Among modern thinkers, he reviews the theories of the sociologist Henri Hubert and the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and discusses the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the intellectual Georges Bataille.

[8] Violence and the Sacred received positive reviews from G. H. de Radkowski in Le Monde,[1] the critic Victor Brombert in The Chronicle of Higher Education,[9] Frank McConnell in The New Republic,[10] and Vincent Farenga in Comparative Literature.

[15] According to Chris Fleming, de Radkowski considered the book an "enormous intellectual achievement" in that it provided the "first authentically atheistic theory of religion and the sacred".

He praised Girard's discussion of the "predicament of a modern society that seeks ever greater numbers of sacrificial victims in a desperate attempt to restore the efficacy of a lost sense of ritual".

[11] Brown maintained that Violence and the Sacred formed part of a body of work in which Girard provided valuable readings of literary texts and interpretations of myths.

[12] Lambrecht credited Girard with raising important questions and bringing together many different fields of inquiry, but argued that his work depended on controversial assumptions and that he "has a tendency to generalize data that might better have been left as particular examples.

He considered the work bold and "rich in ideas", and credited Girard with recognizing "the profound importance of the sacred, of ritual, of sacrifice, of religion, and of violence" in human society.

[14] Aho believed that the book deserved "careful consideration by researchers studying the links between religion and violence" and that it showed both the positive and negative aspects of interdisciplinary scholarship.

He suggested that Girard was "unfamiliar with contemporary literature on scapegoating, the phenomenology of religious experience, and the sociologies of comparative religion and violence", and made untestable claims.

Brown, the journalist Joseph Bottum, the theologian Leo D. Lefebure, and the philosopher Roger Scruton, have seen Violence and the Sacred as a work that expresses or points toward a Christian religious perspective.

[16] Brown maintained that Girard's purpose in Violence and the Sacred is to frighten people into returning to orthodox religion and that Pope John Paul II liked the book.

Bottum described the book as one of a series of works, including Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, in which Girard discusses the cultural role of the scapegoat.

He attributed the decline of Girard's influence on literary criticism to his increasingly obvious interest in biblical revelation following the publication of Violence and the Sacred.

[24] The philosopher Ludger Hagedorn questioned Girard's use of Heraclitus, his emphasis on violence rather than power, and his understanding of Nietzsche's concept of the Apollonian and Dionysian.