Dealing with the Trauma of Defeat: The Rhetoric of the Devastation and Rejuvenation of Nature in Ezekiel

Moral injury emerged within clinical psychology and related fields to refer to a non-physical wound (psychological and emotional pain and its effects) that results from the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world). Originally conceived in the context of warfare, the notion has now expanded to include the morally damaging impact of various non-war-related experiences and circumstances. Since its inception, moral injury has been an intersectional and cross-disciplinary term and significant work has appeared in psychology, philosophy, medicine, spiritual/pastoral care, chaplaincy, and theology. Since 2015, biblical scholarship has engaged moral injury along two primary trajectories: 1) creative re-readings of biblical stories and characters informed by insights from moral injury; and 2) explorations of the postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in biblical texts and how they might connect to the felt needs of morally injured persons. These trajectories suggest that the engagement between the Bible and moral injury generates a two-way conversation in which moral injury can serve as a heuristic that brings new meanings out of biblical texts, and the critical study of biblical texts can contribute to the attempts to understand, identify, and heal moral injury.

Section: Backgroundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Injury and Biblical Studies: An Early Sampling of Research and Emerging Trends

Kelle

2021

“…The position of a monster as a figure at the boundaries of known experience makes this a natural connection. While Brad Kelle’s work on Ezekiel primarily utilizes trauma theory, he also makes use of monster theory to explore the effects of this trauma on the human body (2009; 2013). The most sustained use of monster theory to explore the expression of trauma within the Hebrew Bible is in the work of Amy Kalmanofsky, particularly in her monograph Terror All Around: The Rhetoric of Horror in the Book of Jeremiah (2008a).…”

Section: Monster Theory In Biblical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text and Terror: Monster Theory and the Hebrew Bible

Grafius¹

2017

While biblical scholars have long been interested in the monsters of the Hebrew Bible, it is only in the last several decades that theoretical approaches to monsters have made their way into biblical studies. Originating in the fields of psychoanalysis and anthropology, monster theory looks at the construction of various monsters, arguing that the way a culture creates its monsters reveals the anxieties held by that culture. This article will explore the uses of monster theory in recent works of biblical scholarship, demonstrating that monster theory has been used to read the figure of the monster as a representation of chaos, identify monstrous imagery as a rhetoric of trauma, and explore how the boundaries between the monster and the self are shifting and unstable.

“…In a more specific study, Kelle (2009) employs trauma theory within an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing the trope of the devastation and rejuvenation of nature in Ezekiel. He identifies three major streams of inquiry: (1) the book’s priestly theology, (2) trauma studies, and (3) ecological hermeneutics.…”

Section: Trauma Theory’s Full Emergence Within Biblical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kelle concludes that Ezekiel uses the trope of Y hwh ’s destruction and rejuvenation of nature to testify to the experience of war, as well as to a priestly understanding of Y hwh ’s sovereignty. ‘By bringing the language of the devastation and rejuvenation of nature into line with the categories of the priestly tradition, Ezekiel offers a way to deal with the trauma of defeat and destruction experienced by the Judean community’ (2009: 490). Moreover, the same Y hwh who has the power to destroy creation can also re-create, opening the narrative possibility of hope to the book’s audience.…”

Section: Trauma Theory’s Full Emergence Within Biblical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies

Garber

2015

Since the early 2000s, several scholars have explored the use of trauma theory as an interpretive lens to understand some of the most difficult and painful texts in the Bible. The use of trauma theory does not constitute a method of interpretation but a frame of reference that, when coupled with other methodologies (e.g., psychology, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, refugee studies, etc.), can yield innovative results. While trauma theory has proven useful in the study of exilic texts in particular, scholars have ventured beyond the narrower concern of exilic literature, investigating the use of trauma theory for other portions of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The impact of trauma is a significant component of the human condition that lies beneath the production of a wide variety of biblical texts.