Plowshares: The Career of a Biblical Allusion in The New York Times, 1940–1990

Abstract

Growing efforts to digitalize newspapers present biblical scholars, especially those interested in “Reception History” or “Popular Interpretation”, with a potentially rich resource. This experiment analyzes a clear “biblical” term, namely “Plowshare” (including a few variant spellings), with regard to its’ use in the New York Times between 1940 and 1990. The sheer number of uses (over 1200) and the variety of contexts for its’ use, is revealing. What emerges from the heavily politicized use of the term is that (a) it is virtually always understood to be a biblical reference to peace and peacemaking, but (b) there is a wide variety of perspectives as to whether it is an ethical maxim or an unrealistic “fantasy” in the face of hard political “realities”. Finally, using the two terms “swords” and “plowshares” together began to clearly emerge in the 20th century as a pious alternative to “guns and butter”, taking on the same “either/or” interpretation. Thus, studying Biblical interpretation in the popular press may offer an important tool in assessing “popular ideas” in specific contexts of world events or cultural contexts.