Exorcisms in the Bible: A Historical and Theological Summary

The aim of the paper is to offer a recapitulative survey of the theme of exorcism in the Bible. The reader will be acquainted with the main methodological approaches and difficulties in contemporary research on the issues of demons, evil spirits and exorcism from the point of view of terminology and theological interpretation. The first part deals with various categories of demons in the Hebrew Bible, with a transformation of the theological approach to them within the history of Israel, and with several cases of exorcist activity in various the Old Testament and in the literature of Hellenistic Judaism. The primary focus of the article; however, is on the exorcist activity of Jesus of Nazareth which is interpreted as one of the mighty signs of the eschatological era. They are witnessed by the logia of Jesus and by the ancient Christian tradition on the exorcism miracles by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. In addition, the absence of this tradition in the Fourth Gospel has to be clarified which is not an easy task. In all probability, the author of the Gospel transformed the ancient tradition into his own Christological prospective. In John's vision, the essential exorcism of Jesus is the victory of love manifested on the Cross. In the last paragraph of the paper, a brief, overview of the exorcist activity of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles is presented. The conclusion provides several suggestions of a hermeneutical character.