With that said, sometimes texts are our only artifacts of vanished peoples. To do what is being called violence (and I need a good definition, because as is, I think it is a vague, loaded term that is more often used as a tool of rhetoric than anything else) to a text erases or changes what we know and think and remember about a real people group.

Lastly, how in the world are we defining violence? I like the following definition of violence when talking about people:

An action is violent when it intentionally does something that denies the image of God present in a person.

I like this definition because it stresses the intentionality of violence and bypasses the physicality hang-up that most people have.

What do you mean when you talk about violence towards a text?