Why the World Doesn’t End

Abstract

In reading the sad narrative of Dinah there is a strong temptation to skip the entire chapter and look for other stories instead. But this time we won’t do that, and we will go through these pages of the human realm that are as distressing as frequent and common in history, but also hide messages of life between the lines. Much of the effort of those who want to penetrate some truth of the human condition from any perspective lies in trying to hold together Adam and Cain, Lamech and Noah, Sarah and Hagar, the embrace between Esau and Jacob as well as Dinah, her captors and her avenging brothers. While reading the Bible there is a fatal, recurring temptation to concentrate only on the bright pages and discard the dark ones; but when you fall into this error you end up offering ideological readings, where a part becomes the whole, thus losing sight of the mixed but truer human reality. Authentic biblical humanism is not a collection of “best practices”, but a look of love and salvation at humanity as a whole.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, »Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?«.

(The Gospel of Luke, 17:15–17)