Includes bibliographical references (p. [230]-240) and indexes.

Introduction: The thin blade of difference between real swords and words about 'sharp-edged iron things': reflections on how people use the Word / Yvonne Sherwood, Jonneke Bekkenkamp -- The daughter of Jephthah: changing views on God, man, and violence in plays and oratorios since George Buchanan / Klaas Spronk -- Textual carcasses and Isaac's scar, or what Jewish interpretation makes of the violence that almost takes place on Mt Moriah / Yvonne Sherwood -- Fleshing out the text / Hugh S. Pyper -- Genocide in the name of 'salvation': the combined contribution of biblical translation/interpretation and indigenous myth to the 1994 Rwandan genocide / Malachie Munyaneza -- 'On the rivers of Babylon' (Psalm 137), or between victim and perpetrator / Athalya Brenner -- (De)nominating Amalek: racist stereotyping in the Bible and the justification of discrimination / Alastair G. Hunter -- Purity and danger at the end of the world: priestly and prophetic paradigms in contemporary apocalyptic visions / Tod Linafelt -- The white supremacist Bible and the Phineas priesthood / Timothy K. Beal -- Jesus the actor: Edwin Morgan's A.D.: a trilogy of plays on the life of Jesus (2000) / David Jasper -- Messianic victims or victimized Messiah?: biblical allusion and violence in The matrix / Jeremy Punt -- The making of modern martyrs: the martyrs of Columbine / Elizabeth Leigh Gibson -- The tyranny of the martyr: violence and victimization in martyrdom discourse and the movies of Lars von Trier -- Internet martyrs and violence: victims and/or perpetrators? / Jan Willem van Henten -- Violence and final vocabularies: on mapping actual hopes and beliefs / Jonneke Bekkenkamp.