Challenging La Biblia Latinoamérica: Religious Censorship, God’s Word, & Argentina’s Last Military Dictatorship

Abstract

This project explores the challenging, partial banning, and suggested revising and redaction of La Biblia Latinoamérica, a biblical translation published in 1972 intended for Latin American readers. Within the first months of Argentina’s last military dictatorship, la última dictadura militar (1976-1983), state and ecclesiastic representatives and certain news outlets challenged the legitimacy of this translation. Critics of La Biblia Latinoamérica denounced it as “subversive” with the potential to corrupt institutionalized, anti-secular, Argentine Catholicism. Their approach to La Biblia Latinoamérica paralleled restrictions on literature and media that threatened the ideals of the dictatorship. In an effort to “recreate” an anti-secular, Catholic Argentina, the regime actively participated and led the persecution of Catholic Argentines. La Biblia Latinoamérica serves, therefore, as a case study of this intrareligious persecution at the beginning of the dictatorship.