31 6:37 6:44 8:42–48 10:25−37 10:29 16:9; 11 16:13 18:16 20:25

260 242 153 244 242 93 243 246 244 42, 282 35 107 98, 107 133 81

1 1 1 1 1

Cor Cor Cor Cor Cor

4:6 6 9–10 6:9 11:3–16 15:21–22

242 242 74 72 69

Galatians Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal

1:8–9 2:15 3:28 4:8 4:21–5:1

242 72 244 72 263

Ephesians Eph 6:2

147, 149

John John John John John John

8:1–11 11:1–12:7 14:1 15:1–6 15:20

244 260 136 264 42

Acts Acts 5:29

45

1 1:23 1: 24–32 1:24–27 1:24–25 1:27 1:32 2 2:14 2:27 5:12 11:21–24 18–23

1 Thess 5:21

237

1 Timothy 1 1 1 1

Tim Tim Tim Tim

1:10 3:2 4:4 5:3

74 242 241 147

James

Romans Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom Rom

1 Thessalonians

61, 64, 69–71, 73, 76, 279, 285 73 16, 66, 69 61, 63 205 74 74 70 72 72 69 72 69

Jas 1:17

241

1 Peter 1 Pet 3:7

244

2 Peter 2 Pet 1:20–21

243

1 John 1 John 1:9

241

Revelation Rev 22:18–19

242

323