Elementi per un approccio biblico-teologico al tema della comunicazione

Stefano Zamboni

Abstract

This article aims to provide the basic elements for a theology of communication. To exhaustively deal with a biblical and theological vision of communication is a daunting task, since, in a certain sense, all Scripture and all theological work is an event of communication.

In this contribution, the author seeks to derive fundamental elements from particularly significant biblical passages in this regard. In the first place, he highlights characteristics of the Word of God, through which God creates the world and communicates himself to humankind. Next, he clarifies the sense in which Christ, the incarnate Word of God, reveals himself as the “perfect communicator” and he studies the narrative mechanisms and the theological value of parables and Johannine irony and misunderstanding. Then he considers the difficulty of human communication relying on the biblical episode of the Tower of Babel, and connects this to the proclamation of the evangelical kerygma, to which the figure of the Apostle Paul bears particular witness.

At the conclusion of the article, the author proposes some general considerations on communication. The author formulates these as “brief theses”, which not only summarize the itinerary undertaken but also intend to open space for further reflection.