The Apotheosis of Rage

Abstract

Recent psychological research on post-traumatic stress disorder ( p t s d ) has demon strated that one of the most common symptoms of the disorder is heightened or even uncontrollable anger. In the past decade, various works in biblical studies have assessed the effects of trauma on the ancient Israelites and on the texts of the Hebrew Bible, but these have not fully explored either the connection between anger and p t s d or that between anger in the Hebrew Bible and Israelite trauma. This article seeks to demon strate the close relationship between trauma and rage, and argues that biblical authors often locate their own traumatized rage in the figure of Yahweh. The emotional response of Yahweh toward the Israelites is frequently presented as one of rage, blame, and con tempt -a trio of socially distancing emotions. This depiction of Yahweh results in a "theology of distance" wherein Yahweh's furious emotionality negates the sympathy of audiences toward the traumatized Israelites. Keywords trauma -biblical prophecy -exilic literature -psychological approaches to the Hebrew BibleFor Sarah Hammond, whose death stirred such rage within me.

Uncovering Hidden Anger in the Psalms Using Psychological Models of Anger

“…This dynamic leads to scholars most often identifying divine anger, which is expressed more clearly, or anger from a person toward an enemy (i.e. not a superior), but not the psalmist's anger at God (Lemos, 2015;Steussy, 2008). Where human anger is discussed, lexical cues are often used to show where anger is found, such as the word ‫.ףא‬ This is certainly fruitful scholarship, but it will inevitably miss some anger expressions that are subtler or even intentionally hidden (for example, see Amzallag, 2018;Gertel, 2012;McCarthy, 2009).…”

“…This dynamic leads to scholars most often identifying divine anger, which is expressed more clearly, or anger from a person toward an enemy (i.e. not a superior), but not the psalm-ist’s anger at God (Lemos, 2015; Steussy, 2008). Where human anger is discussed, lexical cues are often used to show where anger is found, such as the word .…”